UPDATE: I have discovered that DDG has imported a bunch of wrong/old passwords from Firefox, forcing me to copy/paste or—gad—actually remember my passwords. This is a dealbreaker. Off with you, Ducky!
I have been using Firefox for about 500 years, or since it basically launched back in 2004 (while this is 18 years ago, I actually would have guessed Firefox was older still). I have only deviated a few times from it since then:
- I tried Google Chrome but for reasons I can’t specifically recall now, did not care for it. And this was before I was fully cognizant on how Google is a data-sucking machine.
- Microsoft Edge. Mainly the Chromium version and it’s not bad, but while it offered some neat tricks (before Microsoft started to lard in more questionable features) it didn’t offer anything compelling enough to get me to switch over full-time.
- Vivaldi. This is the “tweak to your heart’s content” browser that should be perfect for a tech nerd. And yet, I find its UI utilitarian and off-putting. It looks like something designed in the 90s. I keep it around as a Chromium alternative.
- Arc. This is currently in beta and Mac-only (a Windows version is due later in 2023) and it really does some new things, mostly by rethinking how tabs should work in a way that I have to admit, I really don’t like. I’m not one of those 100-tab guys, so I’ve never felt having a dozen or so tabs open is a big issue. It feels like Arc is trying to solve a problem I don’t have and feels weirdly confining as a result.
- Safari. I’ve never really used Safari very much. Every time I do, its UI just grates on me. It has to be different, but not better. Poo on you, Apple.
Today, after reading about DuckDuckGo launching a Windows version of its privacy-focused browser, I decided to give it a shot—on the Mac. It lacks extension support, so this is a good test of how much I rely on extensions for my browsing experience.
In the first few minutes it seems clean and unobtrusive. I’ll report back later if it drives me crazy. I now have six (!) browsers installed on my Mac:
- Firefox
- Safari
- Edge
- Vivaldi
- Arc
- DuckDuckGo
