Posted on 10/26/2017 6:42:43 PM PDT by CatOwner
I've been a user of Firefox since a SysAdmin at work recommended it back in 2004 when they were at version 0.8. Over the years, some of the features I like disappeared from Firefox in their updated versions, most of which were added back in via extensions. At this point, I have 10 extensions installed, half of which deal exclusively with look and feel.
With the latest warning about losing most/all of these legacy extensions with the release of Firefox 57, I decided to look at other browsers. When you add in the SJW nonsense the Mozilla people have associated themselves with, I would like to move away from Firefox. But moving to a less secure browser is not necessarily a good compromise.
One of the issues I have is some web sites require specific browsers. My work's Employee and Retiree Service Center indicates they are compatible with Firefox, Chrome, or IE 11. I find it funny the latter is acceptable when it is considered one of the weakest browsers on the market.
I am currently testing Opera 48, and for the most part, I like it. I am not an "app" person, so the whole "start page/speed dial" layout is not my cup of tea. I have been able to work around most of it, but the lack of adjustments to the look and feel of the menus, tabs, etc. is a little frustrating. Opera 48 has a very good built-in ad blocker, and I find ScriptSafe to be easier to monitor scripts than with Firefox/NoScript. The latter combination has had an increasing number of failings.
But then I go and read about Opera being sold to the Chinese last year, and I wonder if I would be jumping out of the frying pan into the fire. One of the features being touted as a huge plus for Opera, its built-in (and free) VPN, seems less secure knowing the Chinese are monitoring it.
Chrome seems to be popular with many, but I also read about it being very memory and CPU hungry. I have been dealing with memory leak issues with Firefox for years now, and I have no interest moving to a browser that mismanages memory via bloated software. I also can't shake the nagging feeling that Google uses Chrome to build up its database on personal habits even more than it does in general.
I've tried Brave, but so far, I am not a fan of its interface or how it handles script control. It certainly is not as flexible as Firefox/NoScript or Opera/ScirptSafe. I want to like this browse for political reasons, but that in of itself is not a good reason to switch.
There are other browsers for PC, but we're really getting into the bit players or new ones with little history. At a minimum, I likely will need to keep Firefox (or Chrome) around to deal with my former company's service center site, assuming any other browse I select ends up not being completely compatible with that site.
Feedback is most welcomed.
The third element of my security and privacy suite would be an extension that deletes cookies as soon as no browser tabs have any remaining pages referring to them—something like "Cookie AutoDelete," which I'm using in my experiments with Chrome. (It allows whitelisting so that I can stay logged on to FR, etc., between browser sessions.)
Bkmk
Looks like “Vanilla Cookie Manager” might do the trick.
i hope so- i don’t really want to have to find another browser- but not crazy about mozilla stating they are going to ‘help prevent fake news’- that sounds much too like the leftie google-
Good question. Password and logins are independent of the browser. AFAIK, there's no way to do this.
bkmk
Yes. AdBlock Plus is one of my “essential” add-ons, along with NoScript. I’m running both of those now on Waterfox and am quite pleased with the browser’s performance.
Download and try Waterfox. Based on the same open source — “look and feel” pretty much exactly the same, and the Legacy add-ons work with it. (Well, the ones that I use do; I can’t speak for every single add-on.)
Rats.
I can’t seem to find one that seriously outperforms the other.I currently use these: Firefox,Edge, Chrome, Opera and Maxthon
I have used Maxthon ever since the days when it was MyIE. It is extremely customizeable. In fact, many of its innovations were later picked up by the other ‘name’ brand browser and it is worth a look just to see the many settings you can use. However, it is owned by Chinese interests.
Firefox has a couple of new extensions and seems pretty fast. Not crazy about their customizeablity nor layout.
Edge claims to be faster and 20% safer from malware than Firefox and has a popup to tell me that whenever I open their competition.
I kinda like Opera and their built in VPN which is nice for sites you don’t want to lay eyes on your IP or place cookies. Haven’t had any problems with it over many years.
Google Chrome I use exclusively for my gmail accounts. I hate the harassment you get from them about security and changing my passwords.
At a minimum, I am going to need either Firefox or Chrome because the employee service center web site for the company I retired and am drawing a small pension from requires either Firefox, Chrome, or IE. There insistence on allowing IE as an acceptable browser but not Edge or Opera is humurous.
I am currently torn between Opera and Vivaldi. The interesting thing is the above employee web site recognizes Opera by name, but not Vivaldi. Both work with the ScriptSafe extension, an absolute must have (with one possible hitch with Vivaldi I'll note below).
Opera is faster than Vivaldi, and it's faster than every other browser I have tested. I don't have a lot of look and feel customization with Firefox, but I do wish I could change a few things with Opera (like replacing the Start Page button with a Homepage button). Despite the relatively sterile theming, browsing with Opera is better than with the long-used and tailored Firefox.
I like that I can customize Vivaldi, but it seems like there are too many customization options. I wonder if this is part of the reason Vivaldi tends to be a bit slower than Opera and Chrome, but actually on par with Firefox (my version with extensions). I think the built-in ad blocker for Opera helps with its browsing speed. I haven't determined whether the built-in ad blocker is better, same, or worse than the uBlock Origin extension.
It's not just Vivaldi's main browser that is slower than Opera. When I access the ScriptSafe menu to make changes, Opera refreshes immediately upon exiting ScriptSafe. Vivaldi does not with this extension. I have to refresh the web page for any changes to take effect with Vivaldi. I don't know if this is typical with Chrome related browsers with the ScriptSafe extension.
But I do like Vivaldi can use just about any extension that works with Chrome. The same cannot be said about Opera. But even this is not a huge issue. Other than look and feel, I figure there's about 5-6 extensions I would want, and they are available for both Opera and Vivaldi.
As stated before, being bought out by a Chinese company last year is my main concern about Opera. Others seem to be put off by the propriety nature of their OS, especially going forward. Opera has been around long enough to where the latter doesn't bother me.
TOR Browser, it lets You see the other 94% of the Internet (The Deep Web). https://www.torproject.org/download/download-easy.html.en... It hides Your IP address. Most will Ignore this.
> “I deal with this problem [multiple scripts on a page] by running both NoScript and uBlock Origin.”
Thanks, I’ll consider doing that too.
> Download and try Waterfox.
Thanks. I may give it a try.
Thanks, I’ll consider doing that too.
Another method (see my post #50), which can be used in conjunction with this, is to go on a campaign of aggressively marking domains you will always want blocked as "untrusted"—starting with the classics like google-analytics, etc. This will make NoScript's display of the domains it is blocking more compact.
thanks Joe- I’ll give that one a try then
I'll keep it on the machine and check it occasionally to watch its evolution; but I have removed it from consideration as a Firefox replacement.
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