20260121 Browser putzen

Just the browser

You might want to start "just a browser" when you click on Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, and Mozilla Firefox. But after years of development, these programs now offer much more, including many positive features—especially in Firefox—but also some unwanted elements. The latter, as Heise.de writes, are: "... most AI services, autostart, shopping functions, imposed third-party content such as paid icons or daily fresh clickbait, the nuisance of ‘make me default’ pop-ups, the transfer of usage data, and the introductory semester after the initial installation".

Unfortunately, this happens without any additional programs or add-ons. This means there is little you can do about it. US journalist and programmer Corbin Davenport didn't like this either, so he wrote a small shell script called “Justthebrowser.” On his website, he explained his reasoning as follows: "I don't want shopping integration, or AI agents occupying my cursor, or local AI models constantly running in the background to rearrange my browser tabs. I shouldn't have to resort to Safari or half-baked Firefox forks to avoid this."

His script can be downloaded from the second website linked below. Please note that this script may need to be re-executed after a browser update and that the script does not disable translation support in browsers such as Firefox. If you do not trust it, you will need to do this yourself via your browser settings.