Why I'm all-in on Zen Browser
werd.io130 points by benwerd 2 days ago
130 points by benwerd 2 days ago
It's weird how people always complain about lack of easy profile switching in Firefox. If one tells them that what they are really looking for is containers, they dismiss containers, but then proceed to complain that profiles don't have the same features. If you want sync across browser instances, manage them with one Firefox account... You really want containers not profiles.
I want both ;D I want profiles to have different partitions of plugins and browser configurations. I want containers to partition my browsing data. I want my Mozilla account to sync my browser history across all my profiles.
I want profiles. For example, work and personal. Different bookmarks, different plugins. Even some different settings.
Firefox now has improved Profile mangement
Firefox profiles are still janky and I had a lot of issue switching and managing two profiles effectively. Specifically the biggest problem I had was that clicking on work links would not open them in my last used profile (work profile). They would always open in a default profile (non-work).
I ended up keeping chrome just for work, and using firefox for personal life.
Then I grabbed Browser Tamer and set up an AHK v2 script that, when I click on and focus any browser window, it executes browser tamer's CLI to update the default browser. Thus I get the behavior of "open links in last used browser", which is the correct browser for whatever link I click 99.9% of the time.
OK, that mental overhead of "last used browser" would drive me nuts.
My solution is: The system has a default browser that opens default links. On my work machine I have a different browser where I am for example logged in to my private github account I just never want to open a clicked link there anyway. Copy/pasting 2 times per day is fine.
I hope they don't get rid of `about:profiles` which is perfect for anything I wanted to do with profiles in the last decade.
This initially excited me, but its pretty poor compared to what Chrome and Chrome based browsers provide.
I'm on Firefox 142 and the "account icon" menu only has "Sign in", "Monitor", "Relay" and "Mozilla VPN". No mention of profiles.
Edit: found it: it's hidden behind the browser.profiles.enabled setting in about:config
As a contractor, this is absolutely critical for me, and one reason I still use edge (along with edge syncing with client ad accounts).
This is why I like Safari, it has completely separate profiles.
My work profile is logged into my work Gmail + AWS
Personal profile has my personal Google account.
The two won't mix.
When I want that sort of separation, which I do between work and play, I run browsers (and everything else) as different users. That works with any browser and I don't even have to worry about bugs in profile or container separation, and it reduces (though of course didn't remove) the chance of idiot here using the wrong instance for the wrong use. Heck, where possible I even use a separate machine. DayJob provide a PC on the office that I remote into (via VPN+RDC) for work purposes, so the contact point between that work and everything else is minimal (in fact my main desktop is a VM I "remote" into, I only use the base metal when I take have too which is usually things unhappy running that way (Bambu Studio and games, which do not like the lack of faf free access to the GPU)). You can still access everything from one machine, or even have the different users instances on the same desktop (this does reduce the barriers a touch though).
The only real cost is that running things this way eats more memory, but I've not experienced OOM issues for years away from deliberately small VMs (for testing or small sever tasks) that turned out to be too small.
In my recollection, Firefox used to ask you which profile you wanted to use on launch. I don't think I've seen that in years.
IIRC you can use the -p flag to open that menu on launch. It also opens when you haven't set a default profile. And it's possible to access other profiles via about:profiles.
Firefox does have profiles, to use them well one only needs a little UX sugar in the form of the Profile Switcher extension: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/profile-switc...
Firefox proper is getting the ux sugar too, as the article mentioned: https://support.mozilla.org/kb/profile-management
Agreed. Containers are the reason I use Firefox -- they are a much better fit than profiles. But I've not been able to successfully communicate that to Chrome users. Its like their mental model is stuck, and they can't grasp the differences.
Containers are a better fit for... what containers do. They're the wrong tool when you want to separate, let's say, personal and work bookmarks, extensions, etc.
