 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 941, 1 November 2021 |
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Welcome to this year's 43rd issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
Usually here on DistroWatch we talk about experimenting with open source operating systems, typically Linux distributions. Regardless of which operating system you run, chances are you spend a lot of time on-line, running a web browser. Since the web browser takes up an ever-increasing amount of a person's time and attention these days, picking the right one for you is important. This week we begin with a look at some popular web browsers for Linux as Jesse Smith searches for a new one to be his portal to the web. Which is your favourite web browser? Let us know your preference in this week's Opinion Poll. Then, in our News section, we talk about the TrueNAS project launching TrueNAS SCALE, a Debian-based platform for large storage needs. Meanwhile the Debian project calls on porters to continue work on less popular CPU architectures and DragonFly BSD announces support for creating FAT storage volumes. We also report on Project Trident slowly phasing itself out of existence. Our Tips and Tricks column this week explores a number of command line tools for preforming simple, useful tasks. We talk about how to find dictionary words matching certain patterns, sorting ZFS snapshots, and truncating audio files. Plus we are pleased to share details from the releases of the past week. We wish you all a fabulous week and happy reading!
Content:
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (11MB) and MP3 (9MB) formats.
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
Selecting a new web browser and feeling Brave
While I bounce around from one Linux distribution to the next like a hyper-active flea on its sixth cup of coffee, it's not very often I switch from one web browser to another. I used Opera almost exclusively for about a decade (from around 2002-2010), then mostly used QupZilla from then on. The QupZilla browser got rebranded to Falkon shortly before it was put out to pasture. Along the way I've occasionally used other browsers, either for testing purposes or when working with a client, or just to see what "this new Chromium thing is everyone keeps talking about", but I tend to be a creature of habit when it comes to browsers. I might run Firefox or Chrome for a week, but then I'm back to whatever was working for me before, often because I've grown accustomed to shortcut keys or having my bookmarks sorted a certain way.
The Falkon home screen with shortcuts
(full image size: 812kB, resolution: 1237x1024 pixels)
Recently I've been drifting a bit in terms of browsers. My previous long-term browser, Falkon, appears to have been discontinued two years ago and I've been casting about to see if there is an alternative which might suit me. Luckily, for me, many Linux distributions ship with different default browsers and this gives me an opportunity to test a range of options.
I'd like to quickly provide a rundown of some of the popular browsers I tried recently and what I liked and didn't like about them. I'd also like to talk about where I ended up and why.
Firefox
The first and perhaps most obvious choice for someone like me is Firefox. Mozilla's browser has a long track record of being stable, standards compliant, cross-platform, and capable. I use Firefox on my phone and it is shipped as the default browser in most desktop Linux distributions. However, there are two main reasons I've shied away from adopting Firefox. The first is that the browser is quite heavy. Most versions of Firefox (from about version 3 or 4 onward) have run noticeably slower on my equipment than virtually every other browser. This has been consistent across multiple machines (both mine and office machines) and across multiple network locations.
The Firefox browser and menu
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I'm also not thrilled with how much functionality Mozilla tries to cram into Firefox. Around 15 years ago I often recommended Firefox because it was "just a web browser". It handled bookmarks and web browsing and little else. Firefox 1.0 was much lighter and faster than many other browsers at the time because it was "just a browser" and didn't cram in an e-mail client, torrent client, sync options, ActiveX support, and so on. These days when I use Firefox I want to disable or remove half the functionality and distractions before I settle into using it. I don't need account syncing, suggested sites, and file sharing tools. This meant Firefox wasn't entirely eliminated from my list of options, but it wasn't my favourite choice.
Chrome, Chromium, and Vivaldi
The current versions of Chrome and Vivaldi, while popular choices and highly powerful browsers, were eliminated due to being closed source platforms. Chromium, Chrome's base and open source sibling, was a contender. However, there were two things working against it. The first was Chromium is also large. It sucks back memory like a hummingbird trying to relieve a bad case of cotton-mouth. My other issue with Chromium is that the interface doesn't suit me at all. To me it always seems awkward and washed-out, hard to read with low-contrast controls. Using Chromium makes me feel like an old man who needs glasses and who doesn't understand these new-fangled interfaces the kids are using these days.
Exploring the Chromium interface
(full image size: 64kB, resolution: 1237x1024 pixels)
Another issue which worked against Chromium, though wasn't the browser's fault, was that many people offering support for the browser do not seem to be aware that Chromium is not Chrome. The two browsers are closely related, but not identical. Whenever I'd ask on a forum how to do something with Chromium (tweak a setting, disable something, or add an extension) someone would always answer with the steps to perform the task on Chrome, which often didn't work.
GNOME Web
GNOME Web (previously known as Epiphany) looked really promising on paper. Despite its name, GNOME Web can run on any Linux distribution with GTK libraries. The browser is relatively small, simple, light, and has some nice security options. There were just two issues I faced with GNOME Web. One is that some distributions are opposed to packaging GTK-based software and this might make using the browser while testing some non-mainstream platforms difficult. The other was that GNOME Web crashed more often than a car driven by a blindfolded monkey.
Otter
Another option I looked at was the Otter browser. Otter strives to provide the same style of interface used by Opera and Falkon while being open source. This seemed quite appealing and the browser is small enough I could download its source code and built it with minimal effort. Once I got Otter compiled, I found it could import my bookmarks and did indeed have a familiar interface for people like me who liked the minimal look of Opera with a dashboard of shortcuts. However, Otter would crash immediately when opening almost any website. This quickly eliminated it as a possibility.
Brave
The next option on my list was Brave. The Brave browser has a few positive aspects working in its favour. The browser is open source (published under the Mozilla Public License) and uses Chromium as its base. Brave is cross-platform and supplies pre-built binaries for several platforms, including some mainstream Linux distributions. Brave is one of the few modern browsers which blocks ads, pop-ups, and auto-playing media by default. It also offers not only a private browsing mode (which is fairly common these days), it also provides a private browsing mode which uses the Tor network. This feature is built right into the browser and does not require third-party packages.
I soon found Brave has a customizable start page which can be used to display all sorts of information and shortcuts. The interface and shortcuts are not quite as keyboard friendly as Falkon's (causing me to use the mouse more often), but I could set up a shortcut dashboard on Brave's home screen.
The Brave settings panel
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Once I had confirmed I could import bookmarks and passwords from other web browsers on my system, it seemed as though Brave was going to be good enough to keep around for a while. Over the coming days I discovered a few interesting features about the browser I'd like to share.
Performance
One of the first characteristics which stood out about Brave was that it is fast. Loading the browser happened at a normal rate, about halfway between Falkon and Firefox in terms of speed. Once up and running Brave performed faster than most of the other browsers I tried. Page load times were notably faster than Falkon, despite the two browsers using the same web engine.
Ad blocking and BAT
Earlier I mentioned Brave blocks advertisements and tracking by default. It actually goes a step further than this. Brave allows the user to right-click on ads they do see to hide them in the future, and it blocks invisible trackers on websites. It then goes even further and randomizes its own fingerprint.
Browser fingerprinting is a way of collecting data a browser leaks, such as its user agent, extension information, version, and supported plugins. This allows websites to uniquely identify most users, even with cookies disabled and the user's IP address changed. Brave works around this by randomizing its fingerprint in a way to mask its users. In theory it should be difficult for a website to tell one Brave user from another. According to Digital Trends, Brave was the first mainstream browser to pass the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Cover Your Tracks test.
These features cover my comments on advertising and tracking, but what is BAT? BAT is short for Basic Attention Tokens. While Brave defaults to hiding ads from the user, we have the option of enabling ads from the browser itself. Brave will optionally pop-up a notification in the corner of the window from time to time asking if we wish to see an ad (the frequency of these notifications can be adjusted). If we click the button to see an ad we can earn tokens. These tokens are a form of cryptocurrency which can then be sent to participating websites as donations (or tips) for their content. We can choose which websites get our tokens and the sites can then cash in to pay for hosting or paying contributors.
Learning about BAT rewards
(full image size: 273kB, resolution: 1237x1024 pixels)
From the user's point of view this means we see virtually no ads on websites, but can choose to click an unobtrusive button from time to time to see ads and get paid for it. The money we earn can then be passed along to our favourite websites to support them. The BAT ads are disabled by default so we don't need to see the pop-ups at all if we want to avoid them.
Third-party add-ons and extensions
Brave can make use of extensions and bringing up its extension manager offers to connect us to the Chrome extension store. It appears as though Brave is compatible with all (or at least most) Chrome extensions. When visiting websites with DRM-protected media, such as Netflix, Brave offers to automatically download and install the necessary plugins. This worked smoothly for me.
Home screen
When Brave is first installed its home screen (the screen shown when a fresh tab is opened) displays a collection of information. This home page can display browser stats, including BAT earned, and frequently visited websites. At the bottom of the page is a Customize button which will open a set of options we can use to personalize the home screen.
Customizing the Brave home screen
(full image size: 396kB, resolution: 1237x1024 pixels)
The home screen can be adjusted to show various widgets, bookmarks we select (which work a lot like Opera's and Falkon's shortcut screen), and news from the Brave project. This makes the home screen flexible and it is possible to make it look and act similar to the home screens of other browsers. Alternatively we can tell Brave to display a specific web page when a new tab is opened, such as a search engine.
Crashes and recovery
I've been using Brave for around a month at the time of writing. To date I have not experienced the browser crash on any of my devices. The browser has been stable, fast, and smooth. The only time I've had to restart it was when I was testing the process of installing DRM-related plugins.
With that said, I have had one of my computers experience a power interruption while running Brave. When I restarted the machine and opened Brave the browser dutifully reported it must have closed unexpectedly and offered to send a report to the developers. It also offered to restore the tabs I had opened when the system powered off, and then did so successfully. I prefer this approach to automatically opening whatever tabs had been open before as that can be unnecessary and waste time by loading pages I no longer need.
Conclusions
The Brave browser hits most of the points I want from my primary portal to the Internet. It's quick, open source, fairly flexible, and it has been surprisingly stable. It uses a medium level of memory and CPU compared to the other browsers I tried and it's fairly easy to set up on multiple platforms (GNU/Linux desktops, mobile phones, and so on).
I greatly appreciate the browser's privacy defaults, the fact it ships with Tor as a built-in option, its private mode, and randomized browser fingerprint. The ability to right-click on unwanted elements of a web page and hide them is a great bonus and allows the user to hide ads or other items we do not wish to see on a website.
The one complaint I have about Brave is that it tends to make me switch between using the keyboard and mouse occasionally. This is fairly common, it's something I also need to do with Chromium and Firefox. However, I have been spoiled in the past by browsers like Falkon which make it easy to set almost any action, including accessing specific bookmarks, as a keyboard shortcut. Often times I didn't need to touch a mouse when using Falkon and I find the transition back and forth slows me down a little. Over time I've been learning ways to substitute in shortcuts to speed up my work on Brave, but it would be nice if this was a more naturally occurring feature.
