This article discusses the browsers used in daily life and the experience of poor translations, along with various complaints.
"Firefox" Browser#
The main daily browser, escaping the pervasive surveillance of Google, with privacy protection and customization that is commendable, it feels like freedom.
Other reasons for use:
- Excellent memory management
- No issues in 99% of scenarios for daily use
- Different profiles can be used for different tabs, with different proxies
- A small act of resistance against the Chromium family’s monopoly in cyberspace
- Reading mode can bypass some paywalls
- Managing tabs with the Simple Tab Groups extension is very convenient
- ...
In 2014, Firefox held 35%-40% of the global browser market share, but now it is less than 3%. As its share decreases, compatibility issues with websites will become more pronounced.
Currently, Firefox is most criticized for its compatibility issues. As its market share declines, website compatibility worsens, leading to an even lower share—a death spiral; if you don’t use me, I won’t use you, and then it’s really over.
Complaining about the current two AI giants, "Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer" and "Claude," their web support for Firefox is too poor, frequently crashing and high resource usage, leaving daily use reliant on Vivaldi.
If you're interested in delving deeper into Firefox, here are some suggestions:
- For daily use, the ESR version is recommended, along with a "deferred upgrade" strategy
- Be careful not to download the "China special edition"; if a website ends with
firefox.com.cn, it’s "Rogue Intelligence China" - Recommended reading:
- "How to Choose and Switch Firefox Versions Based on Security Considerations?"
- "2020 Firefox Security, Privacy, and Practical Extension Guide"
- If there’s an opportunity in the future, I might write an article based on various identities' privacy protection experiences with Firefox.
"Vivaldi" Browser#
Many years ago, I got into it from a post by Hassan on Zhihu titled "Why Vivaldi is the Best Desktop Browser," and I have been using it as my second browser for daily access to some websites/plugins that Firefox does not support well.
Vivaldi may still be unfamiliar to many; its name comes from the famous violinist and composer "Antonio Lucio Vivaldi."
This name not only has a subtle connection to the founding team's former employer, the "Opera" browser, but also implies that "users can tap the keyboard like playing music while surfing the web" (I’m just making this up).
Vivaldi's default configuration is simple, beautiful, and user-friendly, with a design that respects user privacy. Moreover, it offers high playability with various customization features and shortcuts, making it ideal for tinkering enthusiasts, earning it the title of "the Emacs of browsers."
If I could only choose one Chromium-based browser, it would definitely be "Vivaldi."
As we all know, the code of browsers has become extremely complex, and "Vivaldi Technologies" is a small team, so it inevitably has some minor bugs, especially in the Linux version, but they can be resolved or tolerated. The only unmet need is:
- It still does not support HID (Human Interface Device), which means the browser wallet plugin cannot connect to hardware wallets.
The development team shows little interest in fixing this feature, believing that those who need it are just a small group of "crypto traders."
Every year, someone raises this demand, and the latest progress (2024) is that it used to crash when reading HID devices, but now it finally has been fixed (it doesn’t crash, but still cannot read HID devices).
Fortunately, FIDO2 does not rely on HID, meaning it does not affect the use of hardware keys like Yubikey, so it can still serve as a daily backup browser.
Easter egg:
- The official Vivaldi also runs an instance of Mastodon, allowing direct login with a Vivaldi account.
"The Onion Router" Browser#
Used for some special yet not particularly special tasks, without an additional proxy layer, TOR connects directly to the internet.
Advantages:
- Out-of-the-box TOR solution
- Comes with several security-related extensions and privacy settings
Disadvantages:
- The exit nodes are TOR, and the traffic characteristics are obvious, leading to many websites intercepting and requiring additional verification, or outright blocking
- This can be resolved by adding a proxy layer, but it wasn’t done to increase the proportion of normal non-malicious TOR users for the target websites; I help everyone, and everyone helps me.
- It is already a heavily modified browser, making further customization cumbersome and unnecessary.
- As Programming Thoughts said:
TBB (Tor Browser Bundle) is aimed at the general user. Often, "the needs of the masses" do not align with "the needs of geeks."
"Chrome" Browser#
Used with a pinch of salt.
In today’s so-called web3 industry, everyone seems to be focused on making money, and privacy doesn’t seem to matter to many.
Tornado has been sanctioned, Wasabi has been sanctioned, XMR has been delisted from major exchanges, and the privacy protection of EVM systems is like a child's play; the various issues in this industry practically scream at you:
"Privacy is a crime."
I’ve inadvertently complained a bit too much; what does this have to do with browsers?
- Too many blockchain projects have very poor support for the Firefox family, or they crash/ban outright.
- Project teams are generally not privacy-friendly, collecting too much information. Since my main browser has strict privacy settings, if I accidentally disable a certain permission, the project’s website crashes, which is exhausting.
- Many wallet plugins do not support Firefox.
- Most importantly, after MetaMask abandoned connecting hardware wallets in Firefox 114.0, there is no longer any mainstream wallet plugin support for connecting hardware wallets in the Firefox family, and I have completely given up on MetaMask.
Initially, I was determined not to compromise, which helped me avoid the collapse of UST.
Later, in the pursuit of money, I became indifferent and lazy to argue, so I simply threw all these websites into Chrome, using a clean proxy for exit, creating a dedicated crypto browser, which in some ways adheres to certain security practices.
Others#
Other browsers that are not primarily used or not used on PC, along with some minor experiences.