For example, I have a main profile where I have personal bookmarks and different extensions (and more aggressive adblocking). I also have a work profile with a different theme, different bookmarks, extensions, etc. And I use containers in both.
Containers are nice, but they're not profiles. We have to understand that not everyone can or wants to have one profile with everything in it.
As a Firefox user I could also say the same for other Firefox users. Every time profiles are mentioned and people mention containers it feels like they don’t get the use case. I want a dev profile with dev book marks and a daily profile with my non dev bookmarks. And I would also like dev plugins on one profile and different themes between these profiles. I believe this is something containers can’t offer.
Yep. Containers are great. But haven't seen anyone else using it near me though.
One feature I was missing from Chrome was Tab Groups. But recently (I don't know when it started) the feature showed up in FireFox too :-)
>It's weird how people always complain about lack of easy profile switching in Firefox. If one tells them that what they are really looking for is containers, they dismiss containers, but then proceed to complain that profiles don't have the same features.
I don't see anything weird in people asking for profiles. If anything your suggestion sounds weird.
Maybe you just don't understand the difference between containers and profiles, or what is it about profiles that's useful and more useful in some cases over containers. For one, it's impossible to have separate extensions with containers. That alone is already a deal breaker, and there are many more differences. Profiles are useful when you want to have things to be actually separate, not just pretending like they are while they're all cluttered in the same profile. It's also about more completely eliminating risk of having something where it doesn't belong.
It's kinda tiresome to see containers get peddled over and over as a "solution", when they're severely limited in what they offer compared to profiles. One feature set and clunky interface doesn't even get close to the use cases people have for profiles. It's not a solution.
So use profiles for what profiles are good at, and containers for what containers are good at. This works well for me.
I have a work profile with several containers inside, so that I can be logged into, e.g. GitHub and AWS, with multiple accounts at the same time.
I also have a primary personal profile, with a few containers primarily for cookie pollution separation.
I've never struggled with the "Profiles have bad UX" complaint, because I created a few different launchers for Firefox: work, personal, (a few others for special purposes like retail sites), and a default profile that launches the profile manager dialog at startup so I can select from a few dozen less-frequently-used (sometimes single-purpose) profiles. I like to keep separate things separated.
This took 20 minutes to set up, 15+ years ago(?) and has been perfectly convenient for me, but I've also recently read that Mozilla is working to improve profile switching.
>use profiles for what profiles are good at
This is what I'm saying and what people who recommend containers as a "replacement" for profiles sorely miss.
>20 minutes to set up
Meanwhile on Chrome this just worked out of the box and didn't have UI that's been abandoned for a decade.
Selecting a profile at launch has never been a problem in Firefox. Switching to a different profile in a running browser is prettier in Chrome though, sure.
The bigger problem for me is that (at least when I last tested Chrome profiles -- it's been a while), there was some browser config that was shared between profiles. Maybe extensions? I don't recall.
This was unexpected and undesired, so I went back to Firefox.
That depends a lot on the platform. On MacOS, for example, switching to a profile from about:profiles results in the new window being open in the background and it would mess your Firefox icon on the dock. The solution used by Windows and Linux users (the -p command) also doesn't work here (maybe it does via the terminal, but not with shortcuts).
Anyway, there's no benefit to Firefox or its users if profile switching is ugly or clunky. They're improving this and that's a good thing for everyone.
On macOS, sending `--no-remote -P <profilename>` in the command line is the method for launching specific profiles.
I add an icon (slightly modified for each profile) to the script, and rename it to (e.g.) ~/Applications/Firefox-work.app for convenience. Works from the Dock, Finder, Spotlight, etc. I usually launch from the command line, but all the usual ways do work.
Improving the profile switching experience is great of course. But the above workaround has served me perfectly for as long as I can remember. Obv would not work for everyone.
Personally I want (and use) both. Containers are useful, but they're still containers. If you want different extensions, bookmarks, settings, etc, for work and personal stuff, then you need profiles and obviously you want to be able to switch between both easily.
