DuckDuckGo failed me today
DuckDuckGo failed me today
I have been very happy with DuckDuckGo, and it has helped me break free of routines that I did not feel safe with. Especially the small flame icon that would clear all history, cookies and cache from websites that are not "fireproofed" was great!
But today I had to do a quick example on Tinkercad (3D browser design tool) and it was so slow! I thought that my PC maybe was busy doing something (yeah its an older PC but not THAT old), but when I open the same page on my now parked Opera browser, everything went smoothly.
I am ok with using Opera, or any other browser for 3D work, as I don't really do all that much of it, but I just feel gutted to find out that my now favorite browser sucks so bad at something, not to mention the Microsoft Edge processes when that is the last of any browser that I would choose to use
EDIT: I found out that this was due to hardware acceleration was off, on my DuckDuckGo browser. I had turned it off, because the fonts on websites looked blurry when it was on. The solution was to turn off antialising on the Nvidia control panel, and restart the PC. It is now working well!
just use firefox. its not that hard
…if you already have privacy-respecting user.js.
What I like with DDG is that I can clear all cookies, cache, history etc except for the sites that i have "fireproofed". Also all the tempting plugins that make life easier on FF are too tempting, and I always end up running many of them. The lack of such on DDG keeps things simple
In Firefox, you can use the cookie autodelete extension (it's open source) which deletes all cookies for sites you haven't explicitly whitelisted. Same thing, integrates well with other privacy features on Firefox (like container tabs and I still don't care about cookies, and is probably better maintained than the feature in DDG.
IMO starting with a more minimalistic base, and adding whatever features you need is a better approach that suits more use cases. Just reduce your extensions to what you really need, and deactivate or uninstall those you don't need. Make sure what you are installing is open source, well-maintained and trustworthy (look at the github page: when was the most recent commit or release? how many contributors and stars are there? It's not foolproof, but a good start and definitely beats closed source extensions). Having access to more extensions is not a bad thing.
EDIT: don't use I don't care about cookies as it was acquired by some shady companies. Use the independent fork called I still don't care about cookies instead.
Excuse me if this is an obnoxious question: But why not just Firefox with the DDG extension (if you really need it)? Search engine-specific browsers tend to be... bad in general. It's going to be a wrapper around some other browser anyway.
All these DDG, Mullvad and browser forks are a type of FOSS marketing. Do not worry too much. Just use mainline non-forked browsers like Firefox or "debloated" mainline ones like Ungoogled Chromium.
What I like with DDG is that I can clear all cookies, cache, history etc except for the sites that i have "fireproofed".
But you can just do that in Firefox settings...
Firefox with ublock origin is even better than the DuckDuckGo browser alone. Yes, you can use DuckDuckGo as a default search engine, and even install the extension, if you need to.
Please dont use DDG browser or even worse edge or opera.
Use Librewolf, Firefox or Ungoogled Chromium.
Opera in particular is a dangerous browser to run these days, it’s owned by confirmed scammers and investment-scheme operators.
If you want something with the same ideological history as Opera, run Vivaldi, which was created by ex-Opera engineers.
But yes, for true openness, Librewolf, Waterfox, or Firefox is the way to go.
Yeah If you need any reason to stop using opera, here it is: https://www.spacebar.news/stop-using-opera-browser/
Floorp is a nice Firefox fork with a similar mind of customisation as old opera or vivaldi
They use ESR because otherwise their GUI stuff would break. So under the fancy hood you have a very dated browser...
Well prepared to be failed again https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/opera-sold-600-million-chinese-consortium/
Worth mentioning that Vivaldi is basically the spiritual successor of Opera, and it's doing pretty well at that. It's still Chromium based though, so unless you really miss Opera for the functionality you're better off with Firefox.
Still, rather Vivaldi than Opera, Chrome, or Edge.
Oh yeah! I am not using Opera any more, and as mentioned it is "parked" so I only have it installed but never use it . I just wanted to check if the issue was browser based of due to my PC. I have updated my post though, because I found out that I had turned off Hardware Acceleration on DuckDuckgo and that was the issue causing the choppy experience
Opera died the day they had a free and paid version of a web browser.
The first version of Opera was shareware (i.e. paid and free)
Edit: AtariDump is a troll, but to people who aren't:
The old adage "If you don't pay for the product, you are the product" is often true.
Like most people said, use Firefox with the DDG extension or use Librewolf (just a heads up Librewolf by default deletes all history and cookie so disable that before signing in)
not to mention the Microsoft Edge processes when that is the last of any browser that I would choose to use
I believe all DDG browsers are webview based, so they use the already installed platform WebView as the engine and add the browser functionalities on top, that's not really a bad thing, since it saves space by avoiding duplicating such a huge component. Realistically, if they rolled their own, it would 100% be another Chromium fork and the Edge WebView is already based on Chromium so it's kind of (but not totally) pointless
Does this comparison actually take into account whether you are using the same tabs on both browsers and keeping them in the same state?
I've noticed, for example, that in chromium, I can permanently increase CPU usage just by opening a console in a tab and leaving it alone in the background, even if the tab itself is doing nothing.
If both browsers have the exact same number of tabs open, I would question why one has around 40 processes and one has around 20. That number should correspond roughly to the number of tabs/extensions you have open.
Thanks for the concern. At the end of the post I have added an update to this. It turns out that I had turned off hardware acceleration on the DDG browser and that was the reason it was tapping on my CPU instead
I'm glad to hear you figured it out. I was also curious about tab suspension, a feature that's built into Chrome and similar browsers, but it sounds like you figured out the biggest issue
Best browsers for 3D stuff like games and CADs are chromium based.
I generally use Librewolf (Firefox fork) but for gaming and 3d modeling use Brave. I think it's tge best chromium based browser.
Give Cromite a try. Seems to work well for a chrome browser. I only use it as a secondary, with FF as my primary. It's available on Android, Windows and Linux.
One process for every thread! now this is computing!