I still use Firefox (well, Iceweasel) on Debian, but sometimes I just don’t have the time or the nerves to wait for this add-on-packed conglomerate to load. While there is a noticeable speed improvement with Firefox 3, you still need some time for it to load. So, when I’m in a hurry, I sometimes fire-up an alternative browser.
Notes:
- Opera, Epiphany and Dillo are also available on other operating systems.
- I couldn’t find a nice Oxygen Konqueror icon
1. Konqueror
Konqueror is both file manager and web browser. It uses the same rendering engine (with a few small differences, KHTML vs Webkit) as Apple’s Safari. The new version of Konqueror for KDE 4 still makes it a valuable part of the KDE desktop. The rendering engine is pretty slick - I had no problems with all of the sites I regularly visit. The only thing that bothers me is the tight KDE integration and some quirks, like the usage of KWallet for storing passwords and the fact that it asks you if you want to accept cookies (well, I know it’s a security measure, but Average Joe doesn’ know what cookies are and the new version sometimes forgets you checked you want it to always accept the freaking cookies). Take a look at Konqueror if you want a browser and file manager, with plugin support and great customization options.
2. Opera
Opera has just gotten even better. It is hard to describe what the new Opera browser doesn’t excel at, the Linux version is now very enjoyable to look at and crashes less often. Opera is renowned for its speed and great standards support. The only show-stopper for most people is Opera’s closed source nature.
Håkon Wium Lie, Chief Technology Officer of Opera, says:
At Opera, we believe in open standards, security, speed, performance and features — these are values that we share with the Linux community. The one issue that sets us apart is the source code. We’re very proud of our source code and we’d like to show it to others, but we haven’t found a business model that allows us to do so while still charging for commercial use.
[source: LinuxJournal]
Here are two more posts in which I write about the new Opera 9 and some of its features. We even got some comments from Opera devs there!
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3. Kazehakase
風博士 is a fast little browser which uses components of both GTK + WebKit and Gecko. With the use of GTK+ libraries Kazehakase integrates well with your GTK theme. There is support for RSS, smart bookmarks, importing bookmarks from the most common browsers (FF included) and even mouse gestures. The author promises that future version will enable the users to switch between rendering engines! Awesomesauce!
4. Epiphany
Forking and thus making a descendant of Galeon, the Epiphany project created a browser which also uses the Gecko & GTK combo, although the developer team is thinking of switching to WebKit for future releases. Epiphany sports all of the functionality you would expect from a moder browser: plugins, tabs, cookies. A special feature of Epiphany are categorized bookmarks - unlike most browsers, with Epiphany the same bookmark can be listed under two or more categories (similar to FF’s ‘Places’ feature).
5. Dillo
It’s surprising how often people who list alternatives forget to mention Dillo, the highly secure mini-browser. True, Dillo isn’t a full-fledged browser, but some versions even support tabs and other advanced features (third-party patches). Dillo fires up very quickly and is perfect to quickly check your web-mail or a news site. More importantly, if you own a very old computer with Linux running on it, you absolutely must try Dillo, don’t struggle with text browsers and other Gecko-based browsers which promise speed and simplicity.
Do you know any other cool browsers for Linux? Share it with us in the comments!
August 5th, 2008 at 14:05
Nice. As well as the above, I also use Galeon, Gecko based but I think better than Epiphany.
August 5th, 2008 at 14:26
Could have added Flock.
Apart from Konq and Opera, I really do not see a real alternative … besides I do not need an alterntaive, as Firefox is my choice of alternative to above listed browsers, plus others, such as IE :-p
August 5th, 2008 at 18:07
@James: I believe Galeon isn’t active anymore. That’s why I recommend you switch to Epiphany.
@E@zyVG: You may have noticed that I listed alternatives which run faster, and Flock is certainly not in this category (although I use it sometimes too and I think it’s a great program).
August 5th, 2008 at 19:08
The only real alternative is opera.
