I guess being given a daily colonoscopy by your browser and the results being reported to GOOG isn't high on your list of concerns then.
Once you have more than one profile, you'll see the switcher in the top right.
Also, turn off all crypto/ai stuff in settings. I did and I never see it.
It's really not that much.
You can switch any time, multiple times per day even.
You won't be able to switch multiple times a day without noticing a lot of friction as you common workflows break down
When I was a developer, I fell into the trap of trying to customize everything, only to have to keep doing it once a new browser or extension came out. I gave up trying to get something exactly the way I wanted it.
I use as close to stock as possible in order to avoid the kind of friction you're talking about.
If there is anything I've learned from decades of software development, it is that deep customization leads to headaches.
Or you can stick to your old already customized browser and avoid the trap/friction! I mean, if were able to ditch everything completely, you should've been able to just stop checking everything new and shiny?
For example, you have a browser where you can set up a shortcut _C_ to copy the current page URL to your clipboard. You've developed muscle memory of doing that, so feel it in another browser where it can't be set up that way.
You don't need that in a database client, so you'll never notice the difference there because you'll never use that shortcut
I’m relatively happy with my setup [2] now, what I miss most from Zen would be the 2-level pinned tabs (pinned per workspace, and globally pinned), and the design of globals pins (instead of a line on the side as in [2], it’s a grid at the top for Zen), but not even close to enough that I’d want to return.
[0]: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/sidebery/
[1]: https://github.com/mbnuqw/sidebery/wiki/Firefox-Styles-Snipp...
I have to have all the browsers and nightlies installed anyways, so I might as well personalize it to work best for my needs.
I imagine not everyone is like us, and something like Zen being zero config is a big deal.
Once it gets there, I too will finally leave Arc behind. Until then, while it is on life support, Arc actually works. I really wish The Browser Company would just own up to their fuck up and revive it.
[1] https://docs.zen-browser.app/faq#why-cant-zen-browser-play-d...
In 2025 a browser that really acts as a user agent needs to do much more at the content level: ad blocking, content rewriting (clickbait headlines, etc.), content aggregation and summarization, deceptive content idenification, automatic reader-mode, etc.
I can see that being a really nice built-in browser feature, to load a summary on hover over a link.
Congrats to everyone working to make the Internet worse; you’ve had a very successful couple of decades.
If you figure this out please let me know!
One feature I was missing from Chrome was Tab Groups. But recently (I don't know when it started) the feature showed up in FireFox too :-)
For example, I have a main profile where I have personal bookmarks and different extensions (and more aggressive adblocking). I also have a work profile with a different theme, different bookmarks, extensions, etc. And I use containers in both.
Containers are nice, but they're not profiles. We have to understand that not everyone can or wants to have one profile with everything in it.
My work profile is logged into my work Gmail + AWS
Personal profile has my personal Google account.
The two won't mix.
I ended up keeping chrome just for work, and using firefox for personal life.
Then I grabbed Browser Tamer and set up an AHK v2 script that, when I click on and focus any browser window, it executes browser tamer's CLI to update the default browser. Thus I get the behavior of "open links in last used browser", which is the correct browser for whatever link I click 99.9% of the time.
My solution is: The system has a default browser that opens default links. On my work machine I have a different browser where I am for example logged in to my private github account I just never want to open a clicked link there anyway. Copy/pasting 2 times per day is fine.
Edit: found it: it's hidden behind the browser.profiles.enabled setting in about:config
The only real cost is that running things this way eats more memory, but I've not experienced OOM issues for years away from deliberately small VMs (for testing or small sever tasks) that turned out to be too small.
It's kinda tiresome to see containers get peddled over and over as a "solution", when they're severely limited in what they offer compared to profiles. One feature set and clunky interface doesn't even get close to the use cases people have for profiles. It's not a solution.
I have a work profile with several containers inside, so that I can be logged into, e.g. GitHub and AWS, with multiple accounts at the same time.
I also have a primary personal profile, with a few containers primarily for cookie pollution separation.
I've never struggled with the "Profiles have bad UX" complaint, because I created a few different launchers for Firefox: work, personal, (a few others for special purposes like retail sites), and a default profile that launches the profile manager dialog at startup so I can select from a few dozen less-frequently-used (sometimes single-purpose) profiles. I like to keep separate things separated.
This took 20 minutes to set up, 15+ years ago(?) and has been perfectly convenient for me, but I've also recently read that Mozilla is working to improve profile switching.
This is what I'm saying and what people who recommend containers as a "replacement" for profiles sorely miss.
>20 minutes to set up
Meanwhile on Chrome this just worked out of the box and didn't have UI that's been abandoned for a decade.
