@nynros31415926 @rebane2001 no, please don't use Brave and stop promoting it. The founder is a bigot. It was funded by Peter Thiel. They were caught stealing creator donations, and injecting affiliate tracking codes. And they're connected to a bunch of shady crypto stuff. https://www.spacebar.news/stop-using-brave-browser/
@Tanath
This article changed my opinion.
What browser would you recommend, for someone who was content with the functionality of Brave?
@danie1 generally Firefox. It has its issues too, but I've yet to find a better option. Vivaldi was my next pick but I learned they're also dropping manifest 2. Firefox gets independent security audits, and forks will be slower to get updates and have fewer eyeballs on it, and be generally less trustworthy. More people would benefit more if more of the effort put into the forks were put into Firefox itself. Chrome dropped Firefox's user share significantly, but it's time to switch and raise it.
@Tanath uBlock Origin will stop working on Vivaldi?
@davidculley that's right, Vivaldi is dropping manifest 2 support, which limits and reduces effectiveness of blockers like uBO: https://www.pcworld.com/article/2929732/i-love-vivaldi-the-browser-for-power-users-but-these-4-flaws-are-wearing-on-me.html
@Tanath Oh no, I didn't know that. Thanks.
@davidculley @Tanath iirc Vivaldi has its own ad blocker, doesn't it? Don't suspect it stacks up 1-1 with ublock but I've never tested it.
@theeclecticdyslexic @davidculley @Tanath built in blocker works to levels I find satisfactory.
On the broader subject: I find it hard to recommend FF to anyone as Mozilla constantly proves they’re a bunch of wankers. Better than chrome though, that I admit.
@Tanath @davidculley sadly it's inevitable due to their dependency in Blink/Chromium
@oblomov @davidculley could push them to improve the limits in manifest 3. It is an improvement in other ways, like security.
@Tanath @davidculley I doubt they have any weight at all on what Google decides to do with the engine.
@oblomov @davidculley I mean collectively. Everyone who's unhappy with dropping manifest 2 due to those limits. People are literally changing browsers over it. Wouldn't it be better if everyone moved to an improved manifest 3 with the concerns addressed?
@Tanath @davidculley very few people outside of our bubble are changing browsers over it.
@oblomov @davidculley I've personally changed the browsers on many devices since it was announced and gotten others to do the same, and that's just me. I'm hardly alone. Lots of people are unhappy with losing uBO in particular.
@Tanath @davidculley and that's your bubble. You underestimate how many people don't even know what a browser is.
@danie1 @Tanath Maybe Zen? https://zen-browser.app
@mathew homepage starts good with Tuta and Mastodon icon :-)
Why do you prefer it above brave and Firefox?
@danie1 I think the reasons not to use Brave have been covered. I stopped using Firefox because they decided to go all in on AI and take a tech bro approach to consent.
@mathew What do your words mean?
it's a non profit that develops or integrates AI?
You have to change settings to switch off AI support?
@danie1 Yes.
@Tanath @danie1 It’s opt out, and they only put in the switch to turn it off after people yelled at them. Their enthusiasm for AI is spelled out at https://www.mozilla.ai
@mathew @danie1 enthusiasm for AI isn't the problem, it's what they do and how they do it. Even if you don't disable the AI features it just sits there doing nothing but being a menu option until you interact with it, and it's offline when you do. It makes sense for a page summary feature to be available by default.
@mathew @danie1 those things can be problematic, but no it's still what they do with them and how that are the real problems. For example, homophobia is only a problem for him if he keeps it to himself. It's only because of how he acts on it like funding homophobic legislation that it became a problem for others. Enthusiasm for AI can come from seeing its potential for good. It's ignoring the harms and risks that are the real problem.
@mathew @danie1 you can only be bothered by it if you know about it. You can only know about it if they act on it. It's always down to what they do and how they do it. That's how ethics works. If they kept it to themselves it's only a problem for them. With homophobia there's no benefits to go along with it like with AI, yet it's still down to what and how.
@Tanath @danie1 And once they act on it, even if they stop I’m going to assume they still have the same attitude, unless there’s a sincere apology. Ethics requires considering past actions as well as present ones. (In fact, one of my big peeves is that so many people vote for politicians based on what they say they’ll do, without considering what they’ve actually done in the past.)
@mathew @danie1 it's more of a risk than a problem. The actual problems are in how it affects what they do and how they do it. Someone thinking homophobia or fascism are good ideas has a character problem influencing their likely behaviours in problematic ways. It's a problem, but only for them until they do something which creates a problem for others. AI is more complicated because it brings benefits as well as harms. I'm just pointing out that wanting the benefits is not a problem in itself.
@mathew I don't understand from the discussion here if AI is bad, probably also embedded in Libre office, or some models are bad, or the choice to make it default is bad.
What are the parameters of the AI/model in Firefox that you think is a problem?
@danie1 Firefox chose to have built-in support for the big commercial cloud-based AI providers that are causing massive environmental damage while selling a product built on stolen work.
https://www.firefox.com/en-US/features/ai-powered-chatbot/
@mathew @danie1 doesn't have to be anything. You do you. But for myself and for a general recommendation to random people, yeah it's Chrome/Chromium which is good for security, support, and compatibility; or Firefox which is the next most popular and best option. Others are more niche and have their place, but if you want to tell a web developer to support another browser it's hard enough to get them to support Firefox despite being the next most popular.
@Tanath @mathew I think we need a decision tree:
Do you mind supporting a company complicit in genocide?
Do you mind supporting big tech?
Do you want AI?
Do you want password sync?
Privacy?
Security?
Easy setup?
Low use of processor, memory?
Do you want to pay for it?
Etc.
With some loops that bring you back to Chrome
@mathew My English is not perfect. what is "threw ... out" and "non-google-controlled"?
@danie1 Sorry I wasn’t clear enough, us Americans have trouble remembering there are other languages 🙂 So, Chromium uses a browser engine built and controlled by Google. So if you use a browser built on Chromium, you are helping Google to control the web. This is something many people are bothered by. Most browsers use Chromium, including Brave. Zen does not — it uses Firefox’s browser engine. But it’s not very well known, so I thought I would mention it as an option.
Jul 9, 2026, 6:38 PM@Tanath @nynros31415926 @rebane2001 proton is not great either
@f4grx @Tanath @rebane2001 if you don’t like Proton for whatever reason() don’t use it
Jul 9, 2026, 7:58 PM@nynros31415926 @Tanath @rebane2001 I dont use email services that promote trump and the murican republican party.
This is the first time I've seen #BraveBrowser get absolutely ratioed. I hope it's not the last.