On a Sunday evening after a reinstall of Windows 10 (I would’ve had Linux installed but circumstances… ), I set out to set up my system which includes my browsers of choice and try out that famed browser that MKBHD and Theo love to use so much; Arc. I go to the website, Arc.net, download the installer, close was it Vivaldi and run the installer. A card-like install wizard pops up requiring no other input or custom setup from me and once its done fetching from the internet, it requests for my soul. Never before has there been a browser that asks for me to set up an account when… setting it up and for a VERY GOOD REASON. Not even Edge. Arc asking for an account seemed pathetic especially for a browser that allegedly “doesn’t sell your data”. It’s nice to know that being forced to set up an account, Arc recognizes that I could not settle for its nonsense and would ‘explore my options’.
Arc on Windows is absolute trash. In my not any humble opinion, Arc on Windows is not a web browser but behaves more like a desktop application for a website or even a web app. What browser requires a sync account for basic usage and upon deletion of that account, the browser becomes unusable? Not even to mention the browser’s settings which only contain preferences for the sync account. Is that really a browser or what I have just described above? Worse, Arc is built on top of Blink, the rendering engine powering Google Chrome and has no in-built content blocker thus leaving its users naked to trackers and ads. Arc on Windows doesn’t even come with the ‘Boosts’ feature that its makers trumpet about so much. The magic of Arc is in how the Browser Company presents its product and creates a refreshing and intriguing aura around what one can call Notion Desktop but for browsing the web. Arc is the best browser advertising there has ever been. Vivaldi has more than what Arc offers but did not take advantage of the advertising potential that it had.
After my utter disgust and repulse with Arc, I immediately install Zen, a Firefox-based browser built with speed and user experience in mind. Zen is a spiritual successor to two defunct Firefox forks; Dot Browser and Pulse Browser. Dot Browser was built using a build tool known as Melon; a build tool used to make easy the process of making an FF-based browser. The Pulse Browser Project would fork it to create Gluon which is the basis of what is currently Surfer. Gluon/Surfer is supposed to be the beginning of the rise of Gecko-based browsers in the midst of a swarm of Chromium/Blink-based browsers. So Zen is acting upon the Book of Mozilla 6:27.
Zen was like a breath of fresh Air after Arc’s shenanigans. No mandatory sync account, a custom setup (search engine, importing data and theme), good privacy-respecting defaults, rolling release (I’m that guy who installs the Nightly channel instead of Stable), sensible settings options, FOSS, listening devs and community-oriented (Vivaldians know what I’m talking about). Zen only lacked the backing of a large organization but still did what would take Mozilla years and years to undertake in DAYS. The Zen Dev is the single most goated one-man browser dev I’ve ever come across. This guy promises and delivers unlike Mozilla. He burns the midnight oil and actually listens to users. Firefox 129.0.2 drops, Zen is up to date. No other Firefox-based browser beats that because of how committed Zen’s Dev is.
Like Vivaldi, Zen has vertical tabs, workspaces and tab tiling/split view, profile switching and web panels. Though these features may not be as fleshed out as in Vivaldi, it’s impressive to see a Firefox-based browser have these built-in and in a polished manner instead of relying on extensions for poor quality of these functionalities. Zen has also its own perks like it’s own color scheme system separate from Firefox and one-click mods that customize the browser’s UI with CSS. Zen, unlike most Firefox-based browsers including Floorp, has a very beautiful interface that a redditor described it as “something that would have been designed by Apple Inc.”. Zen Browser also inherits some cool features from Firefox like Multi-Account containers and compatibility with Firefox Addons which are a ton better than Chrome. So for anyone seeking to make their move to a Gecko-based browser especially after MV3, Zen is a good replacement and is a plausible daily driver. But Zen hides the option to add tags to bookmarks in the add bookmark dialog which is sad especially for Vivaldi users who are accustomed to using different search engines.
In terms of parity with Vivaldi’s feature set, Zen lacks a native notes app, native Window panel equivalent for managing tabs, page actions, manual tab sleeping/hibernation, a clock, tab stacking (they call it tab grouping like Chrome does and is an upcoming feature), a status bar, a command palette, native Mail Client, RSS feed reader, native content blocker ( this is an upcoming feature with Ublock Origin being used as the backend for a custom UI fitting Zen’s), ability to place the search bar top or bottom, support for horizontal tabs, a _File, Edit, View, Bookmarks, Window, Help_ Menu, ability to customize icons and break mode etc.
Objectively speaking, Zen does not need to have ALL of these features that Vivaldi has even for me to use it as my daily driver. I would only need a native notes app which is what I use to write these blog posts on my Vivaldi Blog, tab stacking/tree-style tabs for better tab management especially since Zen uses vertical tabs which might be tiresome to keep looking for by scrolling when they are piled up, Workspace management on parity with Simple Tab groups and Vivaldi’s Window Panel and I’m still waiting for the native content blocker implementation which I’m hyped about. If Zen implements a native command palette which is nice feature that makes me stick to Vivaldi so much, it will be the first Firefox-based browser to actually do so.
Zen has achieved so much as a browser in Alpha stage and I couldn’t wait for the more that is to come in the future. Many who started their journey with Vivaldi in 2015 as they have communicated would rekindle that Euphoria that once was in the early Days of Vivaldi with Zen.
DITCHED CHROME (ARC), USING FIREFOX (ZEN)!
