Why I'm all-in on Zen Browser
63 comments
·August 19, 2025cycomanic
mariusor
Firefox does have profiles, to use them well one only needs a little UX sugar in the form of the Profile Switcher extension: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/profile-switc...
heatmiser
I want both ;D I want profiles to have different partitions of plugins and browser configurations. I want containers to partition my browsing data. I want my Mozilla account to sync my browser history across all my profiles.
monkey26
I want profiles. For example, work and personal. Different bookmarks, different plugins. Even some different settings.
SigmundurM
Firefox now has improved Profile mangement
Incipient
As a contractor, this is absolutely critical for me, and one reason I still use edge (along with edge syncing with client ad accounts).
dspillett
When I want that sort of separation, which I do between work and play, I run browsers (and everything else) as different users. That works with any browser and I don't even have to worry about bugs in profile or container separation, and it reduces (though of course didn't remove) the chance of idiot here using the wrong instance for the wrong use. Heck, where possible I even use a separate machine. DayJob provide a PC on the office that I remote into (via VPN+RDC) for work purposes, so the contact point between that work and everything else is minimal (in fact my main desktop is a VM I "remote" into, I only use the base metal when I take have too which is usually things unhappy running that way (Bambu Studio and games, which do not like the lack of faf free access to the GPU)). You can still access everything from one machine, or even have the different users instances on the same desktop (this does reduce the barriers a touch though).
The only real cost is that running things this way eats more memory, but I've not experienced OOM issues for years away from deliberately small VMs (for testing or small sever tasks) that turned out to be too small.
williamscales
In my recollection, Firefox used to ask you which profile you wanted to use on launch. I don't think I've seen that in years.
birn559
You can decide if you want to get asked at startup.
felixding
Meanwhile, it’s not weird that people think what other people actually want are weird.
codepoet80
Agreed. Containers are the reason I use Firefox -- they are a much better fit than profiles. But I've not been able to successfully communicate that to Chrome users. Its like their mental model is stuck, and they can't grasp the differences.
reddit_clone
Yep. Containers are great. But haven't seen anyone else using it near me though.
One feature I was missing from Chrome was Tab Groups. But recently (I don't know when it started) the feature showed up in FireFox too :-)
pxoe
Maybe you just don't understand the difference between containers and profiles, or what is it about profiles that's useful and more useful in some cases over containers. For one, it's impossible to have separate extensions with containers. That alone is already a deal breaker, and there are many more differences. Profiles are useful when you want to have things to be actually separate, not just pretending like they are while they're all cluttered in the same profile. It's also about more completely eliminating risk of having something where it doesn't belong.
It's kinda tiresome to see containers get peddled over and over as a "solution", when they're severely limited in what they offer compared to profiles. One feature set and clunky interface doesn't even get close to the use cases people have for profiles. It's not a solution.
quesera
So use profiles for what profiles are good at, and containers for what containers are good at. This works well for me.
I have a work profile with several containers inside, so that I can be logged into, e.g. GitHub and AWS, with multiple accounts at the same time.
I also have a primary personal profile, with a few containers primarily for cookie pollution separation.
I've never struggled with the "Profiles have bad UX" complaint, because I created a few different launchers for Firefox: work, personal, (a few others for special purposes like retail sites), and a default profile that launches the profile manager dialog at startup so I can select from a few dozen less-frequently-used (sometimes single-purpose) profiles. I like to keep separate things separated.
This took 20 minutes to set up, 15+ years ago(?) and has been perfectly convenient for me, but I've also recently read that Mozilla is working to improve profile switching.
Semaphor
I tried Zen for a while (1-2 months). It certainly has some cool features. But in the end, I returned to Vanilla FF and installed Sideberry [0] with custom userChrome.css [1]. It gets me 99% of what I used with Zen (tree tabs, workspaces), but without annoyances/anti-features (inconvenient url bar for editing, frequent UI changes, cute animations that ignore prefer-reduced-motion, performance, security worries etc.).
I’m relatively happy with my setup [2] now, what I miss most from Zen would be the 2-level pinned tabs (pinned per workspace, and globally pinned), and the design of globals pins (instead of a line on the side as in [2], it’s a grid at the top for Zen), but not even close to enough that I’d want to return.
