Check it out. Video is about 17 minutes long. What do you think?
It loos… 'ight. But honestly, is it fast and does it have the same security as Firefox?
I just don’t know anything that tops Firefox, but at the same token, Firefox seems to lag behind in certain features and even the addons/extensions seem limited to Chrome. I don’t mind “digital minimalism,” but I also just want something that does “everything” well because it seems that hopping onto another browser always seems like a trade-off of some sort.
I’ve been using it for a few days so here’s my early feedback for you:
It’s fast. I’ve had no significant speed problem so far even when having a lot of tabs and workspaces at once. The only speed “problem” I’ve noticed so far is that it sometimes takes a second or so to switch between 2 workspaces. The team seems to have a focus on optimization and they even have benchmarks comparing zen to other browsers on their website and github.
It’s based on firefox. like librewolf or mullvad. So on the technical side it should be very similar to firefox. This also means you can install any firefox addon.
They seem to have some good security features and since it’s firefox based you can install security addons on top so it’s probably pretty good I think.
As someone who keeps a lot of tabs open at all times it’s the browser with the best tabs management features I’ve ever used. There are workspaces so you don’t have to open multiple windows to organize your tabs, there is a preview feature that allow you to open a link without opening a new tab, there is a split view feature that allows you to open multiple pages in the same window at once, etc…
wait, this looks like a privacy-respecting Arc Browser clone?
its based on firefox, so the problem with that is it will always lag behind the og releases in security updates etc.
Basing it off Firefox isn’t sooooo bad, but yeah, it may lag behind.
I haven’t watched the video yet, but I’ve been using Zen for a while now and it’s honestly great. Having different workspaces for your tabs with the possibility of pinning tabs by workspace and independently of it is cool enough, but also having split view, a sidepanel you can open with pages you added, vertical tabs, opening links in the same tab and the possibility of having your favorites open on a specific workspace makes it amazing.
On the security question, the delay between getting security updates could be an issue like pointed out already, but so far it have been updated pretty fast every time Firefox launched a new version.
I found a YouTube link in your post. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
