Alternative Browsers

Marie SWE · Mar 15, 2026

TraderGary said:
I know very little about Linux. How are the distributions owned? How is maintenance handled?

Most of them is not own by anyone. It is community driven with programmers that volunteer on their free time to develop and maintain the system.
A few of them is own by company's Ubuntu by Canonical, Redhat by IBM, PoP_OS! by system76. and i think SUSE have a company in the back too.

Edit: all Linux distributions (that i know of) are open source, so anyone with programming skills or an AI can view the code to see if it do contain any unwanted things.

Edit 2.:
This will become a problem for California as the new law say all OS's must have age verification.
The ones with a company behind will have to chose. Comply or block California users from downloading their OS's
The other ones will just show them the finger as no one owns it no one can be dragged in to court for not complying.
Those with a company that will comply still have open source.. so anyone can download the source code... rip out the age modification code and then compile the OS and install it without the age verification function......
So Linux might be an illegal OS in that state and others that follows.. and also other countries.... and they have to make VPN illegal as that can be used to bypass age verification.

So i follow the development in US and California with interest as other EU countries might follow depending on how it works out for California,

cheaterslick · Mar 15, 2026

Marcus Vinicus said:
For MS to then disobey would be breaking the law.

That's never stopped them. Or any other big American conglomerate. They get caught, they pay a puny fine and then they go about doing their business as before. A public relations wrist slap as the cost of doing business.

cheaterslick · Mar 15, 2026

Marie SWE said:
Or if it's free, then you are the product.

That's not free. Free doesn't exist.

Marie SWE · Mar 15, 2026

cheaterslick said:
That's not free. Free doesn't exist.

It depends on how you look at it.

Linux is free, but.... you pay with your time, as you have to learn something new.. and up to about 2-3 years ago, you also had to put in some work to get it to work as smooth as Windows or Mac-OS does.
I do have seen a game changer the last years.. SteamOS for gamers.. and also a few Distros have become really user friendly.
I wish it had been that when i had to jump ship in 2020 when win7 went eol....... oh i soooo hated Linux.. i used bad swearing words that could be heard all over the planet. *LOL* :lmao:

I still hate Linux.. But i hate modern windows more do to its rolling releases so my OShacks dont stay intact after version roll-up. :nope:

I miss windows as its soooo many good programs made for windows.

TraderGary · Mar 15, 2026

cheaterslick said:
That's never stopped them. Or any other big American conglomerate. They get caught, they pay a puny fine and then they go about doing their business as before. A public relations wrist slap as the cost of doing business.

I'm not sure that's how business law actually works. But then I'm not a corporate lawyer nor do I play one on TV.

cheaterslick · Mar 15, 2026

TraderGary said:
I'm not sure that's how business law actually works. But then I'm not a corporate lawyer nor do I play one on TV.

No need to be a lawyer. It doesn’t take rocket-science. Everybody knows that's the game that they play.

Marcus Vinicus · Mar 15, 2026

cheaterslick said:
That's never stopped them. Or any other big American conglomerate. They get caught, they pay a puny fine and then they go about doing their business as before. A public relations wrist slap as the cost of doing business.

Perhaps you can enlighten us all of the cases where Microsoft has blatantly failed to obey a search warrant or court order issued by a Judge?

TraderGary · Mar 15, 2026

cheaterslick said:
No need to be a lawyer. It doesn’t take rocket-science. Everybody knows that's the game that they play.

So you're saying that American corporations operate above the law, do what they want no matter the legality, and if caught pay only a tiny fine and then continue right on operating totally above the law with impunity. Are you sure that isn't a conspiracy theory?

cheaterslick · Mar 15, 2026

Marcus Vinicus said:
Perhaps you can enlighten us all of the cases where Microsoft has blatantly failed to obey a search warrant or court order issued by a Judge?

We can start with this.

Microsoft litigation - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Besides, I'm not going to open up an off topic thread that would probably become political and get closed down around here.

TraderGary · Mar 16, 2026

This thread has careened into total nonsense. I'm just going to watch and eat my popcorn.

Marcus Vinicus · Mar 16, 2026

cheaterslick said:
We can start with this.

Microsoft litigation - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Besides, I'm not going to open up an off topic thread that would probably become political and get closed down around here.

I read the entire Wikipedia Microsoft litigation page and didn’t see a single case where Microsoft disobeyed a court order or ignored a search warrant. That was what I asked about.