One final thing I appreciate about Brave is that it feels like it is intended to be a web browser and just a web browser. While we can add extra extensions and enable BAT ads, by default Brave doesn't try to work with mail, or nag me to set up an account to synchronize my passwords. It just offers a portal to websites and this is primarily what I was looking to find.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Debian calls for port maintenance, TrueNAS SCALE launched, DragonFly BSD supports creating FAT volumes, Project Trident enters "sunset" phase
The Debian project has published a number of updates concerning changes and work going into the development branches of the project. One of the changes concerns dropping the /sbin/raw command line program following support for raw block devices being dropped from the Linux kernel. At the same time a call has gone out to developers who are willing to work on less popular CPU architectures: "The Debian release team have put out a call for porters for Debian Bookworm. If you are using any CPU architectures other than amd64 (which has an exemption) such as i386, ARM, POWER or all the less popular architectures, please consider contributing towards popcon submissions, testing packages, running testing/unstable systems, fixing toolchain issues, triaging/fixing bugs, testing/fixing d-i or maintaining/providing hardware for the architectures you care about. If you are already doing these activities or intend to do these activities for particular architectures, please respond to the release team mail with the info
requested by them before January 1st 2022." Information on Debian's many ports can be found on the Ports page of the Debian wiki.
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The TrueNAS project provides an operating system which can be used to easily manage ZFS storage devices. TrueNAS provides an easy to use web interface for handling user accounts, storage devices, and services. While TrueNAS Core and TrueNAS Enterprise are based on FreeBSD, the TrueNAS team have launched a new platform which is based on Debian. The newest member of the TrueNAS family is called TrueNAS SCALE which, as the name suggests, is intended to help organizations scale up their storage needs. "OpenZFS and Gluster combine to enable scale-out ZFS capabilities with excellent data management. Deploy a single hyperconverged node in a home/office, or cluster nodes together for a highly scalable and highly available software-defined infrastructure. TrueNAS SCALE provides simple access to the well-established Linux container ecosystem and makes application deployment easy. With support for KVM virtual machines, Kubernetes, and Docker containers, it's easy to customize and add applications to suit a wide variety of needs." Further information can be found on the TrueNAS SCALE website.
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The DragonFly BSD project has recently added support for creating new storage volumes formatted with the FAT filesystem. While FAT is aging and widely considered obsolete, it is still often used in situations where a wide degree of portability is required. The announcement reads: "You can now create FAT volumes on DragonFly. Not exactly high-tech, but a filesystem that most anything can read and write." Additional details can be found in the commit message.
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The Project Trident team maintains a Void-based distribution with the Lumina desktop and ZFS as the default filesystem. The developers have decided to shutdown Project Trident, beginning on November 1, 2021. "It is with great sadness that we are announcing that Project Trident will be entering its 'sunset' period starting Nov 1 of 2021 and will be closing up shop in March of 2022. The core team of the project has come to this decision together. With changes and events over the past two years in life, jobs, family, etc, our individual priorities have changed as well." After March 1, 2022 the project's repositories and other resources will be taken off-line.
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These and other news stories can be found on our Headlines page.
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| Tips and Tricks (by Jesse Smith) |
Finding the right words, sorting filesystem snapshots, truncating audio files
One of the reasons Linux distributions are such popular operating systems, particularly among system administrators, is the powerful command line environment. Linux offers a large collection of powerful utilities which can be chained together to create unusually complex and useful tools. Today I'd like to look at a few examples of Linux command line tools at work.
The first example I'd like to share came out of a conversation with a colleague who mentioned that he had an interest in words which contain all of the English vowels. Words such as "evaluation" which include the letters a-e-i-o-u. Following our conversion I started wondering about how many such words there were and what some other examples would be. With the Linux command line this is a fairly easy thing to check. Most Linux distributions include a plain text file containing all the words in the system's default language. We can use the grep command to search for letters and patterns in words. One of the easiest ways to do this is to ask grep to search for any words containing one letter and then pass the results to another grep command which checks for the next letter we want, and so on. The command ends up looking like this:
grep a /usr/share/dict/words | grep e | grep i | grep o | grep u
The above command yields examples such as "miscellaneous", "unquestionably", "ultraviolet", and "exhaustion". On my system there were 633 results in total. How do I know this? Well, I passed the results of the above series of grep commands to the wc utility which prints out a word count. It looked like this:
grep a /usr/share/dict/words | grep e | grep i | grep o | grep u | wc -l
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Advanced filesystems such as Btrfs and ZFS can be incredibly useful, especially if you are planning to spread one filesystem across multiple physical storage devices. These advanced filesystems allow snapshots of data to be taken and stored for comparison or recovery later. When using ZFS the command to list all snapshots is:
zfs list -t snapshot
The equivalent command to see all snapshots taken by Btrfs is similar and accepts the location of where we want to find snapshots:
btrfs subvolume list /
The Btrfs command typically shows snapshots in the order of their creation, based on the snapshot ID. ZFS is a bit more liberal with the order it displays snapshots. We can make sure snapshots are listed in order of their creation by using:
zfs list -t snapshot -s creation
These commands can be useful when we want to determine which snapshots are most recent or if we're trying to figure out when a file changed by comparing sequential snapshots of the file.
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Do you have any audio files in your collection that you would like to trim down? Maybe you have a recording where the artist is introducing their song and you'd like to edit out the speech at the beginning? Or perhaps you have a video recording where there is some awkward silence at the end due to the performer reaching over to turn off the camera? Either way, there is a tool which will help with these situations. The tool is called FFmpeg and it accepts an input file along with timestamps where we would like to start copying the media and where we would like to stop.
For example, I have an audio recording where there is an audio blip in the first two seconds. Then the song runs for about three and one half minutes, followed by some discussion about the song. I don't want to hear the discussion every time, so I will remove the early blip and the trailing talk using the ffmpeg command. The program accepts the name of the original file, the start time (-ss) and the end time (-to). The last parameter is the name of the new file I plan to create. Here the start and end times are given in seconds:
ffmpeg -i original-file.mp3 -ss 2 -to 211 new-file.mp3
The above command will work on other media formats too and should work with just about any type of audio or video file. We have shared other examples of how to use ffmpeg to convert file formats and scale videos in a previous Tips and Tricks column.
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Additional tips can be found in our Tips and Tricks archive.
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| Released Last Week |
EasyOS 3.1
Barry Kauler has announced the release of EasyOS 3.1. The lightweight distribution features easy to use container technology which can sandbox specific applications or the entire desktop environment. The latest version includes a number of updates and changes to the filesystem layout. "There have been major functional changes: applications can now be run non-root each as its own user and group, and the folder hierarchy has become more conventional, with /clients becoming /home and /home becoming /files. As well as fixing issues in 3.0 due to the changes in directory hierarchy, version 3.1 has greatly enhanced video configurability and hardware profiling. Also, there are new RDP, VNC and SSH servers and clients available via the package manager. A lot of attention has been given to booting EasyOS from a USB-stick on different computers. Hardware profiling means that any video, bluetooth and audio configuration on one computer is remembered and automatically selected next time bootup on that same computer. Attention has also been given to the situation where video is broken at bootup, such as a black screen. There is a new 'Fix broken video' boot menu entry." Further information can be found in the project's release announcement and in the release notes.
Trisquel GNU/Linux 9.0.1
Trisquel GNU/Linux is a 100% libre Ubuntu-based Linux distribution. The project has published a new update to its 9.0 series. The new media mostly offers security fixes, particularly dealing with out of date certificates. The new 9.0.1 media also removes some binary blobs found in the Linux kernel. "This minor update to the 9.x "Etiona" series is intended to provide an up to date set of ISO images, both for use as an installation medium and as a live environment with newer packages. This addresses two main security concerns in the 9.0 original ISO images: An outdated Certificate Authority collection (package ca-certificates) included an expired root certificate for LetsEncrypt, resulting in blocked access to repositories for new packages or updates. Overlooked binary blobs were found in versions of Linux-Libre prior to v5.14. Updated packages were added to the Trisquel repositories to correct the issue, and new ISO images were produced to include the fix. Along with those fixes, the release includes any other security update published upstream since we published Etiona, and the latest version of the Mozilla-based "Abrowser" (v93)." Further details may be found in the project's release announcement. Download: (2,618MB, SHA256, signature, torrent, pkglist).
ExTiX 21.11
ExTiX is an Ubuntu-based distribution featuring a variety of desktop environments. The project's latest release is ExTiX 21.11 which ships with the LXQt desktop. "I have made a new version of ExTiX - The Ultimate Linux System. I call it ExTiX 21.11 LXQt Live DVD. (The previous LXQt version was 21.5 from 210516). ExTiX 21.11 is based on a pre-release (not even BETA) of Ubuntu 22.04 LTS (Jammy Jellyfish)! Ubuntu 22.04 will be supported until 2027. The best thing with ExTiX 21.11 is that while running the system live (from DVD/USB) or from hard drive you can use Refracta Snapshot (pre-installed) to create your own live installable Ubuntu system. So easy that a ten year child can do it! One other very good thing with this version of ExTiX is that it is quite light. The ISO file is of only 1580 MB, which means that you can run the system super fast from RAM. When the boot process is ready you can eject the DVD or USB stick. Use Boot alternative 3 or Advanced options -> load to RAM. Important note: Since this version of ExTiX is based on a pre-release of Ubuntu you shouldn't use it for sensitive work/business. Having said that I must also say that I haven't found any bugs." Further details can be found in the distribution's release announcement.
ExTiX 21.11 -- Running the LXQt desktop
(full image size: 3.4MB, resolution: 2936x1254 pixels)
antiX 21
antiX is a lightweight, Debian-based distribution. The project's latest release is based on Debian 11 "Bullseye" and features the SysV init software along with both recent and older kernels for wider hardware support. A list of key packages is available in the project's release announcement: " Based on Debian 11 (Bullseye), but without systemd and libsystemd0. eudev instead of udev. Customised 4.9.0-279 kernel with fbcondecor splash. Customised 5.10.57 kernel (x64 full only). LibreOffice 7.0.4-4. Firefox-esr 78.14.0esr-1 on antiX-full. Seamonkey 2.53.9.1 on antiX-base. claws-mail 3.17.8-1. CUPS for printing. XMMS - for audio. Celluloid and mpv - for playing video. SMTube - play youtube videos without a using a browser. streamlight-antix - stream videos with very low RAM usage. qpdfview - pdf reader. arc-evopro2-theme-antix." The distribution is available in four editions, ranging in size from largest to smallest: Full, Base, Core, and Net.
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Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
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| Torrent Corner |
| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| Opinion Poll (by Jesse Smith) |
Favourite web browser
In this week's Feature Story we talked about a range of web browsers which run on Linux. Which of the browsers mentioned is your favourite? Do you have another web browser we didn't talk about which you prefer to use? Let us know why you picked your current web browser in the comments.
You can see the results of our previous poll on purchasing the PinePhone Pro in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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My favourite web browser is...
| Brave: | 325 (10%) |
| Chrome: | 227 (7%) |
| Chromium: | 97 (3%) |
| Edge: | 85 (3%) |
| Epiphany/GNOME Web: | 17 (1%) |
| Falkon: | 35 (1%) |
| Firefox: | 1764 (57%) |
| Firefox fork (like LibreWolf): | 139 (4%) |
| Otter: | 10 (0%) |
| Vivaldi: | 220 (7%) |
| Other: | 181 (6%) |
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| Website News |
DistroWatch database summary
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This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 8 November 2021. Past articles and reviews can be found through our Article Search page. To contact the authors please send e-mail to:
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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • Brave Browser (by 8bit on 2021-11-01 00:26:33 GMT from United States)
I've been wanting to move away from Firefox and use a 'real' password manager; this is just the information I needed. Thanks.
