0:00 the search for the perfect web browser
0:02 is a never-ending Quest it seems like
0:04 every year I'm switching to a different
0:06 web browser just because there's
0:08 something about every web browser that's
0:11 just not perfect for me but while there
0:13 is no perfect web browser over the years
0:16 I have compiled a list of my favorite
0:18 and my least favorite web browsers that
0:20 I've ever used and in this video I'm
0:22 going to be ranking these from base tier
0:24 all the way down to spyware tier so we
0:28 can finally see once and for all which
0:29 web browsers are the best to use which
0:32 one should you be using and for this
0:34 ranking I'm going to be focusing on a
0:36 few things first off the browser needs
0:38 to be privacy respecting so I don't want
0:40 it phoning all of my data at home to
0:42 Google I don't want it collecting a
0:44 whole bunch of data about me I just want
0:46 to browse the web in peace I want it to
0:48 be fairly easy to use for normal people
0:51 I don't want to have to do a ton of
0:53 configuration to set up my browser and
0:55 have all the websites that I use most
0:57 often just completely break in the name
0:59 of privacy yes you can have a very
1:01 private browser but if it breaks the
1:03 entire internet then it's not really
1:05 what I'm looking for and finally this is
1:07 just going to be down to my opinion so
1:10 if I like the UI if I like the web
1:12 browser then I'm going to rank it higher
1:15 so this is going to be a little bit
1:16 subjective but I'm going to try to be as
1:18 objective as possible but don't get too
1:21 mad whenever I place your favorite web
1:23 browser in the bottom tier and so we
1:25 have five different tiers right here we
1:27 have the spyware tier I'm sure you can
1:29 guess which browsers are going to go
1:30 here these are going to be the browsers
1:32 that siphon all of your data to a
1:34 private company they're not open source
1:36 so you have no idea what they're doing
1:38 in the background and just generally
1:40 software that you should really stay
1:42 away from it doesn't respect your
1:44 privacy at all we have the mediocre tier
1:46 of browsers that I think are pretty bad
1:49 and I wouldn't really recommend anybody
1:51 use them we have the decent tier which I
1:53 think are browsers that are okay they're
1:56 not my favorite but if you have some
1:58 special connection to them then go ahead
2:00 and continue using them nothing wrong
2:02 with that then we have excellent tier
2:04 which is going to be browsers that are
2:06 great you can't really go wrong using
2:08 these browsers and finally the base tier
2:11 of course for the best of the best but
2:14 enough intro let's get to the ranking so
2:16 let's start off with a controversial one
2:18 Brave now I actually think that brave is
2:21 pretty good so I'm gonna come right out
2:23 of the gate and put this on excellent
2:25 tier so by default Brave is going to be
2:27 pretty secure and private so out of the
2:30 box is going to block a whole bunch of
2:31 trackers it blocks ads by default which
2:34 I think is a really good feature that
2:35 more web browsers should have it has a
2:38 bunch of sensible privacy configurations
2:40 that are already set and there are a lot
2:42 of options here so you can go through
2:44 and tweak it however you would like and
2:46 I use this browser for a long time
2:48 personally I used it probably for a year
2:50 and I didn't really have any big
2:51 complaints about it so it respects your
2:53 privacy and has pretty good defaults you
2:57 could probably even convince one of your
2:59 Normie friends to use this you could
3:01 probably download this for your grandma
3:02 it would be a better choice than Google
3:04 Chrome but of course we can talk about
3:06 Brave without getting into the
3:08 controversial Parts about it and of
3:10 course I'm talking about the whole
3:11 crypto aspect of it and brave heavily
3:14 uses its own cryptocurrency called Bat
3:16 as a feature throughout the browser and
3:19 if you opt in Brave will send you ads in
3:22 the form of push notifications so every
3:24 once in a while maybe every 20 minutes
3:26 or so when you're using your browser
3:28 you'll get a little pop-up ad usually
3:29 for some crypto thing in the corner and
3:32 every time you view an ad Brave gives
3:34 you a little bit of their Brave bucks or
3:36 their bat their cryptocurrency and so in
3:39 theory over a long time you can
3:41 accumulate some actual money doing this
3:43 wow you get paid to browse the internet
3:45 sounds great but there is the weird kind
3:48 of ethical considerations so you're
3:51 blocking ads from creators maybe you're
3:53 watching a YouTuber and you're blocking
3:54 their ads but instead of the YouTuber
3:56 getting money from the ad now Brave is
3:58 getting the money because you're viewing
4:00 their ads and brave has a system where
4:02 you can kind of redistribute the wells
4:04 back to the creators if they are
4:06 enrolled in their batch program but it's
4:09 just a little bit weird ethically so
4:11 some people are against it because of
4:13 that some people just really hate
4:14 cryptocurrency and they think that is
4:16 destroying the planet so you will see
4:18 some very polarized opening opinions on
4:20 this browser and if you don't care about
4:23 the crypto at all you can actually just
4:24 basically turn it off completely so you
4:27 can disable everything you can even
4:28 disable this little icon here this Brave
4:31 rewards thing and I know on the front
4:33 page they'll even have some sponsored
4:35 images from some advertisers and you can
4:39 turn that off it's kind of annoying but
4:41 you can't turn it off there's a little
4:42 Show sponsored image box right here you
4:44 can turn off and to be honest I use the
4:46 bat system for a while I got their
4:48 cryptocurrency I probably got like I
