This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
The "backdoor" mentioned in a single reply is very different from the telemetry issue. https://github.com/zen-browser/desktop/pull/927 was fixed a year ago.
I agree the telemetry should be either disabled or at the very least users should just get a config tab on first launch to opt out but the Lemmy submission is misleading and bordering on fake news.
Either way...reading through this, this developer seems like an idiot.
He doesn't really understand what the code he's shipping is doing, he doesn't want to listen to people or ask real questions. He gets defensive to even constructive criticism
Not who I want driving the project behind something as critical as my browser.
They just closed the issue without even acknowledging it, lol
They just closed the issue without even acknowledging it, lol
They acknowledged the remote debugging backdoor issue and fixed it a year ago.
It was enabled due that zen was still a toy project and we needed people to easily open the debugger for easier bug fixing. This was due because zen was not in a daily drivable state and didn't gain any sort of popularity yet.
https://github.com/zen-browser/desktop/pull/927
The telemetry issue is entirely different. Their handling of that is naive at best, dishonest at worst but it is completely different from the "backdoor".
Fair, I was referring to the referenced issue in the comments on this post.
What was surprising to me, is that there were many comments, and mentions of devs, yet no acknowledgment or getting linked to another issue.
That is a red flag to me.
are you really surprised? that bugreport did not contain a single actionable detail. and then it refers to some forum without any real reference, name or URL. there may be truth to it, and the other issue was actually very important and ridiculous, but this issue report is a big wontfix, reopen with real details
Industry plant browser lol
I thought it just allowede easier debugging, sorry
What the fuck, this dude is making a browser and he doesn't know what shit in the code he's shipping even does?
Not really an excuse but I expect writing a browser is an extremely intensive project and perhaps they were unprepared.
Navigating any code base that isn't your own adds it's own challenge on top.
So at this point I think it's a "deer in headlights" case with some "head in sand" thrown in.
Fucks sake, reading through these comments it appears the Zen browser developer doesn’t know what they are doing.
What alternatives are people using? I’m on Mac, iOS and Linux, avoiding Chrome/Safari and not looking to go back to Firefox, is there anything reliable/secure available?
Whenever people ask about privacy oriented Firefox alternative, firm answer from most of us is Librewolf. However, for some, shiny things are hard to resist.
I didn't see anything about a backdoor at the link.
It's weird link to this issue with that title, since the problem is only referenced in the discussion. The actual backdoor issue is here.
I thought it just allowede easier debugging, sorry
Fuuuuck. I wouldn’t eat a sandwich made by this person let alone a web browser. Forking and mucking around in a code base they clearly don’t understand. I get the feeling they’re one of those chmod -R 777 people.
I agree. That response made me lose any trust I had and I actually went to check that I didn't still have Zen browser installed from some earlier test run. He sounds like a script kiddie.
He was obviously very amateur by reading his posts on Reddit. Zen is more of a skin than a real browser, but I guess that’s essentially what a fork is at some point.
Fuck me, tell me someone else has risen to effective project lead since then?
His last comment is from 7 minutes ago so I would say no x)
You volunteering?
who in their right mind would hand over project leadership to a random person on a forum who he knows nothing about
https://github.com/zen-browser/desktop/issues/5947#issuecomment-2741902234
It's a link to a previous issue that was fixed, but it's an egregious one.
Well, at least they explained it! /s
I thought it just allowede easier debugging, sorry
Edit: This comment is a gem, too.
So disappointing. I just transitioned my personal browsing from Arc to Zen Browser because it was the closest vertical tab experience I could find. Now I hope one of the other browsers will figure out and implement good drawer-based vertical tab UI.
Any Firefox-based browser can use "Tree style tabs" it's vertical tabs from the time before they were cool. Very customizable.
Sure but it's not the closest experience to Arc
If you right click on the tab bar on regular Firefox you can enable vertical tabs. I don't think they're as nice as Zen's vertical tabs but they're still pretty good
I don't use or care that much about vertical tabs, and it seems complicated how big if a deal this actually is, but florp might be worth taking a look at if you're not already familiar with it
I don't know a ton about it but I think it has a similar kind of niche and is more vertical tab focused
