For years now I’ve been telling myself I’m going to stop using Google Chrome. Besides the obvious reason — Google tracking everything I do — Chrome just has a way of pissing me off over and over again. Continual BS updates, unnecessary fucking around with the UI, removing features without my consent, etc etc. Nevertheless, I keep ending up back in Chrome like some bad addiction. (Really I blame my users… since so many damn people use Chrome I have to use it to see what they see, and along the way I open a couple billion tabs, and I just get… stuck there. But I digress.)
I’ve made a valiant effort over the years to try to use Firefox. I’ve followed their journey since the Netscape Navigator days, which was great for it’s time! (Now I’m giving away my age, oops!) But unfortunately, Firefox has been pissing me off too. Every so often they decide to radically change the UI for no good reason, giving me no option to go back. Also, they’ve become quite militant with their updates — with stupid update nags that you basically can never get rid of, and no real mechanism for disabling update checks.
I do use a particular version of Firefox Developer Edition for a couple of specific tasks, because the Developer Edition is the only one that allows me to truly disable updates (via a poorly documented but nevertheless functional “Enterprise” policy.) But as a “daily driver”, it just doesn’t do it for me anymore.
I’ve tried Opera but it’s just… meh.
Vivaldi was a browser I really loved for a time, as it combined the best of Google Chrome (being built on the same engine) while giving me much more control over the UI and — most importantly — the ability to truly disable updates! But now that Chromium has eliminated “Manifest v2 support”, one of the mission-critical browser extensions I need no longer works in Vivaldi. Unfortunately that means Vivaldi is now dead to me.
Microsoft Edge we shall not speak of because 1) I don’t care how much makeup they put on it, it’s still Internet Explorer, 2) Microsoft, and 3) did you not just hear me say Internet Explorer? I still have PTSD from developing for that shit!
Safari is out because I’m not a Mac-head and they dropped the Windows version long ago.
So… what’s left?
There are a ton of what I call “indie browsers” out there, of which I have begun exploring more recently. I’m looking at trying quite a few. In general, I’m looking to satisfy the following requirements:
1) Not based on Chromium (and no connection to Google whatsoever).
2) Support for my two mission-critical browser extensions: Dark Reader and uBlock Origin (UBO).
3) Ability to truly and permanently disable updates.*
4) Clean, simple UI (no clutter or bullshit).
* As much as I bitch about updates you might be wondering, “what the fuck is this guy’s deal with updates?” Without going into all the details let me just say: it’s not that I never update, I just need total control over when/if I choose to do so, without being nagged. I’m extremely busy with many, often complex, projects in various stages of development, and random willy-nilly updates have such a history of fucking up my workflow. (And yes, I’m stubborn too — the more “they” force, the more I resist.)
Current candidates I’m trying out for a new “daily driver” browser:
1st place: Midori Browser
Pros:
– Based on WebKit (not Chromium).
– Supports extensions from the Mozilla Firefox library (which covers my mission-critical extensions).
– With a little configuration I was able to make the UI nice and clean. It reminds me a lot of Vivaldi, which I liked.
Cons (maybe?):
– No explicit setting for permanently disabling updates, only a soft “check but notify my before installing updates” option. I have fucked around with the about:config settings in some ways, which I *hope* will prevent their update system from functioning automatically, but only time will tell.
2nd place: Pale Moon
Pros:
– Based on Goanna. (I don’t remember why but at the time I was trying to find a non-Chromium, AND non-Gecko browser. I don’t remember why.)
– Has it’s own extensions library which includes UBO, but not Dark Reader. However there is an alternative called Swarth which seems to be good enough for now.
– It has a “Never check for updates” setting (thank God!)
– Clean, simple UI (looks a little dated tbh, but I don’t give a shit.)
Cons:
– Performance feels a bit sluggish, but I’m not sure yet how big a deal that is or not. (It could also just be I just have too much other shit open on my computer right now.)
Stay tuned as I will come back and update this post as my quest for the perfect browser continues….
Do you have any suggestions? Please let me know in the comments!