4:51 don't know 40 bucks of their fake
4:53 imaginary internet money but I stopped
4:55 using it because I kind of thought it
4:57 was pointless I don't really care that
4:58 much about their cryptocurrency so you
5:00 can just turn that off but of course if
5:02 you want to throw any of your imaginary
5:04 internet money at me you can just
5:06 throwing that out there but I think that
5:08 brave is a good choice for a web browser
5:09 even if you don't care about the whole
5:11 cryptocurrency thing but if you do then
5:14 I guess that makes it even better next
5:16 up let's talk about Firefox
5:18 okay I might get a little bit of hate
5:19 for this but I am just putting vanilla
5:22 Firefox in decent here I know tons of
5:25 people love Firefox but out of the box I
5:28 think the vanilla Firefox experience is
5:29 actually very bad so let's just actually
5:32 see what I'm talking about and I've done
5:34 a whole other video ranting about
5:35 Firefox you can watch that if you want
5:38 to but I'm gonna try not to rant too
5:40 much here but they just have a ton of
5:42 useless I guess bloat you would call it
5:44 a bunch of useless features that I never
5:47 use I have this Firefox view which you
5:49 have to disable they have pocket which
5:51 is a service that collects your personal
5:53 information even though they claim to be
5:55 a privacy browser they have a bunch of
5:58 analytics all over the browser like I
6:01 know in their add-ons page they have
6:03 Google analytics running in the
6:04 background collecting information about
6:06 you and just a whole bunch of telemetry
6:08 I just really do not like the default
6:10 out of the box experience with Firefox
6:12 every time I try to use this for normal
6:15 use I end up just disabling half of the
6:18 web browser it seems like and it just
6:20 takes me like a half hour to set it up
6:22 every single time just dealing with all
6:24 the nuisances
6:25 on Firefox and that's why I don't really
6:28 like it out of the box it also defaults
6:31 to Google as a default search engine
6:33 which I get that they get a lot of money
6:36 from Google but it's still a really
6:37 baffling choice for a privacy focused
6:40 web browser and so while of course I
6:42 think this is better than a lot of
6:44 Alternatives like Google Chrome I don't
6:46 think that it's the best web browser to
6:48 use but you might be wondering why I
6:50 have another version of Firefox down
6:52 here so this one I would say is hardened
6:55 Firefox
6:56 you might be wondering what is that well
6:58 it's the same thing as Firefox but with
7:00 a custom user.js and a user.js file is
7:04 basically a settings file that will
7:07 allow you to configure a whole bunch of
7:09 different options about your Firefox and
7:11 really just take the privacy and
7:12 security to the next level so although
7:15 it's not easy to turn this off from the
7:16 settings if you kind of get your hands
7:18 dirty then you can disable all of this
7:21 in the options and once you do all that
7:23 you will get an experience more like
7:25 this which I think is much better so you
7:28 don't get any of this pocket nonsense
7:30 you don't get a whole bunch of useless
7:31 features that you don't really need
7:33 you have very sensible default
7:35 configuration options here for privacy
7:37 and security and there are a few
7:39 different user.js files that I would
7:41 recommend so there is the arc and fox
7:43 user.js which is probably the most
7:45 popular and it disables a lot of the
7:47 Telemetry that Mozilla has in Firefox
7:50 and it's going to make it much more
7:52 private but I don't even like this one
7:54 that much to be honest because it
7:57 doesn't disable a lot of the annoyances
7:58 I have about Firefox like the pocket
8:01 integration and a lot of the Annoying
8:03 features that I don't really use so I
8:05 actually prefer to use this repository
8:07 right here by narcill
8:09 this user.js here it's a fork of the arc
8:13 and fox project but in my opinion it
8:15 just has some better defaults and do
8:17 note that if you do use this you will
8:19 have to make a few tweaks to it because
8:21 it does break a few things so for
8:24 instance in my user.js file I turn off
8:27 resist fingerprinting which makes you
8:29 more Anonymous but breaks a lot of
8:31 things on the internet I also enabled
8:33 DRM I still watch Netflix I know what an
8:36 army but once you do this you might want
8:39 to enable a few other options like it
8:40 turns off Firefox sync by default maybe
8:43 you want that and maybe you want a few
8:45 other options you probably want to go
8:47 into the settings and enable update
8:49 add-ons automatically you probably don't
8:52 want to have to manually update these
8:53 and you'll probably want to disable
8:55 deleting cookies and site data whenever
8:57 Firefox is closed you'll probably want
9:00 to keep the history not clear the
9:01 history every time but it does come with
9:03 very privacy respecting defaults but
9:06 it's probably a little bit too much for
9:08 most people you probably care about
9:10 convenience too so those are just a few
9:12 things that you probably need to change
9:14 but after you do that then Firefox
9:16 becomes a really great and usable
9:18 browser one more thing I just wanted to
9:20 add if you want a user.js file that
9:22 doesn't break everything I would use
9:24 better Fox right here I'll leave a link
9:27 in the description as well but this
9:28 enables a bunch of privacy and security
9:30 features and disables a lot of the
9:32 Firefox annoyances but without enabling
9:35 some of the more advanced options that
9:37 may break a lot of things about your
9:39 browser or the internet so if you're
9:41 more of a normal person that cares about
9:42 privacy but not that much to the point
9:45 where it breaks a lot of things I would