The bigger problem for me is that (at least when I last tested Chrome profiles -- it's been a while), there was some browser config that was shared between profiles. Maybe extensions? I don't recall.
This was unexpected and undesired, so I went back to Firefox.
Anyway, there's no benefit to Firefox or its users if profile switching is ugly or clunky. They're improving this and that's a good thing for everyone.
I add an icon (slightly modified for each profile) to the script, and rename it to (e.g.) ~/Applications/Firefox-work.app for convenience. Works from the Dock, Finder, Spotlight, etc. I usually launch from the command line, but all the usual ways do work.
Improving the profile switching experience is great of course. But the above workaround has served me perfectly for as long as I can remember. Obv would not work for everyone.
I don't see anything weird in people asking for profiles. If anything your suggestion sounds weird.
I like the workflow of swiping between profiles, vertical tabs and pinned favorites. I haven't been able to find a browser that works just like that.
I'd prefer to use Chromium over Firefox though, that's the only downside. I keep running into weird Firefox specific issues. Passkeys didn't work properly (and still won't support TouchID), pages don't render correctly, etc.
I tried Dia a few weeks back and was disappointed in its sidebar and profile features.
UI isn't the only thing zen does, but anything else I just adjusted myself + some custom uBlock Origin filters and I'm good to go.
No, that's under-powered.
Powered is when you can define multiple simple custom shortcuts (as far as I understand, at least Zen allows 1 shortcut change for some commands (unlike 0 in the dumb FF), so halfway there, not sure about Arc).
Super powered is when you can add key sequences and keys without modifiers depending on context in addition to a simple shortcuts.
Uberpowered would be the equivalent of QMK within the app (tap vs hold, home row mods left vs right alt, all 4 modifiers, etc etc), but when you can have conditions based on app contexts and dynamic user defined conditions (eg, in the simplest way, have vim-like modal editing in text fields with word jumps and single key navigation outside).
While uberpowered apps are unicorns, among relatively known browsers think only Vivaldi has has power
> Firefox remains the gold standard for user-first browsing.
What's gold about poor customization (no keybind, but also changing UI is cumbersome) and bad defaults?
> why isn’t it Firefox?
Oh, why indeed! Something about lack of incentives to innovate of even listen to users much when you're a big company financed by "ulterior" sources
You nailed it. It drives me insane that FF and Zen are unable to be customized. A huge appeal for me with Arc was that suddenly I could use my keyboard more using shortcuts that made sense.
Arc does allow customization as well: https://resources.arc.net/hc/en-us/articles/20595231349911-K...
I'm off of Arc due to the lack of maintenance and decreasing efficiency; it kills my laptop's battery remarkably quickly and it's kind of crazy to bother with it anymore.
edit: I'm an idiot. Zen has a settings pane for keyboard shortcuts. This is great: https://docs.zen-browser.app/user-manual/shortcuts
I think I tested Zen in early 2024 and it looks like shortcuts were revamped in mid-2024. Time flies.
No. Mozilla's leadership would ruin it, too.
Firefox by itself is great technology. That's not the problem. The Mozilla leadership, incentives, and org structure is the problem.
Wow, very well put. I love how mobile browsers are not even in the conversation.
> We are simply a group of developers and designers who care about your experience on the web.
The browser is the new OS, so no wonder there.
Their Privacy Policy says no telemetry, but then they have a section on those connections made at startup which apparently are "necessary for the proper functioning of the browser and are not used for tracking or profiling purposes"... they then go on to say "can be disabled through the browser flags (about:config)"
Does that mean the browser will no longer function correctly?
Among the connections made (according to the report) are x.com, google.com (plus a bunch of other google domains). reddit.com and notion.com, discordapp.com, cloudflareinsights.com
Reddit, X, Discord, and Notion are all part of the default sites in the sidebar. Perhaps it's loading them to grab the favicons and such, leading to all of their calls to CDNs, analytics, etc being called.
As crazy as this probably sounds, I would have been content to pay for Arc to continue being developed as well. It had real energy behind it, some great ideas, and it was improving a tool I use daily.
I'm using Zen as well, now.
But with a name like Zen, I at least expected the browser to be one of those tabless ones that encourage you to focus your attention on the present task, by enforcing one web page at a time. Or a text-based one, like w3m, that removes graphics to allow you to focus on the words. While the Zen browser interface is a little cleaner, with fewer buttons and things, that doesn't necessarily translate to "calmer." Calm is what you bring to the browsing experience, not what you take away from it.
drfoku2•5mo ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43443494
Is it safe enough now?
Also, anyone have an update on Ladybird? Looks like its dev is still going strong, but I haven’t been watching it carefully.
pimeys•5mo ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44765292
akshat2602•5mo ago