I think I’ve finally found it: The elusive Firefox fork for my day-to-day needs. It needed to have sane defaults like Librewolf but also as user empowering as Vivaldi (as well as not being proprietary which is cringe).
Zen I believe accomplishes both of that. It’s a relatively new project but it does have active development with new changes added every release. Here’s the rundown:
- Licensed under the Mozilla Public License 2.0, the same as Firefox. So enjoy that warm feeling you get when using open source software that won’t pull the rug from under you.
- Follows Firefox release cycles: If a new Firefox version comes out, Zen is not behind.
- Instead of horizontal tabs, Zen only uses vertical tabs for navigation. If this is a deal breaker, then Zen isn’t for you :(
- Supports split view, workspaces, browser profiles, side panels, tab unloading (saving memory by deactivating a tab), theming, mods and everything else that base Firefox supports (like firefox sync).
- Cannot play DRM-protected content as of yet on Windows and MacOS (rare Linux W?) due to license fees. This is your netflix, your disney+, your spotify.
- No mobile version (nor does it seem to be planned), though firefox sync is still supported.
- Looks GORGEOUS. I never realized how ugly Firefox looks by default, esp on desktops like GNOME and KDE where it tries to integrate itself into the system theme.
- Performs FABULOUSLY: Optimizations from the firefox level to even providing an optimized binary executable for modern CPUs.
- SANE defaults like HTTPS everywhere, no link prefetching (where the browser loads links that it thinks you’re going to go to), uncluttered Firefox home.
- Probably more I’m not listing
Download here: https://zen-browser.app/download
How do I use Zen?
Well firstly, Zen doesn’t come with any extensions by default. So I made sure to chuck in my Ublock Origin, Privacy Badger, ClearURLs, LibRedirect, etc. It also uses secure DNS by default with Cloudflare so you might want to turn that off (I have a DNS homeserver that does encrypted DNS through other means).
I also really like using the side panel to put my wiki sites and dictionaries in. I’ve only been using Zen for a week now and it seems to be my forever browser of choice.
So it’s just Firefox with more whitespace in the UI? I don’t see the appeal.
If you already know your ins and outs of the Firefox
about:configand policy templates and have set up your own comfy Firefox then Zen isn’t going to do you much good. But for people who use power user browsers like Vivaldi (or even shiver Opera GX) and want to find a Firefox equivalent that meets their needs ootb then Zen is a good option. I taglined it as the “Better Vivaldi to your Chrome” since the reason people would use a program like Vivaldi is for the UI enhancements. The issue of course is that both Vivaldi and Chrome are proprietary programs using a dominating web engine.Zen isn’t as hardened ootb like librewolf but I think it will bring a lot more people over to Firefox because of its presentation.