I’ve been using Brave for years, but it’s starting to creep on me all the “we block bad things! — but we put our stuff in their place”…
I don’t want a debate on whether or not this concern is legit though, I’d like advice from fellow Manjaro users: what could I use instead?
My musts are: FOSS, Chromium-based, privacy-focused (but not to the point of brainless-remembers-nothing — a reasonably user-friendly approach), good-looking and, if possible with an easy option to transfer usual data to a new device (not start over on every new device).
I know, that’s a lot, and I don’t expect a perfect solution here… But it never hurts to ask!
So far the only reasonable option I saw was… well, you guessed it, simple ol’ Chromium. But there has to be other options I didn’t hear about? Like Vanadium or Bromite to Android and relatives — but for desktop use, on Manjaro?
When the GDPR laws came into effect, I got many an email about changing Terms and Conditions. I remember I also received one from Mozilla, stating that nothing had changed because of said law and they always did and always will respect your privacy. So, in my opinion, that says a lot.
So my vote goes to Firefox. Always has. Always for the foreseeable future will.
Yeah, I know it’s not Chromium-based. That’s part of why I like it.
ungoogle-chromium may be a tad too strict for you.
But some of the others may be alright.
Referencing some of where they pulled patches from (like iridium) could be useful;
Many years ago, I had used SRWare Iron, I liked that many futures were removed by Google, what I didn’t like was that it always took so long for the updated versions to come out, but maybe he always did it on his own.
Vivaldi seems to all the right boxes. Vivaldi is created by people who gave (the original) Opera browser to the world so many years ago.
Vivaldi is based on Chromium and available directly from the Manjaro repositories. I could list its features and offer additional links; or, you could simply find out for yourself:
Firefox of course for me, or Floorp (a firefox fork)
Chromium is an open source project, but it is also controlled by Google. If all browsers are based on Chromium, you will definitely still have nice privacy respecting forks and there will be some choice and competition. However, since everyone will rely on Google’s supporting technology, Google will be able to fully control all future web technologies (since everyone will use whatever they choose to implement, and no one will be able to use features that Google denies to apply).
Now, I’m not a Google fanboy; but I really do wish people would perform adequate research before making inaccurate and misleading claims such as this. A quick extract from Wikipedia:
I like vivaldi even if much of the gui part is not opensource.
I generally use librewolf with various profiles depending on the level of privacy/brokenness required.
One thing about brave that turned me off was adding a blockchain address and then having to add info to withdraw - completely linking all internet activity to the BAT address.
I can’t overstate how much I am. Vivaldi (so far) fits every requirement I have for a web browser, and I was delighted to discover it fits a ton of other requirements I didn’t know I had — if it goes on like this I think I will never use any other browser anytime soon!
I use both Vivaldi and Firefox regularly. In my opinion, they are the better choice of all other offerings out there.
Additionally, something you’ve likely already discovered is that (just like Firefox) there is also a reliable sync capability built into Vivaldi. Create a Vivaldi account specifically for that purpose and all you need do is login to sync on a new device.
all the right boxes. Vivaldi is created by