Chromium browsers
April 19, 2017 — February 10, 2025
Suspiciously similar content
A web browser engine used in many modern browsers, most famously Google Chrome. But Google Chrome is a privacy mess, so we like to consider alternatives in the hope they are better (?).
1 Google Chrome
The closed-source version of the Chromium project. Famous. It’s a dominant standard, so stuff often works well and is well-tested. But…
1.1 Google Chrome privacy
Chrome is famously invasive. Here are some notes I found to explain this.
- Understanding Google Chrome’s Security and Privacy Concerns: A Comprehensive Analysis – Finite Technologies
- Is Google Chrome violating your privacy?
- Is Chrome’s lack of privacy a big issue? : r/browsers
Various settings can mitigate the privacy invasion, but why not try one of the other browsers designed to be better by default?
2 Chromium
Chromium is the open-source browser at the core of Google Chrome. It’s missing some Google widgets and sync technology. I’m not sure how much it spies on us.
3 Brave
Hyped upstart Brave tries to block the conventional ad economy and privacy nonsense, replacing it with cryptocurrency-backed privacy-compatible advertising. It’s mostly Google Chrome compatible, supporting most of the same plugins, etc. It claims blocking the tracking economy overhead makes it faster. Using it has been smooth so far.
Weird quirk: on Linux, after each upgrade, the emoji break in different ways. Sometimes it helps to reinstall colour emoji
Sometimes it helps to remove the outdated Unicode 9.0 Symbola font
Some XML config may make the problem go away.
4 Vivaldi
Similar to Brave but with more UI tweaks, and interesting features like a built-in email client, calendar, and feed reader.
5 Arc
Arc from The Browser Company (Windows/Mac only) is very hyped.
Whereas other browsers now mainly exist to track you around the internet (in order to better target ads), we built Arc with you in mind — to save you as much time as possible when you use the internet every day. To bring order to the chaos of your online life, stuck between rows and rows of tabs. We do that within a gorgeous interface that respects your privacy and was built with care.
In other words, Arc is to your ex-browser what the iPhone was to cellphones. Or as one of our members said “like moving from a PC to a Mac.” It’s from the future — and just feels great.
Don’t just take our word for it: The Verge says that Arc is “the Chrome replacement I’ve been waiting for,” a famous YouTuber said it was “the most beautiful and well-designed browser I have ever used,” and Fast Company declared “Arc — not Chrome — is the best browser out there” because it’s “more elegantly designed” and “easy to organise tabs by project and context.”
6 Backspace for backspace not back-one-page
In Chrome AFAICT this is no longer a problem. They disabled backspace navigation since it appears to be causing frequent data loss relative to intentional use. There is an extension to disable the shortcut if you are on an old version of Chrome.
7 Privacy
Various privacy-related tweaks are advisable. See browsing confidentially.
8 Searches
Chrome magically supports the search option on almost any site that searches via the tab to search feature.
9 Incoming
Tamperchrome — edit the requests that a browser makes. Super nerdy.
Viewimage fixes Google search.