Meanwhile, it’s not weird that people think what other people actually want are weird.
I've been trying All The Browsers lately and Arc is definitely still my favourite; I actually had no idea that development had stopped on it, that's a shame. Zen looks good, but they are off the charts on this graph! https://sizeof.cat/post/web-browser-telemetry-2025-edition/ What is going on there?
Their Privacy Policy says no telemetry, but then they have a section on those connections made at startup which apparently are "necessary for the proper functioning of the browser and are not used for tracking or profiling purposes"... they then go on to say "can be disabled through the browser flags (about:config)"
Does that mean the browser will no longer function correctly?
Among the connections made (according to the report) are x.com, google.com (plus a bunch of other google domains). reddit.com and notion.com, discordapp.com, cloudflareinsights.com
I think that page on the sizeof.cat website was created before Zen removed a lot of the telemetry. Here's the PR created on April 27, after the article was created
> Among the connections made (according to the report) are x.com, google.com (plus a bunch of other google domains). reddit.com and notion.com, discordapp.com, cloudflareinsights.com
Reddit, X, Discord, and Notion are all part of the default sites in the sidebar. Perhaps it's loading them to grab the favicons and such, leading to all of their calls to CDNs, analytics, etc being called.
Thanks for calling that out, I had not got as far as installing the browser so had no idea they were default favourites / shortcuts. Seems like that telemetry report has given a couple of browser vendors the kick they needed to reduce initial connections. I wonder how much of an effect this stuff has on how snappy it feels to actually open these applications. In my dock I currently have FF and FF nightly, Chrome, Ungoogled Chrome, Arc and Safari. Ungoogled loads in the blink of an eye, the rest are all shades of sluggish. I guess this is the price of having a few extensions and “quality of life” features :shrug:
I tried Zen for a while (1-2 months). It certainly has some cool features. But in the end, I returned to Vanilla FF and installed Sideberry [0] with custom userChrome.css [1]. It gets me 99% of what I used with Zen (tree tabs, workspaces), but without annoyances/anti-features (inconvenient url bar for editing, frequent UI changes, cute animations that ignore prefer-reduced-motion, performance, security worries etc.).
I’m relatively happy with my setup [2] now, what I miss most from Zen would be the 2-level pinned tabs (pinned per workspace, and globally pinned), and the design of globals pins (instead of a line on the side as in [2], it’s a grid at the top for Zen), but not even close to enough that I’d want to return.
[0]: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/sidebery/
[1]: https://github.com/mbnuqw/sidebery/wiki/Firefox-Styles-Snipp...
A big hurdle for me is the lack of Widevine which for some reason not a lot of people mention: https://docs.zen-browser.app/faq#why-cant-zen-browser-play-d...
strange Spotify works for me in Zen out out of the box on the Flatpak version.
I did almost the same thing about 9 months ago. I am rooting for Zen despite currently maining with Firefox.
I have to have all the browsers and nightlies installed anyways, so I might as well personalize it to work best for my needs.
I imagine not everyone is like us, and something like Zen being zero config is a big deal.
What does it even mean to be all-in on a browser?
You can switch any time, multiple times per day even.
No, not if you are "all in" and spend enough time customizing it or getting used to the UI/features uniquely available to a specific browser.
You won't be able to switch multiple times a day without noticing a lot of friction as you common workflows break down
How is switching between a couple different web browsers any way cognitively different from context switching between a browser, code IDE, database client, and terminal windows?
You're not doing exactly the same tasks in other apps like you do in a browser, so you don't have browser-specific workflows you're used to that would break down.
For example, you have a browser where you can set up a shortcut _C_ to copy the current page URL to your clipboard. You've developed muscle memory of doing that, so feel it in another browser where it can't be set up that way.
You don't need that in a database client, so you'll never notice the difference there because you'll never use that shortcut
In my role I have to do a lot of testing on different browsers so the least amount of friction is little to no customization, the only plugins are the ones I need for testing and nothing else.
