We All Live By The Browser

I believe the title of this post is accurate.

Every one of us, in order to read this post, needed to use some sort of web browser to render and load in applicable content. Some used the integrated browser connected by Instagram, others manually searched up zachsthoughts.com/mrt to be brought here via their main setup.

Or you could be one of the lucky few that has the dedicated iOS web client, which in of itself is merely just a fancy locked-down bookmark from Safari. But the point still remains. The browser, if anything, is the one app that we all use at the very least daily. Even if you try to hide it.

Don't bother, because it'll show.

Web browsers are, in essence, what allows us to search websites, pages, mini-applications and more. While computers provide the interface, the browsers are the figurative gateway for allowing us humans to interact with binary code. They are made up of a bunch of things, including rendering engines, graphical modules, and etc etc.

There are finer details for the workings, but they are beyond the scope of this post. So we'll ignore them. But what you should know is that there are not that many core engine options available for browsers to use.

Why would one need to use a core engine? Because it beats spending thousands of man hours (and millions of dollars) to build something that had already been perfected.

There's Gecko, which is primarily used by Firefox, and WebKit, which is most commonly known for being what Safari and iOS browsers are built on.

Oh, and let's not forget Chromium by Google (which uses the Blink rendering engine ironically first created by Apple before being forked, that's the big one.

By big, I mean that browsers that use Chromium take up an overwhelming majority of the market. (I couldn't find an explicit percentage or number, but let's say 80% are Chromium-based.)

This can be seen as an issue when people talk about how Google runs the internet, yet when they ask what browser they may use, it likely is one of the Chromium forks. Of course, there may be modifications and extensive work done to make it appear unique, they are all running the same core, which can make one wonder how independent they may be.

Ignoring the browser core ramifications, which should likely be discused on in greater lengths but likely won't, let us go into some of the browsers that are (relatively) known, or at the very least ones that I can look into and look at from a collegiate perspective. So we can better understand them and how they differentiate from each other.

More or less.

11/19/25 Update: This post ended up being more so review-y by the end. Whoops.

Screenshots for the specific browsers listed are from either Windows 11 24H2 or MacOS 26.1.

If there is any browser that the most amount of people are aware of, it's Chrome. Google's very own service that most people will almost inately download whenever they get a new computer.

Scarily enough, this is considered so standard that it's difficult for me to put into words. It's obviously done the job well, hence I've always come back to it (for now, at least).

However, when you go more so into the code and other aspects, you'll notice a near-constant stream of data being sent back to Google's servers and other parts that will make privacy seem like a fantasy. They do say that Google sees and hears everything.

Not much more needs to be set about the de facto, so that's it.

If there is one browser that can be called open-source and be known for it, it's Firefox. Which was the first browser I used when I was a younger lad. (Why? That's what the family computer had.)

However don't get your hopes up, as it's essentially funded by Google.

Firefox, while it looks similar to Chrome, is running an entirely different beast underneath. But it isn't too different from what's present elsewhere.

My favorite part of this browser is the Developer Tools as it allows for me to go in-depth more so with the HTML/CSS/JS elements and see what might need tinkering. Which could literally be anything. (See: me finding a vague CSS bug after 2 hours).

Is this my day-to-day? No. But it's going for my dev needs, so I keep it around.

Now for those looking for some more features or tidbits that can make the browser uniquely yours, there used to be Opera, but because of reasons I don't know, there's another one instead.

Vivaldi.

I've written a post about Vivaldi from a few years ago. But in short: this browser is what you do if you want to change up a lot of things and remain on a safe Chromium fork. It's known by UI/UX designers by being one of the best out there, which says something!

A neat thing that I will say that I discovered is the new incorporation of a VPN. Proton specifically. Yes it's the free one, but they make it easy to get the paid one or just use the free servers. Which increases its standard as privacy-oriented.

So it's customizable and private — for a Chromium browser. But still, not a bad one. I've been using it on-and-off as a backup for years, and would like to eventually one day make the switch.

This last browser is an interesting one. It was created by The Browser Company as a new method of searching the Internet, with features and ideas not known to the mainstream at the time. It became known through the technology circles and may have had a decent chance at getting market share.

If it didn't decide to stop active development and work on an AI browser instead. Like Perplexity's Comet, then it could be seen as a worthy contender to the mainstream giants.

While the UX is unique and definitely makes for a memorable experience, it is only really good on MacOS. The windows version is a hot unfinished mess that should still be in beta.

But if you are a MacOS user, then Arc is definitely worth looking into.

I stand by the title of this post. "We all live by the browser". Every one of us has one that they will use and stick with unless some insane issue/incident occurs that sees us run away. No, data breaches don't count in this case. For younger generations, it is ingrained very early which browser (likely Chrome) that you would use, and older generations follow what they see, which is oftentimes using Google or Apple's tools (who are paid by the former, for reference.)

Me personally? I use a mix of all four. They each have cool features/use cases that I can go with. But one day I would like to one day see a browser that isn't connected to Chromium or funded by Google in any way that hits mainstream popularity, but it'll be a while.

One can dream.

The next six weeks will see the main website get drastically overhauled as our design framework did not quite update the way it should, so manual revamps are in order. More on that to come.

In terms of “more” content coming soon, The Ode to 2025 will be releasing December 26 at 4PM ET. There will likely be more posts populating the website, but it remains to be seen.

Thanks for reading, see you soon!