walking mirage

i kind of hate actually using firefox. i know that the effectively single-engine browser hegemony is bad. i do not like the stranglehold that google has on the internet. i also just straight up do not like using firefox. it has too many little things that frustrate me to no end and make the sort of things i use a web browser for a pain in the ass.

so the question is: is there actually a good chromium browser on windows? Chrome is out, Edge is out, Brave is completely fucking out, Vivaldi is weird, Chromium/Ungoogled Chromium aren't codesigned and so don't work with 1password, etc etc etc. what even is there? i hope that Arc on windows actually ends up working out because i've been using it on my mac for a while and fucking love it but until then what even are my options?

jae @jkap9/20/2023, 2:30 PM

had some people suggest opera (non-GX) so i went to go check out what their deal is right now

this isn't intended as a dig at the people who made those recommendations but like.

who gives a shit. who wants this. i do not care about your AI integration. i do not want to use your VPN. i do not want fucking Web3. i want a normal fucking web browser that works correctly and isn't slow as dirt to use. why is everything like this

walking mirage @atomicthumbs9/20/2023, 11:37 PM

catch me running bare servo and rendering to a laser printer because there's no good way to browse the web

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in reply to @jkap's post:

Yseult @yseult9/20/2023, 1:45 PM

what's wrong with vivaldi exactly?

jae @jkap9/20/2023, 1:53 PM

too many of its UI decisions go completely against what i expect and desire; just felt weird to use. don't really know how to describe it

Jeran @Jeran9/20/2023, 1:58 PM

they make sense if you come from a long history of opera usage, but reflecting on it, yeah. it's weird! i happen to like weird, but workflow is workflow!

jae @jkap9/20/2023, 2:23 PM

yeah there are many things that Aren't For Me but aren't necessarily bad or poorly thought out and vivaldi is 100% one of those. not for me, but i'm glad it exists for the people that want that sort of thing

@lexi9/21/2023, 12:21 AM

100% agree with this. used vivaldi for a while now because chrome fucking sucks and vivaldi promised to continue mv3 and has a stance against the newer drm apis. and its Weird. but i like that about it. two vertical tab rows next to each other? what the fuck. but god damn do i like them. most people probably hate this browser, and absolutely understandable

(also it supports userchrome css styling which was one of the reasons i used firefox for a while and thank you so much vivaldi devs for letting us do this)

Jeran @Jeran9/21/2023, 12:56 AM

i also have no idea why vivaldi doesnt animate CSS crimes on cohost for me :shrug:

@lexi9/21/2023, 12:59 AM

you probably have reduced motion activated! instructions on how to (de)activate here: https://stackoverflow.com/a/59709067

Jeran @Jeran9/21/2023, 1:48 AM

that's what i thought for the longest time, but it seems to be off! OH MY GOD. i read that post a little closer and turns out it was MY OPERATING SYSTEM SETTINGS that was dictating this, not my BROWSER. IM SCREAMING INTERNALLY.

Thanks for this. I hope that your next sleep is perfectly restful with good dreams. you deserve good vibes for your good deeds.

Yseult @yseult9/24/2023, 1:53 AM

ok now i'm even more confused. vivaldi's UI is like, natively modular and configurable.

jae @jkap9/24/2023, 2:13 AM

embrace the mystery

Binary @binary9/20/2023, 1:47 PM

Really hoping windows-Arc pans out, using it on mac makes it SO hard to use any other browser.

Jammed @the-only-jam9/20/2023, 1:50 PM

This is the pain I've been experiencing, Google somehow has a strangle hold so much they're rotting from the inside and no one is bothering to even try to make a suitable replacement

Renpona @Renpona9/21/2023, 7:10 PM

it's because google, with a titanic advertising business and the search engine, is the only company that can make enough money off a browser to consistently fund the active development of a browser engine

browser development is incredibly rigorous and expensive, and very difficult to make money on. of course no one wants to get into it

Jammed @the-only-jam9/21/2023, 8:06 PM

I figured, still annoying as all hell tho, because I need those services to work on my industry and I feel completely stranded in it with no options

Bryan H.@MegaMasterX9/20/2023, 1:51 PM

Opera's a Chromium browser that's halfway decent. Not OperaGX (unless you love the Gamer™ Aesthetic™,) just Opera.

