I have been very happy with DuckDuckGo, and it has helped me break free of routines that I did not feel safe with. Especially the small flame icon that would clear all history, cookies and cache from websites that are not “fireproofed” was great!
But today I had to do a quick example on Tinkercad (3D browser design tool) and it was so slow! I thought that my PC maybe was busy doing something (yeah its an older PC but not THAT old), but when I open the same page on my now parked Opera browser, everything went smoothly.
I am ok with using Opera, or any other browser for 3D work, as I don’t really do all that much of it, but I just feel gutted to find out that my now favorite browser sucks so bad at something, not to mention the Microsoft Edge processes when that is the last of any browser that I would choose to use
EDIT: I found out that this was due to hardware acceleration was off, on my DuckDuckGo browser. I had turned it off, because the fonts on websites looked blurry when it was on. The solution was to turn off antialising on the Nvidia control panel, and restart the PC. It is now working well!
just use firefox. its not that hard
What I like with DDG is that I can clear all cookies, cache, history etc except for the sites that i have “fireproofed”. Also all the tempting plugins that make life easier on FF are too tempting, and I always end up running many of them. The lack of such on DDG keeps things simple
I think you can whitelist websites to be exempt from deleting data from them on firefox too. I vaguely remember seeing something like that in settings near the “Clear Data” button.
Oh ok. I didn’t know.
On DDG it’s an icon on the irl bar where I can just mark any website that I want it to remember. I them just torch everything else multiple times a day.
In Firefox, you can use the cookie autodelete extension (it’s open source) which deletes all cookies for sites you haven’t explicitly whitelisted. Same thing, integrates well with other privacy features on Firefox (like container tabs and I still don’t care about cookies, and is probably better maintained than the feature in DDG.
IMO starting with a more minimalistic base, and adding whatever features you need is a better approach that suits more use cases. Just reduce your extensions to what you really need, and deactivate or uninstall those you don’t need. Make sure what you are installing is open source, well-maintained and trustworthy (look at the github page: when was the most recent commit or release? how many contributors and stars are there? It’s not foolproof, but a good start and definitely beats closed source extensions). Having access to more extensions is not a bad thing.
EDIT: don’t use I don’t care about cookies as it was acquired by some shady companies. Use the independent fork called I still don’t care about cookies instead.
About reducing useless extensions, please don’t use nor recommend cookie autodelete and I don’t care about cookies (which has been acquired by avast or some similar company iirc).
Firefox (and any other modern browser) has settings to delete website cookies on exit and to block third party cookies, while giving the ability to whitelist for both features.
For the annoying cookie popups just enable the adguard annoyances lists in ublock origin, which you already want to install on a browser anyways.
Excuse me if this is an obnoxious question: But why not just Firefox with the DDG extension (if you really need it)? Search engine-specific browsers tend to be… bad in general. It’s going to be a wrapper around some other browser anyway.
What I like with DDG is that I can clear all cookies, cache, history etc except for the sites that i have “fireproofed”.
FIREFOX
If your on windows consider installing though scoop.sh
On linux just use Flatpak
Scoop and Chocolatey are the only ways to make Windows usable. But Flatpak on Linux will always be the easiest and beat solution, because Linux is simply the best OS.
Firefox with ublock origin is even better than the DuckDuckGo browser alone. Yes, you can use DuckDuckGo as a default search engine, and even install the extension, if you need to.
What I like with DDG is that I can clear all cookies, cache, history etc except for the sites that i have “fireproofed”.
Not as easily it seems but to be fair, i haven’t looked too much into it. In DDG I get asked if I want to fireproof the site, when I type in any information. Then I just press flame icon to torch everything else multiple times a day.
Please dont use DDG browser or even worse edge or opera.
Use Librewolf, Firefox or Ungoogled Chromium.
Opera in particular is a dangerous browser to run these days, it’s owned by confirmed scammers and investment-scheme operators.
If you want something with the same ideological history as Opera, run Vivaldi, which was created by ex-Opera engineers.
But yes, for true openness, Librewolf, Waterfox, or Firefox is the way to go.
5% of non Chromium source code corresponding to the unique UI, 100% auditable and even moddeable by the users. rest of the code degoogled, basic APIs like Google save browsing, Chrome Store, etc. as userchoice in the settings. No red flags, EU browser (overcomming GDPR), don’t spread nonsense
Yeah If you need any reason to stop using opera, here it is: https://www.spacebar.news/stop-using-opera-browser/
It is okay, but has little fingerprint protection and still some tracking.
Just use Firefox.
Try googleteller, its a program you can easily clone, compile and run, which beeps if you are connecting to a google server. Chromium even with a very extensive policy and everything GUI degoogled ALWAYS connects to google, repeatedly and very worrying
Floorp is a nice Firefox fork with a similar mind of customisation as old opera or vivaldi
