Somehow I want(ed) to stick with Chromium based browsers, as I (thought I) understand their behaviour perfectly.
But I noticed, that different Chromium browsers have different (unwanted/quirky) behaviour.
I might give it a try…
Currently using Waterfox as main, no issues. In the extremely rare occasion that some website doesn’t play well with it, I use Brave as a backup. Also because with Brave I can cast to the company TV we use for meetings without setting up anything else.
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As an aside, if you run into uninstall problems again sometime, I have found Revo Uninstaller or Uninstalr to be helpful in the past. It’s especially helpful if you uninstall something and traces of it remain in the registry but you don’t want to be digging around in the registry (like me, I’m always afraid I’ll break something). They both uninstall programs and hunt for every last vestige of it.
So true! Copilot in particular pulls a LOT of stuff from Reddit I notice.
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I did not use Reddit until last year, but then I had some technical issues that I could not solve myself.
I found that 80% of the answers are irrelevant, but 5% of the info given was very usable. It’s just hard to get to the point where answers make sense.
Also, there are some @ssholes there that comment without any added value, just to annoy, there, but you can find those on any forum 
I feel sad for those, but I learned to ignore them.
Also, Perplexity helps, as it filters out the idiots… and puts the pretty face of a helpful robot on everything…
This worries me a little:
Waterfox Classic has multiple unpatched security advisories. The developer states that “changes between versions so numerous between ESRs making merging difficult if not impossible”
I need my system to be 100% secure (ok, as secure as possible), as I have very sensitive information of all kinds of companies on my machines.
I do use VeraCrypt as the last line of defense, but that has no effect, if somebody is on my system and logs my key inputs … so I better be careful.
One thing I do love about Reddit is that you can see a post about the most obscure things and right there in the comments will be someone who spent 40 years doing it as a job and able to answer the question at hand. There’s just so many people using Reddit that it can be a great place to find real solutions.
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And somebody brand new to it telling them how they are wrong. 
You wouldn’t be using Waterfox Classic though, it’s been discontinued. 
If you’re still worried, you could try LibreWolf like @andrea-sld recommended.
OR if you want to go real hardcore, there’s always Tor and/or Mullvad…
I had Mullvad on my machine and used it for a while. Can’t remember why I abandoned it. I will look into it again!
And @andrea-sld is from Greenland - I don’t trust her
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Probably because a lot of sites flat out break when using it…That’s the tradeoff for better privacy
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Could be!
For me it’s important that sites just work 100% (hence Chromium - though I had mixed experiences with flavours of browsers) AND I need to synch my favorites over all my devices.
Also, it should not introduce additional ads, like f#cking Opera does, as I just found out.
This whole browser selection enterprise is truly a rabbit hole…
A very deep one too…Take a look at this maybe: What are the best private browsers in 2025?
Realistically, Brave followed by LibreWolf is/are the way to go. Caveat is that there are a few browsers missing from that test (like Waterfox or Snapdragon), but you get a pretty good idea
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Cool, thanks!
If my efforts fail, I will just reinstall Chrome and send my d#ck pics directly to Google, so f#ck privacy
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There’s also good ol’ ungoogled-Chromium: Downloads for ungoogled-chromium
I mean, there is something to be said about almost all your internet traffic going through AWS/Google/insert other tech giant here in some way, shape or form. So you have to decide what level of compromise you’re willing to take. OR you can go live on a mountain like a hermit 
That’s actually my plan - to live in Thuringia (East Germany) with the parents of my girlfriend. Not really on an actual mountain, but they have a really bad internet connection
I just installed LibreWolf (don’t tell @andrea-sld!) … it looks good. But no Android version, so no synching of favourites 
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Or that’s never done it at all but they think they have “common sense” 
Sounds like a great plan!
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Right now I’m implementing a 3 browser system:
- LibreWolf using Containers to isolate each tab’s cookies, so I can stay logged into different services. I added those services to the exceptions list, so the browser will always clean away all cookies when I close it, except for those in the list. I’m using for work related things and social media.
- Vivaldi for my free time, bass forums, pages I trust, etc. I already feel a lot more relaxed when I have Vivaldi open.
- Brave is my default browser, with all the most severe privacy settings. So any link clicked on messenging apps etc. will open in Brave, and I’ll feel much safer.
I’m feeling very pleased with this system.
I started exploring Claude AI. And I installed Joplin for my notes. I’m enjoying Joplin a lot! It is similar to Evernote, but doesn’t cost a thing! (except if one would want to sync it). I’m using the free version of Notesnook for notes I want to have available on the go on my phone too (it has syncing and it is free). But for most notes, having Joplin only on my PC is enough for now.
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I switched to Mullvad recently and had no problems…until a couple of days ago. I was an early subscriber to the paid Kagi search engine (highly recommended!!!) and have used it daily without problems. Then, a couple of days ago, I started getting the dreaded “Your client does not have permission to get URL / from this server.“ 403 error (I have Kagi set up as the default search engine in Chrome and have the HOME button launch Kagi.com). After much searching, I found out that the issue was Chrome was blocking the Mullvad VPN server in Marseilles that I was connected to. Switching to the Paris or Bordeaux servers was worse because they multi-hopped through Marseilles! Still blocked, with slower load times for everything else. When I switched to the the Frankfurt server in Germany, Kagi loaded again.
I read that this happens with a lot of different VPNs, not just Mullvad. I’d really like to connect to a server in the country I live in, but for the time being, I think I’d rather use a VPN than not. Surfshark sucked big toes, so I’ll stick with Mullvad for now. If the problem starts with the German server, I’ll switch to a smaller European country.
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