Unicode text, UTF-8 text
title: Browsers are doing way too much nowadays topics: ["web", "browser", "application", "opinion", "rant", "user experience"] image: /static/photos/browsers-bad.png image-alt: The Pocket integration in Mozilla Firefox ---
Ooh, shiny! Chrome is now forcing me to view my bookmarks in a ✨side panel✨! It's not like we have windowing environments for that, right? Doesn't matter, it's modern, new so it's cool and automatically better even though it sucks!
Sorry for the TikTok comment-like intro (no, I don't have social media), but I feel this is what many people think about obviously poorly designed features in browsers. I'm not saying that browsers should do very little. Many features that are directly web-related are useful and enhance the user experience, like bookmarking, history, extensions, search engine management, and so on.
However, there's been a new wave of features that I believe don't belong in a browser. Opera is probably the biggest offender.
Opera is going big on AI, and they made a chatbot called Aria. You press Control+/ and it brings up the stupid robot. Yes, it can browse the web, but there are already chatbots that can execute web searches. Yes, it can view what you have open, but you can already download the page and send it to a chatbot, or use one that can scrape and give it the document's URL. Or, someone could make a browser extension that does that. Having a chatbot in a browser is just a gimmick that also leads to privacy concerns and provider lock-in. And the fact that it's in a side panel? Just open a window!
Firefox bought an app called Pocket, which allows users to save a list of articles they want to read later on a server. Firefox's implementation of it is very messy. It behaves like a browser extension, but it's not. It's a service that's integrated into the browser and impossible to replace. Also, it's not free software. Chromium has a similar feature, the reading list, but it's local, an extension of bookmarks that shows if you read the page or you still have to read it. It can be synced, but that's optional and unrelated to the feature itself.
Opera also now has a built-in VPN. It's a trap for provider lock-in, because you can't swap it out for another VPN. A real VPN is a separate application that manages your network connection directly. Also, I'd say to not trust Opera with your data; it doesn't matter they're Norwegian and say they don't log, they can still do it. If you want a VPN, I'd recommend Proton VPN, it has a good track record and works decently fast, for free, and their clients are free software. This is not a sponsored message, and I think that for privacy, Tor is more effective than a VPN, but it's slower and not good to manage geographical restrictions.
Opera, Brave, Vivaldi, and possibly others have a built-in ad blocker. This is not as bad, but it'd be better if it was a preinstalled extension, since it's very extension-like, or it could also be a separate application, because it's network-level in many cases. Dedicated ad blockers can provide more customisation, block cookie banners and other annoyances, and have element hiding, font blocking and other privacy and convenience features. Privacy Badger is also an excellent extension as it dynamically adjusts to block trackers, even though it's not an ad blocker. However, it blocks many ads too, and you can still use an ad blocker with it. (However, don't forget about Brave's new way of doing ads, see below.)
Brave has built-in video calls, which is probably very shady, even though the Brave browser is free software. For really private video calls, I'd recommend some Matrix client, Jitsi, Jami, or other programs that support distributed, free protocols.
DuckDuckGo made their own browser that works only with their own search engine. I think it's self-explanatory why this is bad. And yes, I still use Google, because my life requires me to use Google services, so why not also use their search? If I find another search engine that has decent results and respects privacy, I'll switch to it. If not, I'll just use Google until they destroy it. Also, don't get fooled, there are very few free software search engines, and the ones that are free have very small indexes and are slow. Out of these free ones, Stract looks promising, but the ranking is strange: searching for Wikipedia gives me a page about "Wikipedia Anomalies", and the actual Wikipedia is not listed on the first page. Still, you should check it out.
Opera now has sidebar apps: various messengers (no, not the ones worthy of your time), music, social media, and so on, that run as web apps in a side panel. You know that any browser can do this, and more flexibly? Almost all window managers can tile windows, and you can tile a browser window to the side of the screen.
Opera and Brave have a crypto wallet. I'd rather not trust a browser company with my crypto. There are dedicated wallets that are more secure and have more features. And it doesn't even do anything related to WWW, it's a payment method!
Brave does block ads, but they place ads inside the browser itself, which is even worse! It would be like the television receiver overlaying ads that pay the cable company. They say you can earn "Brave Attention Tokens" by viewing ads, and you can exchange them for gift cards, cryptocurrencies, real currencies, or contribute to websites. I don't think they'd give you crypto for free if there wasn't a catch. So better stay away from them.
