I'm what's known as a chronic hopper. I'm always on the lookout for new software, especially when it comes to browsers and Linux distros, but I'm here to ask you about browsers specifically. I'm fairly sure I know most of them, but I want to really know why you run what you do. In return, I will give you my experiences with the browsers that I have tried and why I hopped from them if I did.

Don't feel the need to read the list. I'll be more than happy to just hear your answers!

• Firefox: One of the grand-daddy browsers. I honestly didn't hop from it due to anything specific, but more that I've used it so much that I needed a change.
• Chrome: I used this very little. Just being on it made my skin crawl. However, I still keep it around in a container because some sites straight up tell you that you have to use it to access their dashboards or application forms. While that is now much less these days (as most things will now ask for Chrome or Firefox now), it still does happen, especially on dated government sites that get updated like... once a decade...
• Opera GX: Yup, I fell into the hype. I think I used this for all of a month before recognizing it as over-engineered and needlessly bloated. It pulls you in with gimmicks and pretty lights and that's pretty much all it has. A browser that's literally built on smoke and mirrors and pushy advertising.
• Brave: There's been a lot of huff about Brave lately, but back when it launched and wasn't very mainstream it was the smoothest and a relatively more secure browser than the competition. There was a time when nearly everyone ran Brave. The problem started when they began to opt you into gimmicks and extra things you didn't need without your permission. That was a turnoff for me. I outed before things really went downhill. -Floorp: A random find from exploring Linux for the first time. I was running Pop!_OS and found it on the store. I've never experienced such a smooth Firefox fork before. It really is barebones, but has a lot of customization built in. Instead of the custom options piling on one another, most of them change how it works on a foundational level. The style of your UI and tabs, side tabs, fading URL bar buttons, and a lot more. At it's core, Floorp is a stripped down and security first FF fork developed in Japan. I took the time to translate the TOS pages, and most of it is promising that there is no data collection. It's fairly vetted and trusted from what I've researched.
• Vivaldi: Still one of my favorite browsers when I went back to Windows, but probably has the most bugs I've seen in any browser. It got better once they swapped to React portals, but Vivaldi (Windows version) would occasionally freeze my whole PC or else I'd BSOD. This was a combination of the browser's stability and making my own custom CSS for it, but overall it frustrated me more than other browsers.
• Qutebrowser: Still one of my favorites, and a must-have for me even if its not my main browser. I was diving into the Vimium extension for Firefox, which in turn led me to Neovim, which led me to Qutebrowser. There's a few main points as to why I don't use it as my go-to. First, its not very good at squashing first-party ads. Even though you can combo custom ad block lists, Brave adblock, and python-adblock, it just can't seem to get them all. Second, I rely on my history when browsing YouTube and if you want to get around ads, your best bet is to write a custom shortcut that opens links in MPV/VLC. There are Greasemonkey scripts that should increase ad speed to a fraction of a second and auto-skip, but none of them ever worked for me and most are ancient.
• Nyxt: My next logical step after Qutebrowser was Nyxt. However, I've never managed to figure out how to work it. I haven't really done any extensive bug testing, but when it opens its just a blank window and there's not much I could find for documentation on it. Part of me wonders if there's something that only trusted people know that gets it working, the other part wonders if I'm just missing some sort of library or dependency. From here I went back to Floorp for a while. -Zen: I was very excited when I found this browser. Another Firefox fork, it aims to be much like Arc browser, but adds a lot more on top of that. However, in recent months I find they've become a little too ambitious. If you asked me two months ago, I would tell you that Zen felt just as smooth as Floorp, but these days its much, much laggier. The scrolling is choppy, the pages load slow. I use the same exact extensions on Zen as I do Floorp and the difference now is night and day. I've also tested this on fresh, no-extras no-extension installations and the results are the same. Zen tends to change things and instead of letting the user opt into the additions or changes, they force the changes in their updates. That type of development model just isn't really for me. I don't want to have to re-figure out how to use my browser every few days.