9:46 use this I'll probably do another video
9:48 on this in the future going into more
9:50 detail about how to set up this user.js
9:53 on Firefox but before you do this with
9:55 Firefox I'd think that it's a really bad
9:57 experience and after that I think that
9:59 is one of the best browsers out there
10:01 so that's why I'm putting hardened
10:03 Firefox into base tier once you remove
10:06 all of the Mozilla Croft I think it's
10:08 one of the best browsers out there and
10:10 it's actually what I personally use for
10:12 my daily driver so it doesn't require a
10:15 little bit of manual configuration but
10:16 once you do that then it's pretty easy
10:19 to use and they are just so different
10:21 that I didn't feel right just putting it
10:23 on one tier or the other because the
10:25 difference is very big in my opinion
10:27 next let's talk about Epiphany or gnome
10:30 web I'm putting this straight in
10:32 mediocre tier
10:33 and the only reason I even have this on
10:35 the tier list
10:37 I don't think that many people actually
10:38 use this but there was a Linux
10:40 Experiment video
10:42 I think a year or two ago where he was
10:44 saying I'm quitting Firefox and I'm
10:46 moving to gnome web instead
10:48 and of course a month after he released
10:51 that video he said I used it for a month
10:53 and it was terrible everything was
10:56 Breaking All the Time websites were not
10:58 displaying correctly it was super slow
11:00 and leggy and this is the exact
11:02 experience that I've had using this so I
11:05 used this before whenever I was on gnome
11:06 and the experience was just really bad
11:09 even now I downloaded it again for this
11:11 video and some websites just wouldn't
11:13 even work I tried to load YouTube and it
11:15 would just get completely stuck and
11:17 crash the browser and every single
11:20 movement in this browser feels like it's
11:21 coated with molasses with all due
11:24 respect to the gnome team I don't really
11:26 think that this is browser ready for
11:28 prime time I don't think it is a great
11:30 browser to use and I don't recommend
11:32 anybody to use it I guess the nicest
11:34 thing that I could say about it is that
11:35 the UI is kind of nice if you like
11:37 gnomes UI which I do have a soft spot in
11:40 my heart for then you might appreciate
11:42 that but that is really the only thing
11:44 that it has going for it I don't
11:46 recommend anybody to use that and next
11:48 up let's go over Google Chrome you know
11:51 where this is going it's going straight
11:52 in the spyware tier if you're using
11:54 Google Chrome just stop because what
11:57 Google is doing with this is just
11:59 collecting all of your data on every
12:01 website you visit
12:02 it could be collecting so much more
12:04 information than that we don't even know
12:06 because it's closed source and you can't
12:08 actually see the source code so it could
12:11 be doing all kinds of Nefarious things
12:12 in the background Google is generally an
12:15 evil company that you shouldn't trust
12:16 don't worry it used to be me I used to
12:19 use Google Chrome a few years ago before
12:22 I started using Linux because oh it's so
12:24 cool you can sync your Google account so
12:26 when you get a new computer wow all your
12:28 settings are right there you can do all
12:31 that with Firefox and a lot of other
12:32 browsers and even if you like chromium
12:34 there are much better chromium-based
12:36 browsers out there Brave is one of them
12:38 if you want something like Google
12:40 Chromium but without all the creepiness
12:42 of Google tracking your whereabouts all
12:44 over the Internet no thanks so next
12:47 let's talk about icecat icecat is
12:50 another Firefox clone but with a few
12:53 differences so icecat is what you want
12:55 to use if you are a free software
12:57 extremist and of course I'm not talking
12:59 about software that is zero dollars I'm
13:01 talking about free as freedom and if you
13:04 know anything about free software this
13:06 generally means software that is open
13:07 source that you can view the source code
13:09 just to see that is not doing anything
13:12 malicious with the code executing on
13:15 your machine and so this was made by
13:17 free software purists and a problem that
13:19 they have with the open web well you can
13:21 just read it here if you want to this is
13:23 an article by Richard stallman of course
13:25 it's by Richard stallman about non-free
13:28 JavaScript and so JavaScript is used
13:30 everywhere on the internet it is used
13:33 for any kind of scripting and most
13:35 JavaScript that you're going to run from
13:37 the Internet is going to be non-free is
13:39 not going to be open source you can't go
13:42 in and inspect the source code and see
13:43 what it's doing to you so if you log on
13:46 to google.com you're not really sure
13:48 what information they're collecting
13:49 about you and that is the problem that
13:51 Richard stallman outlines here he
13:53 doesn't want to use any non-free
13:55 software or code on his machine at all
13:58 including JavaScript so what this web
14:00 browser does is it includes a whole
14:03 bunch of extensions
14:04 most notably Libre JS which block any
14:08 non-free JavaScript on your computer
14:11 so obviously as you can expect this is
14:13 going to break a lot of websites because
14:16 tons of websites especially websites
14:19 that are more like web applications they
14:21 use a ton of JavaScript in the
14:23 background and they're just going to
14:24 completely break a whole lot of websites
14:26 that you use all the time like we can
14:28 just see this if you go to reddit.com or
14:30 youtube.com like most of the website is
14:33 just not going to work half of it's not
14:35 going to load and they do kind of have
14:36 some workarounds for this so if you go
14:38 to something like youtube.com