2 • Browsers (by DaveW on 2021-11-01 00:30:28 GMT from United States)
My goto browser is Firefox, but I use Brave for a few websites that have objectionable or just too many ads.
3 • Browsers (by Friar Tux on 2021-11-01 00:37:20 GMT from Canada)
Vivaldi is closed source??? This is the first I've heard of that. It's my number one go-to browser. It ticks all the boxes for me. I was a Firefox fan for years, even way back into my Windows days, but Firefox started having major issues so I went browser hunting. Two that stood out - for me - as really good were Vivaldi and, more recently, LibreWolf. (Give LibreWolf a try, Jesse, and maybe do a review on it. I'd be interested in your thoughts.) While I like LibreWolf, Vivaldi seems to work more to my way of doing things.
By the way, there is also WaterFox which is similar to LibreWolf, just a bit heavier.
4 • Browsers (by Steve K on 2021-11-01 00:59:41 GMT from United States)
I've used most of them but Firefox is my daily driver for several reasons. It is highly customizable and has access to a huge number of add-ons and themes. The most important feature that I like and can't live without is scrolling tabs. The last time I checked Firefox is the only browser that has this. I always have a large number of tabs open and with the other browsers the more tabs you have open the skinnier they get so you can't read what they are anymore. With the scrolling tabs of Firefox you can have a huge number of tabs open and it doesn't affect the size of the tab which remains the same. Also, In my experience having a huge number of open tabs does not slow down Firefox as it would other browsers. At one point, I had over 2000 tabs open and it had no impact on Firefox at all! Other browsers, like memory-hog Chrome would have crashed far sooner, not to mention you would not have even been able to read the tabs after 50 or so were open.
5 • Brave is my go-to browser (by Dave on 2021-11-01 01:05:54 GMT from United States)
The biggest reason is one Jesse mentioned: it’s the only one I’ve tried that passes the Cover Your Tracks test. I’ve also found it to be noticeably faster than other browsers, and it works with every Chrome extension I’ve ever tried.
I also use Firefox occasionally on desktop and often on mobile (Firefox’s dark mode is great for battery life on OLED screens), and sometimes Vivaldi for when I need it’s specialized features.
I’ve come to hate Chrome with a passion and refuse to install it on any system. It’s bloated, slow, and a privacy nightmare.
@3 Yes, unlike Brave and Firefox, Vivaldi is partially closed source.
6 • Vivaldi (by Jesse on 2021-11-01 01:18:21 GMT from Canada)
@3: >> "Vivaldi is closed source?"
Technically Vivaldi's source code is available: https://vivaldi.com/source/
However, Vivaldi is proprietary software: https://vivaldi.com/privacy/vivaldi-end-user-license-agreement/
I should perhaps have said its source is viewable, but it's not open source in the proper sense of the term.
7 • Browsers (by Pat Menendez on 2021-11-01 01:21:34 GMT from Canada)
I don't know of any browser that comes default with control of scripts or data mines. By default, every browser I know of allows anyone and everyone to set data mines and run scripts etc. Essentially, you light up the open sign and put out the welcome mat to every slug nutty out there to track you and mine you for data. All the while they claim to be concerned about privacy and security! A blatant lie! They are working for big data to make it easy to track and mine their users. What many security companies are saying is to spread out your internet use. Use one browser just for social media to limit their online tracking, another browser for banking. another browser for other activities etc. That makes the question of "what is your favorite browser?" an incomplete sentence. Your favorite browser for what activity? All these data miners love and rely on the fact that 99.9% of users don't know any better and don't care regardless of privacy or security issues. With Firefox and their privacy addons I'm not convinced that you aren't just trading giving your data to one group rather than another because they all want access to everything. My question is, if browser makers are concerned with privacy and security, why is all of it left to 3rd party addons to make the browser private and secure? Why are browser makers NOT including granular controls for data mines, scripts, web bugs, web pixels, trackers, etc., etc.? And now everyone wants to bombard you with ads, click bait! Many websites won't let you look or read anything unless you allow them to track you and mine you. Everyone wants a piece of your digital hide. Where is the browser that seriously addresses these blatant privacy and security issues? These issues are exacerbated exponentially using a "smart phone". And people wonder why so many people have their identities stolen! They have willingly handed over ALL their data to whatever malevolent bastard wanted it! This question might more accurately be, "What is the least objectionable browser?"
8 • vivaldi browser (by scott on 2021-11-01 01:26:53 GMT from Australia)
I've been browser hopping for the last few months and after all the browsers its coming down to 1. Vivaldi 2. Firefox and Opera at #3. The drawback to vivaldi is if you use the fully loaded version the interface is very busy but for me right now it ticks all the boxes. I like the idea of built-in email although I never liked Seamonkey which had browser and email as well. Funny I just noticed I'm typing this on Falkon. Hmmm?
9 • Browsers (by Pat Menendez on 2021-11-01 01:35:03 GMT from Canada)
I'd like to point out that Firefox is now rebranded Google Chrome, it;s built on the Google Chrome code, and should have been included under that heading in the article. it is not an independent source code! The original Mozilla Firefox core is now in Palemoon, etc. Which I have always found to be just as fast and more secure and private than Google's products. Some if not many distros are now also offering a "de googlged" version of Chromium, which is essentially Google Firefox.
10 • @Pat Menendez (by tux. on 2021-11-01 01:37:44 GMT from Germany)
No, Firefox is not based on Chrome code. They support the same extension format though.
11 • Firefox (by cor on 2021-11-01 01:41:24 GMT from United States)
I use Firefox on my desktop, having done so for over 20 years. I have never experienced any lack of response. I don't see any ads using Adguard Adblocker. I have tried all of the alternatives but none come anywhere close to the flexibility of Firefox.
12 • Web browser: Flashpeak SLIMJET. For Debian-based & Windows. (by Greg Zeng on 2021-11-01 01:45:51 GMT from Australia)
Most web browsers are based the open source Chromium-base Blink engine. Famous names: Microsoft Edge (Windows, Android), Chrome, Brave, etc.
Not all Linux systems have the compiled versions of these web browsers. Slimjet is Windows or Debian based. It allows the full range of Blink add-ons, which is rare for Blink-based web browsers. Slimjet is unique among all web browsers, with remembering the user settings of the last use of that user, regardless of the hardware or the operating system. Slimjet is my default, with built-in flexibility that is often not available with third party add-ons & extensions on any other web browser.
Not being loyal to any web browser, Slimjet has been chosen amongst all others, because it has unique power & flexibility unmatched by any other web-browser. Unfortunately, it has not yet been available for Android, where "1DM+" is my preference.
13 • (@ Steve K -- USA) Scrolling tabs (by Gerard Lally on 2021-11-01 01:49:33 GMT from Ireland)
Steve K -- Vivaldi does it far better than Firefox and Chrome. Vivaldi allows you to have vertical tabs, the way the old Opera used to allow you. It baffles me that Firefox and Chrome don't have this, considering all computer screens these days are wider than they are tall, but perhaps Mozilla and Google are too obsessed with political issues to care about the tech side?
14 • Browsers -- another option (by Gerard Lally on 2021-11-01 01:53:32 GMT from Ireland)
Qutebrowser deserves a mention for anybody who likes using the keyboard.
15 • Falkon is a front end for the Qt version of Webkit (by shep on 2021-11-01 01:55:03 GMT from United States)
As long as webkit gets security upgrades and does not add any new ABI's, Falkon should be fine to use. Currently, Midori, Epiphany and Vimb all use the same webkit-gtk4 backend. There is an new webkit version on the horizon and if Falkon is a viable project, it will likely have to be updated.
The following Qt front ends are available:
1. Falkon/Qupzilla, a lightweight Qt web browser
2. Otter Browser, Qt5 based
3. Arora, lightweight Qt browser
4. Slimboat Qt browser
5. WCGBrowser
https://www.pcsuggest.com/best-qt-web-browser/
16 • Follow up to my earlier comment at 5 (by Dave on 2021-11-01 02:03:53 GMT from United States)
I should mention that I don’t find Firefox slow at all these days. It’s certainly a lot faster than the bloated resource hog Chrome has turned into.
I also appreciate that it’s the only thing keeping web rendering from turning into a Blink/WebKit monoculture. I even feel a little guilty for not using it more often. If Firefox can up its game and catch up with Brave on anti-fingerprinting, I’ll be using it all the time.
17 • The browser (by Dojnow on 2021-11-01 02:04:16 GMT from Bulgaria)
My favourite web browser is Konqueror. The second choice is Falkon.
18 • The One, The Only Browser (by Diane Bryant on 2021-11-01 02:08:52 GMT from United States)
Chrome shines!
19 • Iridium/Ungoogled _Chromium (by shep on 2021-11-01 02:13:53 GMT from United States)
For the privacy conscious, 2 projects use Chromium source and attempt to remove any code that reports back to Google; Iridium and Ungoogled-Chromium
https://iridiumbrowser.de/
https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium
Given the way trackers like to fingerprint browser + cookies, I rotate 3 Browsers; Firefox-esr, Ungoogled-Chromium and vimb. I use Firefox's "forget" button, Chromes clear history and Date is bookmarked while vimb has C-A-F to clean the whole thing out.
Theo DeRaadt also notes that the Chromium based browsers are more secure by virtue of being newer and more tightly integrated.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18491635
20 • lynx ftw (by lynx ftw on 2021-11-01 02:43:23 GMT from Vietnam)
lynx ftw
21 • Browsers (by Albert on 2021-11-01 02:59:03 GMT from United States)
Even though I answered Firefox in the poll (because I use it more frequently), the truth is that I also use Vivaldi and Brave. The latter seems to be the most serious when it comes to privacy matters.
22 • Favourite web browser (by bison on 2021-11-01 03:02:34 GMT from United States)
I've been using Basilisk for a few years now, but the ad blocker in Youtube stopped working about a year ago, and recently I have run across some page that will not render at all.
23 • Browsers (by Sam Crawford on 2021-11-01 03:08:22 GMT from United States)
I've switched all my browsers to Microsoft Edge. Even on linux it seems more polished than Chrome and I have the option in settings to choose "dark mode".
It also syncs with Edge on Widows, including history, bookmarks and extensions. Works well with Netflix on linux using the change user agent setting extension.
24 • @9 Pat Menendez (by Reinaldo Fernandez on 2021-11-01 03:20:10 GMT from Venezuela)
I can understand you want to promote Palemoon, but spreading false info about Firefox is, in my opinion, a bad way to do it.
Firefox and Chrome use DIFFERENT code, different build languages....I ask you to show us the proof that " Firefox is now rebranded Google Chrome, it;s built on the Google Chrome code, and should have been included under that heading in the article." as you claim
25 • Browsers (by dhinds on 2021-11-01 03:24:56 GMT from Mexico)
Try Slimjet
(It's what I use for navigating, but not for videos)
26 • Brave (by bison on 2021-11-01 03:29:32 GMT from United States)
Brave does not seem to be in the Debian or Ubuntu repositories -- does anyone know why?
27 • browsers (by X on 2021-11-01 05:00:56 GMT from United States)
I have tried several browsers over a very long time. I need one that performs well on many different platforms. One of the things I like about Brave, it does not use up my Android based cell phone battery like some others. It appears to work well on several operating systems and various processors. So far I am happy with the browser.