So there it is. I hop a LOT. Honorable mention is Ladybird and I've tested it a little. It is extremely alpha, being just a portal with the basics you need for browsing, but I'm amazed at what they've done so far and very excited for it's release. For now I've returned to Floorp and am very happy with it. I'm very curious to know why you like what you do, whether its just because its what you've used for a long time or if there's something that you can't do without.

Also, please excuse me if this question has been asked before. I didn't want to necro an old post and I want to be able to reply and ask more questions! I've seen many posts discussing a single browser, but I want a more general view. I'm very interested, because the Lemmy community often values their privacy and their rights, which is a major factor in choosing software for me.

Edit: I feel like I'm answering very quickly, but want you to know that I'm not a bot nor using AI. I type at 110wpm in Dvorak. Typing is a huge hobby of mine and would never use AI to do something I love to do for me. I'm set on getting to 200wpm (100 was my first goal). That being said, I can't answer everyone, so I'm sorry if I missed your reply!

Let me apologize first. I'm both old and new to Linux and have made a ton of noob moves since switching back. I know most people in this community are probably already Linux users, but I'm hoping that some Linux-curious people will stumble upon this.

Lets start with the game. I am a former League of Legends addict. Embarrassing, I know, but I had been playing since the glory days (I started right at the beginning of season 2). I never ranked; I would play ARAM and URF to either pass time or keep myself awake if I felt drowsy. I was good, too. Not great, but more often than not I'd go 16/2/12 or something similar. It released massive amounts of dopamine for me. The ARAM bridge felt like a home away from home.

Moving on from League... I had been starting to smell Microsoft's shit from a long loooong ways away. Like, Win7 days (rest in peace, XP). I had been introduced to Linux and the basics of maintaining Linux from a class I took in high school. Lets be honest, though, Linux wasn't really in a gaming state then. You could, but you would be jumping through a lot of hoops for a 50/50 chance it would be stable gameplay. Honestly, though, Microsoft's stink flows much further back than you'd think and it was already grating on me then. I was already considering the move.

I sat on Win10 for a while and even opened my PC to the Win11 beta. It was okay, I didn't auto-hate it like most because a lot of the Windows UI I used was third party and I changed theme colors through the registry. There were ways to remove bloat and most Microsoft snooping garb, but it took work. Thinking I knew what I was doing, I messed with the system32 folder. If this were the Win7 days, I probably would have known what I was doing. I simply wanted to change the internal image viewer to a 3rd party viewer. Microsoft gave default selections for a lot of things, but changing photo gallery was a fight for some reason.

Needless to say, I messed up. No default apps would open anymore. Couldn't even get calculator running. So I reinstalled. Back then, you still had to use Win10 and update to 11. I reinstalled, saw my windows old folder, knew everything was safe, and updated. Huge mistake. Win11 was not just an update, even if you start it from the update panel. It's a full OS install. My ignorant self thought it was just a Win10 glow up. My windows old folder got overwritten by an empty windows old folder.

After a whole day of recovery process I probably recovered 99% of my files, but my time with Windows was quickly closing. My friend pointed out that this was a good time to try Linux. Steam Deck had just launched and Linux was gaining ground in the gaming scene and FAST. So I backed everything up to external (which I should have done earlier, smfh) and grabbed the most likely candidate, Pop!_OS. Soon after, at my friend's pestering, I switched to Arch- Manjaro- and then later EndeavourOS.

I messed up EndeavourOS by using topgrade. It didn't occur to me that it was user error, and I just thought it was something EOS didn't rub shoulders well with in my system. So back to Manjaro. Then D4 came out. Another shame of mine. I'm a huge Diablo 2 fan and played my fair share of D3. I got the early access. Couldn't play. Panicking, I reinstalled Windows 11... just to find that the game was pure garbage. I played for a bit, hoping things would improve but.... Blizzard got me again. But I was not moving back. I had moved so much already. Funny thing is: Proton came out with an update not even 24 hours later that fixed D4... Doh.

