No web browser offers a good out of the box experience.
I feel like there is no web browser with a sane default configuration that I can recommend to other people. All browsers are preconfigured in a way that harms the privacy of their users or include services that no one wants such as Pocket and BAT.
Here are my problems with some popular browsers.
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Mozilla Firefox: Pocket integration, no ad-blocking without extensions.
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Brave: Everything related to crypto. Also its start page is horrible.
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Chromium: No ad-blocking without extensions and soon Manifest v3 will cripple all content blockers.
Now, these suboptimal defaults wouldn't be such a big problem if the configuration files were easy to backup and restore and respected the XDG base directory specification.
Ad blocking shouldn't be tied to the browser, anyway. ublock is superb, imagine if firefox devs should have to develop it along with the browser (that nowadays is a herculean task).
Anyway, extensions give user freedom to chose how they use their browser.
Pocket take 2 seconds to disable.
It’s kinda the same with Brave. Just take 2 seconds to turn off the crypto thing and forget it was ever there.
I’m primarily a Firefox user but keep Brave around for Chromium-based browser testing.
Just turn it off, folks!
The difference is brave is shady as fuck.
Yeah, and there's definitely some pay-offs going on with their reviews. Almost every one of them says something close to "This browser pays you just for browsing the internet!," most of them don't mention that it's crypto, and none of them mention that it has nothing to do with browsing, but is instead for clicking integrated ads.
Brainlet response.
Getting popup ads is a far cry from "just browsing," and despite claims otherwise, I always noticed a fairly stark difference from month to month that seemed to coincide with whether or not I was clicking the ads. 🤔
My favorite part of all these mad shilling comments in getting as how not a single one of them addresses the carbon copy "BRowSeR tHAT PaYS YoU!!!" reviews, they just all go "Hmm, but it says you don't have to click, haha, you fool, you liar! You are discredited!"
You're not a shill for "genuinely liking a product" or "correcting disinformation" (which, btw, are both obvious b.s.), you're a shill for denying any lying about genuine issues.
You're a shill for your staunch refusal to accept that there's a difference between "using a browser" and "receiving advertisements that pop up over your content or in your notification bar."
You're a shill for responding to mention of the half-truths they (and people like you) propagate with the dismissive "Wait you actually clicked the ads?"
You're a shill because you willingly admit that you don't care about the shady shit they do, and you clearly don't want other people to care.
You're a shill for implying that anyone who would point out the shady shit they do is simply dumber or less informed than you.
Been seeing a lot of people talk positively about Brave like it's some hail corporate shit
They were definitely astroturfing for a while, especially around the time of that Firefox Megabar stuff on the Firefox subreddit. I can understand not liking the Megabar but there were so many people acting like the sky was falling and saying they were going to abandon Firefox after 15 years or so... for Brave.
A few years later and almost none of those accounts look like real users. A bunch of them were active on Brave subreddits well before the Megabar.
The impotent r/Firefox more missed all this of course, and let a bunch of trolls go rampant and unchecked.
Is it not open source? You can literally audit the code and point out any shadiness yourself.
You don't need to audit the entire source of the browser yourself just to know it's shady, you just need to pay attention.
though brave has 2 issues you can't turn off:
Yeah, obviously not great. Hence why I only use it for testing.
I would love to ignore Chromium based browsers completely I’m a web developer, so I can’t.
I wish there were a Chromium browser I could have the warm fuzzies about, but I’m not aware of one.
[Citation needed]
That is why forks like librewolf exist.
This list looks like:
Firefox: comes with different candy than I like but will get me the candy I want if I ask
Brave: has candy, but stares at me uncomfortably and asks me to lick everything slowly
Chromium: comes with candy I don't like and I'm pretty sure is going to kill me
Brave is based on Chromium, so the candy doesn't have so nice taste.
Just when I was getting used to car analogies, here's candy analogies
No browser will ever tick ALL your boxes. You pick one and make it work.
Why not? Is it that hard to NOT include bloatware in your browser and respect XDG Base Directory? As for content blocking, the code is already there because extensions make use of it, just integrate it into the browser UI and use uBlock Origin's block lists.
Sure. Then one of the project's lead members will publicly donate to some homophobic group and that will have you second-guessing your browser of choice.
Just use Librewolf. It's a fork of Firefox, with Pocket disabled, Ublock Origin preinstalled, and privacy settings enabled by default.
I still like firefox. I configure it using a json file. Just load that file and the browser is configured for all users on the system.
No problem. My comment was more to add some info. Perhaps i formulated it a bit odd.
I like Firefox too and I use it. But OP talks about adblocking and disabled pocket by default, so this is why I commented this.
(Actually I don't even use Librewolf, I have just heard of it) EDIT: I saw that OP says that configuration files are an issue, so your comment is okay.
How many people maintain LibreWolf? How closely does it track the upstream?
https://gitlab.com/librewolf-community/browser/source
don't expect browsers to block ads out of the box
They should. I don't expect them to, but they should.
What's wrong with pocket integration?Nobody forces you to use it. Apart from that it stores user data e2e encrypted, mozilla has no access to your data (as opposed to chromes sync functionality). Imho, a browser should not block some content by default. But ad-blocking must be easy to enable/install. All of that's the case in FF so I see no reason not to recommend it.
Yeah, Pocket does nothing unless you press the button.
And as for telemetry that's publicly available on telemetry.mozilla.org if anyone wants to see what's being sent. It's very useful for Mozilla to see what and how features are used.