Epiphany is also pretty good when you add the plugins package.
Konqueror (in kde) is a great file manager, but as a browser it sucks.
The rest aren’t quite on par with firefox, they are more lightweight alternatives for people on low end machines.
August 5th, 2008 at 23:36
Epiphany… I’ll have to try that.
August 6th, 2008 at 04:40
Other then the ocaisional problem with Yahoo/Geocity Sites, Konq on KDE 3.5.8 works fine for but Google Docs and the Extreme Tech website.
August 6th, 2008 at 05:03
I really like Opera for its speed. (It seems to run a lot faster from a USB stick compared to Firefox 3.0.) I’d probably be using Opera more, but I haven’t been able to find an equivalent Opera widget to Firefox’s “Feed Ticker” extension.
August 6th, 2008 at 16:58
Whether these are classified as ‘alternatives’ is debatable, but I’ve had good experiences with Iceweasel and Swiftfox/weasel.
One reason konqueror loads fast is because an instance is usually preloaded upon startup.
I find opera to be slower than the other browsers and to my knowledge, a 64-bit linux version is not available.
August 6th, 2008 at 21:52
Galeon: Surf toasted waves of data while staying crunchy ! Jawol!
Seamonkey: ‘I’m on a submarine mission for you, baby!’
Lynx: Now you see me… now…
August 6th, 2008 at 22:00
I am a bit surprised that every time I see a review of Web browsers that Seamonkey is not included in the list. Formerly the Mozilla Suite, which traces its lineage clear back to Netscape, which in turn traces itself back to the NCSA Mosaic browser, Seamonkey is rich in tradition, stable in function, and it carries a slightly smaller executable footprint than either Opera or Firefox, but not quite as small as the minimal browsers mentioned.
Also, for those who complain about Konqueror, I do not know how often you use it or how recently you have tried it, but both the KDE 3.5.9 version and the KDE 4.1 version not only load well in KDE but they render very closely to what you get with Opera and only slightly slower than the fastest browsers, definitely in the same league. To get some sites, such as Google and Yahoo to work right, you do have to set the browser to behave like Mozilla, but that is easily done and the results are quite good.
For me, I still use Mozilla Seamonkey the most on Linux systems, Firefox whenever I can on Windows, Internet Explorer on Windows when I have to only, and Konqueror and Opera on occasion. I do use Dillo from time to time, but I may also end up using lynx or elinks if I am in the mode of using something really small. I have tried Ephiphany, but I do not find its chopped down features to really gain me very much, and I tend not to use GNOME based systems that often, and that is where you most often run into Ephiphany. The Galeon project did not seem to work out all that well, and if there is still a project active, I have not recently used it to find out more.
August 7th, 2008 at 13:10
The browser NetSurf is also nice.
http://www.netsurf-browser.org/
August 7th, 2008 at 21:06
I believe the technology will expand in the future. We will see more and more browser choices and ‘flavors’
& for that I am truly grateful to our friends @ Mozilla. As a matter of fact, designer browsers are already in use. (i.e. colorful tabbed browsing, International clocks on the browser, blogging from inside the browser,… ) the list goes on, as does the innovation.
August 23rd, 2008 at 12:07
[...] Dillo [...]
September 1st, 2008 at 13:58
[...] Alternative and light-weight browsers for Linux (Epiphany, Swiftfox, Galleon, Dillo, w3m…) See a related blog post (by Greg) here [...]
September 7th, 2008 at 03:29
Some other lightweight browsers with their own rendering engines are hv3 and NetSurf.
There are many lightweight webkit browsers for Linux, my favorites of which are Arora and midori.
Also, Galeon is a decent lightweight Gecko browser.
And in a twist of fate, Seamonkey (Iceape for you Debian users
is now lighter than Firefox!
November 7th, 2008 at 15:27
[...] Alternative and light-weight browsers for Linux (Epiphany, Swiftfox, Galleon, Dillo, w3m…) See a related blog post (by Greg) here [...]