The free browser choices

All right, so I’ve got a couple of contenders.

(I’m that super lazy, friendly neighbor, low code, AI dev wannabe)

Let’s start from the most recent one, Opera Air.

Opera Air

0 burden interface, check. Music generation, check. Mandatory wellbeing quote, check. I’m sold.

You know what? I really like Opera Air. You can sincerely get the feel this browser was built to make you feel better. The visuals are slick, no clutter, smooth colors – love it. It has a baked-in assistant to remind you to take a break every hour or so (min 45 minutes, so no slacking with Opera!). It’s got a player for your favorite online music, an LLM chat (ChatGPT or Gemini 1.5), and the best option for me: Boosts.

Boosts? This music feature uses binaural beats and ambient sounds to, supposedly, influence your brainwave activity. It claims to help you achieve different mental states. At least, I hope it does, since I sometimes run it in the background even though I’m working in a different browser (it’s that good to me). Good job, Opera Air!

Firefox Developer Edition

I’m in the Matrix, ma! But the old version!

All right, so, if I ever become a web developer (a man can dream, right?), this is a browser I would definitely learn to use. The vibe, the tools, it’s all there. JavaScript debuggers, CSS Grid inspector, memory tools, network monitor… I have more tools at my disposal than Neo had guns under his mantle, and I understand only half of them. Adventure!

But the best part? Responsive Design Mode. Seriously. You can view your one-shot prompt SaaS as though you’re surfing on your phone or tablet, right there in your browser.

Firefox, you wait for me! I’m coming there! (Dream on, Tom, dream on!)

Arc Browser

Single tab baby!

The vertical tabs. It’s one of those intuitive, straightforward solutions – akin to great scientific or design discoveries (like a door knob) – that you’re left to wonder why it wasn’t created sooner.

Look, it’s rather simple: my YouTube is down below, playing minimized, and I have three tabs all looking perfect on my 27-inch monitor. Also, I can Shift-click a link and then send it to another vertical tab.

So smooth.

And you can create live dashboards (a big whitespace with live frames of your sites) – but only if you run the OS version.

The Verdict?

No verdict, here, just a friendly advice to ramp up your motivation for development. Give them a try and see what is best for you. Next stop, paid ones! (Now to change my Opera Air boost…)