During my second time on Win11, Riot pushed out their knuckleheaded kernel-level anticheat. I wasn't worried, I was on Win11, w/e. Then Microsoft dropped some big shits on Windows. Snapshots of your screens ("it'll be held in a private encrypted partition of you drive!", yeah fucking right... pull the other one), ads in the start bar, and then pushy af popups to integrate your system with their AI. I was insulted. Win11 was already one giant piece of malicious software even before all this. Granted, I used startallback so I didn't get the ads, but it was the idea of the thing.

So I did it. I dropped League and moved to base Arch. I will not let Microsoft have even 100gb of my drive now. I make do by playing other games, being actually productive in life, or diving into something new within Linux. I grew up. I said no. PC owners should be banding together and dropping Windows right into the garbage. Screw their proprietary plugins, screw their insecure kernel access, screw their ads and data-harvesting AI, and screw their sneaky photos of my screen. I knew when they backpedaled on that screenshot shit that they'd push it more quietly later. I told everyone that they would. And they did.

Dive into VSCodium, or Neovim, or VIM, or emacs. Explore open source and, like me, find that most apps are pleasantly better than their commercial counterparts. Play with your terminal. Wreck things and reinstall (just hard copy everything to external first). Lets make ODF industry standard, like it should have been before Microsoft outbid and muscled docx in. It may take ten, twenty, fifty years but fuck it. I'm all in and my bet is on Linux. My next big project for my next PC build? Gentoo (I am not quite ready for Linux from Scatch, lmao). Its time I actually learned more. I've already dived deep into the Arch Wiki and I've already dived into NixOS and nixlang. We need to go deeper now.

Linux is easier than ever now. Experiment with it! Scared to fully make the move? Grab a small SSD to test it out safely! Just... know what you're doing with partitions before you do. Either that or take your main SSD out before installing. However, most Linux distros let you use them right from the USB stick to check them out. Just ignore the installer and play around a bit. Remember that USB is going to be substantially slower, so don't make your decision off of speed. You'd be surprised at how much faster Linux can be.

tl;dr: Switch to Linux and stop giving out your data for free. Ad analytics should be a choice, and one you're paid to do. Your information is incredibly valuable and so is your privacy. If you pay for a product, that company should NOT be triple dipping and making more money off of you, no matter how non-invasive it is. Its all invasive, even if its hidden.

PS: I won't mention mac here. I really have no experience in iOS or macOS. Apple garden is Apple garden and that's about all I know. Microsoft and I go way back (Windows 3.14), and I've watched them slowly and then quickly corrupt over time. Like a turd rolling downhill and collecting garbage.

Yes. All the yes. I was shaky on it at first, because I really didn't want to dive out of my depth when it comes to piracy (which really only includes torrents). I thought it was going to be confusing, but it really is just "sign up, pay, and get your API key". And the price is right (using realDebrid).

However, I'm a little concerned. This makes it all so easy to stream and such, but what happens when everyone starts using it and torrents are no longer downloaded and properly seeded? Should I go out of my way to download something after I watch it and then seed for a few weeks? I still keep my VPN around, so that's totally an option. I'm using Stremio in conjunction with realDebrid.

I think I just want to know a bit more about how it works and how the P2P functions. I want to be able to give back, but I only seed a few torrents at a time. I just don't have the money for a large seeding server right now (which I may fix with a Pi5 at some point). Seeding is currently my only option/skill in helping piracy stay alive and the digital world stay free.

I understand that the Aeropress is by no means the best way to make coffee, but I'd like to think I've got a good thing going with it. It's certainly a step up from the "throw x bulk preground brand from the store into the dripper", though. And it's a cheaper method, which is okay by me.

