It gets my goat that people think it’s a good option. There are plenty of articles explaining some of the many issues with it, but a few are:
- It’s run by anti-LGBTQ+ crypto bros.
- It has ads right out of the box.
- It collected donations towards people who never signed up for them - then held them to ransom in exchange for the kind of information you should never share on the Internet.
- They’re a for-profit advertising company. “Privacy-centric” my elbow.
Please try Zen browser. I can’t go back to any other browser since I switched
I tried Zen, didn’t really like it, the UI was too unfamiliar and felt a smidge too opinionated for my taste.
That’s fair, it was based on a similar browser called Arc that had ambitions to reinvent browsing. That one was chromium based though and maintenance stopped when they wanted to create another AI powered browser. Then the Zen people recreated Arc as an open source browser based on Firefox. I was already used to Arc so Zen was familiar.
I think there are a lot of benefits to the way the UI is laid out, give it a try you without changing any defaults for a week or so, you might get hooked.
What’s so great about zen?
Its pretty chill.
Its tab and session management tools are my favorite across all browsers.
I use vertical tabs with multiple layers of folders to basically keep everything I need to access frequently organized directly on the tab list instead of having to open it again whenever I need (also saves me from having to remember if I already opened something). For example I have a folder for each project I’m working on and I add to it everything related to that project. Project definition links, Github Pull Requests and so on. The PR links stay there while I wait for them to be reviewed or merged so I can quickly access them to see if they need any action. Once the task is done I remove them from the folder again.
There’s a new feature named Live Folders which automatically opens a tab for every item of an RSS or Github feed. I use it to auto open PRs that are waiting for my review. The feature is still quite limited but already pretty useful.
One of the projects I’m working on is a voice chat web app and the browser helps me by allowing me to open two different sessions of the web app side by side as a single app. Makes it so much easier to test things when I don’t have to be handling two different active windows like I used to have to with other browsers.
One other feature that I don’t use so much anymore is the ability to have completely separate tab lists for different contexts. It’s useful to separate work and personal stuff for example, but I already use separate devices for that.
It has a strong focus on workflow improvements. I love the way it handles pinned tabs where third party links open as a modal and you can reset the tab with a middle click. It also has very good workspace management and useful keybinds.
How does Zen handle blocking adds? I peeked at them but didn’t see anything like uBlock in the mod list. No proton mods there either, which is a tough sell for me.Usability looks awesome though. I’m tempted for that alone.
Edit: I just realized it’s a fork like WaterFox so it will just work. I did also learn there are some weird check ins with Google on that browser though, so maybe not the more security focused browser I’m looking for.
You have access to Firefox addons, can install ublock just fine. As for proton I’m not sure
Zen’s not great on a multi-monitor setup, but I like it otherwise. Video playback has been improved a ton since I last tried it.
What is your issue with multi monitor setups? On my Mac and Linux machines I have no issues
Me too. Ironically I don’t like its default UI (supposedly its main feature), but after a few setting changes it is great.