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Browsers are doing way too much nowadays
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<h1>Browsers are doing way too much nowadays</h1>
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<div id="article-date">2024-05-07</div>
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<p class="tags">
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<a href="/index/web.html" class="tag">web</a>
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<a href="/index/browser.html" class="tag">browser</a>
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<a href="/index/application.html" class="tag">application</a>
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<a href="/index/opinion.html" class="tag">opinion</a>
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<a href="/index/user experience.html" class="tag">user experience</a>
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</p>
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<figure>
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<img src="/static/photos/browsers-bad.png" alt="The Pocket integration in Mozilla Firefox" id="article-image-header">
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<figcaption>Pictured: The Pocket integration in Mozilla Firefox</figcaption>
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</figure>
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<article class="content-area">
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<p>Ooh, shiny! Chrome is now forcing me to view my bookmarks in a ✨side panel✨! It's not like
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we have windowing environments for that, right? Doesn't matter, it's modern, new so it's cool
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and automatically better even though it sucks!
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</p><p>Sorry for the TikTok comment-like intro (no, I don't have social media), but I feel this is
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what many people think about obviously poorly designed features in browsers. I'm not saying
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that browsers should do very little. Many features that are directly web-related are useful
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and enhance the user experience, like bookmarking, history, extensions, search engine management,
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and so on.
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</p><p>However, there's been a new wave of features that I believe don't belong in a browser. Opera
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is probably the biggest offender.
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</p><ul><li><p>Opera is going big on AI, and they made a chatbot called Aria. You press Control+/ and it brings
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up the stupid robot. Yes, it can browse the web, but there are already chatbots that can execute
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web searches. Yes, it can view what you have open, but you can already download the page and
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send it to a chatbot, or use one that can scrape and give it the document's URL. Or, someone
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could make a browser extension that does that. Having a chatbot in a browser is just a gimmick
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that also leads to privacy concerns and provider lock-in. And the fact that it's in a side panel?
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Just open a window!
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</p></li><li><p>Firefox bought an app called Pocket, which allows users to save a list of articles they want to
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read later on a server. Firefox's implementation of it is very messy. It behaves like a browser
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extension, but it's not. It's a service that's integrated into the browser and impossible to
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replace. Also, it's not free software. Chromium has a similar feature, the reading list, but
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it's local, an extension of bookmarks that shows if you read the page or you still have to
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read it. It can be synced, but that's optional and unrelated to the feature itself.
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</p></li><li><p>Opera also now has a built-in VPN. It's a trap for provider lock-in, because you can't swap
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it out for another VPN. A real VPN is a separate application that manages your network connection
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directly. Also, I'd say to not trust Opera with your data; it doesn't matter they're Norwegian
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and say they don't log, they can still do it. If you want a VPN, I'd recommend
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<a href="https://protonvpn.com/">Proton VPN</a>, it has a good track record and works decently fast, for
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free, and their clients are free software. This is not a sponsored message, and I think that
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for privacy, Tor is more effective than a VPN, but it's slower and not good to manage
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geographical restrictions.
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</p></li><li><p>Opera, Brave, Vivaldi, and possibly others have a built-in ad blocker. This is not as bad,
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but it'd be better if it was a preinstalled extension, since it's very extension-like, or it
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could also be a separate application, because it's network-level in many cases. Dedicated
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ad blockers can provide more customisation, block cookie banners and other annoyances, and
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have element hiding, font blocking and other privacy and convenience features. Privacy Badger
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is also an excellent extension as it dynamically adjusts to block trackers, even though it's
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not an ad blocker. However, it blocks many ads too, and you can still use an ad blocker with it.
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(However, don't forget about Brave's new way of doing ads, see below.)
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</p></li><li><p>Brave has built-in video calls, which is probably very shady, even though the Brave browser
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is free software. For really private video calls, I'd recommend <a href="https://matrix.org/">some Matrix client</a>,
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<a href="https://jitsi.org/">Jitsi</a>, <a href="https://jami.net/">Jami</a>, or other programs that support distributed,
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free protocols.
