a.x61.sh

Should I use Zen or Floorp Browser ?
from gpstarman@lemmy.today to privacy@lemmy.ml on 11 Sep 21:30
https://lemmy.today/post/37553496

I am currently using Librewolf.

But Zen & floorp browser looks beautiful.

What do you suggest?

I personally like the looks of Zen.

I would also appreciate any tips to make Zen more secure than it already is.

Edit: consider this too

Negative post about zen: https://www.reddit.com/r/LibreWolf/comments/1ezumu7/comment/ljnjx2b/

Positive post about zen: https://www.reddit.com/r/browsers/comments/1fz7j9s/comment/lqzklza/

#privacy

threaded - newest

Pudutr0n@feddit.cl on 11 Sep 21:39 next collapse

I tried zen and then someone told me something concerning I forgot about by now so I switched back. Floorp I’ve never even heard of, but I’d have a hard time taking anything called that seriously.

Tundra@sh.itjust.works on 11 Sep 22:03 next collapse

this maybe?

sizeof.cat/…/web-browser-telemetry-2025-edition/

eager_eagle@lemmy.world on 11 Sep 22:33 collapse

That only seems relevant if one uses the defaults, and if you care about privacy you probably don’t, so idk what’s the goal of this little experiment other than just curiosity.

It’d be a whole lot more useful if it was “here’s the connections these browsers made after enabling all privacy-preserving settings they offer”.

DrDystopia@lemy.lol on 11 Sep 23:01 next collapse

A lot of users care about privacy but find it unattainable due to technical difficulties.

eager_eagle@lemmy.world on 11 Sep 23:10 collapse

That’s my point, checking a few boxes in the settings is the bare minimum if you care about it, so idk what’s the value in comparing defaults.

And privacy is often a tradeoff, if a browser doesn’t have the strictest by default, it’s probably because the ones who forked it didn’t consider it a good tradeoff.

Ulrich@feddit.org on 13 Sep 23:20 collapse

Privacy needs to be the default in order to be recommended, in my opinion.

melroy@kbin.melroy.org on 12 Sep 01:11 collapse

Floorp is just cool

FrodoSpark@piefed.social on 11 Sep 21:42 next collapse

I use Floorp, haven't tried Zen though. I remember some drama of Floorp temporarily closing it's source but I believe it's open source now. I like it for the side bar it comes with, it's pretty useful for multitasking but I guess you could just open two windows and place them side by side

melroy@kbin.melroy.org on 12 Sep 00:59 collapse

It's indeed open source. No issues today.

optissima@lemmy.ml on 11 Sep 21:52 next collapse

Zen left dev mode on in prod so everyone using it was exposed and the dev played it down iirc

brrt@sh.itjust.works on 11 Sep 22:28 collapse

A dev made a mistake when the product was still in alpha and fixed it immediately after becoming aware of it. Let’s never use the product ever again!

optissima@lemmy.ml on 12 Sep 01:25 collapse

I guess I didnt remember it correctly, and I do still use it after they fixed it. What’s with the tone?

rumba@lemmy.zip on 12 Sep 04:08 collapse

Not OP, Remember, it’s hard to read true tone through text. It read to me is sarcasm, but not particularly spicy, and also not entirely inaccurate.

I do wish we could all have less tone issues. This place is getting a bit toxic, but fuck, it’s still better than Reddit.

;)

mugita_sokiovt@discuss.online on 11 Sep 21:54 next collapse

I use Zen for YouTube, and so does my producer. We don’t use Floorp as of right now.

manualoverride@lemmy.world on 12 Sep 00:21 next collapse

I genuinely thought this was satire, never heard of either and have only just started with LibreWolf… now I have more options to research!

eldavi@lemmy.ml on 12 Sep 19:46 collapse

same here; this comm is always good at making me aware of what i don’t know (which is a lot. lol)

melroy@kbin.melroy.org on 12 Sep 00:59 next collapse

Floorp

Kiuyn@lemmy.ml on 12 Sep 01:35 next collapse

I’ve switched from Librewolf to Zen for a few months now, and it’s been great so far. There is all the fun features like the essentials tab, and the tab groups. Also Zen Mods is super cool. It is like a repo of css mods for zen.

There was some controversy about the debug thing, but as others pointed out, it happened during the alpha phase, when the development team is still new to the project.

