User talk:Rms/sub1
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Arora was a cross-platform web browser built using WebKit and Qt 4. It had a simple light-weight user interface. It was more of a show-case for the Qt framework than a end-user product. It could be used as a regular browser and it did have features like tabs, history, bookmarks and custom user-CSS. It has not been developed or maintained in decades.
- Brave Web BrowserBrave is a Chromium-based free software web browser for GNU/Linux, Windows (32 and 64-bit) and Mac OS. There are also mobile versions for Android and iOS. It's performance is within margin of error of other Chromium-based browsers like Google's Chrome. Other aspects are also the same, it is essentially the Google's Chrome web browser with different branding and some additional features like web advertisement and tracker blocking, a built-in crypto currency wallet and a opt-in rewards system where users can get paid cryptocurrency for viewing advertisements that are built right into the browser. It's overall barely acceptable as a web browser, nothing more. Installation may be a bit tricky since no GNU/Linux distribution includes it in their repositories.
- ChromiumChromium is a BSD licensed web browser developed by Google. It is used as the basis for Google's commercial "Chrome" web browser product. The Linux version of Chromium is very easy to use and the fastest there is when it comes to WebGL performance. It does not come with any web garbage filtering, user script manager or style editor so you would have to install those things yourself.
- Comparison of Web Browsers
Web browsers are the most used software on computers and phones today. Here's a look at the choices you have on Linux desktops and how they compare in terms of features and usability.
- DissenterDissenter is a "Free Speech" web browser made by Gab Ai. It appears to be a fork of an old Brave version which itself was forked off an old Chromium version. It is available for Windows, macOS and there are .deb and .rpm versions for Linux. The Linux version is not very useful since it doesn't even run or produce a web browser window.
- DoobleDooble is a BSD-licensed free software web browser utilizing the Qt toolkit and its webview module for web page rendering. It's github page used to describe it as "A colorful Web browser". It has most of the basics covered in terms of features and it renders web pages perfectly thanks to the maturity of the Qt webview module it uses. It does lack some of the more advanced features web browsers like Chromium and Firefox have. You may or may not miss those if you switch to the somewhat simpler Dooble web browser.
- FalkonFalkon (previously known as "QupZilla") is a free software web browser built on the Qt framework. It uses the Qt QtWebEngine component (Chromiums Blink engine) to render web pages. Falkon supports themes, advertisement and web garbage filters and python plugins (depending on how it was compiled). It has some very fundamental usability problems so it is not very suitable as a daily driver web browser. It could become an good alternative to Firefox and Chrome/Chromium, it has a solid foundation to build on. It is not of both the stable 3.1 release 3.1 from March 2019 and the current git version as of August 2020.
- GNOME WebGNOME Web, or just "Web" as it appears in desktop menus, formally known as Epiphany before the GNOME team decided to rename everything according to general names resembling their function, is the default web browser in the GNOME desktop environment. It is built on top of the WebKitGTK rendering toolkit which, as the name implies, is based on Apple's WebKit rendering engine. It is, much like the default Edge browser on Windows, only suitable for downloading a better web browser.
- GNU IceCatThe GNU IceCat web browser is a re-branded Mozilla Firefox Extended Support Release version with slightly different more privacy-respecting defaults, different graphics and branding, some additionally really strange bugs and a hand-full of bundled extensions meant to provide more end-user freedom. The practical result of those extensions is a close to useless browser which is not suitable for most people. IceCat can be configured to be a somewhat usable privacy-respecting web browser given some time and effort even it if by default does not provide anything remotely resembling a good user-experience.
- Gecko-based browsers
Gecko is the rendering engine used by MozillafoundationCorporation's web browser products such as Seamonkey and Firefox. There used to be many other browsers, such as Flock and Galeon, using Gecko has a rendering engine. The vast majority dwindled into irrelevancy and died slow silent deaths. There are a few hanging in there. There's also a few alternative browsers that use Gecko which are nothing more than Firefox with different graphics and different default configurations.
- Google Safe BrowsingGoogle "Safe Browsing" is a online API service which checks web URLs against a blacklist which includes sites and links Google believes are harmful. Google story is that links included in the blacklist are either malware or phishing scam attempts. Most web browsers default to using the Google "safe" browsing list through an online API.
