Your Main Web Browser

[crococarbs]

Wipr 2 is fantastic and more so if you want a set and forget kind of content blocker.
Am not a big fan of Chromium based browsers, but Vivaldi is good! Their staff are pretty responsive too on Mastodon.
Are you sticking with the built in ad blocker in Vivaldi, or installed uBlock Origin or something else?

Hope your sanity is intact after 'fighting' with Windows daily! 😉

My profile pic is how my face looks when I am using Windows 😅

So far I've been using Vivaldi's built-in ad blocker and it's been ok. I think Wipr2 is better though, e.g. I think it also blocks those "accept cookies" and "Sign in with Google" type of popups/elements on websites. Safari+Wipr2 is def a good combo, I might go back if I come across something irritating about Vivaldi but so far Vivaldi is also good.

 

[Kal Madda]

My profile pic is how my face looks when I am using Windows 😅

So far I've been using Vivaldi's built-in ad blocker and it's been ok. I think Wipr2 is better though, e.g. I think it also blocks those "accept cookies" and "Sign in with Google" type of popups/elements on websites. Safari+Wipr2 is def a good combo, I might go back if I come across something irritating about Vivaldi but so far Vivaldi is also good.

Ooh, I’m currently using 1Blocker extension for Safari, is Wipr2 a free extension? And is it available on iOS and iPadOS as well? I’m an iPad-primary user. 👍🏻

 

[crococarbs]

Ooh, I’m currently using 1Blocker extension for Safari, is Wipr2 a free extension? And is it available on iOS and iPadOS as well? I’m an iPad-primary user. 👍🏻

Wipr2 is not free but IMO it's totally worth the price: works really well and it's very actively maintained, and yes it is available for all apple OSs. I can't remember why I stopped using 1Blocker, I think it worked OK but I had concerns about privacy perhaps, not sure, that was a while ago.

 

[Kal Madda]

Wipr2 is not free but IMO it's totally worth the price: works really well and it's very actively maintained, and yes it is available for all apple OSs. I can't remember why I stopped using 1Blocker, I think it worked OK but I had concerns about privacy perhaps, not sure, that was a while ago.

Thanks, I’ll have to look into it. 👍🏻

 

[foggygray]

Safari on all my Apple devices. I’ve been pretty happy with the uBlock Origin Lite ad blocker after using Wipr for a long time.

Firefox on Linux and Windows.

 

[Kal Madda]

So, I suppose this is a Mac forum, but I am really impressed and surprised by how big the divide between Safari and Chrome is in the poll so far. It’s nice to see I’m not the only one who prefers Safari! 👍🏻🙂

 

[CaptTee]

I use mostly Safari except for Government sites with lazy programmers that force me to use Edge (or Chrome that I don't use).

 

[aleni]

Helium. It's blazingly fast.

 

[DankeBrutus]

It's not perfect but Apple's Chrome extension for Passwords works with Helium. It's about 90% there so it keeps me happy enough

I could be wrong but I believe the Passwords extension for Chromium & Firefox only works with Apple Passwords. So it wouldn't work for me using Keepassium.

 

[southerndoc]

Firefox users: When you load MacRumors forum pages, do you notice a slight lag with loading avatars and rendering the page (mainly the bottom with reply windows)? This is not present on Chrome. Disabling Facebook Container extension, uBlock Origin, Enhanced Tracking Protection, etc. has not resolved it.

It happens with both my M4 Max Mac Studio and M4 MacBook Air. Again, with Chrome, the avatars load instantly. The lag with Firefox is <1 second, but it's noticeable. I'm using a 10G fiber connection so I don't think it's the connection (plus it doesn't occur with Chrome on the same machines). Also same DNS server for both (using two Pis as DNS relay servers using Control D with DoQ).

 

[it wasnt me]

Nine years of Vivaldi now. Not once having looked back to Firefox.

 

[Sital]

Firefox users: When you load MacRumors forum pages, do you notice a slight lag with loading avatars and rendering the page (mainly the bottom with reply windows)? This is not present on Chrome. Disabling Facebook Container extension, uBlock Origin, Enhanced Tracking Protection, etc. has not resolved it.

It happens with both my M4 Max Mac Studio and M4 MacBook Air. Again, with Chrome, the avatars load instantly. The lag with Firefox is <1 second, but it's noticeable. I'm using a 10G fiber connection so I don't think it's the connection (plus it doesn't occur with Chrome on the same machines). Also same DNS server for both (using two Pis as DNS relay servers using Control D with DoQ).

I don't have that issue with Firefox on my M2 Max Studio. Have you tried using a new Firefox profile to see if that fixes it?

