Get Your Zen on With Zen Browser

If you like Firefox’s engine but not its direction, Zen Browser gives you a familiar foundation with a more flexible UI, built‑in theming, and productivity-focused features.

The FOSS Force Linux App of the Week — Zen Browser

If you’re unhappy with the direction of Firefox, you should give Zen Browser a try.

Opera was my browser of choice on Linux for a very long time. Although I still use it on macOS, a couple of years ago I made the switch to a browser based on Firefox and haven’t regretted the move yet.

The browser in question is Zen Browser, and it’s one of my all-time favorite browsers.

Imagine Firefox without the bad juju and the addition of the features you’ve probably had to add with extensions that you may or may not be able to trust.

Imagine a more modern-looking Firefox.

Imagine Firefox with split screen.

You see where I’m going with this. Zen Browser is what Firefox should have been all along.

It Starts With the UI

Confession time: I’m a sucker for aesthetics. Give me a beautiful, modern UI, and I’m all for it. This is one area where Zen Browser really sets itself apart from Firefox.

With Firefox, if you want to change the theme, you have to scroll through countless installable theme extensions until you find one you like. Even then, you’ll find yourself installing one, not liking it, looking for another, not liking it… wash, rinse, repeat. In no time, you have 10 or 20 themes installed, most of which you won’t use (and will probably forget to uninstall).

Zen Browser, on the other hand, has a brilliant theming engine built in, it’s incredibly easy to use, and allows you to create unique, vibrant, and beautiful themes without having to install a single thing.

To edit the theme, right-click the top toolbar and select Edit Theme. A pop-up window will appear where you can select a color and add gradients. The second I discovered the Zen Browser theming tool, it was all over for other browsers. I could make my web browser fit in perfectly with my COSMIC theme, and that makes me giddy with delight.

The Sidebar, Vertical Tabs and Workspaces

What you get in the sidebar is, are you ready… vertical tabs. How is it that Firefox still doesn’t have vertical tabs? I’ve even tried some of the Firefox vertical tab extensions, and they are all junk.

Zen Browser’s vertical tabs are wonderful. You can view them as minimal icons or a more standard take. I prefer the minimal view, because it doesn’t consume as much real estate in the sidebar.

This browser also has a workspaces feature, which makes managing tabs even better. Forget about tab islands, workspaces are the real deal. With this feature, you can create individual workspaces for specific categories — such as Creativity, Productivity, Shopping, News, Social Media — and then open only related tabs in each. If you’re like me and you tend to have far too many tabs open, workspaces will help save your sanity.

Security

As far as security is concerned, Zen collects less telemetry than Firefox — it says it’s stripped out Mozilla’s telemetry-gathering software — but some users still claim it collects data. In other words, it can’t go toe-to-toe with the likes of Brave, so if you want heightened security out of the box, Brave is your best bet.

That doesn’t mean Zen isn’t secure. In fact, Zen pretty much includes the same level of security found in Firefox.

There was, of course, a back-door scare surrounding Zen back in Feb 2025. You can read about it in this GitHub discussion. That discussion does get a bit heated at times, and it’s clear that some people in the thread have ulterior motives, but in the end, there’s some good advice (such as install extensions like uBlock Origin).

I’ve never had any issues with Zen Browser’s security, but some of the users in the thread point to completely stripping all the Firefox-ness from the browser, which would be challenging, given that the browser is… well, based on Firefox.

In the end, I’ve always found that where there’s one negative opinion, there are two positive ones. I could say that Brave is the most security-minded browser, and someone out there would argue that point.

I like Zen, and I’m sticking with it.

Performance

As far as performance is concerned, I have no qualms. Zen Browser runs as fast as any browser on Linux, renders pages well, and rarely gives me any problems. Is it the fastest browser? No. There are several lightweight browsers that blow Zen away. But as far as full-featured browsers are concerned, Zen can compete.

Zen is my browser of choice. Until something happens to make me think, “Hoo boy, can’t have that,” Zen Browser will continue to be my default browser on Linux. It’s beautiful, runs well, and is as secure as any Firefox-based browser on the market.

If aesthetics are important to you, and you don’t mind installing a few extensions to heighten the security of your browser, give Zen a try and see if it doesn’t have you Ommmmming your way through the internet.