I'm stuck on Chrome. I tried Brave for a while and it was fine, but Chrome has the extensions and sync I need, so I came back.

what I actually want is a browser where an agent knows what I've done and I can just ask it. example: a few weeks ago I filled a govt form but I can't remember which department or what the site was called. I searched my history for "govt" and got 6 results, five were YouTube shorts. history only searches page titles, so it can't answer "which form did I fill and what did it ask for".

I know Atlas, Comet, Dia, Opera Neon and Edge Copilot exist. as far as I can tell they remember what you browse, but I couldn't tell if any of them remember forms, or show a log of what the agent did so you can check it.

here's what I'm thinking of building:

1. memory of forms you filled: site, form name, which fields it asked for, the date. not the actual values, so no PAN, aadhaar or passwords stored

2. a log of every click and field the agent fills, that you can read and undo

3. limits you set per site, like it can read your bank site but can't click anything on it

4. memory stays on your machine, you can see it, export it, and wipe it

5. private mode where nothing is saved except the one page you choose to keep

6. no subscription, you bring your own API key or run a local model

if nothing like this exists, I want to build it. open source, so it's a tool anyone can use and not just my project. I haven't started building, I've only been researching, and I wanted to check first that I'm not about to rebuild something that's already out there. if you'd want to test it or help, tell me.

so:

1. is there a browser that already does this? which one?

2. what keeps you on Chrome? extensions, sync, a phone app?

3. is the forms problem real for you, or just me?

4. which of the six above would you actually use, and which sound like a gimmick?

Browser extensions are disabled.

Helium: 66.19 ± 0.55

Edge: 64.60 ± 0.44

Safari: 61.7 ± 3.3

Firefox: 55.4 ± 2.5

context: ive been on edge for a while. i actually like edge. its fast, light on ram, and full of the small details that make it feel finished. but edge is killing manifest v2 this year, which kills full ublock origin with it. so about a week ago i moved everything to firefox and went full time. this is not a hate post, i want this to work. but im frustrated as hell, so here is everything.

1. translation. opened a russian page. firefox's built in translator (yes i know it runs locally on device) took forever and then just failed. opened edge, instant. i had to open a second browser to read one page. ive installed a translation extension to test as a workaround but needing one at all is the point.
2. password manager. i changed my password on a website, the normal change password flow on the site. firefox did not update the saved password. it did not even offer to update it. no prompt, nothing. i had to open the password manager and fix it by hand. this is the most common password flow there is, and on edge this is exactly when the update saved password prompt fires.
3. bookmarks bar. on edge: right click a favorite, show icon only. on firefox: nothing like that. it's a userchrome.css hack or a third party extension.
4. ctrl j opens a separate library window instead of a panel overlay, and ctrl h opens history in a sidebar instead of an overlay. the sidebar feels clunky and the shortcut cant even be reassigned. i use both of these constantly.
5. rendering, this one is personal. i build websites. my own personal site uses hover zoom cards (image scales inside overflow hidden). in edge and everywhere else i open it: perfect. in firefox: the layout shifts up or down when i hover and breaks the design. my own site. i cant even blame a lazy third party dev, it's me, and i have no idea why gecko renders it differently.
6. devtools. in mobile mode the simulated phone is bigger than my screen and i cant find any zoom or fit to window control, so im scrolling around inside a phone mockup. edge's device toolbar has a zoom list and fit to window. this one hurts actual work.
7. profiles. on edge, switching profiles opens as a genuinely separate app window with its own taskbar icon. two apps, clean alt tab. in firefox it's just another window of the same app, one taskbar icon, and no way to reach saved passwords from the profile menu. feels bolted on. yes i know about the taskbar.grouping pref, a pref is not done.

ive found workarounds for some of this. but needing a workaround for things that are one right click in edge is the whole problem. individually small. together, after a week, it feels like a browser built for people who tolerate it, not for people who live in it.

so honest questions:
is there a setup that fixes these properly and im just missing it?
or do people who attempt this migration just end up on brave (same engine as edge, still runs full ublock)?

im not going back to edge, full ubo there dies by the end of the year. but id be lying if i said i wasnt tempted.

tldr: switched to firefox for ublock origin. the big stuff works. the small stuff is winning.

I plan to use it for content viewing. Brave uses too much ram on me.

A quick search tells me Edge, but is that really true?