Firefox Family#
"DuckDuckGo" Browser#
A modified Firefox, with out-of-the-box friendly privacy settings, mainly used on mobile.
I remember it initially only had a mobile version, and later a desktop version was released, but there is still no Linux version for the desktop.
If you don’t want to share sensitive content with "Mr. Incognito" 🥷, then use DuckDuckGo’s self-destructing feature 🔥, which works very well, thumbs up.
As a giant in the field of privacy protection, the "DuckDuckGo" browser is still trustworthy.
I am a heavy user of many of their products, such as DuckDuckGo’s one-time AI, DuckDuckGo’s privacy email, and DuckDuckGo’s search engine; I love this rebellious duck!
"LibreWolf" Browser#
It works well, with many out-of-the-box privacy protection settings optimized, but my customization in Firefox better meets my needs.
If you’re lazy about tweaking privacy settings and want to try a different browser, I recommend giving it a shot.
The initial reason for trying it was that I had a modified Firefox based on ESR 115 that had a strange and annoying bug, and I wanted to see if it could be resolved.
The reason I didn’t continue using it is that LibreWolf is also based on the ESR 115 version, and it surprisingly has the same bug, making it completely useless for me.
In the end, I returned to the official ESR version of Firefox, and everything is fine, but I will still prioritize using LibreWolf as my daily browser in the future.
Recommended reading: Dayu's article "After a Long Dilemma Between Chrome and Arc, I Finally Chose Librewolf."
"Zen" Browser#
Mainly redesigned the UI of Firefox, with vertically arranged tabs by default and some optimizations for tab usage.
It seems to have some default privacy setting optimizations as well.
The main reason I didn’t continue using it is that, compared to the bulky Z icon, I still prefer the little fox; who can resist a cute little fox? (🦊
Additionally, I always confuse its icon and name with the so-called fastest code editor "Zed."
Chromium Family#
"Arc" Browser#
If it had been born in the 2010s, it would definitely win an award for "Most Beautiful Browser of the Year."
Very good at marketing, decent UI design, flashy features, and a strong paternalistic attitude (users don’t know what browsers are, closing all expired tabs for you).
It’s okay; among the Chromium family, aside from Vivaldi, it’s the only one that is still usable, and light usage can basically replace Chrome.
The downside is that it only supports Mac, slowly adding Windows support this year, with the Linux version still a long way off.
"Brave" Browser#
The fastest uninstall record; it was originally used on a work computer to log into some websites that do not support Firefox well ➕ as a backup browser for trying new things, but it doesn’t even support WebAuthn, meaning it cannot use Yubikey at all.
The biggest highlight is probably the built-in IPFS gateway, but it doesn’t compare to Vivaldi in aesthetics, lacks stability compared to Arc, and even has worse privacy than Chrome, which is just pathetic.
It has a lot of negative history, including but not limited to:
Continuing to use it indeed requires courage.
"Edge" Browser#
The default browser on a PC dedicated to gaming, too lazy to set it up, can’t open it more than twice a year.
It will pop up ads just as you are about to reach a high point, very Microsoft, very Edge.
"Safari" Browser#
Although I don’t want to, I have to set it as the default browser on my phone for convenience; some stupid services (that’s you, perplexity) require sending a login link to my email, and then automatically opening the app for authentication.
After setting a third-party browser as default, it’s hard (90% of the time there are bugs) to open the app for authentication from the browser, and even pasting the inbox link into the browser doesn’t work.
The usage scenario for the Safari browser is basically just that.
Oh, right, I sometimes use it for shopping on Mac; some points rebate websites need to track cookies and various tracking links, which would be blocked and filtered out in other browsers, and I’m too lazy to set special rules for them, so I just throw everything here.
Apple recently paid homage to Hitchcock’s "The Birds" with a new ad "Flock," and the first half is true:
What you are watching and doing is being observed; the privacy of ordinary users is constantly being violated.
But the savior of your privacy is definitely not some company or software, and certainly not Safari (escape).
Postscript#
It’s not just Firefox, a non-Chromium family browser, that faces discrimination/neglect.
Due to the arrogance, ignorance, or pure malice of website developers, many (more than you might think) websites only accept access from "Big Players" (browsers).
Thus, Vivaldi, starting from a certain version, changed its UA (User Agent, a type of identifier that tells the target website what browser type is being used to seek a better experience), no longer defaulting to identify itself as Vivaldi when accessing websites, but instead claiming to be Chrome, which can optimize part of the user experience.
However, this has an obvious downside:
Vivaldi will disappear from third-party browser popularity rankings because Vivaldi users will all be identified as Chrome users.
It’s touching that the official statement said:
But this is a price we are willing to pay to provide our users with the best website compatibility.
Although
If you drop the right name, you can get in anywhere.
And I also often spoof UA to protect privacy, but I usually spoof the operating system, version, and browser version, not the browser type; for example, Firefox is Firefox, Vivaldi is Vivaldi, when using Chrome, I pretend to be Vivaldi.
This is to show them that I won’t compromise, to make even a faint voice heard:
Not everyone will willingly accept your bloated, boring, and privacy-invading so-called mainstream browsers.
There are people using Firefox in this world.
There are people using Vivaldi.
Even if they are often intercepted and discriminated against, there will still be those who refuse to compromise.
Fuck You! 🫵
Original article link, for a better reading experience.