14:41 you'll see how you're actually not going
14:43 to YouTube You're Going to invidious
14:45 which is a privacy and respecting
14:46 YouTube front end and you can still
14:48 watch all of your favorite YouTubers on
14:50 here let's watch mental Outlaw and this
14:53 is going to work fine because it is
14:55 using free Javascript but of course
14:57 normal YouTube which collects a whole
14:59 bunch of data about you is not going to
15:01 work half of the time and same with some
15:03 websites like Reddit or Twitter if you
15:05 try to go there then it'll automatically
15:06 redirect you to a privacy respecting
15:09 alternative or not even alternative this
15:12 is just a different front end so you can
15:14 still browse your favorite subreddits I
15:16 guess so you might like that as a
15:18 workaround and probably for some other
15:20 websites they would work fine if they're
15:22 pretty simple
15:23 but some other websites you might just
15:25 have to add to the white list here
15:28 and you probably will be adding a lot to
15:30 the white list so I would only pick
15:32 icecat if you really care about this
15:34 whole Libre JS thing and if you don't
15:36 really care about it and you're just
15:38 going to White list most of the websites
15:40 that you visit on a day-to-day basis
15:41 it's not really worth it to use so it's
15:44 not bad but I don't really see the point
15:46 in it I'm not really going to use
15:48 libre.js you might be interested in that
15:51 but not me so that's why I'm gonna rank
15:54 it in just a decent tier I think it's
15:58 okay if you're truly in love with the
16:00 vision that they have with this web
16:01 browser then go ahead but even some of
16:04 the decisions are a little bit
16:05 questionable here like they have an
16:07 entire extension about calculating US
16:10 postage because the United States Postal
16:13 Service their website does not work if
16:16 you're only using free JavaScript
16:18 and so this is a workaround but how
16:21 often are you calculating postage in the
16:24 United States I don't even live in the
16:26 United States so why do I have this why
16:28 couldn't this just be optional I don't
16:30 know it's kind of baffling but it is
16:33 kind of funny I guess and there are a
16:35 few other extensions here that are
16:37 mostly just more workarounds for Libre
16:39 and JS so this is a workaround for
16:43 libgen.me if you even use this website
16:45 this fixes uh maybe some issues with
16:48 circs if you even use that website so
16:51 again I probably wouldn't use this but
16:52 you can check it out next up is librew
16:55 Wolf so librew wolf when I pull it up
16:58 here it might kind of look familiar
17:00 because it kind of looks like hardened
17:02 Firefox
17:03 so it's Firefox without all of the bloat
17:06 that Mozilla adds to it and that's
17:08 basically what it is so if we look
17:10 around here is basically Firefox without
17:12 pocket and a bunch of Mozilla Telemetry
17:14 and just has much better privacy
17:17 configurations by default there's no
17:19 Google analytics in the settings page
17:21 and it is going to be very private and
17:23 secure by default now the same thing
17:26 with hardened Firefox it is probably
17:28 going to be a little bit too restrictive
17:30 and so you probably want to enable some
17:32 things
17:34 like you probably don't want to delete
17:35 cookies and site data whenever librew
17:37 wolf is closed you probably want to
17:39 retain your logins most normal people I
17:41 think would want to do that you probably
17:42 want to remember your history and there
17:45 are a few other privacy settings but
17:47 they have this little librew wolf
17:49 section right here where you can kind of
17:51 customize the more advanced privacy
17:53 settings
17:54 so some people may want this enable
17:56 resist fingerprinting which does
17:59 increase your privacy but like I said it
18:01 breaks the web so you can uncheck this
18:03 if you want and you don't have to go
18:04 through some weird settings page like
18:06 you would in Firefox so in Firefox you
18:08 either have to install some user.js file
18:10 which maybe some normal people wouldn't
18:13 know how to do that or you have to go
18:14 through this weird scary menu where you
18:17 have to go through a bunch of random
18:18 settings right here in order to actually
18:20 customize this stuff and it's probably
18:23 not something most people are going to
18:24 do so I really like the fact that they
18:27 have this menu right here and you can go
18:29 through and just see if you want these
18:32 options or not so it disables Firefox
18:34 sync by default but that is something
18:36 that a lot of people might like so you
18:38 can just easily enable that you have to
18:40 restart librew wolf but that's fine you
18:43 can update add-ons automatically which
18:46 is something that most people probably
18:47 want if your super privacy focused you
18:50 may not want this but that's why I like
18:51 librew because it gives you the option
18:53 if you're just a normal person and if
18:56 you want to configure this so I would
18:58 highly recommend this browser it look at
19:01 this it even comes with ublock origin by
19:03 default I mean could it get any better
19:05 you'd like origin is probably the only
19:07 extension that a lot of you people need
19:09 doesn't come included with Firefox but
19:11 it does with librew wolf another nice
19:13 touch thanks librew Wolf but one of the
19:16 only things that a lot of people don't
19:18 like about Libre wolf is that it updates
19:20 behind Firefox so this is a Firefox Fork
19:24 and so
19:25 if Firefox updates then they have to
19:28 update librew wolf after that and so you
19:31 may be a day or two behind on security
19:33 updates because librew wolf is generally
19:36 pretty fast whenever Firefox releases a
19:39 new release then Libre wolf is usually
