Time to overhaul daily browsers, but to what?

[LogicalDrm]

With hardware upgrade and move to Win11 coming, I'm ready to start "fresh". Firefox has been my primary browser for about 20 years. But since they have slowly lessen the UI configuration possibilities, breaking set preferences on every upgrade, I wonder if there's something similar, but with that UI control I like. So things I'm looking for mainly:

• Has main settings as bar instead of separate menu
• Tabs under address bar and bookmarks bar
• Bookmarks bar
• Addon support (main ones used are Bitwarden, DownThemAll!, AdBlock, some sort of copy-paste manage, per-domain zoom toggle)
• Bonus: Working whatsapp addon

My 2nd browser has been Opera. But recently Twitch has dropped support for it, so looking for 2nd browser also. For these both, Chrome is option, but then I will need to look also for 3rd (reason: 3 google accounts, all must be on separated browsers). I'd rather not Edge, I dislike the UI of it.

 

I don't care about advanced privacy features. For me UI that I can set to my liking and addons that I use frequently are the bigger thing. And per-domain zoom (which seems to be working for the all 4 browsers I have installed atm, it wasn't working at one point).

[Eviljuche]

Vivaldi, maybe?

[LogicalDrm]

3 minutes ago, Eviljuche said:

Vivaldi, maybe?

That was the one I remembered that has been suggested here in past. The other being Brave, but looking at the site, Brave seems to be more on minimalistic and privacy first than actually UX/UI.

[Eviljuche]

Just now, LogicalDrm said:

That was the one I remembered that has been suggested here in past. The other being Brave, but looking at the site, Brave seems to be more on minimalistic and privacy first than actually UX/UI.

Vivaldi is an alternative take on the same goal that Opera is trying to achieve with their browser - hence the name "Vivaldi". It's a product made by ex-Opera workers.

[TetraSky]

+1 for Vivaldi.
If you want a bookmark bar, you won't be disappointed with the Side Panels.

I just click anywhere on the side of my screen (can be left or right depending on your choice, disabled by default, look in the settings for "show panel toggle") and it opens the side panels. Which gives very quick access to my bookmarks.

You can also have email, RSS, take notes and translate text, all for the side panels if that's your jam. You can even add whatever website you want using the web panels

Spoiler

 

Plus, it has mouse gestures. Which are great to make browsing just that much faster with only one hand instead of needing to learn and use keyboard shortcuts.

 

By default, tabs are above the address bar. Not sure if that can be changed, never saw the need to investigate it.

It support every extensions Chrome supports, it likely has what you want.

I'm not sure what you mean by "Has main settings as bar instead of separate menu"
But it has plenty of settings to go around in the setting window.

 

Spoiler

 

[LogicalDrm]

2 minutes ago, TetraSky said:

I'm not sure what you mean by "Has main settings as bar instead of separate menu"
But it has plenty of settings to go around in the setting window.

Most modern browser have hidden all menus behind one big button that opens as menu panel. As example from Opera vs what I want when I have pixels for it:

Also how I would prefer my bookmarks, but sidepanel is probably fine. If not, Vivaldi will become my Opera (if Twitch works).

[TetraSky]

21 minutes ago, LogicalDrm said:

Most modern browser have hidden all menus behind one big button that opens as menu panel. As example from Opera vs what I want when I have pixels for it:

 

Also how I would prefer my bookmarks, but sidepanel is probably fine. If not, Vivaldi will become my Opera (if Twitch works).

Ah I see.

 

While by default Vivaldi has a nice big button...

Spoiler

 

It also has a setting to get what you want.

 

Spoiler

 

 

If you absolutely want a bookmark bar, there's also a setting for that. "show bookmark bar"
 

Spoiler

 

 

Overall, might be worth it for you to look at all the settings available and customize it to your liking.

 

Also, yes. Twitch still works. Ads don't get blocked anymore though.

[LloydLynx]

I'd have suggested Palemoon, but then I read about your addon requirements. No harm in mentioning it though. It's like the only browser that has a fully usuable independently maintained web engine that's not Chromium or WebKit based. It's a fork of Firefox from long ago and keeps the old school work flow.

https://www.palemoon.org/

[LogicalDrm]

7 hours ago, LloydLynx said:

I'd have suggested Palemoon, but then I read about your addon requirements. No harm in mentioning it though. It's like the only browser that has a fully usuable independently maintained web engine that's not Chromium or WebKit based. It's a fork of Firefox from long ago and keeps the old school work flow.

https://www.palemoon.org/

I'm not opposed of trying. I will need to get 2 browsers, main and 2nd. So Opera is the one I will be ditching overall since I only use it for Twitch, YouTube and WhatsApp.

[LogicalDrm]

On 8/6/2023 at 2:14 PM, TetraSky said:

Ah I see.

 

While by default Vivaldi has a nice big button...

  Reveal hidden contents

 

It also has a setting to get what you want.

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

If you absolutely want a bookmark bar, there's also a setting for that. "show bookmark bar"
 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

Overall, might be worth it for you to look at all the settings available and customize it to your liking.

 

Also, yes. Twitch still works. Ads don't get blocked anymore though.

Coming back to this after using Vivaldi for couple of says now. Some good and some bad. Overall it feel good. But while boasting with customizability, it lacks some stuff I really wish to see. Or have easier access than "custom css file I need to understand css more than one course I've had on basics" style.

 

My current problems:

• The way sites load from link. I've chosen to stay on current, but its very baffling as site doesn't load title or favicon instantly, but leaves it blank while loading actual content. Not big issue, just getting used to.
• No ability to move New Tab -button. By default its where tabs are, and thats the problem. It keeps moving around with the amount of tabs, and I fear I will click it instead of trying to close last tab. I've tried to search for solution, but there seems to be none. All suggestions I see to similar questions are for alternative ways of solving issue, not actually solving the issue. On Firefox, I could move the button from tabs to its own in place I wanted. The solution is not place of tab bar (at the moment bottom, more on next bullet). because then it will be where the bar is and moving around still. Killing any muscle memory gained in past 10 years. Using hotkey is not option, I use keyboard 20% of time while browsing. The only way I found was custom JS and it only gets the button at top-left before other site navigation. 
• Tabs. Still nope on getting tab bar under bookmarks and address bar. There's custom css for it, however that doesn't quite work and I think reason is too many variables with other settings. Meaning that fix would require customizing the template myself (which is nope). Tried on top, but its located too up for me to glance at it without tilting my head up (visual impairment). Tried on side, but that limits view area way too much when I don't have 20 tabs open at once. So at bottom for now. Though closing, selecting and new tab controls need some getting used to still.

Pretty much only thing I like is integrated calendar as I decided to trash Thunderbird too. For emails I'm using same app as I have on Android, Bluemail.

 

On 8/7/2023 at 1:33 AM, LloydLynx said:

I'd have suggested Palemoon, but then I read about your addon requirements. No harm in mentioning it though. It's like the only browser that has a fully usuable independently maintained web engine that's not Chromium or WebKit based. It's a fork of Firefox from long ago and keeps the old school work flow.

https://www.palemoon.org/

Oh my... Just installed that and the rush of good feel seeing that oldschool Firefox UI. All the things I love. Too bad it doesn't have extension support for things like Bitwarden.