Is it as secure as the Brave website claims? I am not able to prove one or the other. Usually you find out after it is too late. I hope their goals are achieved.
So far I am happy with it. Most likely it will become the standard on all of ny equipment.
28 • Firefox still is the best (for me) - and Brave (by Torsten on 2021-11-01 05:42:24 GMT from Germany)
Myself, I still love Firefox and never had any real issues with that browser. OK, in 2015/16, it still had some problems, but not today anymore. And Brave also is great, fast and excellent. I mostly use Brave for Netflix, but Netflix also works great on Firefox as well. I don't trust Chrome very much, even when Chrome also is very fast.
29 • Midori Browser reborn (by Mark on 2021-11-01 05:52:24 GMT from Canada)
The countdown clock for the revamped Midori browser (for linux) shows only 1-day left until launch.
Countdown clock is here : astian.org/en/midori-browser/download/
30 • Tricks and Tips grep command error (by Head_on_a_Stick on 2021-11-01 05:57:55 GMT from United Kingdom)
The -l option for wc(1) counts the lines, I believe you wanted the -w option.
Or in one command with no pipes:
awk '/a/&&/e/&&/i/&&/o/&&/u/{SUM+=NF}END{print SUM}' /usr/share/dict/words
HTH
31 • Web browser (by nsp0323 on 2021-11-01 06:32:49 GMT from Sweden)
There should have been a none option. The modern landscape of web browsers it's a very sad one.
Surviving with the help of BadWolf and Lariza. Using Firefox as last resort and refusing to touch anything chromium based, which is basically anything else.
I wish brave was built on top of another engine but, unfortunately they just went with the same crap as everyone else.
Currenty, I use specific TUI applications to access some resources and try to do as much as possible without a browser. In a world of choice, the options are surprisingly limited.
32 • Web browser (by lx on 2021-11-01 07:30:27 GMT from Finland)
As another old Opera user, I'm still using Fifth as my main browser, though given the aging webkit port it can't render some sites anymore. For those I have to fire up Firefox.
33 • Browser (by GreginNC on 2021-11-01 07:39:30 GMT from United States)
I voted other since I use Waterfox although I might as well have voted Firefox since its the same browser just with some of the configurability Mozilla removed in the past restored. I guess I'm just hard to please if I cant have a menu bar across the top and tabs under the address bar rather than above I don't want to use it.
34 • browser (by user on 2021-11-01 07:44:48 GMT from Bulgaria)
My primary choice is MS Edge, plan B - Firefox, and nothing else matters to me.
35 • Brave (by Ano69 on 2021-11-01 07:46:50 GMT from Bulgaria)
I'm using mainly Brave for more than a year. The TOR browsing is very useful feature. And along the way, I made about $100 which certainly sweetened my experience.
36 • I am using three browsers (by linux-means-freedom on 2021-11-01 07:57:44 GMT from Germany)
Where is written that you can use only one web browser? I am using three Web browser.
1. Bravebrowser that's a great modern Browser.
2. Firefox have one possibility alone. To set, that all cookies, history and the whole cache are deleted automatically every time, you are closing the Firefox. I guess, Firefox is the only browser doing that. Tell me. if there is an other browser doing it too.
3. Chromium - I use it very rarely. Only then if something like logins don't work with Firefox or Brave.
37 • I paid for my browser (by Tech in San Diego on 2021-11-01 08:15:54 GMT from United States)
I met Marc Andreessen, (Netscape), when I was working for Silicon Graphics in San Jose, California. He had a small corner office in our building and we would occasionally have lunch together. He was working on a small project called the Mosaic Web Browser at the time. I never paid much attention to it as my division was focused on Digital Video which was much more exciting, besides I had my 9600 baud modem and was happily surfing the Lexus/Nexus bulletin boards. Those fancy GUI things will never take off.
When Netscape first launched you had to pay for it (commercial use), although you could get an "evaluation" copy pretty much in perpetuity. At the time browsers were fairly new, but it was Microsoft who saw the writing on the blackboard and decided to bundle their new browser, "Internet Explorer" with the operating system, and it was free! After that it was game on and the browser wars, (and lawsuits), ensued. We have come a long way since those early days and at last count there are more than 50 browsers still in existence although many of them are dormant or no longer in development.
I continue to use Firefox as my primary browser and have Chromium, Opera and Konqueror installed for certain other tasks. Firefox is the spiritual successor to Mosaic/Netscape. I have stuck with Firefox even through the tough times when it was so slow to load compared to Chromium on Linux. It's much better now and with 3 or 4 extensions and a VPN, I can get my work done and feel somewhat secure.
The story of browsers dating back to the dawn of the Web.
https://foxkeh.com/downloads/history/history-foxkeh.pdf
38 • Gnome Web (epiphany) (by mircea on 2021-11-01 08:35:48 GMT from Moldova)
I use Gnome Web(epiphany) with configs from arch wiki...
I configured adblocker for it, and it is pretty stable for me.
I usually work with only a few tabs, so I have no problems with it.
but when you open many tabs it can be unstable...
which I avoid doing, mostly cause I use pomodoro technique and try to stay focused...
39 • browser wars, 2021 (by papapito on 2021-11-01 09:00:16 GMT from Australia)
Not the linux distro chat I was hoping for... but anyway, it has been a quiet week.
for me, Librewolf and FFDE get 99% of my daily browsing needs covered. I had no luck with Brave, either in linux, windows, android phone or android tablet. I lost more than I found and I hate the whole BAT part.
Vivaldi is great, it allows you to choose how much you want it to integrate with your online day by optional rss and email integration on desktop. That was great for me but useless on android, I didn't see the need to add another app for email as it was the main thing I liked about vivaldi.
I would love for something like lagrange to be my go to. but all these people adding too much formatting to sites kinda kills gemini and gopher :/
40 • Firefox is the only remaining major independent browser (by Lova on 2021-11-01 09:10:38 GMT from Sweden)
One thing that I find is worth mentioning, and keeping in mind when selecting a browser, is that basically all other major browsers (Chrome, Edge, Brave, Vivaldi, etc) are based on Chromium, Blink and V8.
Firefox is the last major, surviving, competing web engine, after Edge also switched to Chromium.
In my opinion, it's important to have competition when it comes to browser tech. That's my sole reason for always sticking to Firefox, even through the days when many people switched to Chrome due to its performance advantage. Nowadays it's a more equal playing field, due to Firefox having caught up in most areas.
The day Firefox does not exist anymore, which I fear will eventually happen, is a sad day for the free web.
41 • Palemoon for the rest of my life (by Bobo on 2021-11-01 09:11:23 GMT from Italy)
Well, I got so addicted to some (admittedly, minor) features of good old firefox (< 57) (like live bookmarks, littlefox XUL addon, and other) that when they removed all of these I got lost but then Palemoon came in to rescue me!
I developed software for almost 40 years now and one of the most important lessons I learned is: for how many new features you may add to your product, never remove any existing one because there will always be customers which will miss them and will be dissatisfied and will ditch not only your product but even your brand!
42 • Browsers (by Someguy on 2021-11-01 09:44:01 GMT from United Kingdom)
Used to use Opera even when a subscription was required. For shear speed and instant need-to-know Dillo with all it's limitations can be useful. Mostly default to the dark side with FF, but might give Brave a try especially as it might be possible to remove those highly objectionable 3CX ads at the top of DW index page but without the downside!
43 • dillo -l (by john on 2021-11-01 09:50:58 GMT from United States)
hmm....
I use dillo -l . Works perfectly. No crap.
I am using is on this site now.
John
44 • @Jesse - web browsers (by Ostro on 2021-11-01 09:51:51 GMT from Poland)
Why not MS Edge in the list of reviews? The stable for Linux is already available. http://packages.microsoft.com/repos/edge/pool/main/m/microsoft-edge-stable/microsoft-edge-stable_95.0.1020.38-1_amd64.deb
45 • Word count and Edge (by Jesse on 2021-11-01 10:05:13 GMT from Canada)
@30: >> "The -l option for wc(1) counts the lines, I believe you wanted the -w option."
No, I wanted the -l option. The dictionary places one word per line and grep deals with lines. The "wc -l" will show how many words there were because there is one word per line.
@44: "Why not MS Edge in the list of reviews?"
Because it's proprietary. I skipped it for the same reason I skipped all the other closed source Chrome clones.
46 • Brave (by Vuk on 2021-11-01 10:11:18 GMT from Serbia)
I tried using Brave but it's eating a lot of memory compared to plain Chromium, Brave extension regularly goes over 200MB, even reaching 300MB, similar to main process as well, and it's adblocking is inferior to Ublock Origin.
So it's Chromium with Ublock Origin for me.
Also you don't have to use default light theme that is low contrast for you, you can switch to GTK theme which will use system GTK theme
47 • Brave Browser open-source? (by notsobrave on 2021-11-01 10:36:22 GMT from United Kingdom)
If Brave Browser is free software, why has it not been packaged by the major Linux distributions like Firefox has? It's been around more than long enough for that to happen, but it hasn't.
48 • Browsers (by Tennessee on 2021-11-01 10:41:52 GMT from United States)
I have used Firefox for a couple of years now and also use it with it's native Wayland support. Using Sway WM and it works great in that environment. I do not know the status of all the others Wayland support but for now, I have no need to change.
49 • Brave builds (by Jesse on 2021-11-01 10:42:42 GMT from Canada)
@47: >> "If Brave Browser is free software, why has it not been packaged by the major Linux distributions like Firefox has?"
Probably because Brave already packages its browser for Linux. Having the same package built and distributed by Linux distributions would be a lot of duplication of effort with almost no benefit. Brave already has Linux-compatible repositories, so why would a distro duplicate the work of making the package? The source code and license can be found here: https://github.com/brave/brave-browser
50 • @ 45 web browsers (by Ostro on 2021-11-01 10:50:56 GMT from Poland)
How many users can read the source code and manipulate the applications? This is about how good a browser for the user, rather than whether it is source is open or not. Brave earns money by re-selling, or re-introducing ads, while Vivaldi has certain parts proprietary, and it's default search engine is Bing. Chrome is not open source too, at least certain parts. Chromium is sort of open source, but created by Google, and that is for a reason. More web browsers use Chromium as a base is good for Google. Just like the time, when everything Windows was available as pirate copies for few $s all over the world -- the result was the addition to MS products.
At the beginning, I was sceptical too on MS Edge, but more I use it, I find that it is superior to all other browsers. I keep Firefox as a substitute browser, but never gets a chance to use it. :)
51 • Browsers antiX 21 (by Hank on 2021-11-01 11:12:26 GMT from Germany)
Palemoon and ungoogled chromium are my top picks
AntiX 21 has a choice of init, SysV or Runit, available at download site.
Now posting from the 64 bit runit edition. Been testing and enjoying the experience for last couple of months.
AntiX looks a bit plain and sort of dated, be sure it is highly customisable and stable.
Good forum too.
52 • Pale Moon and Ungoogled-Chromium (by a on 2021-11-01 11:12:44 GMT from France)
I’ve been using exclusively Pale Moon for a few years because it has the configurability of old versions of Firefox without most of the annoyances that were added along the years.
However the number of incompatible websites seems to be growing and it is quite slow sometimes too (on youtube most notably) so I started using Ungoogled-Chromium for these. Chromium is a bit of a pain to configure though, and even with the dark reader addon all the settings pages are still white :-/. So I only use it as a backup.