When I was a developer, I fell into the trap of trying to customize everything, only to have to keep doing it once a new browser or extension came out. I gave up trying to get something exactly the way I wanted it.
I use as close to stock as possible in order to avoid the kind of friction you're talking about.
Another advantage to staying close to stock as possible is those configurations are the most heavily tested by QA.
If there is anything I've learned from decades of software development, it is that deep customization leads to headaches.
Right? I use Chrome for personal because it just syncs well with my phone. I use FF for business because it's a bit clunkier than Chrome but still acceptable, and more importantly, completely separate. I use Edge to run one off webapps here and there, where I don't want the window previews to appear and clutter things up when hovering over one of the other browsers in the task bar.
And the nice thing for me with Zen is that switching between Zen and Firefox is even lower cost, because they sync with each other.
To be all-in on a specific browser means exactly that you deliberately don’t switch to different ones.
I want to like Zen but remember this:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43443494
Is it safe enough now?
Also, anyone have an update on Ladybird? Looks like its dev is still going strong, but I haven’t been watching it carefully.
To be fair I haven't tried Zen, but Arc still works well. I don't particularly need any new features - so as long as they continue to keep up with timely security patches and Chromium updates I'll probably keep using it. Also - as a developer I would prefer using a Chromium-based browser since it's the most common one used.
I tried Dia a few weeks back and was disappointed in its sidebar and profile features.
So what is their monetization model? What can one expect from this product or company in the future? Can't find answers on their About page: https://zen-browser.app/about/
I think you posted the answer to your own question. They don't appear to be a company. They are an open source project. They request donations.
> We are simply a group of developers and designers who care about your experience on the web.
Have they fixed the backdoor yet?
If you go through the issues and the discussions, linked in the article that you yourself linked, you'll see that the devs addressed the backdoor and privacy issues.
> And ironically, The Browser Company now charges $20/month, the same amount I would gladly have paid for Arc.
As crazy as this probably sounds, I would have been content to pay for Arc to continue being developed as well. It had real energy behind it, some great ideas, and it was improving a tool I use daily.
I'm using Zen as well, now.
Nothing against Zen, but if you prefer stay Firefox but crave for some UI sugar, try https://github.com/greeeen-dev/natsumi-browser
Oh, to be new to Zen again. That lovely honeymoon phase. Give it a few weeks/months. Bugs, random UI changes, odd development priorities. I wanted to love it, I really did.
I use this userchrome.css to replicate some of the zen UI in vanilla firefox: https://github.com/akkva/gwfox
UI isn't the only thing zen does, but anything else I just adjusted myself + some custom uBlock Origin filters and I'm good to go.
I've been using it for maybe 6 months now, and I'm still enjoying it. The only things that I couldn't get by properly configuring an up-to-date Firefox (with userChrome.css) are compact mode, workspaces, and peek, though, so it wouldn't take too many annoyances to send me back to Firefox.
Your experience matches my early days with it. That said, it's been pretty solid in the last few months.
Yep, I switched back to Firefox after loving Zen for a while. The latest UI change that tipped me over the edge was to remove the ability to use Firefox themes.
feels like people keep wanting more and more from the browser. I just want it to stay out the way. Lightweight, good dev tools, good privacy settings.
> feels like people keep wanting more and more from the browser.
The browser is the new OS, so no wonder there.
I tried Zen for a few months. I like the UX, even more than Arc in many places. But it is just too slow for me on an M1 Max. I've switched back to Orion. Even though I miss some goodies such as Firefox containers, I just need the browser to get out of the way, not use too much power and not warm up my laptop with runaway processes. Plus, tree-style tabs are great.
We're past the point were small aesthetic changes like this make a meaningful difference in browsers.
In 2025 a browser that really acts as a user agent needs to do much more at the content level: ad blocking, content rewriting (clickbait headlines, etc.), content aggregation and summarization, deceptive content idenification, automatic reader-mode, etc.