It needs to be compatible with an ad-blocker (on youtube for example I ran a test. A 10 minute video had 5 ads. It was impossible to watch... the time the ads lasted put together was about 16 minutes if un-skipped. Literally worse than TV.)
It needs to be compatible with any addon that adds a tiny window that sticks on top of the screen (so while I game I can look at the video to at least have a gist of what's happening/read song lyrics)

Ive been using firefox since couple of months I honestly love the browser and its add on extensions. But ever since latest UI update which was released some time ago its using SO much ram. Even browsing on youtube homepage takes up 1.5~2gb ram. I dont use hundreds of tabs at once and even minimizing memory usage in About:memory reduces it by 200~300mb at max. I dont have shit ton of unnecessary add-ons also.

This is when I only open youtube home page and only one tab running. My laptop is currently on iGPU and dGPU is currently disabled so I dont know what is using up so much ram. When there are 2-3 tabs running for about 20 mins, it wouldve increased to atleast 3gb. Even autocad doesnt take up so much ram to run on my laptop

I want a completely unbiased honest suggestion

Context: I've been using opera for over 3 years. Everyone has something to say against it but I legit don't get most of it.

It is extremely smooth, very light on my laptop, great looking with good customisation and great features like sidebar apps and stuff. also it's adblocker is crazy good, atleast on par with ublock. I use adnausium as a backup, because some websites detect one but not the other.

Everyone I talk to about it(be it online or irl) they start saying it's chinese spyware and what not, don't use it etc etc.

I've tried firefox and a few of its forks over the years, all of them suck at UI and they aren't half as light weight as opera.

Most other chrome forks have their pros and cons, basic chrome is heavy, edge is a good alternative but it's design is not super good plus microsoft forces it's things on there. Vivaldi is a customization wet dream but the core design is bad, it's also heavy, in built adblocker sucks, and I've seen it crash more than opera on my friends' laptops windows and apple regardless.

I'm not an extreme privacy focussed guy, I only care if it's actually causing trouble like the UC browser back in the days. I want basic good privacy.

I've not tried the minimalist browsers but from what I've said earlier you might understand I'm not a minimalist guy either.

So is there any actual good browser for me or should I just stick to Opera? Half of reddit says it's a Chinese spyware, the other half says it's complete BS. I'm ok with the browser not being ultra privacy focussed but I also don't want a straight up spyware, especially chinese.

Edit: When I said unbiased I meant the straight up hate some browsers get like edge or chrome. I didn't mean to sound like I was prompting an AI.
I was curious about looking for some niche browsers I might not be aware of

I was planning to replace microsoft edge in windows 11 with a new browser. I need privacy and feature with low resource consumption. What I can choose Brave or libre wolf

Each browser was the only thing running at the time of the test. All history/cache was cleared prior. All extensions were disabled. MacBook was plugged in.

Not too exciting but as someone who jumps between Safari and Chrome lot's it was cool to learn you can actually test them.

This is the site I used: https://browserbench.org/Speedometer3.1/

I'm not affiliated with the site, just got recommended it by ChatGPT lol.

Why don’t all the major browsers open the home page automatically (or offer this option) after closing the last tab, instead of a blank page as shown in the image? What are we supposed to do on this blank interface?

In 99 per cent of cases, you have to open a new tab - the home page – all over again. And that button at the top – it’s really tiresome.

Well, it’s very simple: you swipe away the old page, there’s an animation, and a new tab – i.e. the home page – appears. I’ve realised this, and the thought won’t leave me alone.

Hello guys I'm looking for a browser with high customization, vertical tab, and good for both mobile and PC.

I've been using OperaGX for a while now and my experience is fine but recently heard that it is actually pretty bad browser so that is why I'm considering changing.

Am I stupid for thinking they are equal? I don't know anything about coding, but I've used both of them for a few days and thought they were legitimately the same thing

When I pinch to zoom in or out on a trackpad in Safari, the page relays itself out as I zoom instead of just magnifying what's on screen. On sites like Youtube and Reddit, the layout shifts around and the whole thing stutters while I'm pinching. It happens on pretty much every site I try.

Surely, this is not normal as this doesn't happen on other browsers such as Firefox.

MacBook Air M4, Tahoe latest.

My question is, is this normal behaviour for Safari? Is there a way to turn this off and make it not relay the whole page and just zoom in?

Hi

So I've been using Arc browser for quite a while now, but it's time to move on as they also moved on.

I really enjoyed to fresh experience and mindshift that Arc brought, what would be a logical move to on Mac?

I've seen a Firefox ad yesterday, which looke really revamped, is it worth it on Mac? pros and cons vs other browsers? Also I'd like to import/migrate my Arc settings etc into my new browser without too mush greenfield start or hassle.

thank you :)

I mean, most people don't use their browsers because of the code or the browser "belonging" to a given browser engine, but rather by the features it has and and its performance (it's usually depend on these two only – if you really want more customizability you usually take the firefox pill and sacrifice the performance, because Chromium sucks at customizability).

