63
submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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/

all 49 comments
sorted by: hot top new old
[-] [email protected] 25 points 1 week ago

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

[-] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago

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

[-] [email protected] 13 points 1 week ago

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

1000034319

[-] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago

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

[-] [email protected] 10 points 1 week ago

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

[-] [email protected] 7 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

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 :)

[-] [email protected] 7 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

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.

[-] [email protected] 10 points 1 week ago

(Yellow circle with white “W” on it)

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

[-] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

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.

[-] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago

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.

[-] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago
[-] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

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".

[-] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago

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

[-] [email protected] -3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

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.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

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

[-] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago

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

[-] [email protected] 35 points 1 week ago

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!

[-] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

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

[-] [email protected] 7 points 1 week ago

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.

;)

[-] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago

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

[-] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago

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

[-] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago

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.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

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

[-] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

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.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 6 days ago

What do you to harden Firefox?

[-] [email protected] 2 points 6 days ago

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

https://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.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 6 days ago

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

[-] [email protected] 2 points 6 days ago

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.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

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.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago

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.

[-] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago

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

[-] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

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)

https://vivaldi.com/source/

[-] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

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

[-] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

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

[-] [email protected] 1 points 5 days ago

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

[-] [email protected] 1 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

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.

[-] [email protected] 0 points 4 days ago

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

[-] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

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.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

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.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago

Isn't Blink the Google component?

[-] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago

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

[-] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

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

[-] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

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

[-] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

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

[-] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

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

[-] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago

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

[-] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

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.

[-] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago
this post was submitted on 11 Sep 2025
63 points (95.7% liked)

Privacy

41894 readers
1060 users here now

A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

Some Rules

Related communities

much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS