Hi All

I need a fast, low memory Internet browser for my fluxbox Ubuntu System.
I have gtk2-engine-nodoka installed. I have tried my best to avoid applications that needs gnome or kde libraries. I not sure which browser is the best. I am actually making a custom livecd, so I need to pick one.

I am not interested in text based browsers like links2 or browsers without proper css capabilities like dillo.

I have read a few reviews and everyone is saying something different.

Thank you in advance.

I'm very impressed with Midori. It's fast, plays most of not all net content and best of all it's lightweight. I currently use it with PCLXDE.

Chromium is quite fast, but the fastest is Dillo (the svn version if you want CSS support).

Thank you all.

I think il try Opera for a while and see if it delivers. Epiphany failed, I could not set proxy setting because I dont have gnome. I do export http_proxy='PROXY_URL:PROXY_PORT' in bash shell before executing Epiphany but it still did not find the proxy.
Midori seemed nice, after I export proxy in shell Midori found proxy , Midori was fast and agile, but it crashed every time I tried to log into this website so then i moved on to better things Opera. Opera is very slick and fast with very nice rendering and also has a Opera Turbo option which appeals much to me. Ive tried Kazehakase and liked the browser, it might not be that light weight though, it also crashed ounce , that was enough for me. So far im happy with Opera and if it dissapoints also, il try Arora. Dillo is a last resort for me, I dont like the UI at all.

Thanks all.

It mostly comes to your likings.

Dillo is not an option when it comes to css, even from the live repository (at least the last time I tried, it might have changed a bit but I wouldn't hold my breath). I'd rather use no css at all that a broken implementation, because at least it's readable.

Opera and arora might be a bit lighter, they are both qt based but that's not too relevant. Opera does its own and arora uses webkit to render the web.

Midori, epiphany, kazehakase, galeon, etc. are gtk+ based (epiphany requires also the gnome libs, so...). Midori uses webkit, epiphany and kazehakase can use both webkit or gecko I think. Galeon is gecko based if it even exist still.

No gecko based browser can so the lightest in the world, that's a thing to consider. Gecko is a heavy metal machine, even if it's inside an otherwise light browser like kazehakase.

I'd rather advice to use seamonkey 2.x, which is coming in a very good shape, and supports all the features that firefox does and more, without all the bloat. Additionally you can always disable the components you are not going to use via use flags, like the mail client, composer, etc). Sometimes, more is less. Being able to use noscript to disable all the crap that sites like to inject into our eyes is a big plus when it comes to saving time and machine resources.

However, arora has a flash blocker feature out of the box which is very nice since 0.8 or so, and now it can even remember passwords and block adds as well. If only webkit worked a bit better and it had a better control of javascript, like noscript does, then I'd probably be using it instead of seamonkey 2.

However, today, having a gecko based browser is almost a must, just in case.

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Thank you much i92guboj

Your post has been very informative and i will certainly give seamonkey a try.

Regards

If you are going to try it, try 2.0_rc1 (or 2.0 once it goes out). 1.x will not work that easily with extensions and doesn't include the save session feature and other things.

Google Chrome/Chromium is fast and a bit lighter than Firefox.

personally I like Firefox, it is really only a resource hog when viewing a site that uses flash or java.

$ inxi -F
System: Host craigevil Kernel 2.6.31-3.dmz.1-liquorix-686 i686 (32 bit) Distro Debian GNU/Linux squeeze/sid
CPU: Single core Intel Pentium 4 (UP) cache 1024 KB flags (sse3 nx lm) bmips 5591.35
Clock Speeds: (1) 2792.600 MHz (2) 2792.600 MHz
Graphics: Card Intel 82915G/GV/910GL Integrated Graphics Controller X.Org 1.6.4 Res: 1280x1024@60.0hz
GLX Renderer Mesa DRI Intel 915G GEM 20090712 2009Q2 RC3 x86/MMX/SSE2 GLX Version 1.4 Mesa 7.6 Direct Rendering Yes
Audio: Card Intel 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) High Definition Audio Controller driver HDA Intel
Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Version 1.0.20
Network: Card Intel 82562ET/EZ/GT/GZ - PRO/100 VE (LOM) Ethernet Controller driver e100 at port dcc0
Disks: HDD Total Size: 160.0GB (14.2% used) 1: /dev/sda WDC WD1600JS-75N 160.0GB
Partition: ID:/ size: 103G used: 22G (22%) ID:swap-1 size: 5.25GB used: 0.01GB (0%)
Info: Processes 121 Uptime 2 days Memory 263.6/493.6MB Client Shell inxi 1.1.13

Thats with Firefox+chatzilla and several tabs, its been open since I booted, also evince, shell-fm, pacmanfm, conky and a couple other things running.

Hi

I first tried Seamonkey 1.17 and it worked fine. It did not look so good because it did not import my gtk2 theme that i was using. I donwloaded the 2.0_rc1 and I am very pleased with it, I am using the gtk2-engine-nodoka and now my theme works with Seamonkey. The only negative for me is that the tabs doesnt have a exit on them and that its on the far right, but that is a minor. I find Seamonkey very fast with rendering. I think Seamonkey is a good fit for my system.

I see that Seemonkey also uses the gecko engine, but I guess I can live with that.

I also like Firefox, it only uses abit too much memory to my liking.

Greetings

Seamonkey 2.x uses XUL just like firefox, to render the interface (gecko for the web stuff as you say). It's not proper gtk2, though the look will be very close. There are some minor glitches, for example in the rendering of checkboxes, the border around the tabs section which is a bit disruptive for my taste, and the tabs themselves, that are not rendered the same than the gtk native ones. However it's close enough and I am not too concerned with the look. The only problem is that the tabs in seamonkey don't have good contrast with dark schemes, but I think that gtk has also that problem (and sometimes also with the text in the tabs, which is quite annoying).

Hmm, I dont know if its just my gtk2-engine (nodoka) but my tabs are looking quite fine.

You are probably right, there's something odd in the way that qtcurve seems to handle the tabs, and it's not just in seamonkey, though in SM is much more noticeable. I think it's time to play with the theme engines again, I only do it like once each two years or so

Thanks for the pointer.

Hi graigevil. I agree with you with chromium-browser. It really looks nice and handles fast and uses little memory. I think you understated the fact that it is a bit lighter than firefox. I had a few heave weight tabs open like facebook, youtube playing something, and a few other and it only used 50mb of memory while firefox normally took 250mb away at that point. Thank you for pointing it out for me. I will still decide between chromium, seamonkey and opera.

Hi graigevil. I agree with you with chromium-browser. It really looks nice and handles fast and uses little memory. I think you understated the fact that it is a bit lighter than firefox. I had a few heave weight tabs open like facebook, youtube playing something, and a few other and it only used 50mb of memory while firefox normally took 250mb away at that point. Thank you for pointing it out for me. I will still decide between chromium, seamonkey and opera.

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Heyy!! It's incredible that nobody said a word about Qupzilla!!
It is a very good lightweight browser based on QT libs, the best I've ever used. It doesn't crashes like midori does sometimes, and it's lighter than chromium!! It's really customizable and has adblock installed by default: as for the menus, they're pretty similar to firefox!

Just have a look here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QupZilla
and try it, you won't want to come back!



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BMN user

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