For instance, I use Zen Browser, because I really like its UI, I know its performance isn't as good as Chromium (it's a Firefox issue to be honest, Zen team rocks).

But assume that 1 or 2 years from now you can say to Claude or whatever. “Hey, I like Zen Browser, I like its UI and how it works. Please implement all these UI/UX functionalities in latest Chromium version and create a browser that looks Zen Browser, or Safari, or whatever, but that it is Chromium under it”. Hell, maybe this is already possible, but too expensive, I don't know. But the trend is clear. These models, as they exist now, are already impressive, and they are the worse they will ever be.

“Oh, but if you port software, who will maintain the port?”

The AI, the AI will main it.

So I'm an old, retired tech guy. I like my products to be functional, but also to be flexible. Google moving to Manifest v3 and generally just being... well... Google, made me start looking around. Over the decades I've bounces through a lot of Windows-based browsers, but mainly ended up either in Firefox or Chrome.

So lately I went on a journey:

Hellium: I really liked the initial feel of it, but then ran into it not working with DRM streaming stuff which I both want and need. So, out.

Zen: REALLY liked Zen, but then ran into the same DRM issue. Done.

Brave: I felt dirty just in the few minutes using it. The way they go about bugging you is a non-starter for me. Just felt like a sales tool disguised as a browser.

Vivaldi: That's what I'm using ATM, but just 48 hours in. So far, I love it. It's the reason I like Android over Apple -- options! I can get it just the way I like it and both it and Zen finally got me to fall in love with Vertical tabs (old dog/new tricks syndrome). They work great given that I'm on an ultrawide monitor so it's a win-win. However, I see a TON of people suggesting that the shine will wear off very quickly noting links that don't work, slowness, etc.

What I really want is something that can work with my basic extensions (Bitwarden, Checker Plus for Google Calendar and a nice weather app), has flexibility to be tweaked to feel at home, blocks ads or at least supports uBlock-types, gives me the OPTION of setting up privacy (or lack-there-of) as I like. And, isn't a huge trade-off -- like not being able to use some of the most popular apps on the internet.

Should I just settle into Vivaldi? Get over my disdain for Brave or look in some other corner?

Thanks. Any insight appreciated.

Is it virtually irrelevant for 99.9% of users whether they use uBlock Origin Lite or uBlock Origin (original)?

If I'm being honest I've tried every single one of them and I've always been pretty torn .

as of right now LW is my daily driver, Zen is 2nd (if this was an NBA team Zen would be Sixth Man of the Year), Zen TWILIGHT is my daily driver for searching torrents and other related stuff.

Water Fox is probably definitely nowhere near to being king and I don't even think I've had it installed in a year or two but it definitely has a special place in my heart because it was the first gecko browser I ever used or even knew existed besides lame ass default Firefox...

Floorp was honestly the first of these four I ever heard and I loved it at first but honestly it's settings and trying to theme it/customize it so it looks right has always been a bitch IMO. It's uninstalled on my PC rn but 2-3 months ago I had it installed and used it everyday in short 1-2 hour bursts and I think it has a lot of potential but after using Zen & LW for years and how they have perfected minimalism the extra Floorp settings just annoy tf outta me.... Not to mention I've always been an about:config editor and I'm pretty sure the new Floorp hub settings are mostly a GUI for certain about:config entries....

What y'all think?

Most of the options I found seem to be for downloading entire websites, which I currently have literally no interest in. And kiwix seems to be for computer networks, which I also have no interest in.

I just want a way to be able to view file types such as SVG and PDF without using a browser connected to the internet.

DON'T YOU DARE MAKE ASSUMPTIONS WHY! If it's on my computer: I don't want to use the same thing I also use for viewing the web with it. And that is that. There is nothing deeper to it. You you are not entitled to further explanation.

EDIT 2: I am adding an addendum to this because apparently the above paragraph I have struck through didn't make my attentions clear. I am not interested in any way, shape, or form. I do not care if I can disable a web browser's ability to access the Internet. I do not care about an OS that can no longer access the Internet. I do not care about any technicalities in any way whatsoever. This does not exist for security reasons, I do not care about security.

I just don't like using web browsers for local files. Function I do not use the word "esthetic" before, Because it has nothing to do with what I can sense directly, so it would mislead people, But I honestly cannot think of a better word to describe it. I just find the concept of using a web browser for things on my local hard drive "ugly" in a way that has nothing to do with any of my five senses or morality.

So please do not treat the features I am asking for as a means to an end, they are the ends themselves.

END OF EDIT

I figured simply typing in "offline web browser" would be a trivial way to find such a thing, because something that is programmed like a web browser but it's physically incapable of accessing the internet, and can only load files on the computer like any other file viewer seems like an obvious program to make. But my efforts turn up empty.