19:41 right behind maybe a day or two or three
19:44 so if you really care about getting the
19:46 absolute latest insecurity then that
19:49 might be an issue for you but probably
19:51 for most people being a day or two
19:53 behind vanilla Firefox is not going to
19:56 be a big deal and I highly recommend you
19:59 use librew wolf it is a very good
20:00 browser and I would say right behind
20:03 hardened Firefox because it's almost the
20:05 same thing it's just a little bit easier
20:07 you don't have to dig into the user.js
20:10 file yourself so I don't know if I would
20:12 recommend it for normal people because
20:14 they probably don't care about their
20:15 privacy that much but if you want a very
20:17 privacy respecting browser that doesn't
20:20 take too much to set up I would
20:22 definitely recommend librew wolf
20:24 next up let's go over Microsoft edge of
20:27 course you know where this is going to
20:28 end up it's going to go in spyware tier
20:30 this is basically just the same thing as
20:32 Google Chrome except instead of sending
20:34 all of your information to Google it
20:36 sends it all to Microsoft which is not
20:38 any better I don't want any evil
20:40 Corporation harvesting all my personal
20:43 data of course it's closed Source also
20:46 so I highly recommend you not use this
20:48 browser and you know what let's take
20:50 Opera right here and put it in the same
20:53 tier I'm sorry Opera fans but Opera is
20:56 also closed source so they do claim to
20:59 care about privacy a little bit but the
21:01 browser is closed source so you can't
21:03 really see if they're collecting which
21:05 and what data about you and if you start
21:08 up Opera it does make a whole bunch of
21:09 unsolicited requests to Opera what data
21:13 is it sending to Opera I don't really
21:15 know and some people really dislike this
21:17 browser because oh no it was bought by
21:19 an evil Chinese company not a Chinese
21:22 company anything but that as if sending
21:24 your data to Americans is so much better
21:27 than sending it to Chinese I don't want
21:29 my data being sent anywhere so I'm just
21:31 not going to use any of these browsers I
21:33 don't recommend Opera I don't even
21:35 recommend their gaming browser you've
21:37 probably seen this in some YouTube ads
21:39 or something they do have a gaming
21:41 browser and no I don't recommend it you
21:43 can be a Pro Gamer and use something
21:45 like hard and Firefox next up let's go
21:48 to Pale Moon
21:50 so pale moon is yet another Firefox
21:52 clone with a Twist let's pop it open
21:54 right here and right away you might
21:56 begin a blast from the past what is this
21:59 UI so this is actually a fork of the old
22:02 UI of Firefox so if you were using
22:05 Firefox like I don't know five or ten
22:07 years ago it's about from that era and
22:10 you really like the old style of Firefox
22:12 back when it was so customizable and you
22:15 can do all these different things I
22:17 don't know a lot of people just have
22:18 this Nostalgia for old Firefox I just
22:21 don't see it I actually like the modern
22:23 Firefox UI and you can still customize
22:26 it if you don't like it for whatever
22:27 reason I just don't understand these
22:29 people who go on Reddit and complain
22:31 every time Firefox adjusts a few pixels
22:34 of the address bar there's always some
22:36 angry people who are saying they're
22:38 going to quit using Firefox immediately
22:40 anytime their design changes
22:42 um but enough of this rant I mean Pale
22:44 Moon is fine so it's basically an old
22:47 version of Firefox but of course it's
22:49 still maintained so it's not going to be
22:51 like a security nightmare they do have
22:54 some weird questionable designs like
22:56 this really stupid homepage right here
22:58 if you look under the hood it's making a
23:00 bunch of requests to Google
23:02 and it has a bunch of useless websites
23:05 on here that you would never use in a
23:06 million years why would you ever shop at
23:08 the Home Depot online I don't know
23:10 there's an ad right here telling you to
23:13 become a pro for only 20 a year
23:15 by the way there's a million other start
23:16 Pages like this you don't need to pay 20
23:18 a year for this and I'm sure this is
23:20 some deal they worked out with them to
23:22 get some money I mean if you really want
23:25 to sell out you can uh donate link is in
23:28 the description just so you guys know
23:30 but of course you can disable this and
23:33 it's going to have some privacy and
23:35 respecting options you can go into the
23:37 settings this is the old style of doing
23:40 it I don't know I think it's okay A lot
23:42 of people still like it but I don't
23:44 really see a whole lot of reason to use
23:45 this if you're not really into the UI
23:47 like me this UI is just doing nothing
23:49 for me but I don't know if it reawakens
23:52 some deep Nostalgia deep within your
23:54 soul then I guess you can check this out
23:57 the extensions are just okay too you're
24:00 not going to be getting modern Firefox
24:01 extensions there is still like an
24:03 extension repository with some ad
24:05 blocking plugins and things like that
24:08 you can even click here on the home page
24:10 wow I guess it is useful for something
24:12 and you can go to extensions here there
24:15 are some privacy and security and you
24:18 can download some Adblock
24:19 or something like that I'm sure this
24:21 works fine
24:22 I just don't really see the point in
24:24 using this there are much better options
24:26 out there so I'm just going to put this
24:29 one in decent tier next up is cute
24:31 browser another very beloved browser and
24:35 this browser is very different than a
24:37 lot of browsers I've talked about it is
24:38 not just another Firefox clone here is
24:41 the browser you might be thinking uh
