Browser pains - The fat lady sang

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dontcryforme

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Foreword: I know there are many Chrome fans here and many that would say but its Chrome in any case (I think there is a difference between Chrome and Chromium, but that's just me).

In late 2021 I got tired of all the ads on Chrome so I gave Opera a chance on mobile. It was great. Much less ads. Some random added "speed dials" but nothing too annoying. I liked it so much I moved my PC browser to Opera as well. It was also the first browser I downloaded on my Motorola C650 back in 2004.

In the three years since 2021 a lot has changed. Edge has become a monster with things like AI. I started using Edge and I kinda like the points - not that I play games, but I might donate it. My phone's storage has almost run out so I started deleting large apps and files. One app stood out: Opera was taking over 3gb of storage. I cleared the cache, history for forever and stored images, still sitting on 2.8gb of storage its using. That can't be right? What is taking up all that space? Chrome and Edge are taking about 200mb each including history and stored images.

So, I took the difficult choice and deleted Opera from my phone and am forcing myself to use Edge on PC with an ad blocker extension.

I just have the feeling that Opera is mining and selling my data and using my own devices to do it as well. All companies do it, but Google and Google related things are starting to feel more like a computer virus than a free solution - funny enough those two always go hand in hand. If Google updates something its just the theme and not actual performance improvements. So all I am left with is the original Evil run by a few gay guys: Edge with ChatGPT.

So, the fat lady sang. Im done with Opera as well.
 
I do use Edge as well mostly for the access to Copilot and keep all my Microsoft **** in there.

Recently tried Arc and it’s a beautiful onboarding experience but it’s just too much to pull me away from Safari.

If I wasn’t on a Mac I would have switched to Arc.
 
SauRoNZA said:
I do use Edge as well mostly for the access to Copilot and keep all my Microsoft **** in there.

Recently tried Arc and it’s a beautiful onboarding experience but it’s just too much to pull me away from Safari.

If I wasn’t on a Mac I would have switched to Arc.
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Arc looks like a great idea, if you use many tabs. I'm like a goldfish, if there's more than one tab, I would forget about it, so I close a tab quickly after Im done.

And to be honest, I use Copilot in Edge often. In many cases it gives me much better relevant results and information than both Bing and Google combined. The irony since Copilot uses Bing. And at the moment there isnt any ads in Copilot.

I cannot stress how much I hate ads. Not the fact that I dont want the stuff they want to sell me, most of the ads do not make any sense. Just because I looked at the Lamborghini doesnt mean I can afford it, so why try to advertise. I swear they deliver Lambo ads to Samsung A03 users. They cant afford a phone, now you want them to buy one of the most overpriced cars in the world.
 
dontcryforme said:
Arc looks like a great idea, if you use many tabs. I'm like a goldfish, if there's more than one tab, I would forget about it, so I close a tab quickly after Im done.

And to be honest, I use Copilot in Edge often. In many cases it gives me much better relevant results and information than both Bing and Google combined. The irony since Copilot uses Bing. And at the moment there isnt any ads in Copilot.

I cannot stress how much I hate ads. Not the fact that I dont want the stuff they want to sell me, most of the ads do not make any sense. Just because I looked at the Lamborghini doesnt mean I can afford it, so why try to advertise. I swear they deliver Lambo ads to Samsung A03 users. They cant afford a phone, now you want them to buy one of the most overpriced cars in the world.
Click to expand...

Yeah I’m with you on the tab front, which is part of why I can see the appeal for Arc to others but no point for me.

As for Lamborghinis, they aren’t overpriced, just expensive.
 
lkpat said:
Brave. Adblocking built in
Click to expand...
I use it daily, and it's good, but not without DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials, NoScript, uBlock, Ghostery, Privacy Badger, and of course good old faithful Pi-hole.

For really underground stuff I use Firefox in a sandboxed VM with VPN.
 
RonSwanson said:
I use it daily, and it's good, but not without DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials, NoScript, uBlock, Ghostery, Privacy Badger, and of course good old faithful Pi-hole.

For really underground stuff I use Firefox in a sandboxed VM with VPN.
Click to expand...

Where did you buy your tinfoil hat from?

Asking for a friend.
 
Vivaldi. It's built by the same people who did Opera originally. Free. No tracking. Supports ad-blocking, and more features than any other browser I can think of (I love tab stacking and tab workspaces!). Works with Chrome extensions.
 
Been using Firefox since it was introduced many moons ago. Never had reason to complain
 
Claymore said:
Vivaldi. It's built by the same people who did Opera originally. Free. No tracking. Supports ad-blocking, and more features than any other browser I can think of (I love tab stacking and tab workspaces!). Works with Chrome extensions.
Click to expand...
That sounds like a good option considering it has access to the vast library of chrome extensions.
I’d to try something new, but I’ve got such a complex set up with Firefox it would be too painful to move and in any case it Firefox works really well.
 
airborne said:
That sounds like a good option considering it has access to the vast library of chrome extensions.
I’d to try something new, but I’ve got such a complex set up with Firefox it would be too painful to move and in any case it Firefox works really well.
Click to expand...
Using Crosspilot, Vivaldi can actually use Firefox extensions too. :) Of course, there's lots of stuff built in that Chrome would need extensions for.
 
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