NeckSpike @neckspike9/20/2023, 2:11 PM

Vivaldi is a little weird (the default layout makes me feel like i'm looking at an Ubuntu desktop) but it's also highly customizable so you can change almost everything. I immediately went to settings>appearance and swapped "menu position" to horizontal and "menu icon style" to menu icon, this switches from the Vivaldi style to standard windows menus instead of being behind the vivaldi icon. Also switched the panel to the right side (I'd actually like the option to put it on top under the address bar but I only use it part time and haven't dug in to see if there's an extension for that).

Remi Erin Autor the remeranAuthor @remeranAuthor9/20/2023, 2:13 PM

I assume you're noooooot the sort of person who enjoys sitting down and customizing every damn aspect of your browser for hours, right? (Because I enjoy it, and boy do I ever HAVE to in order to use a browser.)

jae @jkap9/20/2023, 2:23 PM

unfortunately i am not

three space indent @nago-9/20/2023, 2:42 PM

I mean i write Foss for a living and I also kiiinda prefer chrome to Firefox but I'm curious as to what things about FF annoy you because I'm not sure I could name anything I explicitly dislike about it

Lacey 🐇@SenshellShark9/20/2023, 3:24 PM

Duck Duck Go has their browser in public beta now!

CinnaMimi @CinnaMimi9/20/2023, 5:45 PM

I find myself avoiding anything to do with chrome on principle. I switched to Firefox when my browser was being oddly slow. FF ran better and I got used to it more. I don't even customized it I just don't mind how FF default is. I think I'd sooner use edge over chrome at this point if I'm forced to leave FF myself ever.

@lexi9/21/2023, 12:24 AM

good answer: use an opera build from 2016 (the security vulns will probably fine)

bad answer: all browsers are bastards

♿︎｜Asriel // Azi｜Θ∆｜🏳️‍⚧️@MisutaaAsriel9/21/2023, 1:55 AM

You could try Microsoft Edge with a bunch of Management Policies applied via RegEdit to corral the nonsense. That's what I do on my PC.

Really wish Apple would bring Safari for Windows back from the dead.

(I use:

EdgeShoppingAssistantEnabled: 0
PersonalizationReportingEnabled: 0
RelatedMatchesCloudServiceEnabled: 0
ShowRecommendationsEnabled: 0
SpotlightExperiencesAndRecommendationsEnabled: 0
And so far it seems to be fine.

Note, Windows will possibly have a "MicrosoftEdge" key in the registry which looks similar to the registry keys mentioned by the document above. Do not use this, the keys must match what the document says.)

in reply to @jkap's post:

Lizardguy @Lizardguy649/20/2023, 2:41 PM

Maybe DuckDuckGo?

jae @jkap9/20/2023, 2:58 PM

no extensions is a dealbreaker

A Jeb With No Name @namelessWrench9/20/2023, 2:53 PM

I've been using the Duckduckgo browser a bit and it seems reasonable? I quit using Opera because of the Foot-Shooting decisions made by the decision makers.

jae @jkap9/20/2023, 2:59 PM

no extensions is a dealbreaker

Scruffo/Brody @Scruffo9/20/2023, 3:23 PM

As a current Vivaldi user until I find something else... yeah it is weird, I'm scared to accidentally fiddle with the keyboard lest I find some weird shortcut I've not turned off. It's the Dwarf Fortress of browsers... or maybe the Liberal Crime Squad of browsers, I don't know enough on whether or not there's some real nasty crusty ones out there.

aza @azant-garde9/20/2023, 4:10 PM

this is so real

another vivaldi user

sirocyl @sirocyl9/20/2023, 3:32 PM

there's a couple smaller browsers like Otter and ~~epiphany~~ GNOME Web and Midori and Falkon. Of these I liked Falkon the best. There's also Dooble but it was kinda weird last I checked. (I tried them all on Haiku, and then again on Linux and Windows to compare.)

Of these, I don't exactly know how they fare for extension support shipping, but I doubt 1password has anything official on anything not Firefox, Chrome, Edge, Safari.

