Greetings. I have tried to get away from chrome and opera for a while now, and have narrowed my preferences to these two browsers. I really enjoyed both of them, with a slight preference towards Brave.

My question is: is there a way for me to automatically sync preferences, favourites, etc in either of these? I know I should make regular backups of favourites by exporting the lists, but I had an issue in which I had to format my entire pc, and upon downloading Brave again, I must admit it was a pain to set everything as they were before, not to mention the bookmarks I didn't have time to update.

If not, are there any alternatives similar to these, but with said functionality?

TL/DR

My Dia verdict
After six months of daily use, Dia was genuinely useful for research, discovery and brainstorming. It helped me think, explore, reconstruct context and sometimes challenge assumptions.

But it also hallucinated too often, became frustratingly slow, couldn't access the build environment, couldn't carry context between separate sessions, couldn't see visual work in the way I needed, and couldn't take the actions required to get the work over the line.
For my workflow, that created too many handoffs.

CRASH TEST 003
63/100
VERDICT
▲ Mixed
WOULD I PAY?
No

READ THE FULL CRASH TEST

I'd use Dia again for the things it does well. I wouldn't make it the only tool responsible for getting the work over the line.
And that's probably the most useful conclusion a crash test can give you:

Not whether a tool is good or bad.
Where it is good enough — and where it isn't.

Hey everyone,

I’m looking for a browser that hits a very specific sweet spot, and I’m having trouble finding the perfect fit.

Here is what I’m looking for:

Lightweight & Fast: Needs to be light on RAM/CPU and feel snappy.

No Bloat: Zero crypto wallets, built-in AI clutter, forced accounts, or unwanted features. Clean and minimal out of the box.

Privacy-Focused: Telemetry stripped/disabled, good tracker/ad protection, no aggressive tracking.

Native Sidetabs / Vertical Tabs: Built-in side tabs that actually work well without relying on hacky CSS setups.

Essentials / Pin Area: Something similar to Zen Browser's "Essentials" or Arc's pinned spaces—a dedicated, clean spot for daily apps/pinned tabs.

I know Zen Browser does the UI/Essentials part amazingly well, but it can feel a bit heavy or buggy at times. On the other side, Brave has good privacy/speed but comes with bloat I don't use (crypto, rewards, etc.). Vivaldi has all the features, but feels too heavy for what I want.

Is there any browser (Chromium or Firefox-based) that fits this description natively, or is a lightweight base + extension setup the only way to achieve this?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

I'm the developer of Ortix, a native browser for macOS built on WebKit. Version 7 shipped this week. It's the largest update so far, so I wanted to share what's new and hear your feedback.

About Ortix

Ortix is a sidebar browser written for macOS 26 and Apple silicon. It's not built on Chromium. It has Spaces, and each one keeps its own tabs, colour and wallpaper. Ads and trackers are blocked before the page loads, passwords stay behind Touch ID, and passkeys and iCloud sync are supported. It also includes an AI assistant called Mia, which can run on models stored on your Mac, so nothing you ask it leaves your machine.

Mia now works across your whole Mac

In earlier versions Mia could only work inside your tabs. In 7.0 it can:

• Click, type and fill in forms, showing every step as it happens
• Run commands in a sandboxed shell, showing you each command
• Create and edit files, with every change held for your review before it's applied
• Work inside a folder or git project you point it at
• Write a task list for longer jobs and track its progress

You choose how much freedom it has with four permission modes:

• Browser: stays in your tabs
• Ask: asks before every tool
• Computer: works on its own but stops at anything dangerous
• Unrestricted: has to be chosen on purpose

Any action that can't be undone asks for confirmation first.

Local models now run up to 50% faster than in Ortix 6. You can also bring your own key for OpenAI, Gemini, OpenRouter, Ollama or a custom endpoint, or use Setapp AI.