Opera made a gaming browser that can limit resources. But this feature is unrelated to the WWW. All OSes can limit resources for a specific process.
Chromium now forces you to view bookmarks in a side panel, as mentioned in the intro. It's not that bad, but a poor design choice, since everyone and their mother has a window manager that can tile windows. If it were my choice, I'd open chrome://bookmarks in a new window, but that page is not responsive, so it won't work well.
Chrome also has a password manager. I'd rather use a free software password manager that provides a browser extension, like Bitwarden which is free software; although I don't use any password manager, maybe I need to change that, however trusting ANY entity with your plaintext passwords is a major risk. Maybe the best password manager is pen and paper. Then no one can hack it. But you can lose it, so it's a trade-off.
I don't, however, oppose all extras. For example, PDF viewing is good, because it's another type of web documents that may be served as opposed to HTML. I also don't oppose "internet suites" that have a browser, email, IRC, usenet, FTP and more because they acknowledge the focus is not just the web. I also don't oppose extensions, because there are legitimate ways to enhance the browsing experience.
The best browser, in my opinion, is a "no-name" browser from an independent developer with a good track record and no funding from a big tech company. It should be free software, and it should not have many gimmicky features other than the ones that are from upstream.
Ungoogled Chromium (this is what I use on GNU/Linux desktop)
Cromite (this is what I use on my Android phone)
1
---
2
title: Browsers are doing way too much nowadays
3
topics: ["web", "browser", "application", "opinion", "rant", "user experience"]
4
image: /static/photos/browsers-bad.png
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image-alt: The Pocket integration in Mozilla Firefox
6
---
7
Ooh, shiny! Chrome is now forcing me to view my bookmarks in a ✨side panel✨! It's not like
9
we have windowing environments for that, right? Doesn't matter, it's modern, new so it's cool
10
and automatically better even though it sucks!
11
Sorry for the TikTok comment-like intro (no, I don't have social media), but I feel this is
13
what many people think about obviously poorly designed features in browsers. I'm not saying
14
that browsers should do very little. Many features that are directly web-related are useful
15
and enhance the user experience, like bookmarking, history, extensions, search engine management,
16
and so on.
17
However, there's been a new wave of features that I believe don't belong in a browser. Opera
19
is probably the biggest offender.
20
* Opera is going big on AI, and they made a chatbot called Aria. You press Control+/ and it brings
22
up the stupid robot. Yes, it can browse the web, but there are already chatbots that can execute
23
web searches. Yes, it can view what you have open, but you can already download the page and
24
send it to a chatbot, or use one that can scrape and give it the document's URL. Or, someone
25
could make a browser extension that does that. Having a chatbot in a browser is just a gimmick
26
that also leads to privacy concerns and provider lock-in. And the fact that it's in a side panel?
27
Just open a window!
28
* Firefox bought an app called Pocket, which allows users to save a list of articles they want to
29
read later on a server. Firefox's implementation of it is very messy. It behaves like a browser
30
extension, but it's not. It's a service that's integrated into the browser and impossible to
31
replace. Also, it's not free software. Chromium has a similar feature, the reading list, but
32
it's local, an extension of bookmarks that shows if you read the page or you still have to
33
read it. It can be synced, but that's optional and unrelated to the feature itself.
34
* Opera also now has a built-in VPN. It's a trap for provider lock-in, because you can't swap
35
it out for another VPN. A real VPN is a separate application that manages your network connection
36
directly. Also, I'd say to not trust Opera with your data; it doesn't matter they're Norwegian
37
and say they don't log, they can still do it. If you want a VPN, I'd recommend
38
[Proton VPN](https://protonvpn.com/), it has a good track record and works decently fast, for
39
free, and their clients are free software. This is not a sponsored message, and I think that
40
for privacy, Tor is more effective than a VPN, but it's slower and not good to manage
41
geographical restrictions.