Brave seems interesting; I thought it was closed-source. I might try it on my phone instead of Privacy Browser… Or even on my desktop instead of Ungoogled-Chromium if it’s easier to configure.
53 • Firefox (by penguinx86 on 2021-11-01 11:19:20 GMT from United States)
I am a die hard Firefox user for several reasons. I am concerned about privacy. Google and Microsoft sure don't care about my privacy with Chrome browser or Edge. Anybody remember the pre Y2k browser wars, where evil Microsoft tried to kill Netscape Navigator? Firefox is Mozilla's continuation of Netscape Navigator. I feel like I'm giving Microsoft a kick in the pants every time I use Firefox. It's Mozilla's Revenge!
54 • Be Brave (by Shouso on 2021-11-01 11:43:48 GMT from Indonesia)
I love brave on first sight a years ago, and one of my default browser on every system.
55 • @53 penguinx86: (by dragonmouth on 2021-11-01 12:22:58 GMT from United States)
To achieve privacy, do you make the necessary changes in about:config to sever Google's intrusive tentacles?
56 • Browsers (by Ashe on 2021-11-01 13:15:59 GMT from Hungary)
Chrome-based browsers: some are usable, some are less so, some try to be so obsessively unique that they forgot that they are browsers; SLIMJET's the best browser nowadays imho.
PaleMoon is also pretty good, its looks are somewhat dated, but likeable. The plugin/extension system is quite limited though, so you have to accept that, or hack some older Firefox plugins; I saved (i.e. copied) the old cache/install directory of some Firefox plugins from before Palemoon stopped supporting them, and use those -- they still work.
That being said, Firefox and its scions are quite usable (but I never had the 'oh, I love it' epiphany with them), the only thing I don't get, is the hype. It's a browser.
57 • Browsers (by crayola-eater on 2021-11-01 13:21:58 GMT from United States)
And here I was thinking that I was possibly only the one using Falkon as my day to day browser. I am forced to use a more mainstream browser for banking (etc), and choose Firefox in those instances, primarily for it's compatibility
My true broswer of choice however is Opera Legacy (or old Opera). I have yet to ever test a new browser and have it come up to the bar that Opera set back in the day. Alas, DistroWatch is about the only commonly visited website (besides an old mobile text portal to my email that has not been pulled yet) that works flawlessly with it.
Qupzilla/Falkon came to the closest with regards to weight and usability. Of the others, I have to say that Brave seems to be the best of that crop, but alas they, as most others, have bypassed 32bit, which I also cling to for it's weight and speed.
So as long as AntiX keeps putting out their runit 32bit iso, I'll be staying with Falkon for the daily work, and dream that xombrero was able to run on the latest versions of Debian. (Yes, I have tried qutebrowser, it didn't stick.)
58 • Word count (by Head_on_a_Stick on 2021-11-01 13:42:54 GMT from United Kingdom)
@45 > No, I wanted the -l option.
Ah well in which case you should probably familiarise yourself with grep's -c option, that will give a line count without the need to pipe to wc(1).
Just apply it to the last grep command if you're still attatched to the notion of running several commands where just onbe would do the same job :-)
59 • Browsers that will enable watching DRM-protected TV shows (by Ted H in Minnesota on 2021-11-01 13:57:58 GMT from United States)
I used to use Firefox but something bothered me about it. Since I haven't used it for some time, I forget what bothered me. I switched to Pale Moon and a couple of others then that were trim and fast. But to watch CBS shows protected by DRM, only Firefox on my MX linux boxes, and Chrome OS's browser on my chromebook will enable me to watch them.
If any of you know some other browser(s) that will run DRM-protected TV shows, please let me know.
Ted H
60 • grep and wc (by Jesse on 2021-11-01 14:03:57 GMT from Canada)
@58: Yes, I'm well aware of the "grep -c" option. However, the point of the exercise is putting together multiple commands that each does a clear thing, building examples of how commands work, not finding the most efficient way of doing something.
61 • Gnome Web (by John on 2021-11-01 14:03:01 GMT from Canada)
-- "GNOME Web crashed more often than a car driven by a blindfolded monkey" HAHAHHAHAHAHAH So true!
62 • GNOME Web (by AAA on 2021-11-01 14:16:30 GMT from Iran)
My favorite web browser is GNOME Web, because it is really beautiful, small, simple, light-weight, and can handle most of the daily usage of any user.
63 • browsers, and other thing (by about browsers on 2021-11-01 14:20:04 GMT from Hungary)
1. Big thank you! There are browsers that were unknown for me.E.g. LibreWolf. It's something like Palemoon, but I will read about more. And give it a try.
In my opinion if something is importan it's privacy, and chomre's spying (ggl) is unadmittable. So a Firefox without unnecessary ggl things looks so good: search-engines like Qwant, Searx gives opntion to avoid that.
2. If an OpenBSD is out, shortly a Fuguita is out; and now you are fast to mention :)
3. MakuluLinux Droid (android) new ISO is out ;)
4. Trident - I'm sad, rare one was.
5. What about logo? Will there be a change? Will there be included other free opsys in title?
64 • Uzbl (by Sitwon on 2021-11-01 14:41:17 GMT from United States)
I remember having very high hopes for Uzbl. Unfortunately, it wasn't. Still, it was a very good effort. Maybe something similar will make a re-appearance some day.
https://www.uzbl.org/
65 • Tracking (by Friar Tux on 2021-11-01 14:51:10 GMT from Canada)
I find it interesting the amount of tracking/privacy/data collection comments here. Does anyone really know what is being collected/tracked? Google, et al, really have no idea who you really are. All they know is what you search for and click on. They know nothing about ME. They don't know my likes and dislikes. Nothing. Yes, they know I shop at a certain stores - which allows them to give me options I prefer rather than cluttering up my pages with stuff I will never use. To me, the tracking/data collection is a non-issue - meh. I find there is as much "privacy" in a browser/on the web as there is in a physical crowd of people on the street.
I use Vivaldi as my go-to browser, BUT, I use Google as my search engine. Google gives the best results. They know my search parameters and their search suggestion are for stuff I prefer, not useless clutter I would never use. I have tried DuckDuckGo and StartPage but I get too much clutter - like wading through a garbage dump to find the stuff I need. Google has it all laid out nicely like a department store. Google gives me results from my local area. DDG and StartPage have sent me to Europe and the Southern US for things. (Once with StartPage, looking for pizza, I got results from some town in South Africa. I'm sure the delivery would cost a bit.)
Anyway, my point is tracking and data collection are an integral part of web searching, not the spying angst it is made out to be. Also, IF what you're searching for would shame your grandmother then it is YOU that has to change not the search engine/company.
66 • Brave is typically in your distro's repo... (by Mike W on 2021-11-01 14:57:47 GMT from United States)
@notsobrave ....at least, its in MX Linux's repo. I think it was also in Linux Mint's repo
67 • grep -P (by lbe on 2021-11-01 14:59:21 GMT from India)
As another alternative if PCRE option is available, you can use lookarounds.
grep -cP '^(?=.*a)(?=.*e)(?=.*i)(?=.*o).*u'
68 • @26 (by Tad Strange on 2021-11-01 15:08:58 GMT from Canada)
For Ubuntu, at any rate, I found Brave in the software center as a Snap.
I'll try that version, to test both the browser and another snap app..
I've used Firefox since before it was Firefox, and while I don't care for the UI changes, it still does the job. Funny - I never really made note of the tab scrolling until it was mentioned above. I'm bad for leaving tabs open rather than bookmarking. Bit me in the butt awhile ago when a firefox update shut them all down (my session got scrubbed for some reason).
I use Chrome at work because we are a Google Workspace shop, with Chromecast devices, and I've never found Chromium (on linux) to work well or consistently with the Chromecast.
All of the privacy talk reminds of The Privacy Song, by 3 Dead Trolls in a Baggie.
69 • @Jesse - Brave browser (by Ostro on 2021-11-01 15:19:21 GMT from Poland)
OK, I installed Brave browser to check it up. Can you tell us how to get rid of the 'Brave rewards' button at the end of the search bar? I never read ads sent by any web site, also never look at crypto-currency. The "content creators" Brave mentions, would never be those I'd ever look at. Also, I don't mind getting rid of the 'cards' too in the new tab.
70 • Browsers (by Justin Ridgers on 2021-11-01 16:00:09 GMT from United States)
I too did some hopping around looking for a new browser recently. I used to use Firefox for years, but more and more sites that I visit had issues in Firefox. Overall, Firefox felt a little sluggish too. I have to use Chrome at work and I like it in that area since they use Google for Workspaces - everything just ties in nicely. I ended up going with Safari on my MacBook Air M1 as the battery life and performance is great. Safari is NOT my favorite but it gets the job done. My Linux system currently has Epiphany on it, which would be great if it only had a bookmark bar!
71 • the browser landscape (by cert on 2021-11-01 16:01:12 GMT from United States)
Perhaps there are browsers that are my least anti-favorite, but no more than that.
72 • Browsers (by Tuxedoar on 2021-11-01 16:20:10 GMT from Argentina)
I use two web browsers for may daily needs:
1) Firefox
2) Chromium
Even though I prefer (by far) Firefox as my daily driver, sometimes, I've to use Chromium whenever some compatibility problem arise!. Usually, that happens when I've to use some videoconferencing platform.
In my case, one of the main reasons for continuing using Firefox is that, AFAIK, it's the only web browser with security updates support, available in Debian!. Also, because I've privacy concerns with other web browsers. In addition, in general, I don't have stabillity nor performance issues with Firefox.
However, I have the following issues when using Firefox:
1) Since I use an ESR version of Firefox, that means having to use an outdated version of it!.
2) Firefox doesn't have hardware acceleration support for multimedia playback, on my hardware . Therefore, playing videos on YT is pretty much unbearable due to almost %100 CPU constant consumption!. Most probably, this is related with reason #1.
3) As I mentioned before, sometimes I experience compatibility issues with videoconferencing platforms.
Cheers!.-
73 • Counting words (by Head_on_a_Stick on 2021-11-01 16:28:09 GMT from United Kingdom)
@60: > the point of the exercise is putting together multiple commands that each does a clear thing, building examples of how commands work, not finding the most efficient way of doing something
And the point of telling people about grep's -c option is to help them use the correct tool for the job. Piping to wc is completely pointless for your example so why even suggest it?
74 • Brave (by Jesse on 2021-11-01 16:33:04 GMT from Canada)
@69: "Can you tell us how to get rid of the 'Brave rewards' button at the end of the search bar?"
Go to Settings, click Appearance, click Hide Brave Rewards Button.
"Also, I don't mind getting rid of the 'cards' too in the new tab."
Click the options button at the bottom of the New Tab screen and you can customize just about every aspect of the page.
75 • wc and grep (by Jesse on 2021-11-01 16:44:13 GMT from Canada)
@73: >> "the point of telling people about grep's -c option is to help them use the correct tool for the job."
It's one correct tool for the job. However, it's not better or worse than other tools. You might be thinking "But using -c on grep saves the user from running an extra command." Which is entirely right and I get why you'd use it. Now try to keep in mind what I'm doing here with these articles isn't trying to show people the most efficient way to do something, but an approachable way to do them.
