kev392
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Post by kev392 on Dec 13, 2021 7:26:07 GMT
Entry #5 and #6:
FIREFOX and FIREFOX ESR
Both of these are good browsers and have the features I enjoy much like the others I've reviewed so far, but times have changed. What was quick is now ordinary. The previously reviewed browsers all use less ram normally. It's not significant for those with 4+ GB of ram, but those using much older hardware may notice a difference in performance. There's also the reports of more and more telemetry being taken and some privacy-focused people are not happy about it. I can't say either way except that it can't be nearly as bad as Google Chrome.
There isn't much difference in the 2 that I can easily spot. There are some features that Firefox adds over time that ESR does not until the next major ESR release. A Debian term comes to mind. Firefox is stable and Firefox ESR is oldstable. ESR is just as safe to use as regular Firefox but typically requires fewer updates.
5-10 years ago this was my favorite web browser and nothing seemed as good. Maybe Opera came close. Chromium was pretty good I guess when I switched to Linux Mint a few years ago. I had long abandoned Chrome by that point. There simply weren't as many quality choices in 2015 as there are today.
I am not giving Firefox a bad review, just a more fair and measured one about things that some people might not have noticed over time.
When drawing the line in the sand, Firefox is still on this side of it. It's just gotten closer to that line.
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kev392
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Post by kev392 on Dec 15, 2021 1:59:47 GMT
Entry #7:
LibreWolf
LibreWolf is a fork of Firefox and has an interface similar to it. It has all the extensions available to Firefox. It was introduced in 2019 and it's considered more privacy-oriented by sending no telemetry to Mozilla. It's updated very soon after Firefox is.
A few observations:
1. It comes preinstalled with uBlock Origin.
2. There are no automatic updates since it can't be added to the Ubuntu repos.
3. It's available as AppImage, Flatpak and deb. I tested AppImage and deb.
4. AppImage uses much more ram. It ranked 13th at 280 megs from the OneTab start page. It ranked 11th at 572 megs in testing the 3 web pages as reported in the ram comparison thread.
5. The deb version ranks very high at the OneTab start page in 6th place, about 10 megs less than Brave at 204 megs. However, it ranks 9th at 522 megs, about 20 megs less than Firefox but 76 megs more than Chromium when testing with the 3 web pages.
6. The deb version is more up to date than the AppImage and Flatpak. Version 95 is available with the deb file, while version 94 is available for the others.
7. Despite maximizing the browser, that setting doesn't persist when starting it up and it has to be maximized again. Firefox doesn't have this issue.
8. OneTab links fail to populate upon browser start the vast majority of the time. Firefox has a similar issue which I neglected to report in my previous review. No big deal, just click the reload button in the OneTab window and the links will appear.
LibreWolf is pretty good if you don't mind the inconveniences listed and some prefer it to Firefox.
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enigma9o7
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Post by enigma9o7 on Dec 15, 2021 3:08:32 GMT
2. There are no automatic updates since it can't be added to the Ubuntu repos. The installation instructions on their website say to add their repo, doesn't even mention how to direct download deb or other formats.
EDIT: My bad, I should do more than glance. That repo only recommended for debian unstable, and the link for focal/bullseye etc is indeed debfile to download.
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enigma9o7
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Post by enigma9o7 on Dec 15, 2021 5:13:35 GMT
A browser that hasn't been granted any love in this thread is Pale Moon. Although certainly not my primary browser, I like it for a few use cases.
#1 It is the only browser I know that still supports flash, so for flash games and websites with flash content, its the only one that works. #2 It runs everything in one process. This is more efficient for single core machines, and makes it use less resources even on dual core machines. #3 It supports legacy firefox plugins, including ublock origin, unlike some other light browsers that don't have adblock solutions. #4 It is more resource efficient than modern firefox or chromium based browsers, and also available in 32-bit edition, but still supports the majority of the modern web, so good for very old PCs.
