I feel like there is no web browser with a sane default configuration that I can recommend to other people. All browsers are preconfigured in a way that harms the privacy of their users or include services that no one wants such as Pocket and BAT.
Here are my problems with some popular browsers.
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Mozilla Firefox: Pocket integration, no ad-blocking without extensions.
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Brave: Everything related to crypto. Also its start page is horrible.
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Chromium: No ad-blocking without extensions and soon Manifest v3 will cripple all content blockers.
Now, these suboptimal defaults wouldn’t be such a big problem if the configuration files were easy to backup and restore and respected the XDG base directory specification.
No browser will ever tick ALL your boxes. You pick one and make it work.
Why not? Is it that hard to NOT include bloatware in your browser and respect XDG Base Directory? As for content blocking, the code is already there because extensions make use of it, just integrate it into the browser UI and use uBlock Origin’s block lists.
Sure. Then one of the project’s lead members will publicly donate to some homophobic group and that will have you second-guessing your browser of choice.