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Why I'm all-in on Zen Browser

werd.io

91–100 of 129 posts

Re: Why I'm all-in on Zen Browser

#92
using zen since about 7 months for all of my daily work + on my personal computer. the issues the comments describe here, never had those. it "just" works for me. donated to the project, i hope they go a long way.

Re: Why I'm all-in on Zen Browser

#94
post #82
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>use profiles for what profiles are good at 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.

Selecting a profile at launch has never been a problem in Firefox. Switching to a different profile in a running browser is prettier in Chrome though, sure. 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.

That depends a lot on the platform. On MacOS, for example, switching to a profile from about:profiles results in the new window being open in the background and it would mess your Firefox icon on the dock. The solution used by Windows and Linux users (the -p command) also doesn't work here (maybe it does via the terminal, but not with shortcuts).

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.

Re: Why I'm all-in on Zen Browser

#95
post #86

I've been trying All The Browsers lately and Arc is definitely still my favourite; I actually had no idea that development had stopped on it, that's a shame. Zen looks good, but they are off the charts on this graph! https://sizeof.cat/post/web-browser-telemetry-2025-edition/ What is going on there? Their Privacy Policy says no telemetry, but then they have a section on those connections made at startup which apparen…

It's just obvious bullshit

Re: Why I'm all-in on Zen Browser

#96
post #80

feels like people keep wanting more and more from the browser. I just want it to stay out the way. Lightweight, good dev tools, good privacy settings.

> feels like people keep wanting more and more from the browser.

The browser is the new OS, so no wonder there.

Re: Why I'm all-in on Zen Browser

#97

everytime i go all in a browser, including when i went all in on zen, eventually i go back to regular chrome. every single time

> eventually i go back to regular chrome

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.

Re: Why I'm all-in on Zen Browser

#98
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Selecting a profile at launch has never been a problem in Firefox. Switching to a different profile in a running browser is prettier in Chrome though, sure. 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.

That depends a lot on the platform. On MacOS, for example, switching to a profile from about:profiles results in the new window being open in the background and it would mess your Firefox icon on the dock. The solution used by Windows and Linux users (the -p command) also doesn't work here (maybe it does via the terminal, but not with shortcuts). Anyway, there's no benefit to Firefox or its users if profile switching…

On macOS, sending `--no-remote -P ` in the command line is the method for launching specific profiles.

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.

Re: Why I'm all-in on Zen Browser

#99
post #86

I've been trying All The Browsers lately and Arc is definitely still my favourite; I actually had no idea that development had stopped on it, that's a shame. Zen looks good, but they are off the charts on this graph! https://sizeof.cat/post/web-browser-telemetry-2025-edition/ What is going on there? Their Privacy Policy says no telemetry, but then they have a section on those connections made at startup which apparen…

> 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.

Re: Why I'm all-in on Zen Browser

#100
post #86

I've been trying All The Browsers lately and Arc is definitely still my favourite; I actually had no idea that development had stopped on it, that's a shame. Zen looks good, but they are off the charts on this graph! https://sizeof.cat/post/web-browser-telemetry-2025-edition/ What is going on there? Their Privacy Policy says no telemetry, but then they have a section on those connections made at startup which apparen…

I think that page on the sizeof.cat website was created before Zen removed a lot of the telemetry. Here's the PR created on April 27, after the article was created

https://github.com/zen-browser/desktop/pull/7901/files

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