- KonquerorKonqueror is a web browser, file manager and document viewer that used to be at the heart of the KDE desktop environment. It has been neglected and unmaintained for years as of 2020 (a bit like this website's MediaWiki software, which looks like a Wikipedia page from 2013). It is practically useless as a web browser, alright as a file manager and kind of pointless as a document viewer.
- Light web browsers
Light web browsers
- Lynx
| latest_release_version = 2.8.6
- MidoriMidori is a light-weight cross-platform web browser made with the Electron web browser framework. It has a simple, slick and modern interface, support for Chrome/Chromium extensions and decent performance.
- Mozilla FirefoxMozilla Firefox is a web browser developed by the Mozilla Corporation with it's own unique Quantum web content rendering engine. Mozilla markets Firefox as a privacy-focused web browser and it can be to a large degree if you manually disable all the telemetry spyware Mozilla has baked into Firefox. The rendering engine is fully capable of rendering the vast majority of websites on the Internet. Firefox performs alright, but not great, and it is specially bad at everything using JavaScript or WebAssembly to render WebGL graphics. Firefox is overall a decent, but not great, web browser.
- Mozilla Firefox 2 (Bon Echo)
- NAVER whaleNAVER whale is a Chromium-based web browser from the South Korean Internet giant Naver Corporation. It has many unique features like a toolbox with a calculator, timer, calendar and unit converter and a built-in music player. There are also a lot of not-really builtin features like stock price monitoring and exchange rate conversion which in reality access and use various NAVER web services. Most of those services are only available in Korean language. The web browser itself has English text in most menus and help texts. Some features, like the built-in music player, do not have any English translation. Whale is overall a fine web browser but the tie-ins with South Korean web services who are only available in Korean language and the lack of translations for some of its features means that it is not the best choice for English-speaking people.
- Opera
Opera used to be a really light, fast and unique web browser with its own rendering engine. The Opera corporation eventually gave up and abandoned their own rendering engine in favor of Chromiums Blink. It is therefore little difference between Chromium and a modern Opera.
- Pale MoonPale Moon is a web browser for Linux and Windows which is based on a Firefox fork in 2009. The interface is very similar to what Firefox had when it forked, it is very much like using a very old Firefox version with a more updated rendering engine. Web pages render fine, the majority of pages work as they should. It is overall a fine browser which is worth a look if you liked the interface Firefox had before they modernized it.
- Privacy Browser
Privacy Browser is a web browser for Android which does more to protect your privacy than any other web browser. It has built-in advertisement blocking, tracker blocking and a easy button for toggling JavaScript on and off on a per-site basis.
- Qutebrowserqutebrowser is a minimalistic Vim-style keyboard-focused web browser written in Python and PyQt5. It can use either QtWebEngine or WebKit to do web page rendering. You will probably love it if you want a keyboard-navigated web browser with Vim-style keys and you will probably hate it if you want a web browser you can navigate using a mouse.
- SeaMonkeySeaMonkey is a web browser based on Mozilla Firefox LTS releases with a e-mail client, a wildly outdated HTML web page editor and a decent IRC client. It has roots going back to the ancient Netscape Communicator "Internet Suite" from 1997. That suite was re-named Mozilla Application Suite and, again, renamed to "SeaMonkey". You can use it as a daily driver web browser if you really want to, but we can't see a single compelling reason to do so.
- SlimjetSlimjet is a non-free Chromium-based freeware web browser with a built-in ad-blocker and many extra-sauce features like a YouTube video downloader, "hi-speed" download manager, "photo enhancement" and several other things that don't normally come with a web browser. The GNU/Linux version says "Aw, Snap!" and that's it, that's all it does.
- Tor BrowserThe Tor Browser is a web browser bundle distributed by the non-profit Torproject organization which includes a customized version Firefox ESR, some Firefox extensions and a Tor client for accessing the traffic analysis resistant Tor anonymity network. The Tor Browser sends your web traffic through the Tor network so the websites you visit will see a Tor exit nodes IP address instead of your actual IP address.
- Vivaldi Web Browser
Vivaldi is a non-free web browser made by the Norwegians. It markets itself as a privacy-focused web browser. It is based on the Google-controlled Chromium browser but it is, unlike Chromium, not free software; it is freeware with no source code available.
