Computer Gurus: New Browser?

[GA Russell]

Has anyone come upon a relatively new browser he likes?

[tranemonk]

It's not new but I constantly come back to and use Firefox. There's just so much customization and control for me. Brave is not new but I'd say that's my second choice. Even though I'm on a Mac I hate Safari. Opera is way too cluttered.

[clifford_thornton]

Jury’s out on Duck Duck Go — limits the amount of trackers, but can also slow down sites and some older architecture might not run/display properly.

not really a fan of Safari and Google is just advertiser central.

[felser]

1 hour ago, tranemonk said:

It's not new but I constantly come back to and use Firefox. There's just so much customization and control for me. Brave is not new but I'd say that's my second choice. Even though I'm on a Mac I hate Safari. Opera is way too cluttered.

I'm on Windows 11, and also use Firefox for my browsing.  I do use Duck Duck Go as my search engine at this point -  not totally sold on it, but I no longer trust Google.

[mjzee]

I'm on a Mac, and mostly use Safari.  Sometimes Firefox, occasionally Brave, rarely Tusk or DuckDuckGo (though there's nothing wrong with either of them).

[JSngry]

I still use Firefox just because I've yet to have a reason not to.

[Joe]

Vivaldi is pretty good. Maybe too many bells and whistles. https://vivaldi.com

I also like Brave, https://brave.com. IIRC, its built on Chromium, meaning Google Chrome extension will work in a Brave environment.

[Dave Garrett]

I like Supermium for two reasons - it runs on older versions of Windows (all the way back to XP) as well as newer versions, and although it's Chromium-based, unlike Chrome itself the Supermium developers have not removed support for Manifest V2 and have no intention of doing so. Manifest controls how browser extensions function, and Manifest V3, the current version that was rolled out last year, restricted permission grants much more than V2, rendering adblockers far less effective (or essentially non-functional in some cases). I switched to Supermium months ago from Chrome and haven't looked back - the migration process was dead simple, just like upgrading to a new version of Chrome. 

Supermium

I also use FIrefox, but recently switched my default search engine to Duck Duck Go when Google started requiring Javascript to be enabled in order to perform searches. I have Javascript blocked by default on my Firefox install and enable it only on an as-needed basis (NoScript is my preferred extension for that use case), but I didn't care to do so just to be able to search with Google, given how aggressive they've gotten with force-feeding users ads. 

[GA Russell]

Thanks, guys!  You've given me a number of ideas.

[clifford_thornton]

A couple of years ago I was guest lecturing a music history class at a local college and they were using a browser that automatically killed ads on YouTube. Can’t remember what it was — certainly not Google, Safari, DDG, or Firefox. Any ideas?

[mjzee]

6 hours ago, clifford_thornton said:

A couple of years ago I was guest lecturing a music history class at a local college and they were using a browser that automatically killed ads on YouTube. Can’t remember what it was — certainly not Google, Safari, DDG, or Firefox. Any ideas?

Maybe they simply paid for YouTube?

[rostasi]

I think it might've been Brave - mentioned earlier.

[clifford_thornton]

thanks. Giving it a whirl.

yup. this works. Thanks!

[GA Russell]

I have been using mostly Vivaldi.  I have had Brave on my desktop, but at your suggestion I am using it more.

I read last week that Google is now insisting on the right to read your entire hard drive for any reason.  So I suppose I will not be using Chrome anymore.

I used Firefox many years ago.  I didn't know it was still active!

[Kevin Bresnahan]

I hear stories about Chrome sending personal files to them but I've never read a technical paper detailing this as real. They do track your on-line travels and sell that info. It's how they make their money. You agree to this when you install it. They are not alone in this. Chrome also has tools bundled into the browser to prevent malware & spyware intrusions and to be honest, a lot of everyday PC users need that "invisible" protection because they aren't capable of doing it themselves.

How do I know this? Since I retired, I started doing tech support at my local senior center and I see a lot of people who aren't very careful on-line. I'm surprised at how many of them have been scammed over the years. They need built-in protection and Chrome, which is free, is better than nothing. Chrome may also be better than some of the paid anti-virus programs, which don't do much more than what Chrome does and can really cripple some Windows laptops.

That said, I still use Firefox, mainly because it seems to run faster than other browsers.

Truth be told, I also use laptops with Ubuntu/Linux, not Windows, so spyware/malware have not been a problem at all.

[clifford_thornton]

I will say that while Brave blocks a lot of crap I don't want, its search function is far less tailored to what I'm looking for than Chrome.

For example, as a train nut, I was looking up obscure locomotive roster information and Brave could not handle the request, while Chrome popped back with the desired results instantly. I guess I'll use Brave when I'm trying to watch uninterrupted YouTube videos, and Chrome when I actually want to find information.