7 Best Chromium Based Browsers

In light of the aforementioned...,
here are my choices: (in order of usage/preference)
• Chrome as default on my production machine
• Catsxp Browser as default on my Insider machine
• Cent Browser (still testing their new beta after them being on hiatus for a year and a half!)

• Firefox (occasionally cuz I may still be interested, something weird about their rendering engine though..., also, a couple of minor issues that bug me!)
• Edge (occasionally cuz I'm nosey, however, there are some features that just aren't there or can't be modified to my liking!)

Click on "My Computer" for what I use.

For browsing the web, I use Firefox and the Canary build of Edge. For email I use eM Client.

wordsworth said:

I've used Vivaldi for some time now both on the PC and phone as it is available for Android as well though the article does not say that.

Click to expand...

Ever since trying Vivaldi awhile back I've been hooked. The settings menu at first can appear a little intimidating with so many options but once you dive in and customize it's an awesome browser. My go to now, then Firefox, Chrome and Edge. I need to figure out a quick way to toggle the automatic built in ad blocking on/off though as some sites won't allow access with ad blocking on. I have the phone version also.

Call me crazy but, I just don't see the point of Tab Hover Cards, (or Images)..., with a lot of tabs open, they take forever to load!
The old fashioned Tool Tips suffice!

FrancoDT said:

Ever since trying Vivaldi awhile back I've been hooked. The settings menu at first can appear a little intimidating with so many options but once you dive in and customize it's an awesome browser. My go to now, then Firefox, Chrome and Edge. I need to figure out a quick way to toggle the automatic built in ad blocking on/off though as some sites won't allow access with ad blocking on. I have the phone version also.

Click to expand...

The closest I can think of to "toggle" would be to go to the website you wish to change to no blocking, then click the Shield icon (Content Blocker) to the left of the Address bar, and then select what you wish to do, either No blocking, Block trackers, or Block Trackers and Ads.

wordsworth said:

The closest I can think of to "toggle" would be to go to the website you wish to change to no blocking, then click the Shield icon (Content Blocker) to the left of the Address bar, and then select what you wish to do, either No blocking, Block trackers, or Block Trackers and Ads.

Click to expand...

Ah, good tip wordsworth, I'm still discovering tidbits in this browser and hadn't seen that till you pointed it out.

I use BRAVE due to the fact I can BLOCK auto play of newscast and videos on all sites except for the ones I chose to allow. No more annoying newscast or commercials for me.

I mainly use multiple instances of Portable Firefox each of which has different settings and a different collection of addons. (I avoid using Firefox Profiles because editing a profile and switching to a different profile can have unwanted side effects in some situations, like, e.g., being forced to restart the browser during those moments when I am not yet ready to let all my open browser instances be closed/restarted.) Multiple instances can run concurrently by using multiple different sandboxes under Sandboxie-Plus, and, each separate sandbox can be configured individually also so, different sandboxes can have different security settings and resource restrictions applied to them. So, aside from letting me run multiple different instances concurrently, Sandboxie-Plus adds on another layer of security, which is one of the main reasons why the original Sandboxie was invented, i.e., to help secure popular browsers because ~80 percent of malware infections and successful hacking attacks happen via the browser.

The contents folder of each individual sandbox can also be copied/moved/renamed/deleted individually, and, the same holds true for each different Portable Firefox folder. Portable Firefox doesn't require to be installed by using an installer, which also means that it lets me avoid having to install Firefox into a new sandbox, and, the sandbox content also is leaner that way. I use WinRAR to be able to quickly create/extract an archive of previous content from/into a sandbox, and I use Romex Software Primo Ramdisk to speed up these actions and to mitigate slowdowns that may result from Sandboxie-Plus adding more data to a sandbox whilst programs are actively running in the sandbox.

Setting a sandboxed Portable Firefox as the Default Browser in Windows also is possible, by using an easy tweak. I use the built-in Edge browser of Windows 11 only rarely. By design, Edge uses the Windows Sandbox feature that also is part of Windows. But both Edge and Windows Sandbox have too many shortcomings when compared to what I described above, and, I see no reason to switch to some other browser like Vivaldi/Brave/etc.. In fact I still don't understand what all this fuss is about. One thing I do like about Edge is the ability to automate it with Microsoft Power Automate (former Softomotive WinAutomation) even though I haven't felt the need to use that ability, as I am always typically too busy doing other interesting, and some less interesting, stuff with my laptop.

