The title is err, not correct because the top 2 alternatives Opera and Arc are based on Chromium engine. I have seen tons of people swear by Arc, but I am seriously asking (since as a Linux user I can’t use it), how much good can a browser be in this day and age if ultimately it’s ad blocking breaks and it will since Manifest v2 will go soon(unless Arc folks have a solution for it)
The rest alternatives are Firefox, Zen (FF fork but honestly Atleast this was something new I learned from this article) and Tor (which is weird since it is not meant for normal web browsing and using it will not only be slow but put additional strain on the nodes, correct me if I am wrong).
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.