They’ve been sued plenty over the decades — like every big tech company — but in every instance they either complied, settled, or appealed through the proper legal channels. Challenging a ruling is normal; disobeying one is contempt of court, and there’s no record of Microsoft ever doing that.

In numerous cases Microsoft deserved to be taken to court in some cases lose and they did.

cheaterslick · Mar 16, 2026

TraderGary said:
So you're saying that American corporations operate above the law, do what they want no matter the legality, and if caught pay only a tiny fine and then continue right on operating totally above the law with impunity. Are you sure that isn't a conspiracy theory?

Yes, I believe that whole heartedly. If they were truly effective then they'd be put out of business.

Just ask my friends over at Comcast that

Criticism of Comcast - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Take your pick. There's plenty there if you care to research.

https://violationtracker.goodjobsfirst.org/

~

Oh and I've tried on tin foil hats. None of them fit.

cheaterslick · Mar 16, 2026

Marcus Vinicus said:
I read the entire Wikipedia Microsoft litigation page and didn’t see a single case where Microsoft disobeyed a court order or ignored a search warrant. That was what I asked about.

I never said anything about that. I'm talking about their bottom line. The dollar amounts.

Marcus Vinicus said:
They’ve been sued plenty over the decades — like every big tech company — but in every instance they either complied, settled, or appealed through the proper legal channels.

And have gotten through relatively unscathed, of course...

Marcus Vinicus said:
Challenging a ruling is normal; disobeying one is contempt of court, and there’s no record of Microsoft ever doing that.

Again, I never said anything about that.

As far as I'm concerned they'd probably volunteer to give them that information, anyway. Without the government even asking for it.

cheaterslick · Mar 16, 2026

TraderGary said:
This thread has careened into total nonsense. I'm just going to watch and eat my popcorn.

Thanks, Gary.

Want some?

lol...

TraderGary · Mar 16, 2026

cheaterslick said:
Oh and I've tried on tin foil hats. None of them fit.

Love that statement! :wink:

A Guy · Mar 16, 2026

A Guy

XxXxX · Mar 16, 2026

back on topic ..
i use Vivaldi browser as a flatpak.
also all my email and online calendar are accessed within Vivaldi
very similar to the old Netscape Navigator.

Vivaldi is also sand-boxed within the flatpak.

settings for Vivaldi are all IP addresses are https
i also have 12 browser extension 6 of them are privacy related.

i use Cloudflare-Warp for all DNS
which creates an encrypted tunnel to the nearest Cloudflare DNS server
all DNS is then done from that server and then back to me
that hides my own IP address and gives my internet provider as Cloudflare.
so all DNS is encrypted via an encrypted tunnel and all sites are https.

Vivaldi also has Proton VPN free as an extension
if even greater privacy is required.

thats my basic setup on a Linux system
my wifes Windows system using Edge Browser is setup very similar.

best of luck Steve ..

Edwin · Mar 16, 2026

Cent Browser - Still the simplest, most versatile, user friendly Chromium browser.

cheaterslick · Mar 16, 2026

Edwin said:
Cent Browser - Still the simplest, most versatile, user friendly Chromium browser.

Regular updates? Allows extensions and add-on?

hdmi · Mar 17, 2026

Marie SWE said:
The pros with Firefox is you can kill all telemetry in about:config and it wont turn on again after an update.
I have just started to look in to Waterfox, that is a privacy minded fork of firefox, but not as extreme harden as Librewolf, as that one actually can have problem with some websites.. and also Librewolf do not have a sign installer.

For alternative browsers and privacy in mind.. Have a look at Which browsers are best for privacy?
It cover browsers for Desktops, Android and iOS

You don't necessarily have to go in about:config to kill all telemetry in Firefox, as you can also disable it completely by making a few simple changes in the normal settings of Firefox. Instead of LibreWolf, try Firefox with Narsil. Narsil is based very heavily on Arkenfox but adds a few key advantages. To add Narsil to Firefox portable,

Grab the files mozilla.cfg and user.js from Narsil
In the same folder as firefox.exe ( FirefoxPortable\App\Firefox ), add the file mozilla.cfg
In FirefoxPortable\App\Firefox\browser\defaults\pref, create a new file local-settings.js with these 2 lines:
pref("general.config.filename", "mozilla.cfg"); pref("general.config.obscure_value", 0);
In the profile folder ( FirefoxPortable\Data\profile ), put the file user.js.

In normal Firefox, the steps are similar. Just the lolder locations are a little bit different. (I don't use normal Firefox because I am special. J/K...)

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