Mozilla is our last tiny hope for freedom really, in this Chrome/Blink world..
Not to mention they have a freaking Help page explaining how to remove it if you really don't like it for some reason.
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/disable-or-re-enable-pocket-for-firefox
Just remove pocket in about:config
You're going to be spending a lot of time with your browser, make it a 2 way dialog, customize.
Firefox has an extremely vibrant extension ecosystem and seems to overall be doing well, but see what works for you.
What's the problem with using uBlock on FF. Gets rids of ads, has ton of features to custom add filters and more.
Also, I kinda like Pocket Integration on FF. Found some interesting articles that way.
The problem with Pocket is: most of us don't want it, and cannot get rid of it like you do with extension.
Well you can just remove the button by right-clicking on it. But if that's not enough, Mozilla has a help page to completely disable it.
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/disable-or-re-enable-pocket-for-firefox
Disabling it (even "completely") is not the same as removing it. The code is still there. Mozilla don't even provide a method to exclude it when building from source code.
idk what you want theb, disabling it is pretty much the same as completely removing it. It simply doesn't do anything. Doesn't send data no nothing
IMO that logic is really absurd. If you can disable it so that it doesn't bother you, nor steal your data, then it's completely fine. They are giving you the option to opt-out.
I have no idea what pocket was, so I looked it up.
Looks like some bullshit just to shove as much crap in my face as possible. Seems like a waste of resources from mozilla to even bother supporting such a thing.
Pretty sure there was a flag to disable it.
And I'd have to do that manually for every computer on which I install the browser. I can't just tell someone to install a browser and use it as is, there are always several additional steps required after install to have a decent experience. This is especially a problem for people who are not tech savvy.
Or just use their built in sync and sign in one time, and all your addons will be installed and enabled for you.
If your argument boils down to "none of the browsers are exactly pre-configured for me, one of the 7 billion not special people on the planet", I’m not sure there’s a productive conversation to be had here.
Use NixOS, nix package manager or home manager, declaratively add all the extensions and config you want, boom same browser every time
People who are not tech savvy can handle installing a browser extension manually the one or two times they have to set one up
You can backup your profile folder. See here: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/back-and-restore-information-firefox-profiles
In other news, emacs still didn't ship my
init.elas part of the default configuration! LolI didn't know about the Manifest v3 thing, and I found this article. Sharing in case anyone else is out of the loop.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/12/chrome-delays-plan-to-limit-ad-blockers-new-timeline-coming-in-march/
Librewolf or one of the other Firefox forks
Mullvad Browser
For me Firefox is perfect as is. I tweak some stuff only because I like to play with css sometimes.
On Android F-Droid app store there are some off-shoots of Firefox that are real good. Fennec comes with a bunch of the most popupar extensions already installed and none of that Pocket nonsense.
Why do people dislike pocket so much? I barely even know what it is, used it once to see what it was about and then forgot about it completely, it's not exactly obstructive
data collection.
How does pocket collect data more than the browser itsself could though?
Qutebrowser has great, sensible defaults with no telemetry. 😊
Can confirm, I only configured some visual changes, font, minimal font size and alike.
Only problem I have with it is, an increasing number of webpages tell me, my browser is outdated and rarely some pages don't work correctly.
I am thinking of moving to Epiphany (gnome-web) some day, but I may start missing the vim-like interaction with qutebrowser.
Have you updated Qutebrowser recently? It was running a pretty ancient version of Chromium under the hood before the 3.0 release (2 weeks ago), but it’s up-to-date now.
Thx for the reminder; I need to do that update.
you might be able to fix webpages telling you you're outdated by changing your useragent string.
Mullvad browser is perfect out of the box
Ive actually been considering switching to it you know how is it?
its great, works out of the box, i have it on multiple computers and I dont have to fiddle with settings.
You should REALLY try Vivaldi.
Best browser for desktop and mobile. Privacy respecting and great onboarding, plus very versatile and powerful if you want that.
Or keep it simple. They let you choose.
https://vivaldi.com/
You literally get a button when you first install it asking whether you want these things. One click and they're disabled. Also OP post is about privacy not bloat and these features will only improve your privacy over using some webmail.
All google stuff is either removed or toggleable from settings.
What's wrong with that? It's a good deal larger than mozilla's
Not sure about the encryption tbh. I've never used any mail service that properly supported it so haven't tried.
Any reason why, aside from encryption?
That's why they have a built in adblocker.
Web browsers handle the most sensitive information about a user, so I would never trust a proprietary browser.
Most of Vivaldi is already open source. The only parts that aren't are the front end. And that part is apparently just minified JavaScript
I have a little known browser which is released by DuckDuckGo. Hasn't failed me yet.
Nyxt includes a blocker, and has an appealing minimalistic interface, but I never tested.
Ha, you literally nailed my issues with OOTB firefox.
Just use tor
overkill for almost all people with convenience out of the window
To be fair, I don't think my browser came in a box since it was for sale on store shelves and called Netscape Navigator.
I hate eshittifcation
True.
I wish someone can fork Brave on desktop and mobile and take out all the other stuff. And if someone could fork firefox for desktop and mobile and make it a hardened browser out of the box.
Firefox has librewolf for desktop.
But not for mobile, especially Android. I would like librewolf to maintain a hardened Android app with their own F-Droid repo.
Mull's good
On Android there's Bromite
Man, not even devices come with a good out of box experience anymore, my phone and PC I have to add so many extensions that slow them down just to prevent ads and other crap they come with, half that nice expensive chip and ram is used up before I get use anything