24:43 where is everything where's the address
24:45 bar where's the back button this is a
24:48 keyboard Centric browser so if you are
24:50 one of those weirdos who uses vim and
24:53 you have tiling window manager and you
24:55 only use the keyboard and you never
24:57 touch the mouse for anything then you
24:58 are going to love this browser probably
25:00 it is basically the Vim version of a
25:02 browser so if I want to open up a
25:04 website I can just run o to open and I
25:07 can go to
25:09 some website right here
25:11 and voila now I am there I can open a
25:14 new tab with
25:15 capital O
25:16 all of your favorite Vim bindings are
25:18 here
25:19 so if I got a I don't know
25:21 old.reddit.com you can go to Reddit you
25:24 can go up and down with uh J and K Keys
25:27 you can scroll down with Ctrl d control
25:30 U you can jump around to different links
25:32 with f
25:33 now a bunch of characters have appeared
25:35 on screen and we can navigate to some
25:37 dumb political discussion on Reddit by
25:39 typing in the characters next to the
25:41 link and now we are there and I did all
25:44 of that without even touching my mouse
25:46 that is pretty cool and so if you know
25:48 the Vim Keys then you can navigate
25:49 basically the entire web without using
25:52 your mouse at all that can make it very
25:54 appealing for power users if you want to
25:56 learn all of the key bindings you can
25:58 just run help this will show you all of
26:01 the key bindings and of course this is
26:03 all configurable this is a very
26:05 configurable browser and it doesn't even
26:08 have a settings page what it has is a
26:10 text file so if you use a tiling window
26:12 manager and you're used to opening up
26:13 your dot config files then it's going to
26:16 have a file in there where you can
26:17 configure it in Python that is language
26:20 this browser is written in and so it
26:22 gives you a very cool experience that is
26:24 very different from almost every other
26:26 browser but with how cool I think this
26:29 browser is there are a few issues
26:31 first off it does have ad blocker
26:33 support out of the box by the ad
26:36 blocking that it has is not very
26:37 Advanced and so
26:39 across some websites you'll run into
26:41 some issues where it doesn't completely
26:43 block it or on some websites like
26:46 YouTube or some video websites the ad
26:48 will just not be blocked at all so if I
26:50 was to go to YouTube and if I was to
26:52 click on something then it would just
26:54 play ads like normal this is a big issue
26:56 that people have had in this browser for
26:58 a long time that's because it's not
26:59 using ublock origin or anything like
27:01 that under the hood it's basically just
27:03 a hosts file and so you can't really get
27:06 any super in-depth ad blocking with this
27:09 or tracker blocking which is something
27:11 you might be worried about as well so
27:13 it's going to do a worse job at tracker
27:15 blocking as well than something like
27:16 ubloc origin and the best fix that
27:19 people have come up with to get around
27:21 the YouTube issue is just to play the ad
27:23 really fast and automatically click on
27:26 the skip add button which I guess works
27:28 with it but it's probably not what most
27:29 people want and there are some other
27:31 cool features that you can use as a
27:33 workaround like if you want you can even
27:35 open videos in MPV in your native video
27:38 player that you have on your system you
27:40 can do that that's because the scripting
27:42 capabilities with python that you can
27:44 use here
27:45 it goes pretty deep and you can do a lot
27:47 with this browser that you couldn't with
27:49 others so I don't actually use this
27:51 browser much so I can't show you video
27:53 clips of all that but I'm sure if you
27:55 check out any other video in cute
27:56 browser you'll see all these features
27:58 and it might be worth it to you but
28:00 that's not all that's wrong with cute
28:01 browser in my experience at least it's
28:03 going to be a little bit slower than
28:05 Firefox or chromium unfortunately
28:07 especially if you have a lower end PC
28:09 that is going to be something you have
28:11 to deal with it's going to be a little
28:12 bit slower to use it's definitely not a
28:14 bad browser by any means and I think
28:17 this niche of a keyboard-based browser
28:18 is not really seen anywhere else I know
28:21 you can install like the Vim plug-in in
28:24 Firefox or chromium but it's just not
28:26 the same so I definitely respect anybody
28:28 who uses this but in my opinion there's
28:30 just a few too many little small things
28:33 that just annoy me with this browser for
28:35 me to use it full time
28:37 so I'm putting this in decent tier I
28:40 think it's okay next up is on Google
28:42 Chromium I really like this browser I'm
28:44 putting it straight in the excellent
28:45 tier I use this for a long time actually
28:47 probably almost a year I made a whole
28:50 video on this browser I really fell in
28:52 love with it and let me just show you it
28:54 right here so it is basically Google
28:56 Chrome without all of the Google and
28:58 even just the base chromium it comes
29:01 with a whole bunch of callbacks to
29:02 Google anyway so on Google Chromium just
29:05 strips everything out of the browser
29:06 that could possibly send any molecular
29:09 data to Google and I really like it for
29:11 that and the design here is really
29:13 simple uh if you've ever used Google
29:15 Chrome is probably what you would expect
29:17 but it has a very minimal
29:20 user interface there is not that many
29:22 options compared to something like
29:24 Firefox but it isn't that customizable
29:27 so if you don't really like Google's
29:29 design decisions on Google Chromium adds
29:32 a few flags and options that you can
