ZEN Browser: I've Learned To Appreciate It

General system Applications
41

I leave the box uncheck so i can everytime choose what profile i want to use.

I think I got used to it because at some point I left the box unchecked :rofl:

42

I run it from krunner

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43

This is why i just use ublockorigin. It’s easy to add and takes only a minute. :laughing:

Edit: I’ll see about trying it later but i may be back with questions. :wink:

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44

If you have unchecked, firefox remembers this and firefox always starts in the profile manager :wink:

You just need it for the first run to choose the profile

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45

No. The filename is user.js

46

Take your time. Do it when you’re ready. But we should open a new topic for it. This no longer has much to do with zen browser:rofl:

47

I can’t speak on behalf of Zen. As for me, I found zen to have a refreshed UI. Yes, vertical tabs are nothing new, but Zen seems to implement it reasonably good. Also, the UI is pleasing to look at, including the ability to hide URL bar without any custom JS. Workspaces are also a neat addition.

Might not be a niche, but a good experiment for sure

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48

I’m using the zen browser for several months now and I’m pretty pleased with it.
There are multiple zen mods which I’m using currently, in addition to my own edits to the userchrome.css

And due to changes to the UI in between the versions I’ve got some trouble shooting to do, just to maintain the changes to the UI which I’ve made. But I’m a bit lazy recently, therefore some margins aren’t pixel perfect.

I don’t make use of the workspace feature. But, in short, I’m running it with more than a dozen of pinned tabs (which are unloaded individually, when not used in the last 30 mins).

The UI changes which I’ve made are more or less that I’ve removed distracting colors for bookmarks, favicons, the pinned tabs … as well as for the browser extentions. Just to reduce visual clutter.

In addition to that, up so far I didn’t had any issues with firefox extensions, all the extensions which I’ve used with firefox migrated without an issue. Also, profile syncing is still working using the profile sync servers from mozilla.

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49

used it. there are actually a couple better ones than Arken I used. Got sick of dancing around and around with Firefox like this, so it’s LibreWolf lately. I quit FF months ago.

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50

I’m presently using Zen Browser 1.10.2b on Gnome 4.8 with Wayland and I have been having some issues with split views (Verticle\Horizontal\Grid). What I notice:

  1. Start with split view combining 2 tabs.
  2. Open a new tab outside of split view.
  3. Now I can use the ALT 1 and ALT 3 keyboard shorcuts to switch between the split view and single.

The problem I notice:

  1. Split view will only allow me to have access to 1 of the address bars of the 2 sites.

  2. Switching between a split view grouping and a single tab all of a sudden it will stop rending the site like it has crashed.

Has anyone seen this issue (as I am in the process of daily driving Zen, where I primarily use Firefox).

51

Is this a question for this forum? Should it not be asked on the Zen forum or on their Discord channel?

52

Its always a good idea to ask amongst your peers.

We all use Arch Linux based OS where something about the operating system could be triggering the problem. Additionally everyone in this thread are talking about their experience with Zen Browser … so thought I just might ask here knowing Zen Browser is in rapid development.

If you have any further questions feel free to PM me directly.

53

Even if the split view is a quite attractive feature, I don’t use it that much. Maybe because its implementation hasn’t been that mature in the earlier beta releases.

But I’m happy to report my brief findings. When I split two sites (non-pinned) the url is only accessible for the currently active site in the split view. If I hoover over the second site the address bar will switch over seamlessly in my case. Which seems to be straight forward and works quite well.

Also, if I deactivate the split view by using the controls, which will show of in the top middle of the active frame, I can’t see any issues in terms of the site rendering incorrectly if the second site is closed or the split view is deactivated. Also, changing from a horizontal to a vertical split seems to work now by the use of the control handles. Split views for more than two sites work - If I create a split view with four sites I defaults to a grid layout and if I close one of them the split view seems to handle it just fine without rendering issues.

54

I decided to rename my “.zen” folder in my home directory to go back to the browser defaults. looks like everything is working. I also added back Firefox Sync (but now not syncing my browser settings after the initial sync. Figure I will continue to test this browser in isolation.

On a high level it seems at times it is consuming 100-300 mb less memory at times during side to side testing. As some have said, I think the browser really just works like the latest Firefox. I’d have to understand how else Zen is customized to make it more private before I consider Floorp (which I am waiting to see how that project goes).

Really longterm support is going to be stressful for the developer (as I noticed this morning the 1 bug I filed 2.5 weeks ago was closed with an explanation of technical debt. I will take that is re-test and then re-open the bug if it is still true.

Thanks for your feedback @1093i3511