The “backdoor” mentioned in a single reply is very different from the telemetry issue. https://github.com/zen-browser/desktop/pull/927 was fixed a year ago.
I agree the telemetry should be either disabled or at the very least users should just get a config tab on first launch to opt out but the Lemmy submission is misleading and bordering on fake news.
Either way…reading through this, this developer seems like an idiot.
He doesn’t really understand what the code he’s shipping is doing, he doesn’t want to listen to people or ask real questions. He gets defensive to even constructive criticism
Not who I want driving the project behind something as critical as my browser.
According to their privacy policy there is no telemetry: 1.1. No Telemetry. We do not collect any telemetry data.
According to their privacy policy there is no telemetry: 1.1. No Telemetry. We do not collect any telemetry data.
According to https://github.com/zen-browser/desktop/issues/5947#issuecomment-2737211334 one of the issues is that Mozilla’s telemetry remains enabled which (if happening in secret) is bad and also dumb because Mozilla can’t even use telemetry of a very different browser.
I’m not sure why you linked to this irrelevant 3 week old issue while referring to something that was fixed a year ago. Referring to it as a backdoor also implies that it was malicious, when it was simply incompetence. Have there been any security issues since? (Not trying to imply that not having any would make it safe, just wondering).
Zen is an amateur hobbyist project, expecting it to be something else is silly. It isn’t backed by a company, so you take on these risks when you use the project. The same thing goes for all community run browser forks, and unfortunately, using upstream browsers will 100% be more secure. If you don’t want to take those risks, just use Firefox (preferably hardened).
Security costs money, open source browser forks generally don’t have much of that.
Edit: I’m not trying to shit on this browser, or even say that nobody should use it. Be aware of your attack surface and know what risks you’re taking on when using any piece of software. I’m probably still going to play around with Zen, but I probably won’t be doing my banking on it.
Also want to add that this was caused by a configuration issue. If you want security, don’t use Firefox (or its forks) default configs, look into Betterfox. Apparently Zen also uses this as the base for its default preferences, which is a good decision.
I thought it just allowede easier debugging, sorry
What the fuck, this dude is making a browser and he doesn’t know what shit in the code he’s shipping even does?
It turns out hobby forks of a web browser is a dumb idea.
Fucks sake, reading through these comments it appears the Zen browser developer doesn’t know what they are doing.
What alternatives are people using? I’m on Mac, iOS and Linux, avoiding Chrome/Safari and not looking to go back to Firefox, is there anything reliable/secure available?
LibreWolf
I’m looking at librewolf and firedragon. Librewolf to replace Firefox and firedragon to replace zen. Both are on flathub.
throw some waterfox on your firedragon
Haha that’s funny. Will try waterfox as replacement for Firefox. Firedragon (zen) is for vertical tabs.
Have you settled on anything yet? I really like the essentials part of zen but incompetence on that level scares me.
Vivaldi is a very mature product
Whenever people ask about privacy oriented Firefox alternative, firm answer from most of us is Librewolf. However, for some, shiny things are hard to resist.
I like Floorp but i have no idea how much more/less private it is. I just like customising it
That’s okay. Means privacy isn’t your primary concern.
So disappointing. I just transitioned my personal browsing from Arc to Zen Browser because it was the closest vertical tab experience I could find. Now I hope one of the other browsers will figure out and implement good drawer-based vertical tab UI.
Any Firefox-based browser can use “Tree style tabs” it’s vertical tabs from the time before they were cool. Very customizable.
Sure but it’s not the closest experience to Arc
If you right click on the tab bar on regular Firefox you can enable vertical tabs. I don’t think they’re as nice as Zen’s vertical tabs but they’re still pretty good
I don’t use or care that much about vertical tabs, and it seems complicated how big if a deal this actually is, but florp might be worth taking a look at if you’re not already familiar with it
I don’t know a ton about it but I think it has a similar kind of niche and is more vertical tab focused
Floorp has literally been right there the whole time.
Floorp is even less trustworthy after that incident with part of the browser being closed source. Even if they undid it, the fact that they would try that is unacceptable.
not the person you replied to, but I wish someone had told me that rather than just downvoting me, that’s helpful to know about and I only found out cause I came to try dig though the thread to see if there were clues as to why folks were so unhappy with my mentioning it 😅
Not everyone knows or keeps up with every blemish on a project’s record