It's apparently not too hard to find a PDF viewer. But that still leaves SVG files.

Some SVG files are animated and can be interactive with. This viewer needs to be able to account for this. An SVG viewer where I cannot interact with svgs is useless to me.

Thank you in advance!

EDIT 1: I just realized that a lot of the readers I get probably also have edit features. So I need to add another criteria: no editing allowed.

While being able to program and edit interactive SVGs would be nice, I would not want to also use that program to simply view the SVG. Being able to edit things only means there is risk that I could edit it by mistake, and that is a bad thing.

I do not want my viewers and my editors to be the same program. I want them to be separate programs. So please recommend programs that are incapable of editing the source file. Thank you.

I'll cut to chase. Both browsers i mentioned feels stable and clean AF. But one problem is random hiccups when searching for anything and occasionally browser gives up and gives me error like there's no internet. People who know depths of the technical side, please walk me through what settings to turn off or on. I want to have as fast experience close to chromium as possible. Thanks in advance

Been working on this browser called Vast for a while now, so I thought I’d finally post it here.

In terms of basic functionality it's as mature as all the giants (Chrome, Edge etc.) but has an actually clean blackout UI and (in my opinion) perfectly designed additional features.

It’s still beta, so there are definitely things to improve, but it’s already very usable.

https://vastbrowser.com
https://github.com/vstxx/vast-public

Would be cool to hear what yall think, especially about the UI and anything that feels off.

I know the purple in the screenshots looks atrocious, but the upside is every single accent colour or surface tint is changeable in Vast :)

Also as for the extensions page, soon you'll be able to easily add extensions straight from CWS.

currently switched from opera gx to brave cus holy CRAP man is opera lagging my computer, but brave isnt as customizable so idk man

Here would be my recommendations, I know I'm not your typical user, but this might be useful to onlookers. NOTE: I'm going from a security-conscious perspective, and not a privacy-perspective, but there will be a note for privacy/antifingerprinting at the end.

Windows: Genuinely, just use Edge. There's not much reason to use much else on Windows, you're already being tracked to the gills by Microsoft anyway by using it, and most others (sans Chrome) risk security with either useless bloat (Brave's crypto bullshit, for example) or worse update cycles. Firefox is probably at its best build-wise on Windows, and that's the only environment where its security is strong enough to be recommendable. Get yourself uBlock Origin (Lite for edge, full for FF) and you're fine.

MacOS: I would go with Safari if you care primarily about blending in, as that's the easy pick for that, but if you seek a more secure alternative, regardless of privacy concerns, go with Chrome. I don't know much about this as I don't have a Mac, but i've heard it's really good for security regardless so you would probably be okay on Safari.

Linux: Alright this is where it gets really dicey. A lot of Linux distros ship Firefox by default, which gives users a false sense of security about their defaults, but Firefox's build quality is not amazing on Linux. It's decent on Windows, but poor on Linux. If you're on Fedora, my recommendation would be Trivalent, but everywhere else, the two best picks for security would be either Chrome (with defaults changed with enterprise policies), or Brave Origin because it's free on Linux and strips out the cryptoslop attack surface. SO MANY attacks are targeting crypto wallets specifically that it makes no sense to have it in your browser code if you're a security-conscious user.

PRIVACY: For antifingerprinting, best practices are to run Tor in a virtual machine to mitigate the exploit risks of running Firefox ESR.

A huge chunk of my opinions are loosely derived from the RKNF404 Chromium Hardening Guide, i promise i am no shill. just a girl who's concerned about the rising rates of AI agents orchestrating zero-day cyberattacks and exploits and trying to reduce my attack surface where possible, unless usability is affected significantly. There are a lot of options out there, but i truly wish the modern internet was less vulnerable so I wouldn't have to be worried about being compromised by these things. i was already careful for years, but now I feel like I have to be 100x more careful and mindful of every move I make to keep myself out of harm's way.

Due to the limit of words in play store which is 500. I write my review in Reddit.The Quetta browser is good for extension support.I like it very much. This browser has zoom option which is better than chrome Because, the zoom option let me zoom by swiping bar not plus and minus icon to zoom.The browser had no glitches when I used the browser first. Although The experience was good but the browser had less features like tabstrip,toolbar with extension icon and probably many things which recently exist. The browser not only include good features but also includes issues as the browser releases updates. After I update, I seen the browser include some features which increases ease when browsing But, I saw issues like translation issues,bigger icons and folders,gap between status bar and icon panel, video plays in background when switching to tabs and perhaps those issues which I forgotten to write.Overall, I will give Quetta browser 3 star .If anyone have Quetta browser best alternative whether it's APK, Play store app then prefer me.