Someone ought to build a browser that is designed from the ground up to treat the web for what it is: the most hostile ecosystem on the planet.

uBlock/uMatrix functionality should be built into the core. Every domain and PSF should be sandboxed to its own profile. User agents and many js queries should return standard responses. Forcing display of video controls should be trivial. Manipulating pages to show/hide elements and customize feeds should be trivial. Right clicking to download any asset should just work.

And so, so much more.

The browser is my agent, not your mole.

This should be Firefox, but they've expended a lot of time and energy reimplementing code from Chromium instead of focusing on where they can add unique value.

Vivaldi (not affiliated) kinda aims to do this. At least they build the blocker in. It uses the Blink engine, too. I don't think this move by Google will adversely affect Vivaldi in the same way it does Chrome.

One can hope that Ladybird will become that browser.

Helium has been the closest I've found. It comes with uBlock Origin. It is based on Chromium though, so not sure if the manifest v2 removal will break that.

I was experimenting a bit with this a few years ago. A way to easily see all the domains and connections and api’s every site you visit attempts. The UI is certainly complex, and most people don’t care.

I think the closest right now would be the Tor Browser.

Also, not affiliated with Vivaldi. Just been loyally using them since the alpha bc they posted here about being The Real Opera’s Phoenix, aka its spiritual successor made by a band of Opera employees that Jerry McGuire’d. I watched the movie for the first time because of this browser.

They do built in Adblock that keeps up in the YT arms race. If they’re losing and I get an ad I restart the browser and we’re winning again.

It does lack elemental control of the DOM to manipulate pages on the user chrome, but dev tools is there. Though there are some CSS rendering options in a drop down like inverted colors and sepia and such. You can screenshot any page section with its screenshot tool.

Video controls can be shown on any image/video element with a right click.

Incredibly configurable. It offers email, RSS feeds, profiles. Exposed and granular user privacy controls in the settings window.

Its open image in new tab is pretty consistent, though some sites pull all the tricks and it’s just impossible to get the image (looking at you Reddit)

Their business model is a cookie swap on purchases made through their built in speed dial options. That doesn’t happen if you don’t click on them directly.

They could honestly stand to be fully transparent about that in the browser UI in the wake of Honey. I for one would love a popup that says “using this link sets us as the affiliate for this purchase. Thank you for supporting the development of your Vivaldi browser”

> The browser is my agent, not your mole.

Sorry, Google says no, and who are you to disagree?

Sarcasm aside: this what people who wax poetic about the market miss. In the 21st century, where products have "minds" of their own (software), they are developed to serve their manufactures first. The consumer is a distant second. And competition won't align the market with consumers, because all manufacturers have similar incentives (aka "enshittification").

Brave already does this. Built in ad Blocking