Run the Nightly Build or at least the Developer build then? I run Nightly everywhere.
Why would I need to use alpha software just to get access to stuff that are normally available on the desktop? Also, I don’t use my phone that much to justify that.
And back in ~2016-2017 (or so I recall), I used to run Firefox Nightly all the way from version 54 to 59 on my work PC. I didn’t have any issues with it to be honest, but the constant updates and having to restart my tabs is what killed it for me (and yes, I make use of “restore tabs” when opening a lot, the problem is the reloading time of 20+ tabs that I actually need and use). I would probably not be as affected by restarting the browser on Android, but I did have a few times when I updated Brave and forgot I still had stuff open in private browsing and it closed my tabs, I don’t want to imagine that on the frequency of Firefox Nightly updates (I have a short memory span, I see updates, I click update without much consideration for what I am updating - also, Android is stupid because it forces a program to restart after an update, on Linux it still works for quite a while, until all the tabs crash and can’t reload until I restart the browser).
I am not debating that. Just offering a solution, if you want it, that is how you do it.
@imrazor did you already tried a couple of other browsers?
And how are your experiences sofar?
1 Like
Only one so far, qutebrowser. So far I’m quite satisfied. Well, mostly.
There are two chief problems I’ve found with it. The Windows (not MacOS or Linux) version crashes when loading Youtube.com but only when you’re logged into it. The other problem is performance. It’s not very fast. But most of my systems are on the newish side and rather beefy, so that’s not a big deal either.
I’ve tested against several websites I frequent, and so far have only found one niggling issue. It doesn’t like displaying certain videos, which is almost certainly due to them being some oddball proprietary codec. I’ve even used it on some legacy sites geared towards older versions of IE and it seemed to render those w/o issue.
Using it is way different than most browsers. It is not lying when it says that it uses vi keys for navigation (Shift-H to go back, Shift-D to close a tab, etc.) I’ve used vi many times before, but have not dived into it’s capabilities so it’s a bit of a learning curve for me.
Unfortunately I do not know how to verify that it is not tracking me, and have to rely on the testimony of those in these thread and some of the links that have been provided. I’m still struggling with the adblocker. AFAICT ad blocking is enabled in the config file, but I’m still seeing a seemingly normal amount of ads (but no popups or popunders.) Despite this I’m still pretty happy with it.
1 Like
It’s probably widevine.
There are extensions in Firefox for that, but I’ve only used them a little, browsing requires a lot of point and click (or tab-ing 100s of times).
1 Like
Not really. I think you mean with sync (which is not the same as local backups) and even then you lose some stuff. The local profile of FF stores everything on your computer and you can simply copy it to a usb stick and continue exactly where you left off, with all your add-ons, saved passwords, certificates, cookies, everything. Try doing that with a Chromium browser and you will not be able to transfer every single thing. This is why you have a 100% functional portable version of FF and not of Chromium browsers. For some sync is more than enough however, but for me this is one of the things keeps me on FF.
I never used sync. What I did was copy the %appdata%\Google and %localappdata%\Google profiles on another PC in the same location and everything was identical, including extensions, settings, history, bookmarks etc. The same for Brave (just %localappdata%\BraveSoftware). That is on Windows. In Linux I believe it is in ~/.local, but I could be wrong, in Linux I only copied ~/.mozilla and ~/.thunderbird.
In any case, moving FF from Windows to Linux was a bit of a pain, because it wouldn’t accept all the files from the windows profile (because of paths and other stuff formatted for Windows). I believe I have a bookmark of the stuff you actually need to backup from the FF profile in my browser on my Pi, which I can’t access at this point. If you remind me in 1-2 months, I’ll probably find that link.
Another browser that is free and open-source is Lynx. This very lightweight browser displays websites just as well as ten years ago. Really good for anyone who wants to enjoy the same browsing experience no matter what’s en vogue right now. A staple in my browser collection.
2 Likes
If you like Lynx, you may probably enjoy surf browser.
2 Likes
You should probably mention that it is a command line browser.
As an aside, Lynx can have some varying colour configurations on certain distros. The default configuration on OpenSUSE was sufficiently annoying that I resorted to running it in -nocolor mode after I could not get it to consistently set properly via config files.
1 Like
Nope, it should work fine, unless you have an OS specific change in there. I do it all the time now that I’m home office (but using the portable version is easier). As for Chromium browsers, certificates and passwords are saved and locked (encrypted) to the original host machine, as well as some other minor things. If such minor things are not important then no problem (probably for most people)
For a full user profile backup (100% mirror copy) only FF can do that (and TB). However, I have found that corrupting your FF profile folder (and Thunderbird) is far easier than with other browsers.
On the flip side until another browser does the per site cookie jar, I have switched to and will not switch from Firefox.
3 Likes
So I haven’t been following what was up with them, not since their BAT controversies, so what is currently up with them? I mostly keept them as a main secondary browser, as oxymoronic as that sounds.
Is there an easy way to delete Chromium browsers’ bookmarks? It would be pretty easy to just use .html bookmarks export-import if I have an easy way to ensure no duplicates without constantly cleaning all browser data.
Recently tested out Kiwi Browser, but unfortunately xbrowsersync extension doesn’t work with it…
It is on ~/.config on Linux. I’ve since moved my ~/.config/chromium to a separate HDD before just linking the folder back to ~/.config, just in case I accidentally messed up my system yet again.
Note that as far as I can see, most of the cookies are secured in keyring, so you still have to re-login to most of them. Extensions, history, bookmark, session, and settings data seems to be preserved though, as well as some sites’ log-in, like WhatsApp (which makes it insecure as hell).
Sync’s main use for me is multi-device though, since I have three separate devices : home PC currently running Garuda, personally-owned laptop currently running Fedora for work, and work-given laptop running Windows 7 that I basically use as a remote desktop to access work’s server’s resources.
This is the main place where I will give Brave my praise, because as far as I can see, their syncing seems to be fairly secure and private, while having parity with Firefox, Chrome, and Edge.
2 Likes
My fav. dev who also made Sway is doing surf fork for vimkeys visurf, a web browser based on NetSurf
In future if surf will get proper full JS support it might be a great browser.
It’s like qutebrowser but for surf. You might like that one too 
1 Like
Firefox > every other browser
1 Like