/blog

I have documented my search for the 'perfect' email client on many occasions. Spoiler alert: I've largely given up. Now, I've returned to mobile browsers.

I've tried my fair share over the years. When I used an iPhone there was no real discussion — you used Safari.¹ It's a different picture on Android.

I gave up on Chrome years ago. I don't use system-wide ad blocking so Chrome is not an option seeing as it doesn't support extensions on mobile. Firefox has never really clicked with me, partly because it always seems to be a laggard when it comes to supporting web standards.

All the alternatives are either based on Chromium or Firefox so it's more a case of comparing additional features; I prioritise privacy and speed.

I used Bromite for a while until the project died. Cromite, a fork, continued the development and I switched to that, but had some issues. Like Firefox, it was also slow to support certain web standards I specifically wanted to use.

So, I landed on Brave and have been using it for quite a while, despite it becoming increasingly bloated. I was, therefore, intrigued when I saw they were offering Brave Origin, a paid version of the browser without all the extras like VPN, crypto wallet, etc. which I never use.

Yes, it's a one time purchase that you can activate across all your devices, but I balked at the price of £53.99.

Cue the search for another browser!

I've tested some and find them too stripped back (DuckDuckGo I'm looking at you) or they seem very opinionated on the default level of zoom, i.e. too much rather than respecting the system settings and viewport instruction from web pages.

I tried Vivaldi when it was first released for desktop; it felt a bit overloaded with features I wouldn't use so never gave it a second thought. A few people have mentioned it recently, and said they were enjoying it, so I thought I'd give the Android version a spin.

There are some features I won't use, but it's not as bad as the desktop version. ²