A more lightweight browser?

edited August 2017 in Software
I've been a user of Firefox for eleven years and now, I'm thinking about ditching it for something a lot lighter on RAM, and best for anyone like me who doesn't use the Internet much these days. I only know that Pale Moon fits that criteria but I'm wondering if there's any other ones, as long as that I can still have an ad-blocker (uBlock Origin in this case) and the Gmail notifier on it. I say this because after the recent update to version 55, I feel it's become too bloated with all these new stupid features they bring out (even though I disable/hide them by default) and that some things they may have "fixed" on only breaks instead.

I discovered that Internet Explorer is much lighter than Firefox but, who really uses that, for all the flack it's been getting even now? And for Chrome, no way I'm getting that piece of junk, with all its processes scattered around and filling up RAM unnecessarily.
«1

Comments

  • Uh, just give Edge a try, if you already found out it might be what you're looking for. "Lol I can't use this because people still talk shit about it" is just stupid.

    I'd recommend Opera, but it became Chrome a while ago. Maybe Vivaldi... oh wait, it's Chrome now as well. Fuck. Maybe upgrade your RAM or change your browsing habits?
  • I use Windows 7, just so you know. And well, I used Opera a long time ago, before it became like Chrome. And now, Firefox is becoming it too regarding searching under the location bar.

    I'd rather keep my RAM the way it is and I have changed my browsing habits anyway, but it's mostly just visiting a very small pool of sites and decreasing use on it too so... I'm lost.

    Or just get used to this new version of Firefox. At least they haven't completely changed the design where it's beyond usable.
  • Why don't you give Pale Moon a try?
    Or ESR?

    Edge is just... Edgy. I've used it under 10, it has a few performance issues(html5 playback) and looks like a square version of chrome.
    It could be decent, but its layouts need some work.

    IE11 is not bad, quite an improvement over past IE especially 9.
  • I recently knew about the ESR version of Firefox actually so, I could give that a bash, and maybe Pale Moon too. And yeah, maybe IE11 isn't that bad at all but, I don't like when it tells me to turn off add-ons (like the AdBlock Engine) if I want to speed up browsing. Too bad there isn't uBlock Origin for that, or anything similar (unless I'm wrong).
  • I use Firefox Nightly - they've improved some things over the 55 full release including multi-process mode and something for CSS. It seems to use less RAM and has a built in dark mode now. Quite nice.
  • IE11. SomeGuy will roast me for this, but it has native adblocking, is fairly lightweight, and a dead-simple UX.
  • Ha, ha, yea. The recent versions of Firefox have turned in to a huge mess. Someone needs to kick the Mozilla folks in the nuts to get them back on track.

    A lot of people are moving to Google Chrome, simply due to speed, but I don't really trust it. Perhaps some of the open source variants?

    Ironically, IE will always have a speed advantage simply because it is designed as single-platform and native Win32/64.
  • Okay, I got myself both Firefox 52 ESR and Pale Moon and so far, things are better. Right now I'm using the former though I thought I can use Pale Moon as my brand new one but there's one thing I'm upset about... its incompatibility with Gmail Notifier, and trying to look for a good enough alternative was giving me a headache. For now, I can keep Pale Moon as a standby.

    For the Nightly versions, I heard that they were less stable/secure or at least what I found out from a quick Google lookup. And wait, if IE has a built-in adblocker, is the external AdBlock Plus Engine not needed now? And is it as good and effective as uBlock Origin?
  • edited August 2017
    @SomeGuy: try Chromium. It's fast, like Chrome, but does not have the Google-specific crap that regular Chrome has. And it's open-source, so you can audit the code and/or modify its functionality to suit your needs.

    Contrary to all rumors you may see or hear, Chromium does in fact include a built-in PDF reader. (Older versions of Chromium--less than 47 I think--lack said PDF reader functionality. For that, you may want to try Mozilla's PDF.js extension-- this is the same PDF reader that Firefox and its derivatives use.)

    EDIT: Fixed Chromium version, courtesy of robobox.
  • Install EasyList as a "tracking protection filter" and it Just Works.
  • Bry89 wrote:
    I'd rather keep my RAM the way it is

    How much RAM do you have?

    I'm curious as to why the amount of memory Firefox is using is an issue for you. Is it just that you don't like applications using a lot of memory or are you running into issues?
  • I've been using Brave for a while now and it's been pretty fast and reliable so far. It has native adblocking capabilities, as well as HTTPS Everywhere built in.
  • Erito17 wrote:
    @SomeGuy: try Chromium. It's fast, like Chrome, but does not have the Google-specific crap that regular Chrome has. Contrary to all rumors you may see or hear, Chromium does in fact include a built-in PDF reader. (Older versions of Chromium--less than 47 I think--lack said PDF reader functionality. For that, you may want to try Mozilla's PDF.js extension-- this is the same PDF reader that Firefox and its derivatives use.)
    Fixed that for you. And I have *never* found a WebKit based browser work on 95.I think with a hack it might run fine on 2000, but even then you may be stuck on an older version.

