Browsers, Add-Ons and Search Engines
I have been searching today for a browser alternative.
I am currently using SWare Iron, which was suggested by a friend a couple years back, since it seemed to have all the advantages, like speed as Chrome, but not the disadvantages of phoning home. I read though about a year ago the critique of it only being scare ware, that it just hardcodes the deactivation of some features, which you can also opt out on Chrome, as well as the author just wanting to get add revenue riding on the success of Chrome. It also annoyed me a bit that there was no option for an auto update or at least to subscribe to be informed, though there is a third party solution for that, although it does not work properly anymore on my machine, since it also constantly shows me the current version.
Today I read also that they haven't published their source code in recent years, although they are supposed to be under open source licence, which could be worrying. Thus I have been searching for alternatives. Ideally I would want to have a browser, which is fast, open source, privacy concerned and has a good add-on support. The latter would probably mean it has to be a Chromium or Firefox derivative to benefit from their add-on library.
My search for good alternatives came up empty since all seem to have some drawbacks. Now I am thinking of just switching to Chrome. Are there any better options?
Currently using µBlock, µMatrix and MagicActions for YouTube as add-ons. Very happy with the former two, which I recently switched to, but still a bit undecided with MagicActions. The people releasing it seem a bit dubious to me and the options are a bit unselfexplanatory or unsatisfactory. Any other YouTube add-ons you can suggest?
Lastly I switched recently to DuckDuckGo as a search engine after having used StartPage for quite a while. I think from a usability it is a big imrpovement and yields better results. (StartPage was supposed to use Google search results, but gave me filtered results, which lessened the quality, although I did nothing like that in the settings.) Also liking the dark theme, which is easier on the eyes for me and I think more websites should have dark themes. It is only missing the maps feature of google of course sadly and the translation, which I never used though.
Hope this topic is not too broad, but didn't want to open up three different threads for that.
I have been searching today for a browser alternative.
I am currently using SWare Iron, which was suggested by a friend a couple years back, since it seemed to have all the advantages, like speed as Chrome, but not the disadvantages of phoning home. I read though about a year ago the critique of it only being scare ware, that it just hardcodes the deactivation of some features, which you can also opt out on Chrome, as well as the author just wanting to get add revenue riding on the success of Chrome. It also annoyed me a bit that there was no option for an auto update or at least to subscribe to be informed, though there is a third party solution for that, although it does not work properly anymore on my machine, since it also constantly shows me the current version.
Today I read also that they haven't published their source code in recent years, although they are supposed to be under open source licence, which could be worrying. Thus I have been searching for alternatives. Ideally I would want to have a browser, which is fast, open source, privacy concerned and has a good add-on support. The latter would probably mean it has to be a Chromium or Firefox derivative to benefit from their add-on library.
My search for good alternatives came up empty since all seem to have some drawbacks. Now I am thinking of just switching to Chrome. Are there any better options?
Currently using µBlock, µMatrix and MagicActions for YouTube as add-ons. Very happy with the former two, which I recently switched to, but still a bit undecided with MagicActions. The people releasing it seem a bit dubious to me and the options are a bit unselfexplanatory or unsatisfactory. Any other YouTube add-ons you can suggest?
Lastly I switched recently to DuckDuckGo as a search engine after having used StartPage for quite a while. I think from a usability it is a big imrpovement and yields better results. (StartPage was supposed to use Google search results, but gave me filtered results, which lessened the quality, although I did nothing like that in the settings.) Also liking the dark theme, which is easier on the eyes for me and I think more websites should have dark themes. It is only missing the maps feature of google of course sadly and the translation, which I never used though.
Hope this topic is not too broad, but didn't want to open up three different threads for that.