Mr. Selachidon @MrSelachidon9/20/2023, 3:34 PM

I hate to be like this because it's a bit smarmy, rude, and you just want a web browser that isn't some grift or mess; but in the words from an apparent 2009 forum post about Flash and Java installs: Make your own Web Browser.

I know it's an awful answer and horribly complicated, but there's not really any other solution as far as I know.

Nini was here @nini9/20/2023, 4:11 PM

Do you care about web engines? Majority are still Blink under the hood but if you need extensions and they're only on the Chrome extension barn then Arc is definitely your best option. Firefox could be great but yeah, it's got little weirdsies all over the place that put me off and I use Vivaldi (which is pretty much all weirdsies).

At the very least, nobody has suggested K-Meleon.

@voidlily9/20/2023, 4:12 PM

my annoyance with firefox is that it has separate hotkeys between windows and linux for certain tasks - ctrl+number switches tabs to that numbered tab on windows, but on linux it's alt+number, and there's no way to change this, it's hardcoded deep in firefox

𓅇 Chase J 𓅊 - lv 33 🍜🐲@chasejxyz9/20/2023, 4:19 PM

I've been using and loving Sidekick for awhile now. It's another Chromium one, and it's designed for ADHD/focusing, so you can have different "workspaces" with different apps/session data. And different batches of tabs that you can save as "instances" (like I have one that's all the tabs I need to make my weekly reports, so they're all open and ready for me when I do that).

It also can suspend tabs that you aren't using to save system resources! And it's got some aggressive adblocking built in!

I really like it and it has helped me a TON with focus and getting stuff done. Like it is ridiculous how much is getting done at work now. I love it and I hope it might work out for you, too. Here is a link to it (and yes it is a referral link, if I get 19 more people to download it then I get the pro version free for forever): https://join.meetsidekick.com/16c04

D @pinstripeowl9/20/2023, 11:18 PM

this looks interesting

MoxieCat @MoxieCat9/20/2023, 7:21 PM

I was about to be one of those users who suggests Opera, as I used it for a couple years, but holy shit.
They definitely weren't leaning this hard into techbro territory when I last used it.

walking mirage @atomicthumbs9/20/2023, 11:32 PM

opera didn't have 80% of this shit before a few years ago and i held onto it way too long because it was the only browser besides vivaldi that handled tabs correctly

vivaldi is like how opera was and you can configure it to look and act any way you want with some effort. unfortunately it is dog fuckin slow because the reason for that configurability is that the UI written in html5/js

unfortunately the fact that i use vivaldi because it handles having 1 million tabs open correctly (interface wise) conflicts hard with the fact that having 3 dozen tabs open markedly slows down the browser. i have not yet managed to break my weird browsing habits

walking mirage @atomicthumbs9/20/2023, 11:35 PM

opera used to be the friendly respectful norwegian web browser and then some chinese investment consortium bought the company, had it go public, and started using it to do predatory microloans in developing countries or something and also cramming bullshit into the browser

Just Another Apocryphal Mess @apocryphalmess9/21/2023, 12:04 AM

I hadn’t heard about the loans thing, jfc

Aepoh @Aepoh9/21/2023, 11:35 PM

What's wrong with Brave? I'm totally out of the loop when it comes to web browsers, I mostly stick to firefox unless I come across something that's broken on it, and in those cases I might pop open edge or brave or whatever

2 lazy 2 think of name and/or avatar @nightfield9/24/2023, 3:10 PM

Brave is run by a guy who was CEO of Mozilla for nine days before he was kicked out for being a homophobic asshole. Brave runs their own cryptocurrency and has been caught redirecting links to generate more of said crypto. Bad vibes, bad deeds, I do not trust them.

When I (rarely) boot into Windows I used to use Edge when I needed a Blink based browser, but I have stopped doing that because of the technical/security issues that @lexi has posted about. I just use Vivaldi or Chromium for that now

Aepoh @Aepoh9/25/2023, 12:36 AM

I've been using Brave for a while and haven't run into too many issues with it yet. I don't interact with any of the Brave Rewards stuff, so maybe that's why. Will look into Vivaldi

in reply to @atomicthumbs's post:

Just Another Apocryphal Mess @apocryphalmess9/21/2023, 12:04 AM

I unironically wish servo was usable, the bare-bones UI they recently added is nice but it still just… fails to work in so many actual use cases

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