    @SomeGuy At least Firefox does ESR. And with all these kids downgrading to XP because it's a meme. This is why I am excited for SeaMonkey to move to the ESR branch, but the majority will stick with Chrome because companies only "support" Chrome. This feels like IE 4 all over again :P

    @Bry89 Seamonkey is going ESR soon. And it has the 10000x better UI of Firefox 1.0-3.0. It has stuff like a mail program, but zooms on my Early 2006 iMac. :)
    EDIT: It uses Google as default search, and no more stupid filler that no one uses like "Firefox Hello"
  • BlueSun wrote:
    Bry89 wrote:
    I'd rather keep my RAM the way it is

    How much RAM do you have?

    I'm curious as to why the amount of memory Firefox is using is an issue for you. Is it just that you don't like applications using a lot of memory or are you running into issues?

    It's been a while since I've used Firefox (I switched to Palemoon quite a while ago), so I wasn't aware of how bad it's gotten.

    Back in the day, people used to complain (I was one of them, actually.) about Firefox's memory usage and in those days it was something like 200 MB or thereabouts and when you used it on a system with 768 MB... that was quite a chunky amount. These days, pretty much all of my daily driver machines have at least 8 GB of RAM and therefore, using 200 MB is basically nothing.

    However, after seeing this thread, I decided to fire up Firefox on one of my old VMs that still has it installed. I updated to the latest and checked the memory usage... Holy fuck... It was hovering around 800 MB with 1 tab open to a plain text HTML page. No CSS, no graphics, just plain text and it was on its way to using a 1 GB of RAM. That is definitely excessive considering Palemoon did the same thing in about 150 MB and Chrome in 60 MB.

    Now if all the browsers were regularly using 1 GB of RAM, that'd be a different story and I'd attribute it to the changing times. Web browsers have to do a lot more these days then they used to and most systems could easily handle that kind of memory usage. But when the competition is using 1/8th of the RAM to do the same thing... that's just sloppy.
  • Counterpoint: Do you know what it's using it for? For all you know, it could be for a good reason, like aggressive caching.
  • ampharos wrote:
    Counterpoint: Do you know what it's using it for? For all you know, it could be for a good reason, like aggressive caching.

    True and that's why I usually hate when people bitch about memory usage. But it was running like a dog compared to chrome and palemoon, so if that's the price to pay, I think I'd rather not.
  • @BlueSun: I have 4GB of RAM. Okay, that may not be an issue but know that more RAM is used because of both Firefox and MBAM's service entry running at the same time - clocking up to about 300MB used each time and the average memory used is like ~53% at the most. However, since switching to Firefox ESR, things are a lot better... currently, only 39-41% of RAM is used so I'm happier now.

    Another thing... I didn't know people had complained about Firefox's heavy RAM usage back in the day it was new. In September 2006, this was when I got it for the first time and I had no problems with it, even though I had a computer with a measly 256MB of RAM then. Can't remember what version it was though.
  • I'm still a holdout on firefox. I still stand by using 28, though things are rapidly breaking as it ages.
    It takes somewhere around 2 windows with about 400 tabs and it takes up 1.3-1.5 gb ram. I would say Firefox does have a max memory peak as I haven't gotten this version to go over 2gb.

    Oh well, I had the pleasure of using this until recently. On the topic of "lightweight" browsers.
    NIWITwx.png

    A hackjobbed IE6 that was used to run some older locally stored html applications.
  • Why not 24 ESR?

    Also, I personally stopped updating to new versions because my old iMac cannot take those. It's so bad that the version compatibility is a mess. I was on 45 ESR and now it moved me to 48, even though it didn't "support" 10.6. Then I moved to SeaMonkey, as it is developed by actual people. Even that is affected by Mozilla's desire to have FF to be like Chrome.
  • Bry89 wrote:
    @BlueSun: I have 4GB of RAM. Okay, that may not be an issue but know that more RAM is used because of both Firefox and MBAM's service entry running at the same time - clocking up to about 300MB used each time and the average memory used is like ~53% at the most. However, since switching to Firefox ESR, things are a lot better... currently, only 39-41% of RAM is used so I'm happier now.

    Another thing... I didn't know people had complained about Firefox's heavy RAM usage back in the day it was new. In September 2006, this was when I got it for the first time and I had no problems with it, even though I had a computer with a measly 256MB of RAM then. Can't remember what version it was though.

    Yup, lots of people complained about it back in the day. I started using Firefox around version 0.8 and I remember hoping that the 1.0 release would fix the memory issues. If I recall correctly, it never really did. It was also somewhere around that time that I had finished building my new personal desktop which had only 128 MB of RAM, so memory usage was at a premium for me. I experimented with a few different web browsers in those days, trying to find one that wasn't slow as crap and eating up tons of resources I didn't have to spare. I honestly can't even remember all the browsers I tried back then... I know I tried K-Meleon and Avant... there were some others I believe but that's all I remember.