42
* Opera, Brave, Vivaldi, and possibly others have a built-in ad blocker. This is not as bad,
43
but it'd be better if it was a preinstalled extension, since it's very extension-like, or it
44
could also be a separate application, because it's network-level in many cases. Dedicated
45
ad blockers can provide more customisation, block cookie banners and other annoyances, and
46
have element hiding, font blocking and other privacy and convenience features. Privacy Badger
47
is also an excellent extension as it dynamically adjusts to block trackers, even though it's
48
not an ad blocker. However, it blocks many ads too, and you can still use an ad blocker with it.
49
(However, don't forget about Brave's new way of doing ads, see below.)
50
* Brave has built-in video calls, which is probably very shady, even though the Brave browser
51
is free software. For really private video calls, I'd recommend [some Matrix client](https://matrix.org/),
52
[Jitsi](https://jitsi.org/), [Jami](https://jami.net/), or other programs that support distributed,
53
free protocols.
54
* DuckDuckGo made their own browser that works only with their own search engine. I think it's
55
self-explanatory why this is bad. And yes, I still use Google, because my life requires me to
56
use Google services, so why not also use their search? If I find another search engine that
57
has decent results and respects privacy, I'll switch to it. If not, I'll just use Google until
58
they destroy it. Also, don't get fooled, there are very few free software search engines, and
59
the ones that are free have very small indexes and are slow. Out of these free ones,
60
[Stract](https://stract.com/) looks promising, but the ranking is strange: searching for
61
Wikipedia gives me a page about "Wikipedia Anomalies", and the actual Wikipedia is not listed
62
on the first page. Still, you should check it out.
63
* Opera now has sidebar apps: various messengers (no, not the ones worthy of your time), music,
64
social media, and so on, that run as web apps in a side panel. You know that any browser can
65
do this, and more flexibly? Almost all window managers can tile windows, and you can tile
66
a browser window to the side of the screen.
67
* Opera and Brave have a crypto wallet. I'd rather not trust a browser company with my crypto.
68
There are dedicated wallets that are more secure and have more features. And it doesn't even do
69
anything related to WWW, it's a payment method!
70
* Brave does block ads, but they place ads inside the browser itself, which is even worse! It would
71
be like the television receiver overlaying ads that pay the cable company. They say you can earn
72
"Brave Attention Tokens" by viewing ads, and you can exchange them for gift cards, cryptocurrencies,
73
real currencies, or contribute to websites. I don't think they'd give you crypto for free if there
74
wasn't a catch. So better stay away from them.
75
* Opera made a gaming browser that can limit resources. But this feature is unrelated to the WWW.
76
All OSes can limit resources for a specific process.
77
* Chromium now forces you to view bookmarks in a side panel, as mentioned in the intro. It's
78
not that bad, but a poor design choice, since everyone and their mother has a window manager
79
that can tile windows. If it were my choice, I'd open chrome://bookmarks in a new window, but
80
that page is not responsive, so it won't work well.
81
* Chrome also has a password manager. I'd rather use a free software password manager that provides
82
a browser extension, like [Bitwarden](https://bitwarden.com/) which is free software; although
83
I don't use any password manager, maybe I need to change that, however trusting ANY entity
84
with your plaintext passwords is a major risk. Maybe the best password manager is pen and paper.
85
Then no one can hack it. But you can lose it, so it's a trade-off.
86
**I don't, however, oppose all extras**. For example, PDF viewing is good, because it's another type
88
of web documents that may be served as opposed to HTML. I also don't oppose "internet suites"
89
that have a browser, email, IRC, usenet, FTP and more because they acknowledge the focus is not
90
just the web. I also don't oppose extensions, because there are legitimate ways to enhance the
91
browsing experience.
92
The best browser, in my opinion, is a **"no-name" browser** from an **independent developer** with a
94
good track record and no funding from a big tech company. It should be free software, and it should
95
not have many gimmicky features other than the ones that are from upstream.
96
* [Ungoogled Chromium](https://github.com/ungoogled-software/ungoogled-chromium) (this is what I use on GNU/Linux desktop)
98
* [Librewolf](https://librewolf-community.gitlab.io/)
99
* [Tor Browser](https://www.torproject.org/)
100
* [Pale Moon](https://www.palemoon.org/)
101
* [IceCat](https://www.gnu.org/software/gnuzilla/)
102
* [Cromite](https://github.com/uazo/cromite) (this is what I use on my Android phone)
103
* [Iridium](https://iridiumbrowser.de/)
104