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kev392
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Post by kev392 on Dec 15, 2021 7:47:20 GMT
The installation instructions on their website say to add their repo, doesn't even mention how to direct download deb or other formats. librewolf.net/installation/debian/ EDIT: My bad, I should do more than glance. That repo only recommended for debian unstable, and the link for focal/bullseye etc is indeed debfile to download. A browser that hasn't been granted any love in this thread is Pale Moon. Although certainly not my primary browser, I like it for a few use cases. #1 It is the only browser I know that still supports flash, so for flash games and websites with flash content, its the only one that works. #2 It runs everything in one process. This is more efficient for single core machines, and makes it use less resources even on dual core machines. #3 It supports legacy firefox plugins, including ublock origin, unlike some other light browsers that don't have adblock solutions. #4 It is more resource efficient than modern firefox or chromium based browsers, and also available in 32-bit edition, but still supports the majority of the modern web, so good for very old PCs. I decided not to give the Debian "Sid" Unstable version a try based on their advice. Instead I used the link for 'Fresh.librewolf.io' recommended for Mint 20. I had conflicting information on Librewolf ram usage and decided to test it again with the deb version. My first test was with the AppImage. I will check out the flash on Pale Moon. I didn't think about that since most every browser has dropped flash support. Pale Moon lacks a feature I really care about and I will present that information soon. I'm still mulling over my preferences for the bottom portion of this list.
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kiezel
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Post by kiezel on Dec 15, 2021 23:01:47 GMT
Personally, I only use the big web browsers. Like Google Chrome, Chromium, Microsoft Edge for Linux and Firefox. For security reasons, because only the big players have the resources to spend enough dev time on security audits. The web browsers are, by far, the most attacked pieces of software on your machine. So their security is of paramount importance.
Of these, Firefox is still my favourite, because it allows for much more tweaking (by means of about:config) than the others. Furthermore, Firefox can be tweaked for speed on old machines in ways that are impossible (or unknown to me) for the others.
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kev392
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Post by kev392 on Dec 16, 2021 3:19:03 GMT
I used browseraudit.com to check Chromium, Firefox, Opera, Brave, Slimjet, Firefox ESR, Librewolf and Vivaldi.
Of course I don't know how much confidence one should have in these tests. Perhaps kiezel could better tell.
Chromium: 367 passed. 16 warning. 20 skipped. 1 critical.
Firefox: 373 passed. 11 warning. 20 skipped. 0 critical.
Opera: 361 passed. 22 warning. 20 skipped. 1 critical.
Brave: 367 passed. 16 warning. 20 skipped. 1 critical.
Slimjet: 367 passed. 16 warning. 20 skipped. 1 critical.
Firefox ESR: 376 passed. 8 warning. 20 skipped. 0 critical.
LibreWolf: 370 passed. 14 warning. 20 skipped. 0 critical.
Vivaldi: 367 passed. 16 warning. 20 skipped. 1 critical.
The "critical" for each is cookie set by JavaScript should not be sent over HTTP.
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kiezel
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Post by kiezel on Dec 16, 2021 9:42:00 GMT
I used browseraudit.com to check Chromium, Firefox, Opera, Brave, Slimjet, Firefox ESR, Librewolf and Vivaldi. Of course I don't know how much confidence one should have in these tests. Perhaps kiezel could better tell. I'm afraid I don't know, either.... I just put my trust in the amount of manpower of the dev teams of the big web browsers. Small web browsers tend to have just a handful of devs. For something like a text editor (Mousepad, Leafpad, Xed, Gedit etc.) it doesn't matter much if its dev team is small or even consists of only one person. Because its security has little practical relevance anyway. Not so for the web browser, which is under constant heavy crossfire....
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ligoxi
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Post by ligoxi on Dec 16, 2021 12:22:31 GMT
"I just put my trust in the amount of manpower of the dev teams of the big web browsers. Small web browsers tend to have just a handful of devs". I hear this as an excuse of not choosing Bodhi, to some people i recommend it. In big guys, we are the product. For instance i will never buy a system 76 laptop, or use popos, since it is a way for a company to earn money, which thinks the open source world has a better opportunity to do this. Which is something totally different to what Ylee and Stefan are doing. 2 devs only, but i do not miss anything from the os i use as my daily driver. I am curious, i have read that edge is fast, and some other good words, reviews, is it true?