>> "Piping to wc is completely pointless for your example so why even suggest it?"
It's not pointless in my example. Conceptionally, most people have an easier time thinking of different programs accomplishing different things. in this case "grep" for finding things and "wc" for counting things.
Telling people to pipe to "wc -l" accomplishes the exact same thing as "grep -c", takes the same amount of time, and has the bonus of introducing another tool (wc in this case) people can explore and use. It does the same thing, takes the same amount of time, and provides a new utility for beginners to use. Adding more options to an existing command doesn't do that and is less approachable conceptionally.
It's like if I'm teaching an intro to programming class and explain functions and then introduce procedures. Someone could say "Why tell people about procedures, why not just use void functions?" Which is valid, but it's not giving the students a new tool or concept to work with.
76 • Missing Mosaic.. (by Otis on 2021-11-01 16:58:26 GMT from United States)
..the great project it was. But Mozilla is doing okay with FF as long as they stay configurable in the (potential and real) intrusive/spying/spamming/exploitive data mining areas. Etc.
77 • qutebrowser (by Luke on 2021-11-01 16:58:47 GMT from United States)
I chose Firefox, but I do have a special place in my heart for qutebrowser and its vi-like keybindings. I don't know how it fares these days but a few years ago I used it quite heavily and enjoyed it!
78 • Brave Browser (by bittermann on 2021-11-01 16:59:03 GMT from United States)
I was on Firefox when they doubled down on controversial political crap, then switched to Edge Chrome since Google Chrome seemed even worse for tracking. Finally went to the Brave browser and haven't look back.
79 • @74 Brave web browser (by Ostro on 2021-11-01 17:15:32 GMT from Poland)
"Settings > Appearance > Hide Brave Rewards Button" doesn't hide the Brave Rewards button. It never gets hidden. And, after a few minutes, the blue sign comes over it asking for attention.
The Customize button at the bottom, of course, opens a menu, but the cards cannot be disabled permanently.
"By turning off Cards, all cards currently visible will be hidden. However, you may still be notified of new cards."
Brave browser is sort of invasive.
80 • Brave (by Jesse on 2021-11-01 17:21:05 GMT from Canada)
@79: >> "the Brave Rewards button. It never gets hidden. And, after a few minutes, the blue sign comes over it asking for attention."
Yes, the option I mentioned hides the rewards button. I tested it and confirmed it works. I've got it hidden on my machine. I've never seen a "blue sign" in Brave.
>> "The Customize button at the bottom, of course, opens a menu, but the cards cannot be disabled permanently."
This is not accurate. I've been using Brave for a couple of months now and the cards never come back.
It seems you've got something else going on with your browser, maybe an extension or something. What you're describing isn't normal for Brave usage.
81 • Firefox / Palemoon for me (by Jyrki on 2021-11-01 17:26:39 GMT from Czechia)
I use Firefox, because it's everywhere (BSDs, mobile, Linux, Windows). But whereever Palemoon is available, I prefer to use it
82 • Brave Browser (by Walrus on 2021-11-01 17:34:08 GMT from France)
About a year ago the Unix Sheikh pubished a review of a whole bunch of web browsers...
https://www.unixsheikh.com/articles/choose-your-browser-carefully.html
... in which Brave didn't look at all good with regards to privacy:
"The Brave browser is often recommended by people as a privacy-respecting alternative to both Firefox and Chrome, but this is a mistake. Brave is no better that the alternatives."
"People are being mislead by the empty promises of privacy. Brave not only also "phones home" it also hijacks links and insert affiliate codes, which was found out by Cryptonator1337 on Twitter. Furthermore the "anonymously monitoring of user attention" and "rewards publishers accordingly with Basic Attention Token (BAT) crypto currency" is not something that should be recommended."
"Another privacy issue that was discovered regarding Brave was that clearing the history doesn't remove "Top Sites" on the new tab page."
"No, the Brave browser is not a privacy-respecting browser."
83 • @80 Jesse (by Ostro on 2021-11-01 17:39:54 GMT from Poland)
I just installed Brave after reading your article, so it is the newest and just few hours old on my laptop. Version 1.31.88 Chromium: 95.0.4638.69 (Official Build) (64-bit)
84 • Firefox (by tom on 2021-11-01 17:45:12 GMT from Luxembourg)
Firefox is the only remaining major independent browser
Rubbish it is paid for by google
85 • Browsers: Links2, Palemoon (by K.U. on 2021-11-01 17:52:48 GMT from Finland)
I love Links2 because it is the fastest graphical browser i have found for my otherwise slow armhf laptop. Contrary to other browsers, Links2 caches web pages in their rendered form. Consequently, it can move between cached pages instantaneously, while other browsers may spend a lot of time while rendering.
Pale Moon is nice too. I recommend it for those who liked ancient versions of Firefox. The uBlock Origin addon makes it faster on some advertisment loaded webpages. There is an armhf version of Pale Moon too.
I would like to try Brave, but I have not found a version for armhf.
86 • LibreWolf (by Andy Prough on 2021-11-01 17:55:44 GMT from Switzerland)
LibreWolf uses the fewest CPU and memory resources of any major browser I've tested. With the "Chameleon" extension, LibreWolf's anti-fingerprinting is superior to Brave's in the tests I've run.
I personally like Brave quite a bit, but would recommend taking a close look at LibreWolf as well. I've found a small handful of websites that will only run on a chromium-based browser for some reason, so it's good to always have Brave available even if it's not your main browser.
87 • One forgot to mention Opera (by William on 2021-11-01 21:54:12 GMT from Belgium)
The Otter is not Opera. I'm since 1995 100% linux. Moved since back in the days from Netscape to Firefox to Opera. Tried to play with Midori (also not in the list), as well as Brave and Vivaldi. No luck for them with me. Beside Opera I use Qutebrowser (also not on the list) as a secondary browser. So in the end. Everything I like isn't an option to choose.
Absolute number 1 = Opera. Number 2 = Qutebrowser. Number 3 = if I really need to choose, Midori.
88 • Brave window placement (by bison on 2021-11-01 22:30:37 GMT from United States)
I'm trying out Brave, and it's doing its own window management, cascading new windows down and to the right. Is there any way to disable this?
89 • Left Brave for Vivaldi and (heresy) MS-Edge (by 1-DOT.com on 2021-11-01 23:11:12 GMT from United States)
I have been a longtime Brave browser user but I always had to keep Chrome or Firefox available for certain web sites. Brave javascript forms rendering is often broken on major sites like ZDNET, Meetup and financial sites. So, I moved on to Vivaldi and have not looked back.
However, the now "stable" MS-Edge is lighter and faster than any of these and has new features lacking in other browsers:
(1) press F9 from a web page to trigger "built-in" (no extension required) a great "reader mode" with adjustable background, width, font size, etc.
(2) make your favorite web pages into fullscreen "pseudo apps" with their own panel icons.
So, I am using MS-Edge more and more but I still like Vivaldi for other features.
While FOSS purists may scoff, I prefer using the best free tools available over any misplaced tech ideology and dogma.
90 • RE: 69 Brave Browser (by ladislav on 2021-11-01 23:18:11 GMT from Taiwan)
>> The "content creators" Brave mentions, would never be those I'd ever look at.
Well, one of the "content creators" Brave mentions is DistroWatch.com.
Judging by the number of comments you post here every week, you not only do look at a Brave-mentioned website, you actually spend an enormous amount of time on it.
91 • Browsers, main/favourite vs backup (by TheTKS on 2021-11-02 03:02:25 GMT from Canada)
Firefox is my main browser on all devices on all OSs. It best suits the way I use a browser, and it's the one I best understand how to configure the way I want.
This is despite things Mozilla has done that are goofy or that I object to, and FF occasionally not working as well as other browsers on some sites. I've seen Chromium-based browsers also not work as well as FF on some sites, and eventually FF ends up working on sites I visit regularly. For anything that Mozilla has done with FF that I object to, so far I have always been able to find a way around it.
I always have at least one secondary browser on all devices and OSs. Sometimes I can't wait for FF to work right again on a particular site.
Secondary browsers are mostly Chromium on my Linux and BSD devices, but also (depending on the device and OS) Brave, Ungoogled Chromium, Iridium or Falkon; on my workplace Windows laptop and smartphone, Edge if I have to (we're a Microsoft shop), and Chrome as an absolutely last resort.
Lynx for text browsing.
TKS
92 • Falkon, Otter, QtWebEngine (by TheTKS on 2021-11-02 03:16:55 GMT from Canada)
@Jesse re "My previous long-term browser, Falkon, appears to have been discontinued two years ago"
I like Falkon, but also became wary of it after awhile, since there seemed to be no updates or new releases since 2019. However, after recently reading in more than one place comments like @15 shep's ("Falkon is a front end for the Qt version of Webkit... As long as webkit gets security upgrades and does not add any new ABI's, Falkon should be fine to use"), I started trying it out again.
Then I saw over the last year that there has been QtWebEngine and Falkon github activity, they announced switching from freenode to libera, the snap was updated, and a flatpak is (may be?) available.
It looks like there is ongoing work on both QtWebEngine and Falkon, but nobody from the Falkon project seems to be saying much about it. So, is it active and up to date, or isn't it? I'm going to keep using it for non-critical use until I can figure that out.
@Jesse "Otter would crash immediately when opening almost any website"
I also liked Otter, but I was at the point where I believed I already had enough diversity of browsers. I haven't tried it in a couple of years, but don't remember any having crashing problems then.
TKS
93 • Brave Browser (by tom0mason on 2021-11-02 03:45:06 GMT from United Kingdom)
My default browser is SeaMonkey, a nice old school suite of internet applications. Has worked fine for me for many years.
94 • Brave Browser (by TKO on 2021-11-02 04:19:09 GMT from United States)
I think it is pretty cool my distro (pclinuxos) maintains a collection of over 20 browsers in their software repository. After trying them all I give the Brave Browser 2 thumbs up.
95 • Browsers (by denflen on 2021-11-02 04:33:35 GMT from United States)
Best comparison review of browsers ever. I have always used a combination of Chrome, Chromium, and Firefox or a version of Firefox. However, after reading this fine review, I am all in for trying Brave. And with coupled with TOR, I'm all in!
96 • Browser (by prima on 2021-11-02 05:21:41 GMT from Indonesia)
I use Palemoon, GetemAll is a must have for me, an addon/fork that work 100% like good old DownThemAll on the old firefox. I don't like downthemall as webextension.
97 • FF/Google/eBay (by Sondar on 2021-11-02 07:37:39 GMT from United Kingdom)
Annoying Firefox-Google tie-up extends to eBay. Sometimes, I look at a possible purchase on eBay, do not proceed but hold it temporarily in the tray. Cheeky blighters email me via Gmail in expectation of promoting a sale and securing their 10%. Not amused! Not sure if this could be avoided with Brave or other? To be honest, only maintain Gmail as a repository for info & deals that I don't wish to invoke via my more personal email client (which is NOT the FF bundled Tbird). Are we just looking at exploitation & incest amongst these capitalist giants? Back to two tin cans and a length of string...
98 • @90 (by Ostro on 2021-11-02 07:54:10 GMT from Poland)
I rarely comment here, nowadays. I don't usually open DWW the first thing on Monday morning like those olden times (yesterday was a holiday here). These days, I usually skim through. I'm not interested in distro hopping anymore. The article on Brave interested me enough to read it through and then install Brave browser. So, the comments, actually asking questions from the writer.
