Browser Wars

[leenie]

Every year I install a variety of browsers to compare. This year, it turns out a blink based browser impressed me! It is called SlimJet. Does anyone else do the same?

[Dan]

I've used Slimjet before and liked it...might have to try it again. I usually have 3 browsers on my system. One for general browsing (chrome or chromium), one for general browsing and online banking/shopping (firefox), and midori for a couple of specific sites.

[leenie]

Hi Dan,

if you have used Slimjet before, you must try it again. Using the same addons I use on Firefox, it still runs a little lighter.

[Dan]

Wow...based on Chromium but lighter than Firefox?  I just looked at their website, and I think I'll be installing this tomorrow. Thanks for reminding me about SlimJet leenie!

Has anyone tried Vivaldi lately? I did about a year ago (or more). I liked it okay, but there were no plugins for it at the time...though some people said that they were using a couple of plugins from the Chrome store. I could never get any to work. It was also resource hungry. Just wondering how it has come along since then.

[leenie]

I haven't tried Vivaldi lately. I found it to be resource hungry too. SRWare Iron was in this years test, not newbie friendly to set up, but easier than last  time I tried it. Still heavy. Since 32bit Chromium and 32bit Google Chrome are putting up messages about not being supported in Linux and Firefox (with the freshplayer plugin) really taxes my cpu when looking at videos, I decided to look for alternatives. I do hope Slimboat is still going to support 32bit...

[Dan]

SlimJet does indeed use less RAM than Firefox! WOW!

Thanks again leenie!

That's a good point about whether they'll continue supporting 32bit...I'll look over their site again, and see if there's anything about it. If not, I might try contacting them and ask.

[Dan]

I joined their forum to ask...

There was already a short thread addressing the future of the 32bit version http://www.slimjet.com/en/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=736

However, it wasn't answered by a developer, so I did what shouldn't be done...I started a new thread and asked again.    http://www.slimjet.com/en/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=876

[leenie]

In reading that short thread it says Slimjet is based on Chromium. I saw on friend's 32bit pc the very same warning in Chromium that displays on Google Chrome. hmmm, I wonder if it is because she has both installed. Time for more research.

[Dan]

Well, I can only speak from my own experience...

I no longer have Chromium or Chrome on my 32bit computer; however, when I did have Chrome and started receiving the message that it would no longer be supported, I removed Chrome and installed Chromium. I didn't get the message while using Chromium.

[teejay]

After a small amount of research ....
- Slimjet website has made no comment about potential of their 32-bit source to dry up     http://www.slimjet.com/en/about-slimjet.htm 
- a quote from Google (who support the Chromium development) about 3 months ago was :
"To provide the best experience for the most-used Linux versions, we will end support for Google Chrome on 32-bit Linux, Ubuntu Precise (12.04), and Debian 7 (wheezy) in early March, 2016.  Chrome will continue to function on these platforms but will no longer receive updates and security fixes. We intend to continue supporting the 32-bit build configurations on Linux to support building Chromium. If you are using Precise, we’d recommend that you to upgrade to Trusty", says Dirk Pranke, Software Engineer, Google.
quoted from :  http://betanews.com/2015/11/30/google-killing-chrome-for-32-bit-linux/

If you ignore the PR weasel words at the start, the message seems pretty clear - 32-bit Chromium continues.   For now ... until Google decides to improve our "experience"  again. 

[Dan]

Thanks teejay.

I've received a reply from the Slimjet forum's site administrator...32bit Linux will continue to be supported for the foreseeable future.

[leenie]

I just tried the latest version of Vivaldi Beta. It needs A LOT of polish before it is ready to use. Not to mention, I'm spoiled and want it my way. You cannot customize this browser the way you're used to. Kind of reminds me of the old, confusing Opera. Yuk (just my opinion). Going to revisit QupZilla next...

[Dan]

That makes sense considering the man behind Vivaldi is who was originally the developer of Opera. I remember how happy I was when I finally figured out how to change that orange color on Vivaldi. 

Speaking of Opera, I've read a couple of articles lately that said Linux users could watch Netflix and Amazon Prime on Opera. Sounded good for 32bit users since Chrome is dropping 32bit. So I installed the latest stable 32bit Opera...neither Netflix or Amazon Prime worked. I then tried the latest Opera Beta build...they didn't work on it either.

Out of curiosity, I tried Xombrero. A very basic browser with security features built in. When it opens, all you see is basically a basic start page with an address bar. I think keyboard shortcuts are used for opening new tabs and such. When I first opened it, it was only using 68 MB of RAM. I thought that was great; however, after about 5 minutes, it was up to almost 500 MB. Might have been because I didn't take the time to learn how to use it properly...

[tukoz]

Xombrero sucks quite a bit in "Normal" mode. If you change it for "Whitelist", it'll teaches any other browser on lightness, energy efficiency and indecent speed.
Ctrl+J handily activates/deactivate JS per site.

[ross]

Yeah, Slimjet is my default browser.