Can I get some browser suggestions?

[Alexzee]

As a Firefox user, have you noticed any slowdowns or your fan(s) having to work a bit harder? It works fine on both mine and the woman's Windows desktops. They're a lot more powerful than this laptop but Id have thought with how well optimised browsers are these days and how light Linux is, it wouldn't cause any issues.

I hear good things about Pale Moon but I know very little of Vivaldi, I'll keep these in mind.
I've not used Tor in many years now, didn't even think of that as an option for browsing the every day web.

Yes, I did notice the fans working harder particularly the cooler for the CPU.
So I stopped using the Cinnamon desktop on my Devuan install and installed the Mate desktop.
Since switching to the Mate desktop the fan for the CPU doesn't work as hard.

Let us know how things go.

 

[Alexzee]

Seamonkey -- I heard about that for the first time last night, nice and light from what I understand?

Yes light indeed.
It takes some getting used to and is set up differently from Firefox.

SeaMonkey: Download & Releases

www.seamonkey-project.org

 

[Alexzee]

What plug-ins? Or do you mean extensions?

I meant extensions.

 

[MikeWalsh]

The nice thing about Seamonkey is that it's an entire internet 'suite' of apps, that can be called individually. It's been Puppy's default browser from day one.....because a single install takes care of several apps.

You have:-

A browser
An email client
An address book (to go with the above)
A chat app (this is functionally similar to the Hexchat IRC client)
A 'WYSIWYG' HTML editor

I'm not that keen on the browser itself, but I use the email client & matching address book. It works just like Thunderbird - anyone used to T-Bird will feel right at home here, 'cos they both have a common ancestor in NetScape Navigator - but is a LOT lighter on resources.

I've built my own tray launcher for it, similar to BirdTray, or the older FireTray for T-Bird:-

If you need to follow links in emails, it fires up the adjacent browser component, so there's no need for faffing-about setting a default browser. It uses its own.

Very nifty, extremely versatile & nicely lightweight.


Mike.

 

[KGIII]

(At the time, it was the only really viable alternative under XP).

There was Opera. It did show some ads if you didn't pay for it. I paid for it but I know that some people cracked it. It was a great browser to support back in the day. There was Mosiaic that became Netscape. There were all sorts of options back then, though I'd say we probably have more 'stable' browsers today. Heck, there was even an Internet Explorer for Unix back in the day.

Anyhow...

I've had Vivaldi installed since it was a beta that popped up in a comment on Opera's support forum. It's my default mobile browser because I opened some tabs in it. An object at rest likes to stay that way, and so too do I keep using Vivaldi on mobile.

Obviously, it works just fine and I like it well enough to just keep using it. I do not do much mobile browsing.

 

[FatDroid]

I have noticed some news on yt that Firefox issued some patches to fix the extensive fan use. I haven't had a problem with this browser as I haven't used it in the PC for ages, and that one in my Android behaved so far.

I havent heard of such a patch, and my issues have only just become a thing as it never happened up until a couple of week ago. I remember when it started too, I opened FF and then went to YouTube from my bookmark bar, and a second after it started loading the page that was it, the fans kicked up and now they do it regular regardless of what I am doing. On android the browser is fine, I cant complain about that at all but I use it so little I uninstalled it and have been using Opera for quite a while now.

 

[CaffeineAddict]

I opened FF and then went to YouTube from my bookmark bar, and a second after it started loading the page that was it, the fans kicked up and now they do it regular regardless of what I am doing.

What are your system specs?
Have you tried resetting FF to defaults, reinstalling and removing all extensions?

 

[FatDroid]

I don't see FF lagging either as desktop or Android (SAMSUNG 23 Ultra) app. However both versions have modified heavily modified config and just one add-on uBlock origin installed. As long as you are satisfied with Brave and or Vivaldi that is most important.

Android FF is great, but I dont use it as I find Opera suits my needs better on mobile. I am tempted to go back to it though, Opera is all good and well and it does exactly what it advertises, but its just not the same.
Vivaldi is a name I hear of a lot, I really do need to give it a go soon

 

[FatDroid]

I use ALL of the above. And THEN some...

• Google-Chrome
• Chromium
• Brave
• Opera
• Iron
• Vivaldi
• Slimjet
• Ungoogled Chromium
• Firefox (mainline & ESR)
• LibreWolf
• SeaMonkey
• PaleMoon
• Basilisk
• Midori
• ....even M$ Edge!

Etc, etc.....

I maintain 'portable' builds of all these for the Puppy Linux community, so that's why they're all on the system.

Tried Falkon (used to be known as QupZilla). Weird mixture of QtWeb & Blink (it's a KDE special; what d'you expect?) Didn't like it, so gave that one a miss.

I run Epiphany under HaikuOS. The Haiku team's port works great.

To me, a browser's a browser. They all perform the same task.....that of permitting access to / interaction with the rest of the internet. They're the "glue" that hold online communities together, whether on a PC or laptop, or a smartphone or pad.....without them, none would exist in their current format.

It's all down to personal preference at the end of the day. For me, Opera currently leads by a whisker, because its 'Workspaces' feature lets me organise the browser as I do my Puppy desktop.....different stuff on different desktops/workspaces. Less confusing!

With me, it's literally a case of "eeny, meeny, miny, mo...." as to what I choose to use for the day...


Mike.

I have to ask, what on Earth do you use so many different browsers for? I have heard of people having one or two on the go but NEVER an entire library of them!
Chrome is a better browser than what people give it credit for, but I havent used that in years as I hear it is horrendous when it comes to memory these days. My laptop currently has 8gb in it, although I do intend to push this up to 16gb which is the limit for this particular model, but even then with how many times Ive seen people online say it eats ram, Im tempted tonot bother but keep an eye on it in case they ever do sort that out.

 

[MikeWalsh]

@FatDroid :-

I have to ask, what on Earth do you use so many different browsers for? I have heard of people having one or two on the go but NEVER an entire library of them!

As I've mentioned once or twice before on this site(!), I'm the one who maintains most of the Puppy 'portable' packages for the community, and the browsers in particular. Thus, I have packages for all the above scattered around the system, as I also test out beta- and dev- builds of many of the above, to find out what features (and issues) can be expected in upcoming releases.......which is very easy to do with the self-contained nature of the 'portable' packages (no config or cache conflicts, y'see).

32 GB RAM and 5+ TB of storage probably help in this respect, since Puppy itself uses very little in the way of resources.

(shrug...)

Personal current favourite is Opera; this is my 'daily-driver'.....closely followed by Chrome itself (I've been with Chrome since BEFORE the initial release, as I was on the 'beta'-testing team in the summer of 2008).

Pale Moon also sees plenty of use as a good, general lightweight browser.


Mike.

 

[909mjolnir]

i tried Vivaldi in the past and it was okay but i couldn't quite get used to the aesthetics of the interface.
but since it's like Chrome, you can still set the chrome://flags and also install chrome extensions. this was nice. for that matter, Chromium is okay too, for the same reasons. I tend to disable all of the "experimental" flags to try and dodge future technical problems. realistically, i'm okay with almost any mainstream browsers anymore. in the past i tried SlimJet and that one was okay too.

 

[kc1di]

I think the main take away from this thread is that there is a wealth of experience here at Linux.org with a verity of Browsers and you will pretty much have to choose the one that suites your personal needs the best. Some among us have tried/ used just about every browser out there. But in the end the choice is yours.