Browsers made in the EU

Eggcorn

@catweazle No, I get the part about EU privacy laws. What I don't get is this part:

I think that the EU has to become independent from the big American multinationals

Doesn't that go for Europe as a whole, not just the EU?

Catweazle

@eggcorn , not necessarym GB, f.Exmpl now is outside of the CE and very US friendly. The interests are different

Eggcorn

@catweazle Frankly, I'm American, and I think America should be less dependent on American big tech companies! It's a problem here, for the same reason it's a problem in the EU:

American big tech companies are too powerful, too untrustworthy, and too willing to hand our private data to the American government.

Eggcorn

@catweazle said in Browsers made in the EU:

first of all, it is due to the privacy regulations of the EU, not necessarily the same in geographic Europe, although I imagine it is still better than the regulations in this regard in the US or China (Opera)

I think I saw a statement about that from Opera, a while back. I can't find the statement (if anyone finds it, post the link as a reply to this post). But if I remember correctly: They said that, as a Norwegian company, they were still subject to Norwegian privacy law and all (regardless of if they had a Chinese parent company).

But anyway, Opera probably does technically qualify as a browser made in the EU.

Eggcorn

@catweazle

Avast Secure Browser is made by a Czech company.
SRWare Iron is made by a German company.
Yandex is not EU, but it is European (Russian specifically).
And last but not least, there's Vivaldi. Vivaldi's Norwegian I think.

stilgarwolf

Falkon

Catweazle

@eggcorn , as much as they say, Opera is currently not a Norwegian company at all, much less respects privacy regulations, the VPN that it includes, apart from being only a proxy in Opera's own servers, logs user activity, Opera itself It is full of third-party trackers, on Android no less than 9.
Opera is perhaps the browser that least respects everyone's privacy out there.
It's tecnically a good browser, but in privacy a cheap chinese knockoff.
Respect of the need of US users, I agree with you, in generalthe internet need to be for the people and not the business of big monopolies where the user is only one more merchandise.
For this it's necesary to eliminate this companies as far as possible from the soft and services which we use.

@stilgarwolf , yes, Falkon is a nice browser with a good name behind, KDE, but without updates since 2 years, which sadly indicates an abandoned project.
There are also Konqueror browser from KDE, but only for Linux and AngelFish browser for Mobile.
I think that KDE has excellent products, but a lot of them, which may cause a lack of atention to some of them.

Eggcorn

@catweazle
Here's a list of the browsers we've found (I'm excluding the ones that are no longer updated):

Vivaldi - Norwegian-Icelandic (I think), needs no introduction
Yandex Browser - Not EU, but Russian.
UR Browser - French. Has a built-in adblocker that's a lot like Brave's.
SeaMonkey (nee Mozilla, Netscape) - Netscape's still around. But apparently, it's German now.
T-Online - German
Avast Secure Browser -Czech
SRWare Iron - German

Edit: I forgot one:

Otter - Polish. Like Vivaldi, an attempt to recreate the old Opera. But not as sable as Vivaldi, unfortunately.

Catweazle

@eggcorn , I know and I test all of them, less Yandex, they are not better than Chrome. The rest of the list, apart from Vivaldi and UR, bad, outdated (like Falkon, without updates since summer 2020 and WebKit motor, not very typical a botch like this for KDE) or very basic.
This is what I mean, there is a lot of work until Europe is independent from US products, which dominate the market and abuse it's position.
About Yandex, which among others has its Image Search, included in the metasearch extension 'Search by Image' (FOSS), if it can say that it is excellent, it shows more and more relevant results than any other (Google, Tin Eye, Bing, Yahoo).

dbouley

@catweazle said in Browsers made in the EU:

@eggcorn , I know and I test all of them, less Yandex, they are not better than Chrome. The rest of the list, apart from Vivaldi and UR, bad, outdated (like Falkon, without updates since summer 2020 and WebKit motor, not very typical a botch like this for KDE) or very basic.

Just my opinion, but I think SeaMonkey is pretty darn good. It generally performs better than Vivaldi on my older PCs and netbooks.

Eggcorn

@catweazle I think Vivaldi and Yandex are better then Chrome. UR too, if it's good enough about keeping up with security updates. And speaking of Yandex:

[T]here is a lot of work until Europe is independent from US products, which dominate the market and abuse it's position.

Yandex isn't just a browser, it's a large European company that offers most of the same services as Google.

Catweazle

@eggcorn , yes, but also the same "privacy" as Chrome. Ok, using it as a reserve in specific uses, it is not that important either.

Eggcorn

@catweazle Are you saying that the Yandex browser isn't that important? Or are you saying that Yandex in general isn't that important?

If we're just talking about the browser: There are probably more privacy-respecting European browsers then Yandex.

If we're talking about Yandex services in general (Yandex search, Yandex maps, etc): It's probably the only European company that offers most of the same services as Google! I'm not saying Yandex is an ideal option, but if you want a Europe independent of American Big Tech...

Catweazle

@eggcorn , I don't dispute that Yandex is technically up to Chrome and surely the only one who will be able to compete with Google in this field, I'm just saying that it's not a browser that I'd like to have as the main one, because, just like Google does, it makes money from selling user data and also tracks online activities.
This is what I mean, not the purely technical aspect.

Eggcorn

Here are two relevant posts Catweazle and I made in the "UR Browser" thread:

Eggcorn:

UR has gotten EU funding. So hopefully, the EU is serous about building UR up as a Chrome-alterative. I'm generally not a fan of the EU, but they have done some good work when it comes to Big Tech monopoly busting. Let's hope they keep it up.

Come to think of it, where's Vivaldi's EU funding? Vivaldi is based in the EU. And more importantly, if people actually knew about Vivaldi: It could make a big dent in the American Big Tech browsers. So come on EU, you can spare a few million for marketing Vivaldi (and UR)! Don't let American Big Tech dominate Europe.

Catweazle:

I agree with this. I think that the EU need to go independient of US Big Tech with own alternatives, but there a only few browser projects in the EU or Europe in general, that can compete. Vivaldi and UR are los most advanced in this aspect, others are discontinued, not very stable or outdated.

A lot of work is needed in this cuestion.

Eggcorn

@eggcorn Come to think of it, here's one other thing the EU could to in terms of browsers: Chromium is open-source. So take Chromium, strip out the Google stuff (replacing it with non-Google alternatives). And the result: an Ungoggled Chromium.

There's already an Ungoggled Chromium, but I think it's bad about keeping up with security updates. With the resources of the EU behind it, that shouldn't be a problem for the European Ungoggled Chromium.

That may seem lazy, just striping Google stuff out of Chromium and calling it a European browser. But I think it's worth doing (in addition to funding UR and Vivaldi). Because some people like Chrome/Chromium, so let them have it without the Google tracking. And because it means there'd be four viable options for European browsers: Ungoggled Chromium, UR, Vivaldi, and Yandex.

code3

@eggcorn Except... People like the google tracking. Or not the tracking in and of itself, but the ability to have a sync between accounts, having bugs fixed through automatic crash reporting, things like that.

Eggcorn

@code3 I said "replacing it with non-Google alternatives". So, this browser would have a sync. The sync just wouldn't go through Google.

code3

@eggcorn Oh. Sounds like Edge. But I guess MS alternatives aren’t so private either.

Eggcorn

@code3 said in Browsers made in the EU:

But I guess MS alternatives aren’t so private either.

That's my understanding

Oh. Sounds like Edge.

I don't think so. Edge is Chromium-based, and it's a lot like Chrome/Chromium. But it's not Chromium (there are substantial differences between Chromium and Edge), and the point here is to give people Chromium.