Media

• Picture in Picture has been rebuilt. When you leave a tab, its video follows you with its own play, pause and skip controls.
• An audio mixer gives every tab that's playing sound its own volume slider, with live levels taken from the page.
• A quick player at the bottom of the sidebar shows what's playing, with its artwork.

Layout

• Split view supports up to four pages in any layout. You can drag the dividers and swap panes.
• The sidebar can fold into a slim icon rail, or you can detach it and float it beside your window.
• A space strip above your tabs keeps every space one click away.

Also new

• A new address bar with Quick Search finds open tabs, history and bookmarks as you type, and also does calculations.
• A grammar checker can proofread, improve or summarize text in any text field on any site.
• You can dictate in the address bar and in Mia, and Mia can answer out loud with a natural voice.

Pricing

• Free: the full browser, including the sidebar, split view, Quick Search, up to 3 spaces, the media player and ad blocking.
• Ortix Pro: $5.99 a month after a 7-day free trial. It adds unlimited spaces, the Mia agent, grammar help, the audio mixer, automatic Picture in Picture and the sidebar file manager.
• Setapp: Ortix Pro is included with a Setapp membership.

Requirements: macOS 26 or later on Apple silicon.

You can import from 24 browsers, including Chrome, Safari and Arc. Chrome and Firefox extensions are supported.

Website: https://systembionic.com/ortix
Changelog: https://systembionic.com/ortix/changelog

Feedback from this community has shaped many past releases. Bug reports, feature requests and honest opinions are all welcome, and I'll be answering in the comments.

Hey everyone,

Like many of you, I loved Arc's UX ideas but hated two things:

1. How Chrome and modern Chromium forks aggressively hog 4GB+ of RAM for 20 tabs.

2. How new "AI browsers" send every page you read and every search prompt to remote cloud servers with paid subscriptions.

So I spent the last few months building **Nova Browser**—a sovereign, privacy-first desktop web browser built from the ground up to run multi-model AI locally on your GPU while keeping memory usage under 450 MB.

### Key Highlights:

- **100% On-Device WebGPU AI:** Runs local LLMs (Llama 3.2, Phi-3.5 Vision, Qwen 2.5) directly on your device. Zero external cloud API calls, zero telemetry, works completely offline once cached.

- **Smart DOM Hibernation Engine:** Background tabs automatically unmount dormant DOM structures from memory. In our benchmarks, 50 open tabs sit at ~420 MB RAM instead of Chrome's 2.5 GB+.

- **Zero-Latency Network Ad-Blocker:** Built with memory-mapped Rust rules that filter trackers at the network layer before DOM execution.

- **Built-in Model Context Protocol (MCP) Server:** Allows local AI coding agents and tools to interact with your browsing session securely.

- **Workspaces & Split Views:** Clean workspaces, horizontal/vertical tab layouts, and zero bloat.

- **100% MIT Licensed:** No paywalls, no crypto nonsense, no trackers.

### Tech Stack:

- Frontend/UI: React, TypeScript, Tailwind CSS, Framer Motion

- Core & IPC: Electron, Node.js runtime, Rust native filter bridge

- Local AI Engine: WebLLM, WebGPU TVM runtime

The repository, pre-built macOS/Windows binaries, and benchmark reports are available on GitHub. I would love to get your feedback, bug reports, and feature suggestions!

GitHub: https://github.com/unitybtw/nova-browser

Website: https://nova-browser.vercel.app/

I have created this simple horizontal tab layout.
You can slide between tabs, close them, or add new ones just for now.

I'm still working on detach/reattach a tab, so that part isn't ready yet. Hopefully everything works when you try it, but if anything acts weird just let me know.

Download: https://rizzing404.itch.io/zen-browser-horizontal-tabs

Introducing the newest framework for Microsoft reactor. Add a MCP server to handle all the data migration and tooling. Vertical tabs with tab management and collections .

Get LinkScape Browser from the Microsoft Store https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9nlnn451lc7t?ocid=webpdpshare