MY PICKS FOR BROWSING AND SEARCHING

This is some geek stuff I was passing on to a friend this morning - but Hive has always been pretty geek, so I'll share it here as well, to see if there are any geeks left in these parts.

Because I have lots of accounts on all sorts of websites and platforms, I use five browsers. Brave was my default browser but after trying Vivaldi for a day I made it my new default browser - it's that good

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The search engine I was trying out yesterday was Startpage - Duckduckgo have fully sold out so they need to be replaced. Startpage was OK, and the founder is very anti censorship.

But after more testing this morning I'd say Brave search engine is best by miles - way better results than the all the others I've tried including Startpage - Brave search is really good.

The Brave browser is good too (still my second choice browser) but there are a couple of things I've been wanting to do for ages - including some stuff that I used to do on Firefox up until about six years ago when Firefox lost the plot - that can now only be done on Vivaldi

So I'm using Vivaldi browser with Brave search engine - a bit of a piss around but the only way to get it all working how I want on multiple computers and tablets - best internet set up I've ever had, and the first time I can say that in over six years!

For mail I mostly use Outlook 2003 because I still think it's the best one, but I also use Proton Mail (free) because I need mail on Android and Linux too.

But there are things I do all the time on 19 year old Outlook that can't be done in brand new Protonmail - like coloured backgrounds, a full range of font options, and unlimited folders. And I still much prefer the old school Outlook folder system to any modern mail programs.

This week I'm also trying StartMail (free trial) - it looks a lot like a paid Protonmail account - but is very expensive at US$59.99 a year - best privacy, (no compromise encryption and Dutch based) but if I was going to pay for a mail program I'd probably just get a Protonmail full account. Although, Start Mail may have extra features or more security I don't know about yet, they do seem like an on to it company.

Office - I still use Office 2003 occasionally which I think is the best ever Microsoft Office, but I mostly use the latest version of Libre Office. Recently I ended up using Excel to work on an old file, instead of Calc, but I much prefer Calc these days - so I'd say free Libre Office is better than the best Office package that Microsoft ever put out.