@Tutanota

#Waterfox and #floorp
As good firefox forks

@MsDropbear42 Oh ffs, this latest experiment with #ZenBrowser has ended after only a few hours, due to yet another catastrophic failure, preceded by various annoyances:

• the dedicated Search Bar refused to show the drop-down menu of alternative search engines [works fine in and ]
• the #Stylus AO refused to respond to clicks on its various usage & management icons in its drop-down menu [works fine in and ]
• a link i opened from my Masto #Statuzer page decided to behave like i'd used #Glance [i did not], then when i converted it into a normal tab, entirely froze the Statuzer tab
• wondering if possibly restarting Zen might fix the above, i tried to do so, which then destroyed my carefully crafted Zen profile... what ensued was a UI without various standard changes i'd made [eg, the Search Bar was gone again, the native tabs bar refused to Collapse again], but worst of all, all my open tabs were gone... again

My dear old might be less pretty, less visually exciting, & might not have native split tabs, but far out it is & remains way way waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more reliable than Zen. I mean, it's really a bit silly... is Alpha, is Beta, yet the former is generally rock solid reliable in the ~decade i've been using it. Otoh, all my experiments with Zen, over the past ~12-18 months, have ended in disappointment, frustration, & often also destruction.

So, yet again, i return to...

#FirefoxNightly + #Mv2 #uBO + #Sidebery + #FirefoxSecondSidebar = THE best browsing & sophisticated tab management + Web Panel UX i've ever had, easily eclipsing Vivaldi, #Floorp, #ZenBrowser, Waterfox, LibreWolf... ergo =

#FirefoxNightly + #NativeVerticalTabs + #uBlockOrigin + #FirefoxSecondSidebar = Very usable already as of Feb 2025, albeit less powerful than Sidebery, ergo =

@violenteastcoastcity One I haven't tried yet - and I still might is #Floorp. #Librewolf is basically a locked-down Firefox, which is great, but I feel like sites load slightly slower on it compared to Waterfox and Zen.

But I'll see if other tweaks can be applied to fix that.

Floorp site:
https://floorp.app/en

@TheJen If you like the Vivaldi UI, #floorp might be another thing to try...

In any case, I think the whole "we can't just have one browser" argument has been put to bed, and arguably #Mozilla isn't the only one still implementing the #gecko engine.

I hope to see a fork between various vendors, that #librewolf, #zenbrowser, #floorp and others cross swords, and with these powers combined make #mozilla regret their decision to abandon libre principles.

The engine isn't bad. I think it's pretty good... just maybe they could update the standards for it :3 plz?

We then see that we do have options, that we may have many #browsers, but only a few #browserengines.

Wether you're using #Vivaldi, #Opera or #Brave, it's the #Blink engine.

If it's any of the free browsers made for #Gnome or #Plasma, it's probably #WebKit.

#zenbrowser, #librewolf and #floorp are based on #firefox (or the gecko engine) and are safe refuge for people defecting from Firefox.

@dec_hl There is so sooooooooo much bullshit, #FUD & outright lies being spread about #Firefox lately. Don't want #AI in it? Fine, simply keep the setting disabled [as i do]. Don't want to be involved in the weirdarse ads thing mozilla did a few months ago? Fine, also keep that setting disabled [as i do]. Maybe Firefox will cease to be if gargle is forced to stop funding Firefox Search? Ok, if/when that happens, it would be time to find another browser, but it has not happened yet & might not happen at all, so running away screaming with hands waving in the air now, as many seem to advocate, is stupid.

My daily browsing experience continues to be magnificent with #FirefoxNightly + #Sidebery + #uBlockOrigin + #FirefoxSecondSidebar [for #WebPanels].

#Floorp 11 was nice to use for a while, but its replacement 12 is months late with minimal public info easily found.

#ZenBrowser recently progressed from Alpha to Beta status, but i stopped using it several weeks ago in frustration at the wild swings in browser design the Dev keeps trying. Certainly though it will be worthwhile revisiting once it reaches Stable phase.

Personally i will never ever use Chrome under any circumstances, only occasionally launch Chromium under sufferance, abandoned Vivaldi a couple of years ago, & also dislike Brave... so if the day does ever arise when FF is no more, the remaining choice will be odious indeed.

@kkarhan @karlauerbach @adamshostack Fwiw...

So many peeps are writing so much stuff about the badness of #Firefox [due to the mismanagement by #Mozilla], & the "imminent" end of the Fox road if/when gargle stops funding Mozilla. I have a certain sympathy with such views. However it's the next part that gobsmacks me... all the despairing Foxers already abandoning FF, & jumping to some chromium poison. Far out, talk about an exercise in foot gun bang

Certainly, i dunno what the Fox Future will be, but jumping now at shadows seems perverse. By all means, let's jump some indeterminate time in the future if FF becomes actually dead, but for now, all i know is that my #FirefoxNightly + #Mv2 #uBO + #Sidebery + #FirefoxSecondSidebar = THE best browsing & sophisticated tab management UX i've ever had, easily eclipsing Vivaldi, #Floorp, #ZenBrowser, Waterfox, LibreWolf...

@countablenewt Fwiw, whilst i remain very interested to watch the ongoing improvements of both #Floorp & #ZenBrowser, my recent discovery of the brilliant #FirefoxSecondSidebar project https://github.com/aminought/firefox-second-sidebar has allowed me to return to #FirefoxNightly [with #Sidebery] as my default browser, with a #WebPanel sidebar more powerful than Floorp's, Zens, or Vivaldi's. It's fabulous.

@tylersticka Thanks for the interesting read! #Vivaldi is a great #browser. Unfortunately, Google continues to ruin #Chromium, on which it is based. Since Manifest V2 and thus #uBlockOrigin are no longer supported (or will be in June 2025), I had to switch browsers. With #Floorp I found a browser that has most of the features of #Vivaldi that I used, but is based on #Firefox and #FOSS. It's a bit more mature than #ZenBrowser, but I've also seen some bugs. So far I enjoy it.

@Vivaldi @floorp

@schizanon @verge

#ZenBrowser
#Floorp