The extent that we need so many lines of defense versus web developers is astonishing.
Congrats to everyone working to make the Internet worse; you’ve had a very successful couple of decades.
In 2025 we still largely fail at the very basics of good UI in many apps, browsers included, so we're nowhere near the point where these extra features you describe are the only way to make a meaningful difference
Genuinely curious about where browser UI is falling short. I often run Chrome fullscreen, so there's barely any visible UI at all.
The invisible part sucks as well. Since you do fullscreen often, you might need a convenient way to switch it on and off. F11 isn't convenient Similarly, can you see your tabs momentarily without shifting the page layout as happens if you exit fullscreen? Can you change the tab switching keybinds in-browser? Can you press C to copy the current page url in fullscreen mode? Can you have more fitting vertical tabs without the tab close button? Etc., etc., etc. Some of the issues are hacked around with various extensions, but then some have inpenetrable barriers coded in the awfulness that is the browser UI itself...
Man that really hits me for a killer app for LLMs: headline identification and summarization. Rewrite "could X be Y?" headlines with the answer.
Safari's reader mode summaries aren't too bad for this. They are usually short, under a paragraph. It'd be nice if you could "3D touch" the headline to just load that summary in the little preview window instead of having to click, and then open in reader mode though.
I can see that being a really nice built-in browser feature, to load a summary on hover over a link.
I still really like the Arc browser. Other browsers are still missing some of the small UI/UX things Arc has.
Zen still has some annoying shortcomings, like missing Widevine DRM or the dev tools opening up annoyingly slow. The potential is there, but it wasn't quite daily drivable as a developer for me just yet as of a few weeks ago.
Once it gets there, I too will finally leave Arc behind. Until then, while it is on life support, Arc actually works. I really wish The Browser Company would just own up to their fuck up and revive it.
Regarding the DRM support, they are trying to get Widevine license from Google [1] but for some reason Google approval process is taking too long.
[1] https://docs.zen-browser.app/faq#why-cant-zen-browser-play-d...
> way; it was superpowered with keyboard shortcuts that just made sense
No, that's under-powered.
Powered is when you can define multiple simple custom shortcuts (as far as I understand, at least Zen allows 1 shortcut change for some commands (unlike 0 in the dumb FF), so halfway there, not sure about Arc).
Super powered is when you can add key sequences and keys without modifiers depending on context in addition to a simple shortcuts.
Uberpowered would be the equivalent of QMK within the app (tap vs hold, home row mods left vs right alt, all 4 modifiers, etc etc), but when you can have conditions based on app contexts and dynamic user defined conditions (eg, in the simplest way, have vim-like modal editing in text fields with word jumps and single key navigation outside).
While uberpowered apps are unicorns, among relatively known browsers think only Vivaldi has has power
> Firefox remains the gold standard for user-first browsing.
What's gold about poor customization (no keybind, but also changing UI is cumbersome) and bad defaults?
> why isn’t it Firefox?
Oh, why indeed! Something about lack of incentives to innovate of even listen to users much when you're a big company financed by "ulterior" sources
> Powered is when you can define multiple simple custom shortcuts
You nailed it. It drives me insane that FF and Zen are unable to be customized. A huge appeal for me with Arc was that suddenly I could use my keyboard more using shortcuts that made sense.
Arc does allow customization as well: https://resources.arc.net/hc/en-us/articles/20595231349911-K...
I'm off of Arc due to the lack of maintenance and decreasing efficiency; it kills my laptop's battery remarkably quickly and it's kind of crazy to bother with it anymore.
edit: I'm an idiot. Zen has a settings pane for keyboard shortcuts. This is great: https://docs.zen-browser.app/user-manual/shortcuts
I think I tested Zen in early 2024 and it looks like shortcuts were revamped in mid-2024. Time flies.
