What is Leaf Browser?
Leaf Browser is a Google Chrome extension popular among college students and famous for its innovative hierarchical tab system. This tool allows users to manage tabs through subtabs and subsubtabs, which can be colour-coded and re-titled according to personal needs, all within a sidebar for easy access. Additionally, Leaf Browser includes a feature to ‘turn off’ webpages to conserve memory and processing power. Despite its popularity, development on Leaf Browser has been inactive since 2018, leaving many users searching for up-to-date alternatives that offer similar or enhanced functionality.
Below, we explore the best alternatives to Leaf Browser, comparing their features so you can find and download the right tool for your browsing needs.
Quick Links to the Best Alternatives to Leaf Browser
Horse Browser: The Best Alternative to Leaf Browser
Horse Browser emerges as the spiritual successor to Leaf Browser, enhancing and expanding upon the key features that made Leaf Browser popular. Horse takes tab management to the next level, incorporating a range of productivity tools and customisation options that can significantly improve your browsing experience.
Key Features:
- Tab Layers to Trails®: Similar to Leaf Browser’s multi-layered tabs, Horse Browser uses Trails, where each new link opens in a new, easily-managed page on the ‘Trail’. This feature allows for dynamic organisation, with the ability to nest, collapse, rename, and reorganise Trails as needed.
- Customisable Trail Icons: Horse Browser advances Leaf Browser’s colour-coded tabs by allowing users to assign custom icons or emojis to Trails, offering a more intuitive way to identify and manage different projects.
- Enhanced Sidebar: While Leaf Browser’s sidebar offered quick access to tabs, Horse Browser’s collapsible sidebar goes further by integrating note-taking and a drag-and-drop interface for better organisation. Plus, you can create defined ‘Areas’ and folders to keep your pages extra tidy.
- Integrated Productivity Tools: Horse Browser not only organises your internet research but also features integrated productivity tools, such as note-taking, password management, an in-built ad blocker, dark reader, and customizable search engine settings. There’s even the ability to export your links to other productivity apps, such as Notion.
- Advanced Resource Management: Similar to Leaf Browser, Horse Browser offers resource management so you can keep as many pages open as you like, without overloading your computer’s memory and CPU usage. All your pages are saved and readily-accessible whenever you re-open your browser but they won’t affect your computer’s speed.
For those who loved Leaf Browser’s approach to tab management, Horse Browser offers everything you appreciated, plus more. It’s a powerful tool that could become your new go-to browser.
Vivaldi: A Customisable Powerhouse
Vivaldi is another strong contender, known for its extreme customisation capabilities.
Key Features:
- Customisable Tab Organization: Vivaldi offers tab stacking, where you can group tabs in two-level stacks, and tab tiling, which allows for a split-screen view. You can choose between vertical, accordion, or compact modes to view your tabs.
- In-Built Notes: Vivaldi includes a notes feature that syncs across devices, with a handy tool to append specific text highlights to existing notes.
- Reader View: For distraction-free reading, Vivaldi provides a Reader mode that removes ads and visual clutter from online articles.
Vivaldi’s vast array of customisation options can be both its strength and its potential downfall. While it offers unparalleled control, it may be overwhelming for a lot of users. And its tab organisation can end up feeling a little cluttered. Vivaldi also incurs higher memory usage compared to lightweight browsers.
Opera: A Feature-Rich All-in-One Browser
Opera offers a blend of speed, privacy, and unique features like a built-in VPN and ad blocker, making it a good option to consider.
Key Features:
- Sidebar with Quick Access Tools: Opera’s sidebar offers easy access to tab groups (known as ‘workspaces’), as well as social media platforms and messaging apps.
- Free Built-In VPN: Opera’s free VPN enhances privacy and security while browsing.
- Integrated Ad Blocker: It automatically blocks ads, contributing to a faster browsing experience.
- Turbo Mode: This feature compresses web pages, enabling faster loading on slow connections.
Opera’s feature set makes it a versatile choice, but its extensive tools may not be necessary for everyone and workspaces are
Brave: A Privacy-Focused Option
Brave is designed for users who prioritise privacy and speed. While it’s more aligned with the Web 3 crowd, it does offer a few features that could appeal to college students and professionals.
Key Features:
- Vertical Tab Organization: Brave’s sleek vertical tab management is minimalistic but effective, helping users keep their browsing organized without unnecessary frills.
- Speed: Because it blocks ads and tracking, Brave claims to be much faster than many major browsers
- Ad blocker: Brave offers a great powerful native ad-blocker to help you block ads.
Alternative Google Chrome Extensions
Although they’re not as cleverly-designed as the original, there are two Google Chrome extensions, which replicate some of Leaf Browser’s most basic features, namely tree style tabs. Both are available on the Chrome web store.
Alternative Extensions
- Tree Tab Sidebar: This extension presents your tabs as a list in the Chrome sidebar. While it’s basic and lacks advanced features like drag-and-drop or renaming, it goes some way to offering a simpler, more readable view of Chrome tabs.
- Tab Outliner: Tab Outliner offers greater organisational capabilities with a hierarchical tab system. However, it comes with a more cluttered and complex interface, which might not appeal to everyone. Like Tree Tab Sidebar, this extensions lacks Leaf Browser’s ingenuity and intelligent design features.
In Conclusion
If you’re looking for alternatives to Leaf Browser, the recommendations above provide a variety of solutions to suit your browsing needs. Among the options available, Horse Browser offers the closest match to the original design, speed and customisation of Leaf Browser. Indeed, Horse Browser goes one step further, building upon similar concepts to create a more integrated, feature-rich browsing experience. So if you’re a fan of Leaf Browser, you’ll likely find that Horse Browser offers everything you loved about Leaf Browser, plus a whole lot more. To learn more and try Horse Browser for yourself, visit here. Happy browsing!
