Best Desktop Browser of 2020

[metroidfox]

It's not just the codecs Firefox is missing for HDR. There's a fairly large Bugzilla that lists all the work required. It's quite significant.

[Trunks0]

Do you have a link to an example? Firefox seems to do fine with HDR for me, but maybe I'm not looking at the right videos or looking for the right things in videos.

Oh you can watch them. But HDR isn't selectable unless your in a Chrome based browser.

Example vid
[yt]2J7xlDH4QkA[/yt]

In Firefox: 1080p HD, 1440p HD and 2160p 4K
In Chrome(or Edge): 1080p HDR HD, 1440p HDR HD and 2160p HDR 4K

And it makes a big difference. Because my display will activate and use it's local dimming properly using that HDR data. But of course doesn't activate in Firefox, because it's not in HDR.

[Crawdaddy79]

Yeah now that Edge is chromium I can use that for watching HDR content on YouTube instead of chrome, which is nice. Firefox doesn't support the needed codec's to do it yet

Do you have a link to an example? Firefox seems to do fine with HDR for me, but maybe I'm not looking at the right videos or looking for the right things in videos.

I've tried Vivaldi mobile and it works well. It does the full page screenshot that Firefox mobile does not (yet Firefox desktop does).

Recently I've tried Brave and a browser based off of Brave called Dissenter. Other than being extreme privacy focused, the cool thing about it is using Gab, it allows you to leave a comment on any URL and other Dissenter users can read it. What's not cool about it is that almost no one uses it so there's very few comments, and of what is there is mostly not worth reading (like most comments on the internet ).

EDIT: Since everything is so privacy focused with these things, I switched my default search to DuckDuckGo. I didn't know until then how stressed out I was that Google was going to take something I searched for and start feeding me news/notifications/Gmail ads for things that I didn't want thrown back in my face.

[Trunks0]

Yeah now that Edge is chromium I can use that for watching HDR content on YouTube instead of chrome, which is nice. Firefox doesn't support the needed codec's to do it yet

[@md_Guy]

Edge seems to work best in our CORP environment, despite being Chromium based, seems to integrate better than Chrome. I like Edge, but miss OG Edge's "share" functionality (share to email/<social media>/<instant messenger>/SMSS etc).

I miss Opera (pre Chrome), and have hopes for Vivaldi as seems to be more akin to old(er) school Opera.

Chrome and FF seem to have become useless without a plethora or addons/extensions (have not re-visited extensively in last 6+ months).

[Crawdaddy79]

I still use Google. It helps me find what I am looking for the quickest. Bing always frustrates me whenever I use it, since it doesn't seem to pull up the most relevant results or organize its results in the most convenient format.

How is DuckDuckGo in comparison to Google and Bing?

I had the same frustrations with Bing that you do, and don't even try to use it any more.

The majority of my Duckduckgo usage is on mobile devices, but I haven't had any frustrations with it as far as search results go. The disclaimer is that I don't search that often lol. A piece of equipment here and there, locations for hiking/camping and such.

no problems with duckie here. If you're eager to know exactly, then try it out yourself.

Ditto. No issues with DDG other than the results formatting is pushed to the left side of the screen circa 2002.

I still use Google for most of my searching, but the political filter is annoying.

[Silent-Runner]

no problems with duckie here. If you're eager to know exactly, then try it out yourself.

[Lazy8s]

I still use Google. It helps me find what I am looking for the quickest. Bing always frustrates me whenever I use it, since it doesn't seem to pull up the most relevant results or organize its results in the most convenient format.

How is DuckDuckGo in comparison to Google and Bing?

I had the same frustrations with Bing that you do, and don't even try to use it any more.

The majority of my Duckduckgo usage is on mobile devices, but I haven't had any frustrations with it as far as search results go. The disclaimer is that I don't search that often lol. A piece of equipment here and there, locations for hiking/camping and such.

[Android1]

I still use Google. It helps me find what I am looking for the quickest. Bing always frustrates me whenever I use it, since it doesn't seem to pull up the most relevant results or organize its results in the most convenient format.

How is DuckDuckGo in comparison to Google and Bing?

[Lazy8s]

It's a limitation that allows so many consecutive characters [EDIT: I counted; it's 100 consecutive characters]. A space is injected, breaking the URL.

Observe:............................................................................................ .................................................................................................... .................................................................................................... ............................................................................

Ah, it's not me then lol. Thanks

[Crawdaddy79]

edit: link won't paste properly?? I don't know why ...

