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This has gotten some attention, especially about a week ago, but I really hope more people will continue to try it and, if interested, support it. It is Firefox, but heavily modified to please a different audience that prefers a slightly different UI than Firefox. It has some of the appeal of Arc, Vivaldi, and the Sidebery extension.
In my view, it is very promising, and all competition in this space is good. Here it is on Github, also.
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I’ve used it for a bit, and it’s really really nice. I just don’t know if I trust it to keep up with security updates, especially something so sensitive as a web browser.
It’s just Firefox with a custom skin.
I know, but that means it needs to keep its firefox source version up to date to keep up with security, and as its source diverges more and more from vanilla firefox, it’ll get harder to do that.
Plus they’ve already proved to be amateurs by enabling some things that really shouldn’t have been enabled: https://github.com/zen-browser/desktop/pull/927.
Yeah enabling remote debugging because the dev thought it made it easier is a pretty big oof.
But this is just strike one. It’s a one man show, after all, so cutting them some slack is warranted when it comes to this specific topic.
Nevertheless, your concerns aren’t unfounded. This project needs more contributors to be able to keep up. (Thorium is basically in the same boat)
I’ll wait and see before I actually make a decision for real. But so far, not looking great.
A great custom skin, and far better defaults for both privacy and speed, based on Betterfox.
The fact that a fork that simply has a better UI and default settings is gaining so much popularity shows how bad Mozilla is fumbling their product.
I do hope this puts mozilla in a position where they have to improve firefox.
Zen browser has some Vivaldi and ARC browser customization features. That could be an interesting difference.
So far it’s been in sync with Firefox Nightly.
So far, yes, but it’s early days for it, and I suspect it will get harder and harder to keep up.
The UI/UX is so good for a one-person team that I hope it embarrasses Mozilla into actually making serious improvements to their browser for the first time in a decade.
With Google influence? I’d really love to see it, no sarcasm.
The UI looks mostly like Firefox IMO. Critically, it’s just as slow as Firefox.
I was such a HUGE fan of Floorp until I saw the main dev behind it talk about how they wanted to start looking into ways to “monetize” the browser. Just really turned me off and I went back to Firefox.
Needless to say, this looks AWESOME, and I hope that more people find it and try it out. (After the early bugs are ironed out, of course).
Good job devs!
Can you use FF extensions with it? The web site doesn’t say one way or the other.
yes. it’s Firefox with some extra UI modifications, but it’s the same thing under the hood.
Definitely as already answered, but I’ll also add they have a “theme store” which is kind of a bespoke userChrome.css tool. It isn’t just themes, but it is in addition to, not in lieu of Firefox extensions.
Yeah
Finally, I can replace Arc browser! Floorp was terrible.
I tried Floorp and didn’t like it either, I’m glad there’s a more promising looking project out there now. Still great to see more development in the Firefox/Gecko ecosystem. We don’t need more Chromium garbage.
100% Chromium monopoly needs to die.
Floorp didn’t impress me either, but I’m not sure yet that I can 100% replace my awesome Arc workflow. The “Air Traffic Control” with profile / space combinations is spectacular. But I’ll find a way to make it work, because I really prefer FOSS when possible.
Just wish Zen adds small details/features like Arc team does. Small details/features are crucial in the early stages of the project.
My hopes are high but I’m trying to keep my expectations low. Just one guy and some contributors is a much different context than a bunch of venture capital. But I agree.
What is this Arc?
nice. gonna give it a try. the more Firefox in this world the better.
Does it support Firefox Sync or offer a similar solution/integration?
It uses Forefox Sync.
Supports FF Sync.
So Firefox with a user.js and a CSS theme. I’m not saying Zen Browser is bad. But it’s nothing new.
The css theme is new.
give it a try, it is quite interesting
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I’ve been using it everyday for the past 2 weeks and have enjoyed my time with it. Looks like a very promising browser.
The more Firefox the better.
Been using it as my only browser since launch, super pleased with the experience so far. Really hope this sticks around for a long time.
You really shouldn’t be using software that is in alpha stage of development, as the only browser.
There may be bugs and vulnerabilities no one has run into yet and bork your browser data.
Oh no not my data!
arrest me
Maybe it’s the portable version I’m using, but I can’t figure out how to click and drag the window. There’s nowhere up top to grab and move to another monitor/shift around on the screen. Am I going crazy or is there a different way to move it around?
right click on the space around the URL bar, choose “Customize toolbar…”, and then check “Title Bar” in the bottom left corner.
hmm maybe its the portable version then…I can click and drag just fine. I can also adjust it with superkey+arrow keys or with kwin.
I added a “Flexible Space” portion to the top and that allowed me to click and drag. Otherwise I had to use Alt+Space+M to make it moveable.
Tried it for a few days. It works just like firefox minus one embedded video that crashed after 5 secs but worked in ordinary firefox.
What really surprised me was the speed. Loading youtube on firefox ~0.6 on zen ~0.1 which felt rather nice. I’m still not sure if its worth the hassel to switch.
Fast Profile switching? I’m downloading this immediately when I get home.
The profile switching is just that of Firefox, but with a button that makes it a bit more accessible. And there is the concept of workspaces within a given profile, but I haven’t quite figured out how to set it up best for my workflow yet.
I jump between a lot of profiles for work and chrome makes that too easy. It’s the only thing holding me back from switching to Firefox.
I find that multi account containers suits most of my needs for this. I have a container locked to work sites that has a separate credential chain.
now that I have been spoiled by floorp with workspaces, I have to ask… does it do workspaces? I can’t find it on the site if it does
It does indeed. There is a button in the top left for it by default.
awesome, thanks!
Is the browsers website (not GitHub) 404-ing for anyone else?
Seems currently up for me, but it is on vercel and I have seen it down a few times.
They recently told me they’re moving from Vercel to Cloudflare (Pages?), which is great because the former kept making me wait for a while.
Isn’t vercel basically just a wrapper around AWS and/or cloudflare anyway?
