Use whatever you want. But do consider if you want to contribute to Google’s monopoly, and if you want to use an open-source browser.

• Vivaldi Browser is not open source. Better use Brave than that…
• If you still really hate Firefox, Ungoogled Chromium which is basically Chrome with all the Google stuff removed.
• All of the above do still contribute to Google’s monopoly, so I would really encourage Firefox or a fork.
• Barring that, you could also get away with a WebKit browser (like GNOME web, Nyxt). Although WebKit is developed by Apple, it’s still open source and doesn’t look particularly bad. If you’re on a Mac, Safari is an option, but it’s closed source.

I know we aren’t allowed to use Chrome.

Who says? Use whatever you want, if you want to use Chrome then use it, nobody is stopping you.

As for Vivaldi, I personally think it’s the best Chromium browser out there, highly customizable with all the good stuff from old Opera without none of the garbage from current Opera, plus it seems to be reasonably respectful of your privacy. Their only mistake was building it on Chromium.

We’ve decided you’re only allowed to use Lynx from now on.

You can use any browser you want, just be aware of what the downsides are when you do.

The issue with Chrome and Chromium based broswers is the power that Google exerts over the internet via the Blink engine. Although other companies use the same technology, Google controls it and shapes it for it’s own commerical gains.

The other big alternative is also proprietary with Apple’s Sarfari and WebKit ecosystem.

Vivaldi is a nice browser but it is still run by a private company and it still monetises you to an extent. In vivaldi’s case it is currently fairly inocuous - they have referral deals with search engines for the default search, and deals with companies for default bookmarks. But it seems to be currently a more trustworthy browser. Ultimately though, it is part of the Blink ecosystem and supports Google’s increasing domination of the browser engine space.

Mozilla and Firefox remains the only truly independent browser, run in a not-for-profit and fully open source way, on the Gecko engine. It’s existance helps maintain the neutral aspects of the Web - instead of sites being designed for one browser, it encourages web site and services to be truly standards compliant. Firefox monetise users in a similar way to Vivaldi but that money is used to actually maintain and develop Gecko and other Mozilla technologies, while Vivaldi use that money to maintain Vivaldi the company - they don’t need to fund most of Blink as it’s made available by Google.

But no one is obliged to support Firefox or open technologies. It’s a personal choice what browser you use and there are many valid reasons beyond open standards to chose a browser. I use Firefox for multiple reasons; I genuinely like it and am used to it, but I actually also use Vivaldi and even Chrome on occasions (sometimes to view crapily designed ad heavy or tracking sites without having to disable lots of privacy extensions etc in firefox to make it work; I use Chrome as a bog standard sandbox when I want to dump crap sites out of my main browser but still want to quickly view it for whatever reason).

Pick a browser you like and don’t feel guilty if that happens to be chrome based.

Ignore the fanbois here. Vivaldi is solid. I will ditch it like an old sock if they end up having to adopt the new standards Google is pushing though. I’m confident Vivaldi will fight doing so until bitter end. I hope they are even willing to switch engines if needbe.

Vivaldi’s pretty good feature-wise. It’s got tab workspaces and stacking, detailed themes, mouse gestures, menu customisations, tab tiling, it’s basically where a lot of the Firefox power-users have gone. It’s a solid browser. That being said, a lot of the Firefox fanboyism is prevalent here so you’re going to make a few people angry if you suggest anything that’s based on Chromium. Just use whatever you see fit - I personally don’t care too much about open-source vs. proprietary, I use Steam for crying out loud.

That being said, I’ve also gotta shill Pulse. I don’t like the way Mozilla is running Firefox so I’m steering away from that, luckily Pulse is forked from Firefox. I’m concerned about Mozilla treating userChrome.css as a legacy feature, so having native vertical tabs is great, and a generally minimalist UI makes it a very clean looking browser to use. With Simple Tab Groups, the only extension I’ve installed for extra functionality with the browser itself, I’ve basically got my Vivaldi replacement, though If Mozilla breaks STG I’m moving my ass back to Vivaldi.

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Fuck it, I use Brave, crypto shit isn’t mandatory and all related features can be turned off, blockchain based sync is nice, because you don’t need an email based account like other ones, built-in ad blocker is nice and they say they won’t implement WEI (Google’s website DRM) and I’m kinda reluctant to give a fuck about political values it’s founder holds even if different from mine, certainly I’m not changing my habits because of that

GNU Lynx is the only acceptable browser

• sent from Firefox on Android

It’s the best Chromium browser. Company seems like it’s run by decent people who listen to their users.

Syncing between installs needs work, but it’s my daily driver

Stay away from vivaldi , people recommending vivaldi has no idea

https://privacytests.org/

i was using librewolf, but it kept freezing.
going back to “ungoogled chromium” however illegal it is.
is vivaldi better?

i remeber trying it a few years ago and didn’t do well

I personally love Vivaldi. It’s really been the only browser for me that’s met everything I wanted. Customizable, looks good. And has a whole synchronization suite as well.

I honestly just don’t want to use Firefox at this point because I’m sick of Mozilla and their bad financial records (in 2021, the CEO gave themselves a 5 million bonus. And a good majority of their money still comes from Google), and the fact that they’ve kind of shifted their priorities away from Firefox in favor of more political activism activities. Which is annoying because Firefox is still the only other browser that has everything I need.

Yeah I do wish Vivaldi was fully open source but they’ve already mentioned that a lot of their stuff is besides their UI (which they’re keeping private for branding reasons). I think Its kind of ridiculous, but it’s not that big of a deal I guess since right now Vivaldi is just Chromium with an extra coat of paint.

Firefox is the only good choice since everything else is built on chromium.