Lightweight GNU/Linux web browsers
Submitted by specialj on Sat, 2008-09-06 18:31.
I decided to look at what lightweight browsers were available in Ubuntu 8.04 as alternatives to Firefox. The caveat was that I didn’t want a browser with Gnome or KDE dependencies. Here’s what I found.
Lightweight browsers I tried:
- Dillo - really ugly
- Midori (webkit, gtk2) - seems good though not feature complete, interesting integrated search features, the privacy and network preferences seem to be unavailable and I consider these fairly essential
- Kazehakase (gecko, gtk+) - fast but buggy, clicking preferences crashes browser, has some integrated rss functions but that’s not something I’m very interested in
Eliminated due to gnome/kde dependencies:
- Galeon
- Epiphany
- Konqueror
I think Midori looked the best though it might be another release before I could actually use it. I’ve used Kazehakase before and will continue to follow its development. Beyond that I might just have to see if anyone comes up with a lightweight browser or if Firefox itself will slim down in the future.
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What about Netsurf, Hv3,
What about Netsurf, Hv3, Skipstone or Netscape Navigator 9?
Or even SeaMonkey?
Or even SeaMonkey?
Thanks for the suggestions
I had never heard of netsurf but it looks interesting. It’s lack of javascript support will probably be a deal breaker given how many websites rely of javascript for proper layout these days. Hv3 seems pretty underdeveloped. I’ve used SeaMonkey but I’m not sure why it would be an improvement over Firefox with regard to resource usage. I always thought SeaMonkey would be heavier but perhaps I should give it a try and monitor its resource usage. Netscape Navigator 9 is not a consideration as I am only interested in software with a free license.
Skipstone definitely seems like it’s worth trying as it has both gecko and webkit support. It looks like it was removed from Debian due to being incompatible with GTK2 (Debian Bug 196457).