I see many people who come and visit this blog use Chrome, but Chrome is really not the best browser out there for many reasons: bloatedness, privacy, helping Google train their AIs, giving even more power to tech giants… you can find a lot of articles online (if you can find them, but more about this later), here’s a couple of random ones:
Google Discloses That Incognito Mode in Chrome Isn’t Entirely ‘Private’
Why You Should Stop Using Google Chrome Today
But you’ll ask yourself, what should I use then? Let me suggest some alternatives.
Of course there is Firefox, which is still a perfectly valid option it’s not as independent as it might seem, but it’s also very easy to just disable the things you don’t like.
If you want a more powerful, and independent version of Firefox, check out this Japanese fork called Floorp: floorp.app
If you prefer a Chromium-based browser, I’d say check out Vivaldi: vivaldi.com
It’s made by some of the people behind Opera, it’s very configurable, but if you don’t like to deal with all the features is offers (and there’s lots of them, it even has a built-in email client), you just choose the basic version at first launch and get a nice and simple browser. You can always turn on features as you go, should you need them.
And of course, there’s many more!
So, now that you have decided to change your browser, why not change your search engine as well?
Google’s search results are getting worse and worse, with more and more being ads, SEO spam, and AI generated garbage.
So maybe give DuckDuckGo, Startpage or Stract a go. They all have their own cool features, some of which Google does, but more importantly, you get actual search results from them.
If you want to search the more underground and retro side of the web (no, I’m not talking about the dark web) you can also try Wilby.
Illustrations by Hannes Pasqualini
(I know, they are a bit hyperbolic, but hey, I wanted to have some fun drawing these! 
)