“Feed the Firefoxes” by Glutnix is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
It has been clear by now that Mozilla isn't the company that it used to be, they have made some very bad mistakes over the past few years , the latest one was the changes they made to the their Privacy Policy and Terms of Use, that stated that Mozilla had "nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license" to any data inside of Firefox, they later tried to rectify this but the damage had already been done, for me, I was long done with Mozilla before this even happened, but for other people, this was the straw that broke the camel's back and they're looking for alternatives, so I'm here to present with 3 unique browsers to replace Firefox as your daily browser.
Mullvad Browser
This one really changes the game when it comes to privacy and security
Mullvad Browser is the combination we didn't know we wanted so bad, it's a browser made by two giant entities in the privacy and security space, the first one is Mullvad, a Swedish company known for its privacy-respecting VPN, and the second one is the Tor Project that develops the Tor Browser, their efforts culminated with the release of Mullvad Browser, A Firefox fork with privacy and security enhancements pulled from the Tor Browser itself, the difference here is that you don't have the Tor network to connect to (although it's recommended to use a VPN of your choice), this means that this browser has very strong privacy and security settings out of the box and can really benefit people with higher threat models
The downside here is that aesthetically, the browser doesn't look very appealing, it looks just like Firefox with no additions (which will become more obvious when you see the other two browsers), it can also break certain websites if you tighten it even more, but that's not something unusual, as more privacy and security means less convenience (it's a sliding scale)
All in all, I think Mullvad Browser is the choice for people who want a great privacy and security out of the box while also wanting a more minimal and decluttered browser with no added features
Vivaldi
This one is really powerful
When it comes to customizability and features, there's pretty much no browser that can ever beat Vivaldi, almost every thing you can think about is baked into the browser including features like Tab tiling (this one is my favorite), stacking, there are also quick commands for those you love more keyboard in their browsing, and probably one of the most interesting things about this browser is that it integrates a Mail Client, an RSS reader, and a Calender , this makes not just a browser but rather an entire ecosystem for whose you love to live inside their browser, and the features don't stop there, there are also notes, screenshots and recently they added Proton VPN integration which is a great addition for privacy enthusiasts
Privacy-wise, Vivaldi only collects anonymized data on its users to count the number of active users , its business model is to make money through deals with Search Engines and so far the team behind it hasn't made any privacy transgressions, another thing to note is that it comes with its own tracker blocker out of the box, however, I find that this blocker isn't enabled by default and you have to enable it in the settings, also, it's still not there when it comes to tracking protection so I recommend you install uBlock origin with it (Although it's a Manifest v2 extension).
One downside to Vivaldi is that the fact that its UI isn't Open Source but rather Source-Available, this means that you can still view the source but you can't modify any of it, but unless you're a die hard FOSS supporter, this shouldn't affect you that much
Zen Browser
This is the new kid on the block
Zen Browser is another fork of Firefox, but what I really liked about it is the beautiful aesthetics as well as the sheer customizability of it, it's like the Vivaldi version of Firefox you can change the accent colors(I'm a big fan of this one too), you also have tab splitting, workspace management, the ability to preview tabs without clicking them, there are also Zen mods which make the browser even more customizable.
Privacy-wise, the team clearly states in its Privacy Policy that they don't collect any personal data nor is there any 3rd party tracking
The biggest downsides I found with Zen is that the project is still in beta (although it feels pretty much like a finished product), something else to note, the privacy and security settings out of the box aren't the best and need something tweaking, but the process isn't really that hard and installing uBlock origin will do a lot of you.
Overall, I think Zen Browser has the potential to be an amazing browser if they keep developing it with the same core principles and I definitely see myself daily driving it in the future.
At the end of the day, I want to say that the choice of the browser is something that you have to pay close attention because it's your gateway to the vast internet and you want to make sure you're as safe and private when browsing online.