I've come to love it. I make coffee, loose leaf tea, and yerba in it, depending on what I feel that morning. For those of you that use the Aeropress, I'd like to share a sort of frankenstein recipe I made as well as hear some of yours to try out. My recipe is a combination of two champion's recipes with my own coffee measurements. According to an assortment of coffee calculators, I should be using nearly double the amount of ground coffee that I do, but I can get a great flavor and strength with a lesser amount of beans.

My Frankenstein Aeropress Recipe (Americano, Inverted Method, Standard Aeropress Size)

Makes: 20oz (US standard/ 591ml)

• Grind 25 grams of beans. The grind size will vary between roasts, but usually I do somewhere between espresso and drip on the Hario Skerton Pro for a true medium roast.
• Boil water to exactly 194f/90c. An electric kettle with temp setting helps immensely here.
• Invert your Aeropress and place your grounded material in. Add just a slight bit of water, enough to cover the grounds. This may take some getting used to; you can start small and keep adding bit by bit to get what you need. I still sometimes over-fill. Stir with a spoon until you get what I like to call a "wet concrete" consistency (not the best analogy, but...). Make sure all your ground material is wet.
• Let sit/bloom for one minute. If your roast is very fresh, you may notice your coffee rise and take on a sort of half-baked brownie appearance.
• After one minute, stir generously almost like a dough. If it's a darker roast or not as fresh, it may just make a sort of silky liquid. If it's more of a dryer concrete consistency, use a bit of chopping with your spoon and fold. Do this for just a bit.
• Add water until filled to the top of the press. Be VERY careful here. I can get it right to the lip without spilling, but a little extra air will not hurt. Please do not burn yourself.
• Stir again after filled and set a timer for two and a half minutes.
• During these minutes, get your filter in the cap and wet it with water. This doesn't change the flavor, but rather keeps the filter from slipping out when using the inverted method.
• When your brew timer is up, stir again. If you like a more bitter coffee, try to dip some of the foam from the top into the mixture. Alternatively, if you like a sweeter coffee you can place a napkin on top and soak up the foam (I did this by accident when I spilled a bit on the stir).
• Place your filter cap on and put your mug over the Aeropress. Flip both (be very very VERY careful). After the Aeropress is safely on top, shake it a little to get any leftover grounds off the plunger.
• Let the coffee settle for about twenty or so seconds.
• Slide the Aeropress left and right then back and forward to even the material for the plunge.
• Plunge slowly. This part is a bit of work, since the Aeropress wasn't really designed for this much ground material. When you hear the hiss of air, stop plunging. Plunge the little bit of leftover air into the sink and empty your Aeropress into the trash.
• Add your desired sugar and cream. Fill almost to the top with your hot water and add a bit of cold water until you get your desired drinking temp.
• Stir and enjoy.

I've found that this makes a very flavorful cup of coffee, despite using only 2/3 the suggested amount of beans to make it according to Aeropress calculators. I have not tried this recipe as a regular espresso; I haven't reached that peak of coffee enjoyment yet, having only started getting back into it in the past year. I can't remember the names of the champions that I mixed up this recipe from, but it also takes some steps from a few tip tutorials.

I will probably be switching to pour over at some point, because the amount of requests I'm getting from friends and family for coffee is getting overwhelming for the amount this makes. As a note, this method works great for loose leaf tea. Take your tea steep time and cut off a minute for steeping in just a bit of water, just like blooming. This ensures that the tea leaves stay at the bottom of the Aeropress when adding the rest of your water. So for black tea (4 minutes and 30 seconds recommended steep time) I do one minute for the "bloom" and then three and a half minutes for the steep at full water (212f/100c). I usually do 2 grams of tea for each 6 oz of water.

If you're unaccustomed to or have never heard of the inverted method, please take a moment to look up and watch how it's done. Hot water is no joke, save yourself from possible skin grafts. It is more than okay to use these measurements and timings using the regular method. Alternatively, you could use the Fellow Prismo to the same effect as inverting.