Today I begin using Zen, an open source browser, based on Firefox. As far as I can tell, it had its first alpha release in July 2024 and is still in alpha status. Be careful, there is another Zen Browser, based on Chrome, that is older and has a different web site (zen-browser.com). The correct website is zen-browser.app.

Being based on a mature browser like Firefox, the alpha status is somewhat deceiving. It seems to run very well for me. It has side tabs and some interesting features, like a sidebar browser and split browsing windows. It also supports everything that Firefox does, so if you want to use sync or whatever else, it seems to all be functional.

I'm currently using the flatpak, but for Linux it also has an AppImage and a portable binary. There are also downloads available for Windows and Mac, if you are into that type of thing.

I've been using the Developer edition of Firefox and I also have the development repo (openSUSE Tumbleweed) version installed, which is a build of the normal Firefox, slightly ahead of the normal package. The Developer edition is maintained by Mozilla, not openSUSE, and auto-updates, but today's update basically broke it for me. My toolbars and customizations are all shuffled around or just gone. I decided maybe it's time to try a different browser, so I searched for browsers based on Firefox and found Zen. I'm not saying I'm dropping Firefox, just that I'll try Zen for a while and see how it goes. I've used Firefox since 2002, when it was called Phoenix. I've tried a lot of browsers since then, but Firefox has been my browser for a long time. I'd probably build my own browser before I'd use Chrome or anything based on it.