this post was submitted on 06 Sep 2024

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ZEN BROWSER SITUATION IS CRAZY!!! (hexbear.net)

submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

35 comments fedilink hide all child comments

It's an Arc-Browser clone WIP which uses Firefox as base. It's everything I would want from a browser.

Pros:

Open Source
UI-First Approach means it's working towards a modern browsing experience like Arc
Firefox as base so all Firefox Extensions like Adnauseum/Ublock work on it
No threat of MV3. Arc has stopped blocking ads for me hence I will no longer be using Chromium at all. Adblocking works like a charm on Zen.
Highly customizable with a very fast development cycle.

Cons:

It's in Alpha so expect Bugs and less features
Still missing some features from Arc like Peek and Command Bar

I would recommend trying out this browser @ https://zen-browser.app/

top 35 comments

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 months ago (2 children)

PrivacyGuides gang seems to think it's sussy wussy

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

The stars hypothesis is interesting but I think it was genuinely caused by that youtuber recommending it. The reason it started 2 days before the video's release is because he gives early video access to his patrons, if I had to guess. And that's the only genuinely sus thing about it.

It is worth waiting for some commit history and consistency to be shown before recommending it on the privacyguides site though

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago (1 children)

It's also a very interesting project since it's basically Arc but on Firefox which runs on all Operating Systems.

I think it's unfair to compare it to Brave which is literally just chrome with an adblocker and crypto. If Arc was open source then it would easily have a lot more stars.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

yeah I'm glad it exists, people are a bit too eager to shit on things sometimes. Plus the context is kinda "should we recommend this project now" not "is this any good"

I'm perfectly happy with firefox though, never tried any of these alternative/productivity browsers

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

just because the domain name has privacy in it and a forum to discuss, doesn't make them experts at privacy.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

It's good to be skeptical but I think they know what they're talking about. It's the forum for privacyguides which has been around since 2021, and previously as privacytools since 2015. Many of the people in the thread are active maintainers of the recommendations and knowledge base, where they apply a pretty rigorous set of standards. In fact, I think the only thing you can reasonably knock them for is being too cautious with new tools, but I think that's a good instinct in this case, especially since you don't really lose much by waiting to make sure something is legit and not a honeypot or flash in the pan

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 months ago (1 children)

nerd

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago

gottem

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

brow thanks but no thanks, I'll stick with firefox. it's not really clear what makes this supposedly better.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago

Also use Nighttab as new tab page for maximum aesthetic https://github.com/zombieFox/nightTab

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I had been using Floorp, which has some of the same features, but this seems more polished. Thanks!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

Floorp made some modules closed source or something a few months ago. I don't remember when but I never got into it.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

My first impression is very positive, but it's too hard to close tabs.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

You generally have to use shortcuts in these kind of browsers. It's missing a proper tab switcher right now so tab management is a bit complicated.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I love the Arc UI but hate that it's Yet Another Chromium. As soon as the app signing issues for MacOS are solved, I'm gonna jump on this.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago (1 children)

What app signing issues? It's working perfectly by installing it from brew.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Oh, nice! I'd been trying to install the latest release from the .dmg which results in an error saying the .app is damaged, but brew seems to work perfectly. Thanks for the heads up

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I guess the DMG build is not signed.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

on the privacyguides forum someone mentioned that the signing issue is fixed now

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Is there a big reason to stop using Firefox and use this instead?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

This looks better and I can use more screen space as well similar to arc. It has some additional features that can be useful.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

God damn it, I just switched to Floorp last week and then you drop this sexy ass looking browser on me? Looks like I'll be messing around with it tonight. This looks tight as fuck.

E: anyone know if Firefox sync is supported? Might be a deal breaker for me if I can't bounce tabs between phone and computer.

E2: never mind I'm a dummy

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

I dont get the appeal of the big chonky bar on the left. Whats the point of it? Genuine question because when i look at it it just seems like a lot of redundancy with stuff you can already have in the top bar of mosts modern browsers like firefox/librefox

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

When I saw that and "container tabs", I thought it was going to have a good implementation of vertical tabs, but it really doesn't. No easy folders, no organizational features...If they add some stuff that makes it meaningfully different from Firefox, I might give it some thought, but right now, there's really no point. Better keyboard shortcuts or something would even make me switch, but that bar seems useless now.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

In the screenshot, it's in a sort of "mini mode" and the side bar is the tab manager/etc. You can set both that and the url bar to hide and then show on mouse hover. It looks nice but when I was messing with it it feels like it adds more time in your workflow. You have to hover right at the edge too which is annoying to hit if you have your OS bar at top of screen and/or if you have multi monitors with one on the left, since the pressure point is right on the edge. I can see it working on maybe a laptop where screen real estate is a bigger deal though.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

Vertical tabs and tab groups are mandatory for me, gonna switch at some point. Been waiting for exactly this kind of browser for ages

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I've been using this in combination with librewolf and I really like it. I'm not a huge fan of vertical tabs when you have over 30 tabs, but it's good for websites you visit often.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

I like vertical tabs specifically for when I have a monster number of tabs open.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

non vertical (technically horizontal??) tab bar oooaaaaaaauhhh

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

What does it actually do?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

Mac AND Linux??? Thanks you just made my whole month!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

This kid I work with swears by arc but I haven't tried it yet. Definitely gonna give this a shot

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

I tried the alpha version of this on my linux box. Strangely, I couldn't visit zen-browser.app while using i. Most other sites I tried were fine though.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Only thing keeping me on brave is the native ad-blocking. But I'll definitely give this a shot.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 months ago

Ublock Origin is superior to any browsers native ad blocker in every way.

UBlock+Firefox is the best ad blocking configuration you'll ever have. You can even use it on android since Firefox on Android supports extensions.