- The triangle icon, which seeks attention with an additional blue icon over it from time to time, cannot be deleted/uninstalled.
- There's no history drop down menu, only available in the new tab,
- You can't put any icon in the white space on the right of the search bar.
- The bookmarks icon cannot be moved to the right side of the search bar, s in all other web browsers.
Brave is fast alright, but that's not enough. Firefox is quite fast these days. Edge is even faster. In the question of freedom, I don't think Brave is better than Firefox. In the matter of options, Firefox is much better than Brave.
99 • I prefer Firefox, but I wish the Mozilla folks, could fix 1) Logins 2) Bookmarks (by Jeffersonian on 2021-11-02 10:31:50 GMT from Poland)
I prefer Firefox, with a few buts, I wish the Mozilla folks, could fix:
1) Login, on a train/bus in Europe, in Hotels in the USA, where more often than not FIrefox, just does NOT allow login. In these instances, Google Chrome always worked ! Wondering is there is a published standard protocol... and if FF could comply with it.
2) The format of the bookmarks : Firefox, unlike Chrome, Brave (and derivatives) used SQLite, where others use anothe format. SQlite, seems like a good idea, but saving and restoring the same bookmarks to another browser has issues: some bookmarks, just disappear, etc...
In spite of the likely superiority, for better compatibility with the Chrome and derivatives, I wish FF offers the option to NOT use SQLite, and rather the same format directly or through some software bridge etc... for better compatibilty.
This topic, I realize is complex... and so far unsatifactory, ideally the FOSS folks, one day will comme with a better format for bookmarks, as a database external to the browser itself, so it can be saved, worked on and used by severaol browsers on the same (or multiple) machine.
Thanks,
100 • @97 Sondar: (by dragonmouth on 2021-11-02 11:36:04 GMT from United States)
"Annoying Firefox-Google tie-up extends to eBay."
It is possible to sever that connection by editing about:config. Off the top of my head I don't remember the particular keys but an 'Net search can find the answers.
As a matter of habit, I delete any mention of Google addresses in about:config.
101 • Browsers (by Angel on 2021-11-02 12:25:46 GMT from Philippines)
I tried Brave sometime ago. Must not have made a great impression, since I deleted it and can't remember a particular reason. Tried again after reading the review, and: Mornings, after I pour my coffee, I read the news, starting with Yahoo! Brave stopped loading the page partway down. Reloading or restarting didn't help. I suppose I could try and find out why, but since I have 4 other browsers that load the page fine, I saw no point. Deleted again! Speed? All my browsers are fast enough.
@97, FF/Google/eBay. Can't see what Firefox has to do with getting emails from eBay. You probably logged in to eBay with that email address at some point, and unwittingly gave it permission to email you. Happens all the time regardless of browser. I have four email addresses, and will only log in to trusted sites with any of them, making sure I uncheck any boxes asking permissions for anything. If by any reason I miss one (Which can happen.) I immediately unsubscribe after the first email. Any other site that requires a login gets a pass, or I use a throwaway address if needed. I have no such problems as you state.
I also use four browsers for different uses. Chrome is always logged in and synced for convenience. Firefox is logged in to another gmail account, and used sparingly. Edge is logged in and synced with Microsoft. Waterfox gets occasional use. For banking I run a dedicated VM with Firefox. Could be any browser, but Firefox is there by default. No effort to avoid fingerprinting, since that would cause my banks' software to put me through 20 questions or, God forbid, pass me on to a human when it doesn't recognize my device.
102 • Firefox additional tools (by Yusuf on 2021-11-02 14:19:17 GMT from Turkey)
Jesse: "I don't need account syncing, suggested sites, and file sharing tools.".
Personally, those are among the many reasons I go on with Firefox.
103 • Browsers (by Ken on 2021-11-02 15:01:57 GMT from United States)
@93 I used Seamonkey for a while back in college. I keep wanting to go back, but if I use it, I want to use the email component too, not just the browser (what's the point of using a suite if you don't use multiple parts?). The lack of OpenPGP support is a deal-breaker though. If Seamonkey can fix that, I'll happily give it another go.
I've been a Firefox/Iceweasel user for a long time. I've never liked Chrome, and still find it uncomfortable to use.
104 • links2 browser in graphical mode (by Andy Prough on 2021-11-02 15:03:39 GMT from Switzerland)
@85 - Hi K.U., thanks for the tip about using links2 in graphical mode! Since reading your comment yesterday I've been enjoying this great little browser. To open it in graphical mode just enter the command 'links2 -g distrowatch.com' (here I've used DW as an example).
Seems like a better browsing experience to me than w3m in graphical mode. I noticed that running on lower-graphics websites like DW results in only about 5mb of memory used, which is quite impressive.
105 • ffmpeg - it is faster when you copy the audio portions (by Arne on 2021-11-02 15:21:42 GMT from Germany)
In the example it is better to use the "-c copy" option to let ffmpeg copy the audio part. Without this option it converts(!) the audio from source to destination which takes much longer of course than just copying the part.
This works only when the format of the audio part is the same in source and destination.
ffmpeg -i original-file.mp3 -ss 2 -to 211 -c copy new-file.mp3
106 • Modern browsers. (by R. Cain on 2021-11-02 15:59:45 GMT from United States)
Let me start out by saying that I am not a Luddite; I own and use two very high-powered, 'modern' laptops. But...
...as one who absolutely refuses to throw a good piece of hardware away simply because it's not the "...latest, and therefor MUST be the greatest and best...", my biggest concern is that browser developers feel they must produce offerings which use every last ounce of capability provided by these "...latest, greatest, newest, fastest..." machines.
I can do no better than repeat what Jesse had to say in his "Feature Story"---
"..."Around 15 years ago I often recommended Firefox because it was "just a web browser". It handled bookmarks and web browsing and little else. Firefox 1.0 was much lighter and faster than many other browsers at the time because it was "just a browser"...
It handled bookmarks and web browsing and little else. Firefox 1.0 was much lighter and faster than many other browsers at the time because it was "just a browser" and didn't cram in an e-mail client, torrent client, sync options, ActiveX support, and so on..."...
[I would like to add that I started using Firefox at around the same time, for precisely the same reasons]
and, lastly (from Jesse)...
"..."I'm also not thrilled with how much functionality Mozilla tries to cram into Firefox."
[I'm certain that the same can be said of almost all current, modern browsers]
All I need is, as Jesse so eloquently put it, is ""...just a browser..." for my EeePC 1000, my Acer AO751h (one of the hardest-working, most reliable computers I've ever owned), and others which have proved---in most respects---to be more than the equal of what's available today.
Has it not occurred to a lot of you (who use your machines mainly for "surfing") that one of the reasons, if not the biggest reason for the lack of capability in your---otherwise---latest, greatest, fastest machine can be traced directly to the VERY bloated browser which you use?
(And, counter-intuitively, has it not occurred to you that you do NOT use MOST of those glitzy features which the purveyors of "modern" browsers tell you they have, and that you NEED?)
*****************************************************************************************
Why is there never any mention regarding the absolute size of any of these current-day browsers; of how much 'room' they take up?
This factor is NOT inconsequential, and the browser is the one application which is used most of the time (by a lot, if not most, users), and which consumes the most resources.
On a related note, I would like to see a comparison of the best small, lightweight browsers for use on limited-resource computers...if such things even exists any more.
"The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it."--- Mark Twain
107 • Firefox & Brave (by eganonoa on 2021-11-02 16:20:54 GMT from Netherlands)
As others above, I use firefox and brave in combination. Firefox, with its amazing Multi-Account Containers extension, is absolutely perfect for accessing accounts (email, banks, online office, etc.). You can really lock it down and make random browsing horrible, while accessing your online accounts in a series of near-standalone browsers. Then Brave is so easy to turn into a random browsing, watching and VOIP machine. Put the shields up, have it wipe all cookies, history, etc, when closed and have a super-fast browser for your general internet usage. Nice segregation that makes the most of of the respective strengths of the browsers. Of course, by directing VOIP and streaming to Brave, that still plays into the general trend towards Chromium-based dominance. But I find it to be a nice way of doing things.
108 • Palemoon (by Nematoad on 2021-11-02 16:40:41 GMT from United Kingdom)
I moved away from Firefox after they brought in all that "Australis" stuff. I hated the way that Mozilla was going so I looked for another browser. After a few false starts I settled on Palemoon. It suits me and I am surprised that it has been ignored in the article and relegated to the status of "other" in the poll.
For those who have not come across it Palemoon is Firefox without a lot of the bloat and fluff that seems to have crept into Firefox. Watch out for the forum though, it's not the friendliest of places, at least in my experience. But Palemoon is a good example of a modern browser with a good selection of add-ons, some of which are common to both Firefox and Palemoon, though less now than formerly.
If you miss the old Firefox give Palemoon a try.
109 • browsers (by grindstone on 2021-11-02 19:01:33 GMT from United States)
Commentary this week is a good reminder of how differently everyone uses computers. Keep Firefox, here, and use it most to save incompat prob, but it'd be fully no-go-unusable w/o the extensions. I don't pretend to think it's simple to keep a browser codebase compliant & secure so I feel for the devs of any of them. All that said, like many, I grew to love the small/fast ones and lived in midori, dillo, links2, opera for a very long time -- even when Firefox was still lighter/faster. These days I am old and lazy and just want things to run (but will build anything if I can't find the first thing). What I hate more than any browser inconvenience is what's happened to search engines in the past maybe 10-15 years. At any rate, thanks for the topic and work, Jesse. Also very good to see a ladislav sighting -- can't begin to thank you for the steady presence all these years (can you even believe what happened?!?!). DW matters--thanks again.
110 • Browsers (by Just Browsing on 2021-11-02 19:39:41 GMT from Netherlands)
Netscape, Seamonkey, Firefox, always have seemed to most active in terms of security and creativity. Edge feels like it was designed for/by a 5-year old. Chrome is ok if you trust Google. I trust Google even less than Facebook. Will stick with Firefox.
If you really want a quirky browser, try Nessie, formerly Forkle, a most basic, functional browser, weighing in at 271KB.
111 • Browsers (by Name on 2021-11-02 21:10:36 GMT from Finland)
Pale Moon is a nice web browser, a fork of an old version of Firefox. PM feels lighter and snappier than modern FF, while retaining the same bookmark format. Currently there are GTK2 and GTK3 versions of PM to choose from. PM can be installed by extracting its tarball to a local directory and by linking the executable (palemoon) to ~/bin. When a new version of PM becomes available, PM asks if you want to install the update, and if you click "yes", it downloads and installs the new version, removing the old version. That's super easy. PM doesn't have many add-ons, but it has uBlock Origin, and that's enough for me.
112 • Finding the right words (by shruggy on 2021-11-03 00:33:54 GMT from Germany)
awk and PCRE lookaheads were already mentioned. I guess that leaves sed:
sed '/a/!d;/e/!d;/i/!d;/o/!d;/u/!d'
sgrep (https://www.cs.helsinki.fi/u/jjaakkol/sgrep):
sgrep -No%r 'LINE containing "a" containing "e" containing "i" containing "o" containing "u"'
and ugrep (https://github.com/Genivia/ugrep):
ug -% 'a e i o u'
113 • browsers (by hotdiggettydog on 2021-11-03 00:43:50 GMT from Canada)
I voted Firefox but I use a few for different reasons. Last time I ran a browser check Firefox beat out others for privacy and security therefore I use it for anything sensitive.