@play2mefish
With uBlock Origin in Firefox (or in Firefox Portable), by default there is no auto play each time when I open a link in a new tab and the vast majority of ads are gone too. Allowing what I want is just a breeze, and, I often say I'm lazy, but what I really mean by that is, I'm selectively industrious. It's actually a congenital trait, one that I like to call a luxury handicap. lol

Start to now....

IE6, IE7, IE11 "I skipped IE8"
Opera for plenty of time
Portable Chrome when needed
Now Firefox

It's official..., Catsxp is the best browser!

For vast majority of pc users in the world, they will use Chrome as it is so well established, and works well for android users, or EDGE as that is what pcs come with. Chrome took the dominant postition because IE had a lot of deficiencies.

Nowadays, there is not that much to separate EDGE or Chrome other than reputation. As time goes by EDGE's market share will increase (already number 2) but will never overtake Chrome.

The truth is other browsers are "also-rans" in a global context and will never be more than a niche market.

We can all endlessly debate which is the "best" browser but it is always opinion. and frankly irrelevant to vast majority of users.

The one thing that cracks me up is the ridiculous lengths people go to to remove EDGE. Anybody with at least two brain cells should realise that if you remove EDGE and then your selected browser (assuming only one) falls over, you have no browser backup option. You get caught in the trap that you cannot download a browser as you have no browser LOL.

Sure there are ways round this but it takes a bit of effort.

We all forget sometimes (myself included) on this forum, is that most users in the world have limited pc technical skills - they mostly use pcs for Office, emails, surfing and games.

I use EDGE mostly, but today had to use Chrome - still some commercial websites that are not EDGE friendly.

cereberus said:

I use EDGE mostly, but today had to use Chrome - still some commercial websites that are not EDGE friendly.

Click to expand...

I always keep Edge around as a backup just cause some government websites aren't 3rd party browser friendly.

Has any here used MyIE or Maxthon back when. Hmm I think I'll play around with it again for fun

Edwin said:

official

Click to expand...

What if I told you I often like doing things the unofficial way?

hdmi said:

What if I told you I often like doing things the unofficial way?

Click to expand...

Completely within your providence!

During your experiments, have any of you found a modern browser that saves its Favourites/Bookmarks as independent .url files in the disk's filing system [as IE did] rather than as entries in its own database?
- It gets boring having to move all the favourites/bookmarks to File explorer folders manually so I can use them as I wish.

Denis

Try3 said:

During your experiments, have any of you found a modern browser that saves its Favourites/Bookmarks as independent .url files in the disk's filing system [as IE did] rather than as entries in its own database?
- It gets boring having to move all the favourites/bookmarks to File explorer folders manually so I can use them as I wish.

Denis

Click to expand...

Not as .url files, no, as .url files are incompatible with my Android phone─albeit I guess you could still always decide to use the URL Opener app as a nice workaround for that particular problem. Instead, I found a better solution:

I don't understand why you brought Android into it but I do use URL Opener on my Android phone.

I had a look at the html stub explanations and they strike me as more work than I do now
- I drag bookmarks from Firefox into the filing system, or sometimes
- I reduce the size of the browser window so I can drag a webpage's padlock icon onto my Desktop to create a .url file, or sometimes
- Without having to reduce the browser window's size, I drag a webpage's padlock icon onto a Taskbar Toolbar which creates a .url file in the Taskbar Toolbar's root folder.

I just tried MyIE [portable].
- It does create Favourites as .url files.
- Its Favourites function did not work on first opening but started working when I re-opened it.
- I don't know if it is secure enough for me to save any logins. I'd need to research it properly.
- Its forum [MyIE9 forum - SourceForge] has a grand total of 0 threads.
- It seems to have last been updated 6 years ago.

Thanks for responding,
Denis

Try3 said:

During your experiments, have any of you found a modern browser that saves its Favourites/Bookmarks as independent .url files in the disk's filing system [as IE did] rather than as entries in its own database?

Click to expand...

Nope!
I export them to html then import them into Word...