Never go all-in
I liked Zen, but there was a time when every new update introduced a new behavior. Weird stuff like how the URL bar is handled for new tabs, or how videos are played. It was unexpected and annoying. I don't know if they are over this phase. I went back to Firefox.
that annoyed me too. you set the browser up how you want it and in the next update it works in a different way.
I can't use Google Meet on firefox/zen, I tried every setting combination I could find but the video call quality is still not comparable to chromium based browsers, so at work I reluctantly switched to Vivaldi.
If you figure this out please let me know!
I think it's widely speculated that Google sabotages how their own products work in Firefox. I don't know if there is actual evidence to support that though.
I'm in a Zoom shop now, but when I was in a Meet/Hangouts shop, I used Chrome for that, and Firefox for everything else. If you're on a Mac, the utility Choosy can send links to appropriate browsers based on patterns.
Have you tried switching your User Agent (with or without a helper extension) to Chrome/Chromium/Edge to see if that makes a difference? I have heard that some G sites that are clunky or broken seem to work better under Firefox when it identifies itself as Chrome.
>>> added AI to a browser framework that isn’t a million miles away from stock Chrome.
Wow, very well put. I love how mobile browsers are not even in the conversation.
I've used Zen for a while but it had bugs with addressbar and there was no interest in fixing it, so i moved on. Competition is always good.
> Mozilla should take this team, absorb it, and use it to help navigate the future of their flagship browser for end users.
No. Mozilla's leadership would ruin it, too.
Firefox by itself is great technology. That's not the problem. The Mozilla leadership, incentives, and org structure is the problem.
everytime i go all in a browser, including when i went all in on zen, eventually i go back to regular chrome. every single time
> eventually i go back to regular chrome
I guess being given a daily colonoscopy by your browser and the results being reported to GOOG isn't high on your list of concerns then.
I've been using Zen for a few months after I lost faith in Arc/The Browser Company.
I like the workflow of swiping between profiles, vertical tabs and pinned favorites. I haven't been able to find a browser that works just like that.
I'd prefer to use Chromium over Firefox though, that's the only downside. I keep running into weird Firefox specific issues. Passkeys didn't work properly (and still won't support TouchID), pages don't render correctly, etc.
Last time I tried it, I couldn't figure out how to configure the container tabs. Has that become easier?
using zen since about 7 months for all of my daily work + on my personal computer. the issues the comments describe here, never had those. it "just" works for me. donated to the project, i hope they go a long way.
Also switched to Zen on all my devices (except ios sadly). Been a blast
Is there support for uBlock on Zen? I refuse to use a browser without it.
Is there a browser apart from Firefox that let's you switch tabs in most recently used order? I just cannot live without this.
I used zen. it used all my cpu. I stopped using zen.
Brave is faster and the features are similar
Brave however is riddled with Crypto and AI crap. It doesn't have any useable support for multiple profiles, too: last time I tried it, it would end up showing various errors on every startup and you couldn't have two profiles in the same window.
Hamburger menu > more tools > add new profile
Once you have more than one profile, you'll see the switcher in the top right.
Also, turn off all crypto/ai stuff in settings. I did and I never see it.
It's really not that much.
I just start Librewolf with -P and keep profiles in separate windows. Easy, already fully supported, and allows things like different themes to highlight the fact I am using different profiles.
What does "riddled with Crypto and AI crap" mean here?
If you download Brave and run it you'll see; many pop-ups and random things in the UI you don't want
I've been running it for years; I see none of what you mention. I turned off a couple of settings (literally took <5 minutes) and I don't see anything crypto or AI related anymore.
Same. I’ve been using it exclusively on macOS and iOS for a few years now. When you first open it they do show you all those features but as ochronous said you can completely disable them. If they forced crypto and AI on me I’d be out in a flash.
To me, any other browser's initial "hello" screens are similarly "annoying", including Firefox. It's just a setup hurdle one needs to get over.