For hardening, you can use Arkenfox, Betterfox, or Phoenix. All of these work on Zen (I’ve tried them all). Librewolf is based on Arkenfox, so if you use it, you’ll get most of Librewolf’s privacy features. I recommend Arkenfox. Personally, I believe Betterfox is a balance take between privacy and usability, while Phoenix is the most extreme option. Arkenfox offers stronger privacy features than Betterfox but is not as extreme as Phoenix.

Edits: also don’t forget uBlock :)

codenul@lemmy.ml on 12 Sep 02:20 next collapse

Both are using Firefox base

I like to test browsers through www.browseraudit.com although im not sure how reliable the results are. I tend to stick with Browsers that score high 390’s / 400.

In case you are wondering, Floorp scored a 400, while Zen scored a 397. Not bad at all

Weird that both taskbar icons for both browsers are the same? (Yellow circle with white “W” on it). Both were downloaded for linux, zipped.

Red_October@hexbear.net on 12 Sep 02:42 next collapse

Thanks for the resource. I use Brave and it got a 397 as well. I’ll have to check out Zen and Floorp as well.

gnuplusmatt@reddthat.com on 12 Sep 03:29 collapse

(Yellow circle with white “W” on it)

thats the wayland icon, for whatever running it didnt map the icon

Zerush@lemmy.ml on 12 Sep 03:00 next collapse

I use Vivaldi and Zen as second. I need the sync function and I don’t want an Mozilla account, nor an third party solution. Vivaldo offers full sync ee2e no knowledge in the own server in Iceland.

djsaskdja@reddthat.com on 12 Sep 07:14 collapse

Vivaldi isn’t open source. Not sure I’d trust that from a privacy perspective.

Zerush@lemmy.ml on 12 Sep 09:13 collapse

You can, part of the script corresponding to its UI is proprietary, but UI code is written in plain, accessible code for those who read HTML, CSS and JS and even moddeable by the user, but can’t be forked legally by Chrome or EDGE (🖕) nor by other browsers. It`s something like open proprietary freeware. There are no logs, tracking or any other crap. nor third party investors. Sync ee2e no-knowledge. The rest is OpenSource with several different licenses, specificated in the source package. As all other browser, collecting anonym statistical data (country for lenguage settings, OS, needed tecnical data)

vivaldi.com/source/

OccasionallyFeralya@lemmy.ml on 13 Sep 00:36 collapse

I believe the term you’re looking for might be “source-available”

Zerush@lemmy.ml on 13 Sep 01:31 collapse

Yes, something like this, despite not fully OpenSource, it’s pretty trustworth because of this, there is nothing shady or hidden in Vivaldi.

djsaskdja@reddthat.com on 15 Sep 16:12 collapse

If you can’t compile it yourself, it doesn’t count.

Zerush@lemmy.ml on 15 Sep 18:30 collapse

You are free to compile it for yourself if you are masochist enough to compile a browser from source, only you can’t do it legally distributing it under an other brand than Vivaldi. That is the only limit.

djsaskdja@reddthat.com on 16 Sep 01:15 collapse

I promise it won’t work with the files they provide.

4am@lemmy.zip on 12 Sep 04:04 next collapse

Zen video playback was awful for me, but I like almost everything else about it.

NarrativeBear@lemmy.world on 12 Sep 04:30 next collapse

Here I am thinking what’s a floorp and mixing it up with the plumbus.

jjlinux@lemmy.zip on 13 Sep 21:09 collapse

When I read “floorp” my mind immediately went to a mopping robot vacuum 🤣

OhVenus_Baby@lemmy.ml on 12 Sep 04:31 next collapse

You trying to coax me from librewolfs maturity for new browsers?

buriii@lemmy.world on 12 Sep 05:15 next collapse

floorp

notarobot@lemmy.zip on 12 Sep 05:44 next collapse

To consider: sticking with the main browsers helps you resist fingerprinting

WellTheresYourCobbler@hexbear.net on 12 Sep 06:49 next collapse

Wow zen has really matured since I first tested it out. I have a really nice adwaita setup on base firefox but it’s tempting me to switch over.

theherk@lemmy.world on 12 Sep 07:53 next collapse

I have used Zen a lot since the early days and it has been very good. Suits my needs perfectly. However, recently I started testing out Orion and it has also been very nice. It has very good privacy and is WebKit if you’re into that. I’m just happy with anything not Blink.