 

[southerndoc]

I don't have that issue with Firefox on my M2 Max Studio. Have you tried using a new Firefox profile to see if that fixes it?

Not yet. Not sure it bothers me that much to go through that. It's a half second delay primarily in loading avatars.

Maybe it's just me and it's normal.

See attached video. Toward the end is probably the most noticeable.

 

[crococarbs]

Not yet. Not sure it bothers me that much to go through that. It's a half second delay primarily in loading avatars.

Maybe it's just me and it's normal.

See attached video. Toward the end is probably the most noticeable.

View attachment 2599335

That seems pretty minor to me, but have you considered doing a Firefox reset/refresh? You will lose preferences, extensions, themes, etc. Sounds like a pain but they describe how to do it on their knowledge base: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/reset-preferences-fix-problems

 

[southerndoc]

That seems pretty minor to me, but have you considered doing a Firefox reset/refresh? You will lose preferences, extensions, themes, etc. Sounds like a pain but they describe how to do it on their knowledge base: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/reset-preferences-fix-problems

It is minor, but I'm reticent to do that since it's happening on 3 different computers.

 

[eyoungren]

Firefox on Mac. uBlock Origin is the king, plus generally many great extensions like site containers and more.

uBlock Origin is pretty nice. I wish Firefox had a way to increase padding around bookmarks in the toolbar.

Would either of you care to detail what advantages uBlock Origin has over uMatrix? I've used uMatrix for years and the last time I checked uBlock Origin it seemed like it had far less options than uMatrix. Both are by the same dev, unless things have changed.

 

[southerndoc]

I think I figured it out. I had the forums style (at the bottom of the page) set to auto. I changed it to light mode and it stopped.

 

[southerndoc]

Would either of you care to detail what advantages uBlock Origin has over uMatrix? I've used uMatrix for years and the last time I checked uBlock Origin it seemed like it had far less options than uMatrix. Both are by the same dev, unless things have changed.

I'm not familiar with uMatrix. Will have to check it out.

 

[eyoungren]

I'm not familiar with uMatrix. Will have to check it out.

uMatrix gives you fine grain control over the primary servers for the website you're on and the third party servers that their code makes calls to.

You can determine the permissions. Red blocks, green accepts. There's also some other features like specifying a user agent, and preventing websites from seeing where you came from.

This is my settings for MacRumors…it's not the entirety, you can scroll down if there's more. I just don't have that pictured.

 

[southerndoc]

uMatrix gives you fine grain control over the primary servers for the website you're on and the third party servers that their code makes calls to.

You can determine the permissions. Red blocks, green accepts. There's also some other features like specifying a user agent, and preventing websites from seeing where you came from.

This is my settings for MacRumors…it's not the entirety, you can scroll down if there's more. I just don't have that pictured.



View attachment 2599342

Probably more control than I need. uBlock Origin has an element picker that allows you to select an element to block. I did this to block Reddit's recent community list.

 

[eyoungren]

Probably more control than I need. uBlock Origin has an element picker that allows you to select an element to block. I did this to block Reddit's recent community list.

Unfortunately then, it seems to be the same. Not that that's bad, I just prefer using a more precise tool is all. uBlock Origin is still very good at what it does.

uMatrix though, once I found it, helped considerably for web browsing during my years using PowerPC Macs as my primary Macs (up to May 2020). I just continued to use it once I fully switched to Intel. It and a few other extensions/addons I use are a consideration for me in the choice of a primary web browser. As good as a new browser might be, if it doesn't support my set of extensions/addons I usually pass on it.

 

[Kal Madda]

Unfortunately then, it seems to be the same. Not that that's bad, I just prefer using a more precise tool is all. uBlock Origin is still very good at what it does.

uMatrix though, once I found it, helped considerably for web browsing during my years using PowerPC Macs as my primary Macs (up to May 2020). I just continued to use it once I fully switched to Intel. It and a few other extensions/addons I use are a consideration for me in the choice of a primary web browser. As good as a new browser might be, if it doesn't support my set of extensions/addons I usually pass on it.

I don’t want to come across wrong, but you used PowerPC Macs as your primary Macs up to 2020? Without being able to run modern software, wouldn’t they be kind of useless?

 

[eyoungren]

I don’t want to come across wrong, but you used PowerPC Macs as your primary Macs up to 2020? Without being able to run modern software, wouldn’t they be kind of useless?

Being able to afford a new Mac has always been the issue. So, I learned to make due. That said, I did have Intels, most of them being Early Intel laptops. But my primary Mac was a Quad G5 from 2017 to 2020. Those Intels just were not used as my primary Mac.

