1y ago

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.

Mozilla Firefox: Pocket integration, no ad-blocking without extensions.
Brave: Everything related to crypto. Also its start page is horrible.
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.

96 comments

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.
  
  though brave has 2 issues you can't turn off:
  it's chromium-based, and strenghtens the browser engine monopoly
  the company behind it seems quite shady, and afaik the ceo/leader/founder/... is homophobic

That is why forks like librewolf exist.

- 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.
- No browser will ever tick ALL your boxes.
  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.
  
  Is it that hard to NOT include bloatware in your browser
  I mean obviously it is, yes. If you want to build a good browser, that takes resources. How else would you monetize it? God knows no one is paying directly for a web browser...

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

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
  
  Pretty sure there was a flag to disable it.

Just install u block origin lmao.
- 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.
  
  You can backup your profile folder. See here: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/back-and-restore-information-firefox-profiles
  
  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

In other news, emacs still didn't ship my init.el as part of the default configuration! Lol

I 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.
  
  It yet another step along the ever increasing march to enshitifaction where everything on the fucking internet wants to collect data about me.
  It's utterly pointless and is ergo wasting system resources.

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.

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.
  
  I am thinking of moving to Epiphany (gnome-web) some day, but I may start missing the vim-like interaction with qutebrowser.
  There's a WebKitGTK-based web browser called Luakit. Pretty good from my experience, although webkit can be problematic at times.
  
  you might be able to fix webpages telling you you're outdated by changing your useragent string.

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.
- Nyxt can't load 9/10 sites without crashing, as it's still using Webket instead of something Chromium based. For a better experience, try qutebrowser. It's my daily driver now.

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/
- Yep, also they don't integrate Pocket in the browser, they just have a built-in ~~email client, note-taking software, RSS reader, calendar~~ bloat. Also, Vivaldi is based on chromium (as such subsribed to all Google's bullshit), and uses Chrome extension store.
  Honestly, OP, just stick to Librewolf, it's privacy-respecting and actually open-source, pocket's disabled, UBo's preinstalled.
  
  ~~they just have a built-in email client, note-taking software, RSS reader, calendar~~ bloat
  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.
  Also, Vivaldi is based on chromium (as such subsribed to all Google’s bullshit)
  All google stuff is either removed or toggleable from settings.
  uses Chrome extension store.
  What's wrong with that? It's a good deal larger than mozilla's
- 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
- @danielfgom @thecrabman bing + 10 auto bookmarked paves which i dont care about

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.

Just use tor
- overkill for almost all people with convenience out of the window

I hate eshittifcation

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

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.

96 comments