29:35 kind of use to override Google's design
29:37 decisions but at the end of the day you
29:39 kind of have to follow their idea for
29:41 what the browser should be so even
29:44 though you don't have any Google
29:45 spookiness inside of here it is still
29:47 basically Google Chrome love it or hate
29:49 it so do keep that in mind and another
29:52 unknowing thing about this that is
29:54 preventing me from putting it in the top
29:56 tier is that these add-ons by default
29:59 since you have to get them from the
30:01 Google Chrome Store and this on Google
30:03 Chromium doesn't want to talk to Google
30:05 at all you have to kind of manually
30:07 install these plugins or you can use
30:10 this plug-in right here to manage your
30:13 plugin I know browser extension to
30:15 manage your browser extensions that's a
30:17 little bit weird but you can update your
30:19 plugins like this
30:21 so you just have to manually do this and
30:24 every time there's an update you have to
30:26 click through here and manually update
30:28 all of these it's a little bit annoying
30:30 but it is the workaround that you have
30:32 to use in order to get around the Google
30:34 store so it's not a big deal especially
30:37 if you're like me and you don't use that
30:38 many extensions you can still go to the
30:41 Google Chrome Store and install an
30:42 extension like you normally would but
30:44 the way of updating this is a little bit
30:47 weird I did a whole video on this if you
30:49 want to check it out I definitely think
30:51 it's worth your time but just keep in
30:52 mind that it has a few limitations like
30:54 this okay it's time for another
30:56 controversial one Vivaldi I know a lot
30:59 of people really love this browser it
31:01 has one of the most rapid fan bases on
31:03 the internet I don't know why but it
31:05 does
31:06 well actually I can kind of see why
31:08 let's open up Vivaldi right here and
31:10 Vivaldi is pretty unique in that it does
31:12 what basically no other web browser can
31:15 do it just has a ton of crazy features
31:18 that you would never expect a web
31:19 browser to have essentially it has page
31:22 tiling we have to open up a couple of
31:25 tabs and then click this we can tile
31:27 these vertically or horizontally so now
31:30 we have one window but we have two
31:32 different pages right here that is kind
31:35 of cool I guess it has a take a break
31:37 option if you're addicted to the
31:39 internet and you need to take a break
31:40 for a while it can automatically time
31:43 you out if that's something you want it
31:45 has a panel of a whole bunch of things
31:47 you can do you can put some shortcuts on
31:49 here like Mastodon you can access your
31:51 history and your bookmarks from all this
31:53 your reading list your notes different
31:56 Windows it really has the kitchen sink
31:58 here you can add more here
32:00 like your favorite websites it even has
32:03 a clock here if your system clock isn't
32:06 enough basically what Vivaldi tries to
32:08 do is it tries to be like an operating
32:10 system posing as a web browser you can
32:13 just do so much with this it also blocks
32:16 ads and trackers by default which is
32:18 pretty good I haven't explored this too
32:20 extensively but from what I can tell it
32:22 does a pretty good job uh it has all
32:24 these useless websites by default which
32:27 is kind of lame but it's not a big deal
32:29 it has Bing by default as a search
32:31 engine which again isn't that great but
32:34 you can easily change that I guess you
32:36 have this giant settings panel if you
32:37 want this and Vivaldi really has so much
32:40 it has even a male client in here it has
32:44 a calendar here it even has RSS reader
32:47 in here
32:48 so you can really just make this browser
32:51 your everything I guess once you use
32:53 this browser you'll never use another
32:54 app on your computer that's kind of the
32:56 idea of it for me this is just way too
32:59 maximalist I don't need 90 of these
33:01 features but I guess some power users
33:04 might enjoy this so I definitely
33:06 understand why a lot of people like this
33:07 browser but let's talk about privacy and
33:09 security so Vivaldi claims to be very
33:12 privacy respecting and they have all
33:14 these settings in here to help protect
33:16 your privacy a block trackers and ads as
33:18 I've said by default so that sounds
33:20 pretty good but probably the biggest
33:22 drawback of Vivaldi is it is not open
33:25 source now you may have heard that
33:27 Vivaldi is open source and that's partly
33:30 true so Vivaldi is partly open source so
33:34 they released the modifications that
33:36 they made the chromium so they're using
33:38 chromium under the hood to render the
33:40 pages
33:41 but the UI all of this right here is
33:44 closed Source you have no access to that
33:46 and of course they have good reasons as
33:49 to why they don't open source it they
33:52 have this long sob story on their
33:53 website explaining how they don't want
33:55 someone to Fork them and just copy all
33:57 of their work and become more popular
33:58 than them that's one of their main
34:01 reasons for not open sourcing it
34:03 but unfortunately I just can't bring
34:05 myself to completely trust a browser
34:07 that is closed source
34:09 I know only the UI is closed Source but
34:12 that is one of the most important parts
34:14 of the browser the part that you
34:16 directly interact with and so I know
34:19 they claim to be all of our privacy but
34:22 when it's closed Source I can't really
34:23 see what data they're collecting about
34:25 me and I have to just trust them
34:27 I don't want to just trust them I'm
34:29 sorry Vivaldi I'm sure that the people
34:32 who developed this I'm sure their hearts
34:33 are in the right place
34:35 but I just can't really give it a higher