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kev392
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Post by kev392 on Dec 16, 2021 18:45:42 GMT
"I just put my trust in the amount of manpower of the dev teams of the big web browsers. Small web browsers tend to have just a handful of devs". I hear this as an excuse of not choosing Bodhi, to some people i recommend it. In big guys, we are the product. For instance i will never buy a system 76 laptop, or use popos, since it is a way for a company to earn money, which thinks the open source world has a better opportunity to do this. Which is something totally different to what Ylee and Stefan are doing. 2 devs only, but i do not miss anything from the os i use as my daily driver. I am curious, i have read that edge is fast, and some other good words, reviews, is it true? Edge is now based on the same browser engine as Chromium, so there shouldn't be much difference in speed. There are some reasons why I won't download Edge to use or test. It's still a Developer preview on Linux. Edge hijacks html and pdf files. There should be a way to reverse this, but why is it doing that to begin with. Then I read that it hijacks the html files every time Edge starts up. I've also read that Edge integrates with Windows services, including the AI assistant Cortana and the sync service, just as Chrome integrates with Google services. Edge also locks in some user settings favoring Microsoft. Thanks, but no thanks
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kiezel
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Post by kiezel on Dec 16, 2021 21:53:21 GMT
"I just put my trust in the amount of manpower of the dev teams of the big web browsers. Small web browsers tend to have just a handful of devs". I hear this as an excuse of not choosing Bodhi, to some people i recommend it. Apples and oranges.... Obviously desktop environments aren't in the same risk category as web browsers. DEs are much less at risk. That's why I don't hesitate to recommend Bodhi, even though its dev team is small.
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kev392
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Post by kev392 on Dec 16, 2021 22:13:59 GMT
"I just put my trust in the amount of manpower of the dev teams of the big web browsers. Small web browsers tend to have just a handful of devs". I hear this as an excuse of not choosing Bodhi, to some people i recommend it. Apples and oranges.... Obviously desktop environments aren't in the same risk category as web browsers. DEs are much less at risk. That's why I don't hesitate to recommend Bodhi, even though its dev team is small. If I may offer a contrarian point of view, I think today's well-maintained web browsers are much safer than their counterparts from a few years ago. We also have more quality choices in Brave, Vivaldi, Librewolf and Slimjet that weren't there in 2013. I've tested all 13 browsers with the browser audit web site and all of them score relatively the same. I know that ultimately that's not proof that there can't be something unsafe about them, but if they're all scoring about the same, then the so-called lesser browsers have to be doing something right. If anyone has other criteria or tests that I can run on all these browsers I will gladly do so. I certainly want the safest web browsing experience and I wouldn't want to suggest anything otherwise.
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kev392
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Post by kev392 on Dec 17, 2021 3:51:01 GMT
Entry #8:
Vivaldi
One of the newer browsers that became available in 2016. It's the last of the browsers that I consider to be full featured by having access to the Chrome web store. The engine is built upon Chromium but Vivaldi also has some proprietary modifications.
I don't care for the interface as much as the others I've mentioned. The icons within the tabs look a bit on the rough side. It doesn't seem as zippy as the top entries but it's not bad.
It does have its good points.
1. It can be added to the repos and it gets updated very consistently.
2. It has its own internal email client, but at this point it's considered beta and I could not get it to work properly. At the very least it's a feature that once sorted out won't be available with most of the other browsers.
3. Scores well in the ram department. 218 mb at start and under 500 mb when testing with the 3 web pages mentioned in the comparison thread.
4. No ffmpeg problems like Opera and Slimjet can have. I remember in 2019 when I first tried it, it did have that problem.
Vivaldi: It's worth a look and I have used it at times since I first found out about it.
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chour
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Post by chour on Jan 4, 2022 19:45:27 GMT
kev392! Please, say a few words about the Abrowser browser, does it have any advantages or is it a regular version of Firefox.
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kev392
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Post by kev392 on Jan 5, 2022 3:26:02 GMT
Hello chour,
I will add a post for Abrowser in the Browsers not tested thread.
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