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</p></li><li><p>DuckDuckGo made their own browser that works only with their own search engine. I think it's
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self-explanatory why this is bad. And yes, I still use Google, because my life requires me to
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use Google services, so why not also use their search? If I find another search engine that
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has decent results and respects privacy, I'll switch to it. If not, I'll just use Google until
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they destroy it. Also, don't get fooled, there are very few free software search engines, and
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the ones that are free have very small indexes and are slow. Out of these free ones,
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<a href="https://stract.com/">Stract</a> looks promising, but the ranking is strange: searching for
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Wikipedia gives me a page about "Wikipedia Anomalies", and the actual Wikipedia is not listed
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on the first page. Still, you should check it out.
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</p></li><li><p>Opera now has sidebar apps: various messengers (no, not the ones worthy of your time), music,
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social media, and so on, that run as web apps in a side panel. You know that any browser can
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do this, and more flexibly? Almost all window managers can tile windows, and you can tile
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a browser window to the side of the screen.
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</p></li><li><p>Opera and Brave have a crypto wallet. I'd rather not trust a browser company with my crypto.
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There are dedicated wallets that are more secure and have more features. And it doesn't even do
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anything related to WWW, it's a payment method!
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</p></li><li><p>Brave does block ads, but they place ads inside the browser itself, which is even worse! It would
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be like the television receiver overlaying ads that pay the cable company. They say you can earn
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"Brave Attention Tokens" by viewing ads, and you can exchange them for gift cards, cryptocurrencies,
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real currencies, or contribute to websites. I don't think they'd give you crypto for free if there
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wasn't a catch. So better stay away from them.
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</p></li><li><p>Opera made a gaming browser that can limit resources. But this feature is unrelated to the WWW.
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All OSes can limit resources for a specific process.
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</p></li><li><p>Chromium now forces you to view bookmarks in a side panel, as mentioned in the intro. It's
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not that bad, but a poor design choice, since everyone and their mother has a window manager
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that can tile windows. If it were my choice, I'd open chrome://bookmarks in a new window, but
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that page is not responsive, so it won't work well.
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</p></li><li><p>Chrome also has a password manager. I'd rather use a free software password manager that provides
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a browser extension, like <a href="https://bitwarden.com/">Bitwarden</a> which is free software; although
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I don't use any password manager, maybe I need to change that, however trusting ANY entity
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with your plaintext passwords is a major risk. Maybe the best password manager is pen and paper.
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Then no one can hack it. But you can lose it, so it's a trade-off.
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</p></li></ul><p><strong class="emphasis-2">I don't, however, oppose all extras</strong>. For example, PDF viewing is good, because it's another type
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of web documents that may be served as opposed to HTML. I also don't oppose "internet suites"
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that have a browser, email, IRC, usenet, FTP and more because they acknowledge the focus is not
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just the web. I also don't oppose extensions, because there are legitimate ways to enhance the
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browsing experience.
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</p><p>The best browser, in my opinion, is a <strong class="emphasis-2">"no-name" browser</strong> from an <strong class="emphasis-2">independent developer</strong> with a
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good track record and no funding from a big tech company. It should be free software, and it should
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not have many gimmicky features other than the ones that are from upstream.
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</p><ul><li><p><a href="https://github.com/ungoogled-software/ungoogled-chromium">Ungoogled Chromium</a> (this is what I use on GNU/Linux desktop)
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</p></li><li><p><a href="https://librewolf-community.gitlab.io/">Librewolf</a>
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</p></li><li><p><a href="https://www.torproject.org/">Tor Browser</a>
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</p></li><li><p><a href="https://www.palemoon.org/">Pale Moon</a>
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</p></li><li><p><a href="https://www.gnu.org/software/gnuzilla/">IceCat</a>
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</p></li><li><p><a href="https://github.com/uazo/cromite">Cromite</a> (this is what I use on my Android phone)
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</p></li><li><p><a href="https://iridiumbrowser.de/">Iridium</a>
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</p></li></ul>
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