[0]: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/sidebery/
[1]: https://github.com/mbnuqw/sidebery/wiki/Firefox-Styles-Snipp...
flashblaze
A big hurdle for me is the lack of Widevine which for some reason not a lot of people mention: https://docs.zen-browser.app/faq#why-cant-zen-browser-play-d...
ravetcofx
strange Spotify works for me in Zen out out of the box on the Flatpak version.
flashblaze
Only affects Mac and Windows
vinnymac
I did almost the same thing about 9 months ago. I am rooting for Zen despite currently maining with Firefox.
I have to have all the browsers and nightlies installed anyways, so I might as well personalize it to work best for my needs.
I imagine not everyone is like us, and something like Zen being zero config is a big deal.
grim_io
What does it even mean to be all-in on a browser?
You can switch any time, multiple times per day even.
stronglikedan
Right? I use Chrome for personal because it just syncs well with my phone. I use FF for business because it's a bit clunkier than Chrome but still acceptable, and more importantly, completely separate. I use Edge to run one off webapps here and there, where I don't want the window previews to appear and clutter things up when hovering over one of the other browsers in the task bar.
NoGravitas
And the nice thing for me with Zen is that switching between Zen and Firefox is even lower cost, because they sync with each other.
mantra2
Because “Lately I use Zen” isn’t as catchy of a title.
account-5
Have they fixed the backdoor yet?
akshat2602
If you go through the issues and the discussions, linked in the article that you yourself linked, you'll see that the devs addressed the backdoor and privacy issues.
account-5
Ok.
nusl
As far as I know, yes.
drfoku2
I want to like Zen but remember this:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43443494
Is it safe enough now?
Also, anyone have an update on Ladybird? Looks like its dev is still going strong, but I haven’t been watching it carefully.
akshat2602
The devs did address the backdoor and privacy issues.
xnx
We're past the point were small aesthetic changes like this make a meaningful difference in browsers.
In 2025 a browser that really acts as a user agent needs to do much more at the content level: ad blocking, content rewriting (clickbait headlines, etc.), content aggregation and summarization, deceptive content idenification, automatic reader-mode, etc.
acheron
The extent that we need so many lines of defense versus web developers is astonishing.
Congrats to everyone working to make the Internet worse; you’ve had a very successful couple of decades.
XorNot
Man that really hits me for a killer app for LLMs: headline identification and summarization. Rewrite "could X be Y?" headlines with the answer.
thewebguyd
Safari's reader mode summaries aren't too bad for this. They are usually short, under a paragraph. It'd be nice if you could "3D touch" the headline to just load that summary in the little preview window instead of having to click, and then open in reader mode though.
I can see that being a really nice built-in browser feature, to load a summary on hover over a link.
jhaile
To be fair I haven't tried Zen, but Arc still works well. I don't particularly need any new features - so as long as they continue to keep up with timely security patches and Chromium updates I'll probably keep using it. Also - as a developer I would prefer using a Chromium-based browser since it's the most common one used.
I tried Dia a few weeks back and was disappointed in its sidebar and profile features.
NikxDa
Zen still has some annoying shortcomings, like missing Widevine DRM or the dev tools opening up annoyingly slow. The potential is there, but it wasn't quite daily drivable as a developer for me just yet as of a few weeks ago.
Once it gets there, I too will finally leave Arc behind. Until then, while it is on life support, Arc actually works. I really wish The Browser Company would just own up to their fuck up and revive it.
elashri
Regarding the DRM support, they are trying to get Widevine license from Google [1] but for some reason Google approval process is taking too long.
[1] https://docs.zen-browser.app/faq#why-cant-zen-browser-play-d...
Alifatisk
Also switched to Zen on all my devices (except ios sadly). Been a blast
joey486DX4
I liked Zen, but there was a time when every new update introduced a new behavior. Weird stuff like how the URL bar is handled for new tabs, or how videos are played. It was unexpected and annoying. I don't know if they are over this phase. I went back to Firefox.
willi59549879
that annoyed me too. you set the browser up how you want it and in the next update it works in a different way.
aclatuts
I still really like the Arc browser. Other browsers are still missing some of the small UI/UX things Arc has.
bravetraveler
Never go all-in
It's weird how people always complain about lack of easy profile switching in Firefox. If one tells them that what they are really looking for is containers, they dismiss containers, but then proceed to complain that profiles don't have the same features. If you want sync across browser instances, manage them with one Firefox account... You really want containers not profiles.