this post was submitted on 23 Mar 2025
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Zen looks nice and some of the UX concepts (workspaces, glance, split sidebar from vertical tabs) work well. The 'fit & finish' and the way changes are pushed (unilaterally? Unvalidated with endusers?) feels very much like a 1 man hobby project though.
I agree, it also has some serious security issues: https://github.com/zen-browser/desktop/pull/927
The developer's comment reveals that it has been there since the inception of the project. And there are even more privacy / security issues mentioned in the comments.
Unfortunately Zen browser gets a big fat no from me. π«€
It's not a backdoor, it just enabled Firefox's remote debugging tool by default, which is necessary if you want to modify the chrome of the browser on your own computer.
At the time it was in one of its first alpha, sure it was naive to ship a browser with it enabled because it was convenient for development, but it was fixed 1 week after the issue was raised, and has been for months.
They use the release candidate to test upcoming Firefox releases and see if it breaks anything, to be able to ship the update on the same day as FF (just like the majority of other forks do). None of the patches they make require extra telemetry except for their "mod" system. Most of the criticism Zen gets about "security" applies to every browser except librewolf and tor. Zen is as secure as firefox is.
All this is coming from someone who doesn't use Zen, as my workflow is constantly broken by their UI changes and bugs (which is the main problem with the browser).
Most browsers donβt claim to be more privacy conscious than all the others and leave all the telemetry enabled when they do.
Imo they are more privacy conscious than Firefox and most Chromium based browsers, and on par with Floorp/Waterfox with their provided defaults.
If someone wants a good looking browser with vertical tab, while not having to debug privacy settings breaking site or having to write custom css to have the UI they like. Zen is my recommendation.
The only telemetry they leave is the ones that provide features to their users. For example, they need to ping mozilla for addons update, firefox sync, update the tracker block list, ...
Although I agree with you that the privacy part of
Zen the most beautiful, productive, and privacy-focused browser out thereis clickbaity.