First off, a huge thank you to everyone who responded to my [last post] with suggestions and insights. The feedback was incredibly helpful.
Now, I’d like to focus on one specific challenge that’s still unresolved: my browser situation.
Currently, I’m using Brave as a temporary solution. It has vertical tabs and pinned sites, which I need, but it’s still Chromium-based. I want to move away from Google’s ecosystem, but I’m not willing to compromise on usability. If a browser can’t handle vertical tabs or DRM for streaming, it’s not a viable option for me.
What I Need
- Vertical tabs (non-negotiable; Arc spoiled me)
- No Chromium (Firefox-based or independent engine preferred)
- Functional DRM (yes, even on Linux—don’t judge me)
- Daily usability (no constant cookie purges, no janky workarounds)
What I’ve Tried
- Vivaldi & Zen Browser: Firefox-based, which I liked in theory. But DRM (Widevine) was a no-go, even with plugins. Linux + DRM is a known nightmare, but if someone has a functional setup, I’d love to hear about it.
- Mullvad Browser: Privacy-wise, it’s great, but the aggressive cookie-clearing makes it impractical for daily use.
What I Haven’t Tried (But Am Watching)
- Ladybird Browser: This could be the answer—if it ever becomes stable. If anyone’s tested recent builds, I’d love to hear how close it is to daily usability.
What I’m Looking For Now
Is there a browser out there that I’m missing?
One that balances privacy, usability, and my specific needs - without forcing me into a Chromium-based corner?
Specifically, I’d love to hear from people who’ve had success with:
- Firefox-based browsers (or others) that handle vertical tabs and DRM smoothly.
- General experiences with non-Chromium browsers - what’s your daily driver, and why?
If you’ve found a setup that works for you, I’d genuinely love to hear about it.
> thanks <
How about Firefox?
I actually laughed out loud when I read your comment because it’s so obvious, yet I completely overlooked it. 😅
I’ve been so hyper-focused on finding Firefox-based alternatives (Vivaldi, Zen, etc.) that I somehow forgot to reconsider Firefox itself, even though it’s been sitting right there as the default browser on my Linux Mint Cinnamon setup this whole time. The last time I used Firefox seriously was years ago, and I don’t even remember why I didn’t like it back then. But now that I’ve taken another look:
- Native vertical tabs (no extensions needed. this is a game-changer for me)
- No Chromium
- Pinned tabs (works natively, just like in Brave)
The irony? I’ve spent hours hunting for workarounds in other browsers while the solution was pre-installed. Thanks for the reality check… sometimes you’re so deep in the weeds, you miss the obvious.
I’m testing it now with manual Widevine setup to see how DRM/streaming holds up. If you’ve got any Linux-specific tips (or warnings), I’m all ears!
(And yes, I’ll still keep an eye out for other alternatives like Ladybird, but for now, Firefox might just be the answer I’ve been ignoring.)
Firefox has native vertical tabs now.
… was this written by an LLM? It certainly reads like it was.
Yes, it is. Look at their other posts, it’s pretty clear.
I hate LLMs. I hate them, because they were trained on the vast text corpus freely available on the internet, the majority of which are still literary and academic texts. Consequently, nowadays everybody identifies LLM—generated texts with stylistic choices that used to indicate academic or literary writers. When this is just the way you’re educated to think and express yourself — yes, including the use of interjected thoughts demarcated by typologically correct m—dashes instead of non—descript all purpose pseudo—minus signs developed in the age of typewriters — LLMs suck.
I guess we’ll need t’make a new-slang every two-years t’stay-a-head of LLM’s ability t’cos-play hu-mans and proove t’each-other we’re hu-mans.
It seems prudent to point out that they’re em-dashes, not m-dashes.
I was referring to the styled text. I use mdashes myself. But I’ve hardly ever styled text, let alone so many individual parts.
Plus, it’s just so verbose.
LLMs don’t use “smart” writing, they mock it.
You are overdoing the m-dashes. Ask an LLM to correct your style. They are known to get this right.
I just switched to Firefox and i like it. This makes it even faster: https://justthebrowser.com/ And I love the Multi-Account Containers Adon that separets cookies and other stuff.
If you want Firefox minus the AI fluff, also Waterfox. I’ve been using it on Linux.
This is the problem: There are no good browsers. We should make a completely radically new type of browser.
Vivaldi is chromium based tho?
I’m running on Librewolf and am able to watch netflix at least - only modification was to enable it in the settings somewhere iirc. I’ve seen other people recommend waterfox for more drm heavy streams. Otherwise check out the browser section on privacyguides.org
Vivaldi is chromium based tho?
Indeed. I must have mixed that up. Sorry. I’m going to to give Firefox itself a shot now. Still gotta check out Librewolf :)
Why not Firefox itself? It has built-in option for vertical tabs, or you can use the extension TreeStyleTabs which gives you even more options.
DRM works fine on Linux (at least it did last time I used Netflix, though that’s a while ago)There’s also Firefox derivatives like Waterfox and LibreWolf for a slightly different direction.
I have been using LibreWolf since they recently put out a statement about no AI implementation and I adore it and wish I had started using it sooner. I spent longer than I needed trying out different browsers and never quite finding one I like a lot.
Yes, Netflix does work, but WOW sadly doesn’t.
Does World of Warcraft actually work on Chromium on Linux? I don’t think that’s even a DRM issue, but about compatibility. Either way, I’d be fine using a different browser for a game, it’s not like I need vertical tabs specifically for that.
Sorry, with WOW I meant the streaming service WOWtv. I think it was formerly known as Sky Ticket.
drm on linux to watch commercial services like prime or netflix sucks. there is no browser or linux distribution that will give the same level of drm that a closed system’s native browser can (edge on windows, chrome on android, safari on mac/ios).
you can still watch most anything, just perhaps not with as high a quality and you may need to fudge a ua string or something.
vertical tabs have been in firefox since ~ v136.
just use firefox. tweak settings as necessary for your ‘needs’, including enabling the drm which is disabled by default by most distributions.
Yeah, thanks :) I’m gonna give Firefox a shot now.
This is what pushed me back to piracy again. Paying Netflix for shitty 720p resolution and compression artifacts so bad I couldn’t see what was happening in horror movies or anything shot at night, viewing on Linux.
there used to be an addon to ‘fix’ that but i dunno if it still exists. it’s been awhile since i did a month of netflix.
I used an agent switcher to say firefox was chrome on windows, which gave slightly better resolution, but it doest fix their shitty compression. Blacks and greys are just blobs in some night scenes, can’t see anything. And its not my TV, because the same scene downloaded from somewhere else is perfect at 1080p.
Ok — at first I did not get the problem you all have with DRM. Widevine works just fine for me. Pro tip: I’ve got a 31" TV. No problems with resolution :-)
Librewolf, disable the cookie-clearing feature and enable the vertical tabs. Done
It can’t do WebGL websites such as https://semsystem.net/ but besides that, it’s been very good for me. (I’ve gone through the config enabling various webgl settings but still no luck).
Even
webgl.force-enabled? WebGL should be functional, given you enable the right configs?Yes I have that enabled, as well as a few other recommended ones for webgl. It works technically, it’s just visually very hard to look at because it’s so badly rendered (lots of noise).
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You should check out Waterfox https://www.waterfox.com/#why-waterfox
