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Why I'm all-in on Zen Browser

werd.io

31–40 of 129 posts

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

#31
I've been using Zen for a few months after I lost faith in Arc/The Browser Company.

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.

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

#33

It's weird how people always complain about lack of easy profile switching in Firefox. If one tells them that what they are really looking for is containers, they dismiss containers, but then proceed to complain that profiles don't have the same features. If you want sync across browser instances, manage them with one Firefox account... You really want containers not profiles.

I want profiles. For example, work and personal. Different bookmarks, different plugins. Even some different settings.

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

#35

It's weird how people always complain about lack of easy profile switching in Firefox. If one tells them that what they are really looking for is containers, they dismiss containers, but then proceed to complain that profiles don't have the same features. If you want sync across browser instances, manage them with one Firefox account... You really want containers not profiles.

I want profiles. For example, work and personal. Different bookmarks, different plugins. Even some different settings.

In my recollection, Firefox used to ask you which profile you wanted to use on launch. I don't think I've seen that in years.

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

#36
post #8

I tried Zen for a while (1-2 months). It certainly has some cool features. But in the end, I returned to Vanilla FF and installed Sideberry [0] with custom userChrome.css [1]. It gets me 99% of what I used with Zen (tree tabs, workspaces), but without annoyances/anti-features (inconvenient url bar for editing, frequent UI changes, cute animations that ignore prefer-reduced-motion, performance, security worries etc.).…

A big hurdle for me is the lack of Widevine which for some reason not a lot of people mention: https://docs.zen-browser.app/faq#why-cant-zen-browser-play-d...

strange Spotify works for me in Zen out out of the box on the Flatpak version.

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

#37
To be fair I haven't tried Zen, but Arc still works well. I don't particularly need any new features - so as long as they continue to keep up with timely security patches and Chromium updates I'll probably keep using it. Also - as a developer I would prefer using a Chromium-based browser since it's the most common one used.

I tried Dia a few weeks back and was disappointed in its sidebar and profile features.

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

#38

It's weird how people always complain about lack of easy profile switching in Firefox. If one tells them that what they are really looking for is containers, they dismiss containers, but then proceed to complain that profiles don't have the same features. If you want sync across browser instances, manage them with one Firefox account... You really want containers not profiles.

Meanwhile, it’s not weird that people think what other people actually want are weird.

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

#40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want profiles. For example, work and personal. Different bookmarks, different plugins. Even some different settings.

In my recollection, Firefox used to ask you which profile you wanted to use on launch. I don't think I've seen that in years.

You can decide if you want to get asked at startup.
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