ScoffingLizard@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 13 Sep 16:21 collapse

Isn’t Blink the Google component?

theherk@lemmy.world on 13 Sep 16:28 next collapse

Correct. I prefer to avoid the browsers that use their browser engine.

Zerush@lemmy.ml on 13 Sep 18:02 collapse

No, Blink is the render engine of Chromium, same as Gecko in Firefox. Blink is one of the forks of KHTML, made by KDE, same as WebKit. It is used by Google use it in the Chrome browser and also EDGE, Opera, Brave, Vivaldi and other, forks of Blink are Qt browsers, eg. Otter browser or Falcon. Goanna is an fork from Gecko, used by eg. Pale Moon, Basilisk and K-Melon. But these forks only making sense for older devices and OS with few sys specs, due to limited functionality and compatibilities with certain web contents. Qt engines because of this more used in auxiliar app, eg. mail clients.

There are only this three engines + the 2 forks, which can be used by the current browsers, apart of some basic engines used by text only browsers, like eg Lynx or Links

Jaaaardvark@lemmy.zip on 12 Sep 08:17 next collapse

Any opinions on Firedragon (Floorp’s fork, default in Garuda linux)

mymyredpanda@lemmygrad.ml on 13 Sep 00:38 collapse

It’s looks alright only problem might be it’s a very small project so updates might be off idk they mostly took librewolf privacy /security and floorp customization and smashed it into one web browser

Core_of_Arden@lemmy.ml on 12 Sep 08:37 next collapse

I think that it’s your browser, your choice.

I use Firefox, and don’t worry about a thing. :-) Not even what you like for a browser.

arsCynic@lemmy.ml on 12 Sep 09:15 next collapse

I come from Vivaldi, and Zen was the only customizable powerhouse that equaled the former. Next to Zen I also use LibreWolf, and Waterfox on Android.

✍︎ arscyni.cc: modernity ∝ nature.

irmadlad@lemmy.world on 13 Sep 01:04 next collapse

I generally tend to stay with browsers I know. It’s tedious enough hardening Firefox and getting everything down to a note. I do have Librefox onboard but I rarely use it.

ScoffingLizard@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 14 Sep 18:28 collapse

What do you to harden Firefox?

irmadlad@lemmy.world on 14 Sep 18:53 collapse

I’ve used a few tutorials online, and was looking through my bookmarks. This one is pretty good:

brainfucksec.github.io/firefox-hardening-guide

I also run Enhanced Tracking Protection in the ‘Privacy and Security’ settings in firefox at Custom with all options ticked except:

Allow Firefox to automatically apply exceptions required to avoid major website breakage.
Also apply exceptions automatically that are only required to fix minor issues and make convenience features available.

Whatever breaks, breaks.

Additionally, ‘DNS over HTTPS’ set at Max Protection.

Again, whatever breaks breaks and I move on to another site.

ScoffingLizard@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 14 Sep 19:35 collapse

Half my stuff breaks with the protection I use. The privacy/security struggle is real.

irmadlad@lemmy.world on 14 Sep 20:12 collapse

The privacy/security struggle is real.

Solidarity my brother. If I can’t bend a website to my will, screw it. The info is more than likely duplicated across the internet anyways.

spinning_disk_engineer@lemmy.ca on 13 Sep 17:03 next collapse

Consider if a theme could accomplish what you want: It seems like they all use firefox under the hood, and if all you want is appearance, you shouldn’t need to change your entire browser. Keeping in mind that a smaller fingerprinting pool is less anonymous, if you care about that.

I haven’t actually used any other than librewolf though, so if switching provides any features you care about, go for it.

Highlandcow@feddit.uk on 13 Sep 17:40 next collapse

Dude gleebal browser is so much better man wtf ):<

infjarchninja@lemmy.ml on 13 Sep 19:41 collapse

I tried zen but it was annoying me.

It changed my settings every time it updated, so I abandoned that.

went back to trusty old Librewolf.

Librewolf has vertical tabs and looks identical to me.

about:preferences

BROWSER LAYOUT

Horizontal tabs
Display at top of browser

Vertical tabs
Display on the side, in the sidebar

Show sidebar
Quickly access bookmarks, tabs from your phone, AI chatbots, and more without leaving your main view.

Isnt that the same as floorp and zen browser.