Web browsers on Linux

I just found this review useful:

http://www.brighthub.com/computing/linux/reviews/25134.aspx

I would add Kazehakaze, which is very fast, and Midori to the list.

 

Midori is on the list , when I tryed it out it was quite fast compared to FF; however, it crashes far to often to use reliably. Perhaps in the future it will become more usuable because it has potential.

It's a toss up of speed vs functionality. There are faster webbrowsers out there but if your used to firefox plugins (which slowdown FF) it might not be worth it to you.

 

Also odd how his top-rated browser, Galeon, stopped development a couple years ago...

 

I actually use Swiftweasel. It's much faster than the default build of Firefox, but it still has all the Firefox features, compatible with all the extensions and so on.

 

Thanks Pitabred! I will check it out. I think I might have used it years ago in slackware, but I can't remember. name sounds vaguely familiar...

 

It's just an optimized build of Firefox. Normal Firefox has no compiler optimizations or anything, whereas Swiftweasel has all the compiler tweaks enabled that make things run better. I can't wait until they have some 3.1 builds.

 

Swiftweasel does seem interesting. Although I've used some optimized Firefox browsers for Windows as well a long time ago, I find that the browser interface loads up a little slower but the web browsing is faster. Not sure if they change more than just the options in "about:config" though.

 

I'm waiting on Chrome for linux...I'm on the beta testing list...anyone heard anything new from Google? Flock 2.x is pretty a pretty darned good linux browser.

 

You can see if it's compile-level differences by going to "about:buildconfig"

This is what Swiftweasel looks like:

Code:

about:buildconfig

Build platform
target
x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu

Build tools
Compiler 	Version 	Compiler flags
gcc 	gcc version 4.3.3 (GCC) 	-Wall -W -Wno-unused -Wpointer-arith -Wcast-align -W -Wno-long-long -pedantic -O3 -march=nocona -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer -msse2 -mmmx -mfpmath=sse -fno-strict-aliasing -pthread -pipe
c++ 	gcc version 4.3.3 (GCC) 	-fno-rtti -fno-exceptions -Wall -Wconversion -Wpointer-arith -Woverloaded-virtual -Wsynth -Wno-ctor-dtor-privacy -Wno-non-virtual-dtor -Wcast-align -Wno-long-long -pedantic -O3 -march=nocona -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer -msse2 -mmmx -mfpmath=sse -fno-strict-aliasing -fshort-wchar -pthread -pipe

Configure arguments
--enable-application=browser --with-pthreads --enable-single-profile --disable-debug '--enable-optimize=-O3 -march=nocona -freorder-blocks -fno-reorder-functions -fno-strict-aliasing -msse2 -mmmx -mfpmath=sse' --disable-tests --disable-mochitest --enable-extensions=default,xml-rpc,gnomevfs,spellcheck --enable-installer --disable-maintainer-mode --disable-system-sqlite --enable-webservices --enable-safe-browsing --disable-crashreporter --disable-profilesharing --enable-update-packaging --enable-crypto --enable-strip --enable-static --disable-shared --enable-system-cairo --disable-libxul --with-system-nspr --with-system-nss --sysconfdir=/etc

This is the default Firefox config (on Ubuntu)

Code:

about:buildconfig

Build platform
target
x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu

Build tools
Compiler 	Version 	Compiler flags
cc 	gcc version 4.2.3 (Ubuntu 4.2.3-2ubuntu7) 	-Wall -W -Wno-unused -Wpointer-arith -Wcast-align -W -Wno-long-long -pedantic -g -fno-strict-aliasing -pthread -pipe
g++ 	gcc version 4.2.3 (Ubuntu 4.2.3-2ubuntu7) 	-fno-rtti -fno-exceptions -Wall -Wconversion -Wpointer-arith -Woverloaded-virtual -Wsynth -Wno-ctor-dtor-privacy -Wno-non-virtual-dtor -Wcast-align -Wno-long-long -pedantic -g -fno-strict-aliasing -fshort-wchar -pthread -pipe -U_FORTIFY_SOURCE

Configure arguments
--build=x86_64-linux-gnu --prefix=/usr '--includedir=${prefix}/include' '--mandir=${prefix}/share/man' '--infodir=${prefix}/share/info' --sysconfdir=/etc --localstatedir=/var '--libexecdir=${prefix}/lib/xulrunner-1.9' --disable-maintainer-mode --disable-dependency-tracking --srcdir=. --enable-system-cairo --disable-system-sqlite --with-system-nspr --with-system-nss --enable-application=xulrunner --enable-extensions=xml-rpc,venkman,inspector,irc,gnomevfs,cview,tasks,reporter,python/xpcom --enable-webservices --enable-safe-browsing --with-default-mozilla-five-home=/usr/lib/xulrunner-1.9.0.6 --enable-startup-notification --with-user-appdir=.mozilla --without-system-jpeg --with-system-zlib=/usr --with-system-bz2=/usr --enable-system-hunspell --disable-javaxpcom --disable-crashreporter --disable-elf-dynstr-gc --disable-installer --disable-strip --disable-strip-libs --disable-install-strip --disable-tests --disable-mochitest --disable-updater --enable-optimize --with-distribution-id=com.ubuntu

Note especially the compiler flags.

 

is there a repo that can be added for swiftweasel?

 

I believe there theoretically is, but I just installed the tarball into /opt and made some symlinks. I couldn't figure out how his repo was set up.

 

Thanks Pita, I'll check it out !

 

Recently I found another interesting browser: Netsurf

http://www.netsurf-browser.org/

It is really very fast and light, though I still need to work long enough with it to see if it does all I need.

 

That's in the ubuntu repos...I'm checking it out...never heard of it

 

It starts very fast, but it loads the pages rather slow, and few pages were not loaded correctly. The is a nice feature of "global history" but it cannot replace bookmarks. Also, the need to open new window for each new opened web page doesn't provide comfortable surfing experience. I would prefer it to dillo, but, in spite of its low demand for resources and fast starting, I cannot use it for daily browsing. However it would be an almost perfect for Instant-On type linuxes.

 

It was a scorcher on this machine....but needed bookmarks for me, and seemed a little quirky....but has potential....like you said, great for an Instant on type OS

 

Any other Opera users? I used to use Firefox, but Opera is just so much faster.

 

Using Opera here for the same reason in Linux

 

I like Opera's speed, but the interface is a little confusing to me. I find it confusing how they have stuff layed out and I have a hard time making it perform the same as Firefox.

 

After trying Netsurf, I plan to remove it. The reasons:
1) web pages are downloaded really slow,
2) some pages are shown not correctly (e.g. ebay),
3) frequent memory leakage. I observed how Netsurf (at least when it was working in parallel with Opera) has managed to increase it memory consumtion for more than 500MB within several minutes.

Unfortunately, "light" Netsurf browser is no-go. My initial enthusiasm (see above) is ungrounded.

 

Ivar, I basically had the same experience, but after a while got downloaders remorse It needs some work.

 

same here. opera is my primary browser under linux, and the reason is speed and lower processor usage than FF when many pages are open.