Primarily, my Macs are used for web browsing. But, if we have to get down to brass tacks…a Word doc is a Word doc. It will open in Office 2008 on a PowerPC Mac. Most, if not all versions of InDesign can write out an IDML file - which is openable by ID CS4 which runs on PowerPC. I don't need a modern version of Acrobat to open a PDF. And Illustrator still uses EPS and AI files.

Making due means workarounds. My iPhone primarily allowed me to use iMessage when PowerPC was my main Mac. A jailbroken iPhone meant I could create a web app that would run on my PowerPC Mac and leverage my iPhone. Certain beta versions of the Fluid app are all PowerPC for instance.

And last but not least, I'm a graphic designer by profession. My work Macs tend to be more modern, if not current. So, if there was anything I really could not do, I'd use one of the work Macs. My current work Mac is an M2.

I made the jump to Intel in May 2020 when a Mac Pro came into my price range. I'm typing this message on it. It's a 2009 4,1 upgraded to a 5,1 and it's running Sonoma (because…OCLP). Primarily that jump was because I'd hit a spot where devs were abandoning one of the last web browsers for PowerPC and my other Intels couldn't be upgraded past Snow Leopard, which meant no modern browsers for them. And that was causing me problems with websites I wanted to use.

But yeah. There isn't anything I do with these Macs that requires a lot of brute CPU usage. So nothing that was actually forcing me to use a modern Mac, except the web browsing issues.

And, the upshot is that I usually end up using hardware that costs thousands when new. For years my G4 and then my G5s were running six displays - because the old high-end video cards were cheap by that point. Etcetera…

 

[Kal Madda]

Being able to afford a new Mac has always been the issue. So, I learned to make due. That said, I did have Intels, most of them being Early Intel laptops. But my primary Mac was a Quad G5 from 2017 to 2020. Those Intels just were not used as my primary Mac.

Primarily, my Macs are used for web browsing. But, if we have to get down to brass tacks…a Word doc is a Word doc. It will open in Office 2008 on a PowerPC Mac. Most, if not all versions of InDesign can write out an IDML file - which is openable by ID CS4 which runs on PowerPC. I don't need a modern version of Acrobat to open a PDF. And Illustrator still uses EPS and AI files.

Making due means workarounds. My iPhone primarily allowed me to use iMessage when PowerPC was my main Mac. A jailbroken iPhone meant I could create a web app that would run on my PowerPC Mac and leverage my iPhone. Certain beta versions of the Fluid app are all PowerPC for instance.

And last but not least, I'm a graphic designer by profession. My work Macs tend to be more modern, if not current. So, if there was anything I really could not do, I'd use one of the work Macs. My current work Mac is an M2.

I made the jump to Intel in May 2020 when a Mac Pro came into my price range. I'm typing this message on it. It's a 2009 4,1 upgraded to a 5,1 and it's running Sonoma (because…OCLP). Primarily that jump was because I'd hit a spot where devs were abandoning one of the last web browsers for PowerPC and my other Intels couldn't be upgraded past Snow Leopard, which meant no modern browsers for them. And that was causing me problems with websites I wanted to use.

But yeah. There isn't anything I do with these Macs that requires a lot of brute CPU usage. So nothing that was actually forcing me to use a modern Mac, except the web browsing issues.

And, the upshot is that I usually end up using hardware that costs thousands when new. For years my G4 and then my G5s were running six displays - because the old high-end video cards were cheap by that point. Etcetera…

Oh, that makes sense. 👍🏻. I’m actually really impressed you were able to get that much use out of them. 👍🏻

I did similar, but less adventurous with my first Mac. I got a 2012 13” MacBook Pro real cheap in 2019, and that was my first Mac. I used it until 2021. It worked pretty well. I ended up replacing the storage with an SSD and upgrading the RAM, but it held up pretty well. I did eventually replace it in 2021 with an 11” M1 iPad Pro because I found the iPad better suited my needs for graphic design and digital art. And I’ve been an iPad primary user ever since. But I still have it, and it still runs. 👍🏻.

 

[eyoungren]

Oh, that makes sense. 👍🏻. I’m actually really impressed you were able to get that much use out of them. 👍🏻

I did similar, but less adventurous with my first Mac. I got a 2012 13” MacBook Pro real cheap in 2019, and that was my first Mac. I used it until 2021. It worked pretty well. I ended up replacing the storage with an SSD and upgrading the RAM, but it held up pretty well. I did eventually replace it in 2021 with an 11” M1 iPad Pro because I found the iPad better suited my needs for graphic design and digital art. And I’ve been an iPad primary user ever since. But I still have it, and it still runs. 👍🏻.

Primarily you can attribute it to my strong dislike for being told 'no' or 'you can't do that'. 😀