Advice Request How to choose a browser for everyday use?

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HarborFront

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Let's start with the basics. What is the point of a web browser? Originally, it was to be able to read HTML documents, but since then, the Web has changed massively, and modern browsers need to satisfy more demands. The basic terminal browser - links, w3m, Lynx, elinks - can still be used today to display websites only in text. Actually, elinks supports features that are somehow missing in "modern" web browsers (such as editing cookies, custom stylesheets or keybinding), but in the end, they can all be got back through addons. Maximum of 256 colors, no images, little or no Javascript support, limited CSS support, no loading of non-HTML content such as videos (but can load externally), and no addons make these unsuitable for modern day browsing.

I could mention many other browsers here. Surf is a graphical web browser that has image and Javascript support, but no tabs or an actual user interface. Midori has everything you'd expect from a modern web browser and even includes in-built functionality to replace some of the common addons, but it's not enough. Otter Browser is a promising project with a very nice UI, but has no addon support (so far, though it's planned). Qutebrowser is a keyboard controlled browser that recently added per-domain settings, but they are inferior to uMatrix. Many of its features can be replaced by, again, addons.

One advantage of these niche browsers is that they don't spy on you, but what I've learned from trying probably all of them is that, in the end, addons are essential - especially uMatrix is irreplaceable. So, for a day-to-day browser, you have only two options: Firefox based and Chrome based. Since they all support the same addons (with slight exception in Pale Moon), we will have to use some other criteria to judge these browsers. These consist of usability, privacy, customizability, philosophy, respect for the user, looks, and speed. Let's analyze them one by one.

- Introduction -
- Firefox based browsers -
- Mozilla Firefox -
- GNU IceCat -
- LibreWolf -
- Waterfox -
- Summary -
- Chrome based browsers -
- Google Chrome -
- Iridium Browser -
- Ungoogled-Chromium -
- Brave Browser -
- Dissenter Browser -
- Opera -
- Vivaldi -
- Summary -
- The Alternative -
- Pale Moon -
What's wrong with auto-updates?
- Summary -

Read inside

 
F

ForgottenSeer 78429

After reading the conclusion, I am thinking about starting on my own Browser Project without any knowledge of coding. I didn't know that every browser is so bad. I am using Firefox with ghacks user.js but still not good enough 🤔. If i follow this site I will be living in a cave on Himalaya.
 

Moonhorse

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used waterfox when it came out in 2011 or something to play java game as the browser were 64bit firefox, i could increase my fps by using this browser....nowadays its just a esr fork or quantum work, but they dont make huge difference for me to use

Pale moon is pretty much nostalgia browser , aswell decent for low-end pcs... its safe browser to use in every day browsing

Firefox has more privacy to be achieved through about:config, settings over chromium browsers for me

I guess hardware is the first priority wich matters when youre choosing your browsers, then privacy, customization etc. wichever suits for you, as long as browser is keeped up to date its fine to use

I rather use big names , firefox, google, microsoft, opera, vivaldi, yandex etc. rather than forks like pale moon run by one man army, since it can be discontinued anytime soon..well they have devs but forks with small team gets discontinued more likely than big names do
 
F

ForgottenSeer 85179

Pale Moon / Basilisk is just a joke and are very dangerous for user's.
Why:
They need to wait for upstream updates and only if they get the info (if Mozilla grant them) they can analyse their browser.
Most upstream bulletins aren't matching her browser because they use a very old code base so what they do?:
They say "we're not affected, so we're secure". You find the missing logic here?

A browser isn't a task for small group of fanatic user's. It's too much code to handle.
That's only manageable for small browser changes like Forks do but even that is redundant nowadays. Example waterfox, cyberfox, librefox, ...
 

[correlate]

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oldschool

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Arequire

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Hello oldschool
What do you think of this browser.
kingpinbrowser
It's a dating, mating, cheating browser? With privacy? The devs are also private, i.e. "contact us for info". :LOL:
Their twitter is... interesting... 🤨
 

Stopspying

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Firefox has more privacy to be achieved through about:config, settings over chromium browsers for me

I definitely second this statement.

Pale Moon / Basilisk is just a joke and are very dangerous for user's.
Why:
They need to wait for upstream updates and only if they get the info (if Mozilla grant them) they can analyse their browser.
Most upstream bulletins aren't matching her browser because they use a very old code base so what they do?:
They say "we're not affected, so we're secure". You find the missing logic here?

A browser isn't a task for small group of fanatic user's. It's too much code to handle.
That's only manageable for small browser changes like Forks do but even that is redundant nowadays. Example waterfox, cyberfox, librefox, ...

Worthy points made, the delay in updating small forks always worried me. The Firefox update 78.0 almost immeadiately being superceded by 78.0.1 being a case in point, small developing teams could have started working on their fork of 78.0, only to find that they needed to be working on 78.0.1 before they'd really got started, because Mozilla released the most recent version very soon after 78.0
 
F

ForgottenSeer 85179

Hello oldschool
What do you think of this browser.
kingpinbrowser
Yeah. Very secure browser:
This server accepts RC4 cipher, but only with older protocols.

 

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