    I eventually went back to firefox, especially once I had built a new desktop (initially with 512 MB of RAM, then with 2 GB) and I stayed with Firefox for a while until Chrome came out.
  • BlueSun wrote:
    Bry89 wrote:
    @BlueSun: I have 4GB of RAM.

    Another thing... I didn't know people had complained about Firefox's heavy RAM usage back in the day it was new. In September 2006, this was when I got it for the first time and I had no problems with it, even though I had a computer with a measly 256MB of RAM then. Can't remember what version it was though.

    Yup, lots of people complained about it back in the day. I started using Firefox around version 0.8 and I remember hoping that the 1.0 release would fix the memory issues. If I recall correctly, it never really did. It was also somewhere around that time that I had finished building my new personal desktop which had only 128 MB of RAM.

    I eventually went back to firefox, especially once I had built a new desktop (initially with 512 MB of RAM, then with 2 GB) and I stayed with Firefox for a while until Chrome came out.

    Keep in mind 2000 took up 32 MB of memory, or worse yet XP wanted 64 MB. Couple a more modernized browser like FF meant little memory. Unless you built a Linux box.
  • @yourepicfailiure do you still have the "hackjobbed" IE6? If so, I would like to have it (just to see if it would work on my Windoze 10 BootCamp install).
  • I'd be interested in that "hackjobbed" IE6 too, just to play around with.
  • Jesus people, a browser is the absolute worst application to stay on an older version of. That is the prime ingress for exploits.

    XP wanting 64 MB was only true for like, SP0, and it was a mess then, and would run like shit with that much. SP3 wants at least half a gig to stay sane.

    If you can afford it, max out your RAM immediately. You'll thank me later.
  • nick99nack wrote:
    I'd be interested in that "hackjobbed" IE6 too, just to play around with.
    If you want something close to that you could use the last version of Netscape 9.

    But back on topic...hmmm... QupZilla is a very nice light browser. I like to use on my Debian 9 machine as it only has 1GB of ram. It does in fact have a windows version. You could also try Midori, but I haven't heard to much good reviews. (could be wrong on that) Another is netsurf, it isn't the best, but it gets the job done. In comparison, to me its like browsing the web with Netscape 9, but with html 5 support.
  • ampharos wrote:
    Jesus people, a browser is the absolute worst application to stay on an older version of. That is the prime ingress for exploits.

    XP wanting 64 MB was only true for like, SP0, and it was a mess then, and would run like shit with that much. SP3 wants at least half a gig to stay sane.

    If you can afford it, max out your RAM immediately. You'll thank me later.
    This was true back in the day, but today's OSes are bloated and the rapid release thing Google started make it really hard to keep up. I'm sure Google did it so Mozilla would copy them and lose all their share. I am hesitant on Pale Moon because while there is a OS X port, it is not official and probably won't work on my 10.6.
    Someone needs to let Average Joe's© know about SeaMonkey again, not just devs :P
  • It's not hard at all to keep up with updates since Chrome updates itself automatically. I believe Firefox can as well.

    I'm personally not a huge fan of the ridiculously high version numbers... as for rapid release though... I didn't like it when it first came about and I'm not sure if I like it now or not. I can see the advantage of it in some situations. For example, I remember hearing a while back about a vulnerability that was disclosed at a talk and later that same day, Google had patched the vulnerability and pushed out the update so that most people were already protected against it before the day was over.
  • You can stay on Firefox ESR for slower cycles, and IE is now frozen at 11 forever and will get patches for like, 10 more years.

    "Modern OSes" are bloated - mhmhmhmhmhmh, if anything, Windows is getting faster each release. 10.6 is also not a good idea when Apple finally figured out how to make a performant Mac OS with 10.11.
  • edited August 2017
    ampharos wrote:
    "Modern OSes" are bloated - mhmhmhmhmhmh, if anything, Windows is getting faster each release. 10.6 is also not a good idea when Apple finally figured out how to make a performant Mac OS with 10.11.
    But my early 2006 iMac won't run it. And it runs on a Core Duo, so I can't.
    ampharos wrote:
    and IE is now frozen at 11 forever and will get patches for like, 10 more years.
    I have avoided IE like the plague after Vista 10. It is full of "Edge" ads. And Edge is a mess, right?
    ampharos wrote:
    You can stay on Firefox ESR for slower cycles
    But my problem was that I *chose* ESR 45, and it auto-upgraded to 48. And it doesn't support 10.6. I moved to SeaMonkey after that, due to the fact that they don't randomly update me, and the UI is nicer.
    @BlueSun For me, it's more wasting version numbers. I remember when a vulnerability showed up, it was patched quickly(like 1.0 ->1.0.1) without changing the major version number at all. I am surprised that a patch wastes a whole version (like 55 -> 56) and *still* has to go though 2 months of testing. And the SM devs can't keep up.
  • Except Windows is perfectly fine on Core Duo hardware. Chances are it'll run Windows better than old Mac OS.

    IE is perfectly fine. Edge is even faster, but there's a lot of weird bugs I have with it.
Sign In or Register to comment.