Hello all! I’ve been making the switch from American to European tech, and was wondering your thoughts on Vivaldi browser and Qwant search engine.
Vivaldi is based on Chromium and iirc not fully open source, but is still suggested in European tech spaces, and has a pretty good privacy policy.
Qwant is not open source, though claims to not to sell personal data or store searches.
What are your thoughts and perhaps suggestions for alternatives?
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Never use Chromium based browsers as it is coming from Google and gives it more power. The only alternative is Gecko / Firefox based: Fennec for Android and Librewolf for desktop.
I agree to not be using something that comes from Chrome, but Chromium is open-source, so it’s not like it’s actively benefiting Google, right? (Correct me if I’m wrong.)
Chromium is still controlled by Google though, and they way it benefits them is giving them market share and user base. It’s not as direct as using Google, but indirectly still benefits them to have such massive market share with chromium that they can do whatever they want with it. See:manifest v3 and working against adblockers
I don’t really see how that can be the case when Chromium is open-source, though I’m admittedly not very knowledgeable on this subject.
I use Waterfox and Ecosia. Qwant doesn’t play nice with VPNs.
This has been my default for a couple years now. Qwant search is ok at best but I mainly use it because I wanted an EU alternative with some privacy. As for Vivaldi I think its great, and especially with an OISD list with the built in blocker.
- Qwant is ok. It’ snow my default, I used to use the US Kagi (which I loved but being US…).
- Vivaldi is a fine browser highly customizable (it’s my chromium-based choice), and they’re not pushing AI at all.
- Waterfox (a privacy-respecting , non-AI fork of Firefox) is my default browser. IT works great and its fully compatible with uBo.
i’ve been avoiding using all the chromium based browsers because i don’t want to help google gain more dominance; but it feels like that meme of tom hanks shooting a pistol at the tank.
Browser I’ve been using Librewolf for over a year.
Helium also looks promising for a browser but it’s Chromium based and I’m not a fan of Chromium.
For search I’ve been using StartPage. I don’t believe they are open source but Quant I believe like GoDuckGo are using Bing and I think Bing is absolute trash.
If you don’t mind paying there is Kagi but personally I don’t think the search results have been better than GDG.
Thanks!
There’s also SearXNG, but you’ll have to look closely at which provider to get.
Can be a real mess sometimes. I’ve had issues with performance and time outs
Vivaldi is a great browser. I don’t love that is Chromium-based, but it’s honestly the only problem I have with it.
For search I use Kagi. It’s American, but it’s so much better than anything else for me that I haven’t made the switch to Qwant yet.
I use fennec with ublock origin add on
As you’ve pointed out, Vivaldi is based on Chromium so you are still indirectly supporting Google’s browser monopoly.
Qwant is a decent search engine but they share certain information, including IP’s, with uptream search providers such as Microslop and Google. I do believe they have a partnership with Ecosia to develop their own joint search engine/crawler but until then they both rely on Bing and Google and have to share information as per agreement terms. As always, check privacy and ToS agreements for full details.
Search engines are kind of in shit place right now with so many being either A: American, or B: relying on Bing or Google (secret third option: both A and B). As for browsers, Firefox is also in a shit place right now but there are numerous excellent forks that strip out all of Mozilla’s stupid stuff. Waterfox, Librewolf, just to name a couple.
