Do you have any recommendations for alternative browsers to Brave?
Reasons why I am currently using Brave:
- It is Chromium-based.
- Content blocking is built-in as a native feature rather than an extension. This ensures the feature is active immediately even in tabs opened right after launching the browser.
- It has a container tabs feature.
- Workspace functionality is planned for implementation.
Reasons why I am not using Helium:
- Lack of container tabs functionality.
- Lack of workspace functionality.
- When using Zen mode with vertical tabs on the right side, the topmost tab becomes inoperable. This seems to be caused by the hit detection of window control buttons (close, minimize, etc.) remaining even when they are hidden (though I expect this will be fixed eventually).
Reasons why I am not using Vivaldi:
- Lack of container tabs functionality.
- Despite being Chromium-based, it feels as sluggish as Firefox-based browsers.
- Even though it markets customizability, it is impossible to hide the access keys in the right-click menu.
- There are rendering bugs with features like backdrop-filter.
Features I require in a browser:
- Chromium-based.
- Compatible with Windows 11 and Linux.
- Container tabs functionality.
- Workspace functionality.
- Decent content blocking (at least at the level of uBlock Origin Lite).
- Features to maximize screen space. For example, a combination of vertical tabs and Zen mode (auto-hiding UI), similar to what is implemented in Helium or Vivaldi.
- Japanese language support (not mandatory).
My environment consists of Windows 11 + Debian (rarely used due to severe WSL latency) + Ubuntu.
Regarding Firefox-based browsers, I have tried the following:
- Firefox
- LibreWolf
- Waterfox
- Zen
- Floorp
- Mullvad
However, I have excluded Firefox-based browsers from consideration for the following reasons:
- Slow adoption of CSS standards.
- Incorrect rendering of font weights.
- Slow API implementation.
- Lack of support for WebHID and WebUSB (I recall seeing mentions that they can be used by combining extensions with external software).
- Slightly inferior performance compared to Chromium.
- Lower compatibility with Chrome extensions compared to Chromium-based browsers (since I use non-FOSS extensions made specifically for Chrome).
- Occasionally encountering sites that cannot be fixed by just switching the User Agent.
- Since I do not prioritize privacy that highly, the benefits feel thin compared to the drawbacks.
Engines like Ladybird or Servo present more issues than Firefox-based browsers, so they are not options at all.
WebKit-based browsers (such as Orion or GNOME Web) do not support Windows, so they are also not options.
Do you have any browser recommendations?