34:37 grade than this
34:38 because at least for me the closed
34:40 source is a big deal breaker and of
34:43 course this is going to be a much better
34:44 choice than something like Google Chrome
34:46 you're not sending all of your data to
34:47 an evil company but I'm just going to
34:50 put this in mediocre tier it was open
34:52 source it would probably be higher but I
34:55 guess I'm just a little bit of a free
34:56 software Zealot so if you're a giant
34:58 Vivaldi fan please don't leave a dislike
35:00 on this video it's just my opinion guys
35:02 but finally let's go into our last one
35:04 waterfox
35:06 what is waterfox waterfox is yet another
35:09 Firefox clone and it's actually pretty
35:11 good let's just put this on excellent
35:13 tier right here so this is waterfox like
35:16 I said it is a Firefox clone and it has
35:19 some pretty good defaults out of the box
35:21 so it doesn't come with all the Croft
35:23 that Mozilla Firefox has that's one of
35:26 the reasons why I don't like Firefox but
35:28 this is a lot more Bare Bones it doesn't
35:29 have all the crazy features that Firefox
35:31 does it does have a few so it has
35:33 Firefox sync if you really like Firefox
35:36 sync capabilities then you can sign in
35:38 sync your Mozilla account and get all of
35:40 your settings from Firefox it has some
35:43 pretty good privacy respecting defaults
35:45 it's not perfect but it's probably going
35:48 to be enough for most people it's
35:49 definitely better than firefox's
35:51 defaults because it does turn off a lot
35:53 of Firefox Telemetry it's not really
35:55 that much of a privacy browser they
35:57 claim to be more about speed than
35:59 anything
36:00 so probably a lot of the Telemetry that
36:02 they're disabling is just to make the
36:03 browser run faster which either way I
36:06 guess it works out it's fine and by
36:08 default the search is Bing which is not
36:11 great but you can pretty easily change
36:14 it to start page or something else
36:17 as basically all I have to show you
36:18 about waterfox it is not that much
36:20 different from Firefox it's just Firefox
36:23 with a different coat of paint and a
36:25 little bit different defaults
36:27 but between waterfox and Firefox you're
36:30 not going to see a big difference
36:32 but I do have to talk about one of the
36:34 things that a lot of people really
36:35 dislike about waterfox and that is that
36:38 it is owned by an advertising company oh
36:40 no so here the company that actually
36:43 owns this and coincidentally it is the
36:46 same company that bought out start page
36:47 a few years ago which is another privacy
36:50 respecting search engine
36:52 and would you look at that right on the
36:54 home page they're connecting people with
36:57 advertisers at scale so now you just
37:00 know that the entire browser is
37:01 compromised right
37:02 well we do have to keep in mind that it
37:05 is still open source so you can still go
37:07 into the source code and you can make
37:10 sure that this company is not phoning a
37:12 whole bunch of data back to them
37:14 that is probably going to be your main
37:16 concern they're going to harvest all
37:18 your data and send it to advertisers but
37:20 they haven't done that and you can go
37:22 through the source code and verify that
37:24 they haven't really done anything too
37:26 creepy with it and so when this news
37:28 first broke it was a huge deal everybody
37:30 was making a big deal about this but
37:32 this was a couple of years ago and not
37:34 really much has changed at all
37:36 so I don't really see the big problem
37:38 with using this
37:39 I definitely understand if you might be
37:41 turned off by it being run by an
37:43 advertising company but I just don't
37:45 think it's as big of a deal as everybody
37:47 seems to think it is but I'm kind of
37:49 leaving this one up to you you can take
37:51 it or leave it I think it's pretty good
37:53 but you're not really going to get that
37:55 much more out of this browser than you
37:57 would with just a properly configured
37:59 Firefox but I guess this is good if
38:01 you're kind of lazy and you don't want
38:02 to remove the pocket and all of the
38:04 Annoying Firefox features it could be
38:07 something to check out so that is it
38:08 that is my browser tier list hopefully
38:11 this gives you a good idea of which
38:12 browser that you should personally use I
38:15 think that any of these in the top two
38:17 rows you can't really go wrong with and
38:20 you can even get by with using some of
38:22 these These are pretty good they're just
38:24 not my personal favorite so do I think
38:26 that any of these are the perfect
38:27 browser and I will use them for the rest
38:29 of time obviously not but for the time
38:32 being I am pretty happy with hardened
38:34 Firefox and with the right user.js file
38:37 it doesn't really require that much
38:38 configuration to to set up so I guess if
38:41 you want a recommendation after this
38:43 video is finished as to what you should
38:44 do that's my recommendation and if you
38:47 want a browser that's easy enough for
38:48 your grandma to pick up I would pick
38:50 brave because it has ad blocking out of
38:52 the box and you don't have to tweak a
38:54 bunch of settings to get it working for
38:55 normal people maybe just disable the
38:57 crypto or maybe your grandma is going to
38:59 start asking you is this the Bitcoin
39:01 that I've been hearing so much about but
39:03 let me know in the comments if I'm
39:04 completely off base and of course feel
39:06 free to have your own browser wars in
39:08 the comments but this is just my opinion
39:10 hopefully it helps some of you maybe
39:12 pick a browser and to just stop using
39:14 Google Chrome just don't do it there's
39:17 so many better options out there
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