Zen still has some annoying shortcomings, like missing Widevine DRM or the dev tools opening up annoyingly slow. The potential is there, but it wasn't quite daily drivable as a developer for me just yet as of a few weeks ago.
Once it gets there, I too will finally leave Arc behind. Until then, while it is on life support, Arc actually works. I really wish The Browser Company would just own up to their fuck up and revive it.
I tried Zen for a while (1-2 months). It certainly has some cool features. But in the end, I returned to Vanilla FF and installed Sideberry [0] with custom userChrome.css [1]. It gets me 99% of what I used with Zen (tree tabs, workspaces), but without annoyances/anti-features (inconvenient url bar for editing, frequent UI changes, cute animations that ignore prefer-reduced-motion, performance, security worries etc.).
I’m relatively happy with my setup [2] now, what I miss most from Zen would be the 2-level pinned tabs (pinned per workspace, and globally pinned), and the design of globals pins (instead of a line on the side as in [2], it’s a grid at the top for Zen), but not even close to enough that I’d want to return.
We're past the point were small aesthetic changes like this make a meaningful difference in browsers.
In 2025 a browser that really acts as a user agent needs to do much more at the content level: ad blocking, content rewriting (clickbait headlines, etc.), content aggregation and summarization, deceptive content idenification, automatic reader-mode, etc.
I liked Zen, but there was a time when every new update introduced a new behavior. Weird stuff like how the URL bar is handled for new tabs, or how videos are played. It was unexpected and annoying. I don't know if they are over this phase. I went back to Firefox.
I can't use Google Meet on firefox/zen, I tried every setting combination I could find but the video call quality is still not comparable to chromium based browsers, so at work I reluctantly switched to Vivaldi.
It's weird how people always complain about lack of easy profile switching in Firefox. If one tells them that what they are really looking for is containers, they dismiss containers, but then proceed to complain that profiles don't have the same features. If you want sync across browser instances, manage them with one Firefox account... You really want containers not profiles.
I've been using Zen for a few months after I lost faith in Arc/The Browser Company.
I like the workflow of swiping between profiles, vertical tabs and pinned favorites. I haven't been able to find a browser that works just like that.
I'd prefer to use Chromium over Firefox though, that's the only downside. I keep running into weird Firefox specific issues. Passkeys didn't work properly (and still won't support TouchID), pages don't render correctly, etc.
To be fair I haven't tried Zen, but Arc still works well. I don't particularly need any new features - so as long as they continue to keep up with timely security patches and Chromium updates I'll probably keep using it. Also - as a developer I would prefer using a Chromium-based browser since it's the most common one used.
I tried Dia a few weeks back and was disappointed in its sidebar and profile features.
Oh, to be new to Zen again. That lovely honeymoon phase. Give it a few weeks/months. Bugs, random UI changes, odd development priorities. I wanted to love it, I really did.
> way; it was superpowered with keyboard shortcuts that just made sense
No, that's under-powered.
Powered is when you can define multiple simple custom shortcuts (as far as I understand, at least Zen allows 1 shortcut change for some commands (unlike 0 in the dumb FF), so halfway there, not sure about Arc).
Super powered is when you can add key sequences and keys without modifiers depending on context in addition to a simple shortcuts.
Uberpowered would be the equivalent of QMK within the app (tap vs hold, home row mods left vs right alt, all 4 modifiers, etc etc), but when you can have conditions based on app contexts and dynamic user defined conditions (eg, in the simplest way, have vim-like modal editing in text fields with word jumps and single key navigation outside).
While uberpowered apps are unicorns, among relatively known browsers think only Vivaldi has has power
> Firefox remains the gold standard for user-first browsing.
What's gold about poor customization (no keybind, but also changing UI is cumbersome) and bad defaults?
> why isn’t it Firefox?
Oh, why indeed! Something about lack of incentives to innovate of even listen to users much when you're a big company financed by "ulterior" sources
36 comments
[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 39.9 ms ] threadhttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43443494
Is it safe enough now?
Also, anyone have an update on Ladybird? Looks like its dev is still going strong, but I haven’t been watching it carefully.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43443494
You can switch any time, multiple times per day even.
Once it gets there, I too will finally leave Arc behind. Until then, while it is on life support, Arc actually works. I really wish The Browser Company would just own up to their fuck up and revive it.
I’m relatively happy with my setup [2] now, what I miss most from Zen would be the 2-level pinned tabs (pinned per workspace, and globally pinned), and the design of globals pins (instead of a line on the side as in [2], it’s a grid at the top for Zen), but not even close to enough that I’d want to return.
[0]: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/sidebery/
[1]: https://github.com/mbnuqw/sidebery/wiki/Firefox-Styles-Snipp...
[2]: https://i.imgur.com/v9a6VRw.png
In 2025 a browser that really acts as a user agent needs to do much more at the content level: ad blocking, content rewriting (clickbait headlines, etc.), content aggregation and summarization, deceptive content idenification, automatic reader-mode, etc.
If you figure this out please let me know!
I like the workflow of swiping between profiles, vertical tabs and pinned favorites. I haven't been able to find a browser that works just like that.
I'd prefer to use Chromium over Firefox though, that's the only downside. I keep running into weird Firefox specific issues. Passkeys didn't work properly (and still won't support TouchID), pages don't render correctly, etc.
I tried Dia a few weeks back and was disappointed in its sidebar and profile features.
No, that's under-powered.
Powered is when you can define multiple simple custom shortcuts (as far as I understand, at least Zen allows 1 shortcut change for some commands (unlike 0 in the dumb FF), so halfway there, not sure about Arc).
Super powered is when you can add key sequences and keys without modifiers depending on context in addition to a simple shortcuts.
Uberpowered would be the equivalent of QMK within the app (tap vs hold, home row mods left vs right alt, all 4 modifiers, etc etc), but when you can have conditions based on app contexts and dynamic user defined conditions (eg, in the simplest way, have vim-like modal editing in text fields with word jumps and single key navigation outside).
While uberpowered apps are unicorns, among relatively known browsers think only Vivaldi has has power
> Firefox remains the gold standard for user-first browsing.
What's gold about poor customization (no keybind, but also changing UI is cumbersome) and bad defaults?
> why isn’t it Firefox?
Oh, why indeed! Something about lack of incentives to innovate of even listen to users much when you're a big company financed by "ulterior" sources
No. Mozilla's leadership would ruin it, too.
Firefox by itself is great technology. That's not the problem. The Mozilla leadership, incentives, and org structure is the problem.