It's a limitation that allows so many consecutive characters [EDIT: I counted; it's 100 consecutive characters]. A space is injected, breaking the URL.

Observe:............................................................................................ .................................................................................................... .................................................................................................... ............................................................................

[Lazy8s]

Thanks brutha. I already use the browser extension in MS Edge, plus the search engine exclusively. Haven't touched Google or Bing in quite some time.

That's the direction I'm rapidly heading in ...

[Munkus]

I use it primarily on mobile, but I'm pretty sure the tracking protections are built in to the desktop use search engine through the extension.
https://spreadprivacy.com/announcing-global-privacy-control/#:~:text=DuckDuckGo%20Privacy%20Essentials%20Desktop%20Browser%20Extension&text=Once%20installed%2C% 20click%20the%20extension's,%22%20section%2C%20enable%20the%20setting.
That has the DL links for desktop extension and mobile apps...

Sorry, old man didn't think of that earlier

edit: link won't paste properly?? I don't know why ...

Thanks brutha. I already use the browser extension in MS Edge, plus the search engine exclusively. Haven't touched Google or Bing in quite some time.

[Lazy8s]

I know there's a duckduckgo browser for mobile, but I haven't seen one for desktop. Just the site (duckduckgo.com) search engine. Am I missing something?

I use it primarily on mobile, but I'm pretty sure the tracking protections are built in to the desktop use search engine through the extension.
https://spreadprivacy.com/announcing-global-privacy-control/#:~:text=DuckDuckGo&#37;20Privacy%20Essentials%20Desktop%20Browser%20Extension&text=Once%20installed %2C%20click%20the%20extension's,%22%20section%2C%20enable%20the%20setting.
That has the DL links for desktop extension and mobile apps...

Sorry, old man didn't think of that earlier

edit: link won't paste properly?? I don't know why ...

[Munkus]

I know there's a duckduckgo browser for mobile, but I haven't seen one for desktop. Just the site (duckduckgo.com) search engine. Am I missing something?

[Lazy8s]

I'll give that one a shot, thanks!

Make sure you explore all the features like fireproofing websites etc. It's been great for me so far.

[Exposed]

Give duckduckgo a shot. Featurewise it isn't as full fledged as some other browsers, but it seems to do an admirable job re: privacy.

I'll give that one a shot, thanks!

[metroidfox]

The way I have Firefox set up, I have the dom.ipc.processCount set to 50, I [may] have Webrender forced to on, I've got the facebook container installed, as well as the generic containers, and every web company gets its own container.

They can't easily cross track me with cookies, or sessions.

Chrome likes touting how much faster its Javascript compiler is, but as far as I can tell, Firefox's rendering pipeline is way, way faster than Chrome's. Faster rendering makes it seem faster in reality.

[Silent-Runner]

if privacy is your biggest concern, then another vote for duckduck, it's my fav choice for searchengine too.

[Lazy8s]

None of the browsers seem to be able to prevent facebook or google ad tracking, despite disabling all the tracking options I could find. I browse something on Home Depot and suddenly I get ads for it on facebook. Browse a certain car for sale and suddenly I see car ads for the make/model I was looking at. Surprised none of the sex toys showed up in facebook ads yet.

I hear Brave is better than Firefox/Chrome for privacy. Might have to try it.

Give duckduckgo a shot. Featurewise it isn't as full fledged as some other browsers, but it seems to do an admirable job re: privacy.

[Crawdaddy79]

Synced with an account like GMail? What kind of account is it using?

I haven't used Firefox in a long, long time. I wasn't even aware they had a similar feature.

Yeah they were losing too many people to Chrome so they slapped it all together about 4 years ago (just going from memory).

Use an email address to create an account with Mozilla and you opt in to each feature individually.

Account screenshot:

[SuperGeil]

Brave can use most of chromes extensions

[Nunz]

Firefox does all of that as well.

Synced with an account like GMail? What kind of account is it using?

I haven't used Firefox in a long, long time. I wasn't even aware they had a similar feature.

[Exposed]

None of the browsers seem to be able to prevent facebook or google ad tracking, despite disabling all the tracking options I could find. I browse something on Home Depot and suddenly I get ads for it on facebook. Browse a certain car for sale and suddenly I see car ads for the make/model I was looking at. Surprised none of the sex toys showed up in facebook ads yet.

I hear Brave is better than Firefox/Chrome for privacy. Might have to try it.

[Crawdaddy79]

Firefox does all of that as well.

