Good European browsers and search engines to reccomend? (Privacy-focused and open source ideal)

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I currently use Firefox and DuckDuckGo, but I’m thinking about getting a new browser and search engine. Are there any good recommendations. Privacy-focused is non-negotiable, and i would like it to be open source.

I have heard of Ecosia. How exactly do they work? If they truly do help the environment, like they claim, I may look into that. Is there any evidence? Looking into their privacy policy, it doesn’t seem too optimal.

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There are only really two and a half browsers; Firefox and Chrome/Safari. Firefox (engine: Gecko) is descended from Netscape (which was American) and Chrome (Blink, fork of WebKit) and Safari (WebKit, fork of KHTML) are descended from Konqueror (KHTML, German, abandoned). Everything else (almost) is a reskin of one of those.

There are two up-and-comers, Servo (cancelled Gecko replacement, now resurrected by Igalia in Spain) and Ladybird (Swedish). I’d love to use either, but they’re not ready yet. These (and all the other little independent browsers that aren’t just Chrome/Safari/Firefox with a new hat) are awesome, but will fail on the shitty “modern” websites you’re inevitably forced to use.

(To some extent all of the above mentioned browsers are open-source and not really just developed in one country, but I’m simplifying for the sake of choosing whether they’re European or not.)

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🇩🇪🇪🇺 OP

Thanks for the info!

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While the actual rendering engine is important, I don’t think that is the component that collects and sells your data.

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Fair point. I naively assumed that a) people turn this off in the settings, and b) the big browsers respect the settings. Trying to use a web browser without getting fucked over is exhausting. It’s fine if you just want to scroll Lemmy, but once you need to book flights or log in to some bullshit from your school or work it’s hard to use anything that isn’t corporate-blessed.

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I use Ecosia, but Qwant is my backup if I see privacy becoming an issue.

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Adding to that, both are european but they use Microsoft Bing results. However they are cooperating to slowly build their own index and be 100% independent. I use Qwant and I am totally satisfied. The only european search engine that does not depend on big tech is Mojeek but I find their results sometimes disappointing.

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🇩🇪🇪🇺 OP

Thanks! I’ll look into Qwant.

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Those are search engines, not browsers

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This is a comment.

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Deleted by author

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Excuse me, I didn’t realise OP was also asking for search engines. (Not sarcasm)

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I’m using Vivaldi and Zen as browsers. Qwant as search engine. So far so good!

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🇩🇪🇪🇺 OP

Thank you! Which do you prefer out of Vivaldi and Zen?

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Btw vivaldi is not fully open source

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🇩🇪🇪🇺 OP

Ty

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I switched from chrome to Vivaldi at first. Then I discovered Zen, which is probably still in beta although it works very well. I use one on my laptop and the other on my work pc. The most notable difference in day to day use is that Zen only shows tabs in a column on the left of the page. There’s no option right now to show them horizontally as you would be used with any other browser.

All in all they both work well preferring to the other is gonna be pretty subjective. Just try them out ;-)

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Zen is an interpretation of Arch in Firefox, but it’s become more than that. I really enjoy using it, both practically and aesthetically

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I’ve been using Ecosia for years and it’s only improved over time. Their commitment to environmental activities is sincere and you can check everything they do through their blog. I think using it is a no brainer.

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their commitment to env. activities is sincere

I somewhat had this opinion as well, but by jumping on the ai hype train they threw this commitment out of the window imo

Edit: sadly I don’t have any real european alternatives (that aren’t just using google or bing results) as the only other one that (partly) uses an eu-based web index is qwant, which is in no small part funded by Axel Springer and iirc a previous ceo went on to create a sourveillance company (which kinda seems fishy)

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🇩🇪🇪🇺 OP

Ohh, thank you for the info. Do you think it’s still safe to use qwant, then?

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to be honest: i have no idea

it could be perfectly safe; it could be very unsafe

because of that i’m currently using startpage

  • kinda based in europe
  • iirc the company that owns it is american though
  • uses google’s search results ._.
  • doesn’t do any ai stuff iirc

while trying to minimize my web searches by

  • typing in domains instead of searching for them
  • using bookmarks
  • using firefox search shortcuts to use a websites built-in search
  • using offline stuff
    • linux man pages
    • python help()
    • etc
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🇩🇪🇪🇺 OP

Thank you!

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I think browser do not have to be european as long as it is opensource, so Firefox, Librewolf, Brave, Mullvad (swedish) are all great options. As search ecosia worked well for me but I didn’t find a way too see their random ads (to support them) with my protections, so I felt like I should not use them. Duck duck go works for me best, I made my piece with that.

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For search engines you can try a searx instance, which will use whichever backends you want.

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I like Zen browser, it’s a fork of Firefox. AFAIK its not based in any single jurisdiction. And as a search engine I like Qwant. They have a pretty minimalistic design, value my privacy and are building a European Search Index with Ecosia.

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🇩🇪🇪🇺 OP

Thanks!

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