I also use Brave and Vivaldi. Vivaldi is developed by the old Opera team so I"m kind of supportive of them.
I stay away from the fringe browsers often offered by one man operations.
114 • @113 ---"fringe browsers" (by R. Cain on 2021-11-03 02:09:20 GMT from United States)
"...I stay away from the fringe browsers often offered by one man operations."
It could be legitimately argued that the "fringe distributions", the ones run by only a very small number of people---and some of those only working part-time---are one of the Linux landscape's bigger problems.
With all the metrics which DistroWatch publishes on all the distributions it covers, how difficult would it be to ask the distro for, and to list, the number of people who actively contribute---part-time as well as full-time--- to the on-going development of a distribution.
And no, I'm not stupid. I think that the tendency of some less-than-totally-honest individuals to engage in a little (or a lot of) "creative writing" to make their distro "sound better" would have the worst possible consequences for that distro when the truth became known, as it eventually would.
115 • browsers (by dave on 2021-11-03 02:20:57 GMT from United States)
I did not vote, because I sort of hate all these browsers. I felt it would be dishonest for me to call any of them my 'favorite' simply because I reluctantly prefer one over the others.
In my years with Linux, I have used Epiphany, Midori, Qupzilla, Seamonkey, Pale Moon, Iceweasel, but mostly Firefox. I would say the 'other' browser I used the most was Pale Moon, which I just see as a Firefox fork anyway.
My initial reason for switching to Pale Moon was ALSA support, but when they rolled over and took Pulseaudio up the---- well let's just say I didn't have as much reason to avoid Firefox, so that's what I've been unenthusiastically using for the last couple of years. It runs fine on my 10 year old machine, so eh.. whatever.
116 • @110 (by Ostro on 2021-11-03 07:33:12 GMT from Poland)
"Edge feels like it was designed for/by a 5-year old."
Hmmm...what did you design, when you were 6 years old? :)
117 • Browsers (by zcatav on 2021-11-03 10:48:48 GMT from Turkey)
If you want to pay attention to security while choosing a browser; https://privacytests.org/
118 • Awareness ... (by whoKnows on 2021-11-03 11:41:38 GMT from Switzerland)
One must be aware of what one is using ... Be it a pan, a hammer, systemd, Snap's, Brave, Gnome ... You name it.
https://spyware.neocities.org/articles/brave.html
119 • Brave -vs- Mozilla (by Bob on 2021-11-03 13:18:40 GMT from United States)
I tried speedtest.net on Brave and Mozilla. The
speeds indicated using Mozilla are consistently
higher than when using Brave. Not sure why
that would be.
120 • war of the bros will end soon (by fonz on 2021-11-03 13:29:17 GMT from Indonesia)
for as long as possible, ill still use palemoon. when things get crummy (too often) i have bins from chromium woolyss for both lin and win...
sooner or later the war will end as soon as mozilla might go chromium instead of maintaining gecko. i was actually hoping wandows will keep updating iexplore instead of edgium. dont know why opera decided to switch, they had the bestester font rendering which is important for my old eyes. mozilla did dump a ton on a ton of failed projects so them switching might be on the horizon.
sooner or later goolag will pown the web, and all html specs will be in their control. its getting worse now, might get worse later. like for example dictating browsers will require builtin sandboxing. or even funnier, a browser within an os within a sandbox within an os within a sandbox within a browser. chrome|iumos can do a ton already, now watch what happens when people let it slide instead of standing up to it like when wandows pulled this stunt...
121 • Browsers (by Mike on 2021-11-03 15:24:49 GMT from United Kingdom)
I have tried to like Firefox and keep looking at it periodically to see if the script performance will compete with Chrome yet. It very much still cannot for my work sites and has not for the best part of a decade even with the latest Quantum code base, they are therefore optimised for Blink.
Mozilla additionally keep drowning it in more and more unwanted 'added value' extras in attempts to keep themselves relevant. All that does is make the update packages stupidly large as far as I'm concerned. I don't want or need all the junk they have added to it. It's got more bloated than SeaMonkey which at least was a useful combination of Firefox and Thunderbird back in the day.
There's also the fact that Mozilla have entered an agreement with Canonical to only provide Firefox as a Snap by default going forward for Ubuntu and it's flavours. That puts me even further off day to day usage.
Brave is not something I would entertain on my systems, their holier than thou stance over data tracking and procured ads doesn't sit right with me.
Better the devil you know in that at least you know where you are with a normal browser and ublock origin if desired.
Microsoft Edge for Linux is pretty much a hobbled useless affair on my hardware. There's no experimental flags for either Vulkan or hardware video acceleration available. If you have a system with hardware that really needs GPU acceleration to keep up with ever demanding web content like mine it is unworkable in that state.
So I stick with Chrome because it just works and since Google platform and Chrome are also on my Smartphone and Tablet it would be cutting off my nose to spite my face by using A N Other on the PC anyway because of privacy concerns or to pretend to give a damn about supporting Mozilla's development of Firefox.
Conversely I do still use and donate to Thunderbird since it is no longer funded by Mozilla or under their control. The Thunderbird developers have stuck to the winning formula of keep it simple stupid...
122 • Brave (by Mark on 2021-11-03 19:45:48 GMT from United Kingdom)
I knew that there were reasons that I had rejected Brave.
"The Brave web browser is hijacking links, and inserting affiliate codes"
(https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2020/06/06/the-brave-web-browser-is-hijacking-links-and-inserting-affiliate-codes/)
and
"Brave browser found to leak users' Tor dark web activity"
Browser pins the blame on a misconfigured ad-blocking component
(https://www.techradar.com/news/brave-browser-found-to-leak-users-tor-dark-web-activity)
Not in any hurry to try it again, even if those things don't directly affect me in any way.
123 • ITT: We discuss our favorite HTML readers (by Cheker on 2021-11-03 19:46:50 GMT from Portugal)
Wow, so much engagement this week. Very excited to go through it all.
The first browser I remember using was Firefox, I have no idea for how long. A while later I found Google Chrome, and that saw use during almost a full decade.
At some point, I wanna say 3 years ago, a little before it blew up in popularity, I moved on to Brave. Back then loading speed was still the most important factor in browser choice for me, though I guess becoming more educated and sensible to certain aspects like user privacy and the free software movement helped. I was also impressed by the native adblocking, I had never seen something like that before.
Fast forward a year or so and I get some dumb, random problems across different operating systems and machines (consuming memory to the point where it would crash everything, graphical nonsense, etc). Some my own fault, but still. I had recently become comfortable with Linux, which lends itself a lot to Firefox. So eventually Firefox, after 10 years, became my main browser once again. I say "main" because I still keep Brave around for more niche usage (integrated Tor is useful, as an example).
What I find really interesting is that ever since I came back to the Firefox camp, I just don't like Chromiums that much anymore. They just don't look or feel as appealing. Like an old toy that I played around with long enough, and now I'm permanently over.
124 • The challenge of Brave Browser (by Fernando Santucci on 2021-11-04 08:40:32 GMT from Brazil)
I challenge anyone to try Brave Browser for just a month, exploring every one of its unique features that no other browser has and then wanting to go back to being your old browser.
I doubt it!
It is exceptionally feature rich and its stability is rock solid!
125 • Brave Browser Challenge (by Otis on 2021-11-04 12:47:09 GMT from United States)
@124 We can see that Brave browser has been used by many and rejected by some and accepted (at least partially) by others. My experience with it was to not put up with the things I did not like about it for a week, let alone for a month. Firefox meets all my needs and is itself rock solid.
We don't need browser wars in here, of course, but issuing challenges seems naive, especially for an entire month. Are you kidding? Why put up with things in software not to our taste just to try to get used to it? What's the point when there are so many choices?
126 • Palemoon (by B. Stack on 2021-11-04 12:53:51 GMT from United States)
I use Palemoon as my daily driver browser, but the devs are the most toxic I've come across in the open source community. I recommend using it and not participating in the community. I also use LibreWolf, Firefox, and Waterfox. I have to use Chromium for a few webrtc-based utilities but I should reevaluate because it's been a while; maybe Firefox and family have caught up.
127 • Firefox (by Risto A on 2021-11-04 15:18:42 GMT from Finland)
Firefox with e-mail client and torrent client? I have never found these, I have used Firefox for years... add-ons, maybe?
128 • Tor Browser, Mull or Privacy Browser on Android (by You Too on 2021-11-04 17:04:22 GMT from United States)
If text browsers like links, elinks or lynx won't work, then Tor Browser, or Mull (from DivestOS) or Privacy Browser on Android are the way to go.
129 • Browsers (by Keith S on 2021-11-04 22:30:05 GMT from United States)
Bromite is my daily driver on Android, Brave on Linux. My love/hate relationship with Firefox has been stuck on hate for over a year now.
130 • Thank you (by William on 2021-11-05 00:19:29 GMT from United States)
This discussion about browsers helped me understand a range of options I needed to know about. The suggestions are a range of option I can now try. Thank you, and thank you again to Distrowatch.
131 • Firefox (by Peter on 2021-11-05 01:54:57 GMT from Germany)
For Firefox you'll find every extension that you want/need, and it can be configured as YOU like. As alternative I use Brave (nightly), but I rarely need it.
132 • Browsers (by Tad Strange on 2021-11-05 13:21:10 GMT from Canada)
It's odd that Pale Moon looks so archaic, but that it is also everything that I used to love about the Firefox UI before they went and copied Chrome's
Tabs just above their window made more sense, before the minimalist toolbar became the norm
133 • @132 Ted Strange: (by dragonmouth on 2021-11-05 13:45:53 GMT from United States)
"It's odd that Pale Moon looks so archaic"
So you prefer form over function? As long as it looks "modern" (whatever that means), it doesn't matter how it performs.
134 • @133 (by Tad Strange on 2021-11-05 14:08:06 GMT from Canada)
You cherry picked my comment and took it out of context. I'm uncertain as to why...
That being said, form leverages function.
Which is why we have GUI in the first place.
No one drives a technically functional car that is just a rolling chassis, a seat, and an engine. They buy something that appeals to them, their needs & budget, and trust the rest to work.
But that's a response to your comment, and far from what I was commenting about.
Number of Comments: 134
Display mode: DWW Only • Comments Only • Both DWW and Comments
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| • Issue 1167 (2026-04-06): Origami Linux 2026.03, answering questions for Linux newcomers, Ubuntu MATE seeking new contributors, Ubuntu software centre is expanding Deb support, FreeBSD fixes forum exploit, openSUSE 15 Leap nears its end of life |
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d77void GNU/Linux
d77void GNU/Linux is a Void-based Linux distribution created to demonstrate the capabilities of Void's tools, such as void-mklive and void-packages. Originally initiated as a Void respin with the Fluxbox window manager, the project has evolved to offer a wide range of window manager, Wayland compositor and desktop environment options, including Awesome, bspwm, COSMIC, dwm, Fluxbox, herbstluftwm, Hyprland, i3wm, JWM, labwc, LeftWM, LXQt, Niri, Openbox, Qtile, River, Sway, Wayfire and Xfce. The distribution can be installed to a hard disc with the text-mode d77void-installer.
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