[Nunz]

Chrome may be a resource hog, but I really love having the integration between my phone, my laptop, and my PC. Being able to send links directly from one device to the other, and all my passwords on all devices is extremely convenient.

I do notice Chrome is a battery hog on mobile, but I found some tweaks you can do to reduce consumption.

[SuperGeil]

i'd say Brave, but as always, that's personal taste/preference

No you are probably right. Brave is fantastic.
It seems to have come a long way with compatibility. Testing it out again in MX Linux.

[Silent-Runner]

i'd say Brave, but as always, that's personal taste/preference

[SuperGeil]

In and a related twist, I ended up on Firefox by the end of 2020 because chrome was encountering weird issues that just never seem to get resolved. Gotta love the amount of choice we get these days in browsers

Yuck Chrome. Resource hog and since google is an advertising agency, it is the least private and secure. But yes, I agree, there are a ton of choices. Good ones too. Pale Moon is also really freaking good.

[Trunks0]

For overall best in security, features, speed, and privacy Fire Fox is still the best. It is also the only web browser you should consider in Linux.

In and a related twist, I ended up on Firefox by the end of 2020 because chrome was encountering weird issues that just never seem to get resolved. Gotta love the amount of choice we get these days in browsers

[SuperGeil]

For overall best in security, features, speed, and privacy Fire Fox is still the best. It is also the only web browser you should consider in Linux.

[shrike126]

According to this page, Chrome 83 (released today) has tab grouping.
https://www.howtogeek.com/673731/how...google-chrome/

Don't know if that meets your needs, but thought you might want to check it out.

I just saw that they're introducing tab groups and that also there's an option to collapse a tab group coming up. This is almost exactly what I was hoping for. At the moment I've spent the past few weeks giving Microsoft Edge a test run using their Collections feature, which is working out better than I expected really.

[Munkus]

I find myself right now often ending up in a place with my normal daily workflow where I have just a ton of Google Docs, Jira tickets, and other tabs open that are all semi related to one project or area.

Has anyone figured out a clean way of grabbing a bunch of tabs together, saving them, then putting them "away" until I need them again?

Like, let's say I'm working on a requirements ticket for a reporting update. I might have a couple Google Sheets which shows the data, a couple tickets with bug reports, a few other browser tabs, all related to each other. Is there a way I can group all of this with something like "Reporting Update" then close the tabs until I'm ready to work on it again?

I've tried fiddling with Toby as a Chrome add-on or Collections and I haven't settled on a way to handle this cleanly yet.

According to this page, Chrome 83 (released today) has tab grouping.
https://www.howtogeek.com/673731/how...google-chrome/

Don't know if that meets your needs, but thought you might want to check it out.

[Crawdaddy79]

Been a fan of Firefox since the days before it was Firefox. I'm a huge fan of the 'full page screenshot' feature, where everything contained in the browser is captured, not just what's on screen.

[koralis]

Has anyone figured out a clean way of grabbing a bunch of tabs together, saving them, then putting them "away" until I need them again?

Like, let's say I'm working on a requirements ticket for a reporting update. I might have a couple Google Sheets which shows the data, a couple tickets with bug reports, a few other browser tabs, all related to each other. Is there a way I can group all of this with something like "Reporting Update" then close the tabs until I'm ready to work on it again?

I've tried fiddling with Toby as a Chrome add-on or Collections and I haven't settled on a way to handle this cleanly yet.

MS edge has a save and restore tabs function in the upper left corner. Don't know about "grouping" them unless you want to consider all saved tabs in that group (ie. only saving those.) You can restore all of them at once.

[Kain]

Using Chrome and have no issues with it (but then I do keep things simple, meaning no extra addons, etc.).

[Trunks0]

I was using Vivaldi and lovin it, but just fell back into Chrome use as it tends to have the least issues overall.

[Munkus]

Is this going to be an annual thing?

http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?t=34049638

He didn't even wait a full year!

[Mahjik]

Is this going to be an annual thing?

http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?t=34049638

[Lazy8s]

Most of the browsers will restore tabs when you close and reopen the windows. What I'm looking for is a way to create groups of tabs, close them or store them somewhere, add new tabs to that group, or remove tabs, but keep them "put away" while I go about my day-to-day using the browser for other things.

How about Simple tab Groups?

https://www.ghacks.net/2020/02/22/si...ing-your-tabs/

I thought (there I go thinking again ) that FF could do this by default now, but this extension might help...