Lightweight browsers on netbook

Midas · 2020-01-10 00:08

Just giving some feedback about my brief experience with finding alternatives to Firefox -- I've been running Firefox-esr v68.x on Q4OS-TDE in my netbook but apparently it is too heavy for the Atom CPU muscle.

1. I tried Midori (https://www.midori-browser.org/; currently offline) v7.0-2 from the repos, which is rea lly light but proved itself unworkable by not allowing me to scroll pages from a local news site.

2. Then I tried curses based Links2 (http://links.twibright.com/) v2.18 also from the repos and it works well with the only downside of over-simplifying the complex layout of some modern websites which can be somewhat confusing.

3. Lastly, I installed Qt based Falkon (https://www.falkon.org/download/) v3.0.0 from the repos (note v3.1.0 is the latest from the homepage) fearing it would be a disappointment with its 150MB of disk cost upfront only to be pleasantly surprised by the overall snapiness it displays in my scant present hardware -- in fact, I made the present post with it.

Having said that, I have a couple of minor related help requests:

a. Would it be possible to upgrade to the more recent version of Falkon? It's present in Sid repos and I downloaded the deb package from there but it has some unmet dependencies, mainly more recent versions of Qt libraries. With all the news of zero-days exploits it might not be the best option to be running a two-year old browser...

b. Another thing is, considering that my screen is only 600px high, it should be possible to start Falkon (as well as Firefox, for that matter) without a title bar, since it serves no purpose other to reduce the browser window real-estate. I'm able to choose "no border" or "full screen" from the left titlebar button menu but that doesn't stick. There's also "Configure Window Behavior" option but I can't make sense of its many choices.

wove · 2020-01-10 03:05

A nice lightweight fast browser to consider on old systems, or systems with small screens is w3m. It runs in a terminal window. You can open it full screen in a separate workspace. It is available in the repsoitories.

It will present images if you install the w3m-img package as well.

To use it you simply type in the terminal w3m followed by the url. ABCD.com or ABCD.org etc is sufficient formatting for the url. The tab key moves from link to link and you scroll through a page with the cursor keys.

Although it is very bare bones it works very well with most informational sites and is a god send on news sites where advertising overwhelms the content. It formats material to fit the terminal window at any size you might set it at, which make neither the screen height or width an issue.

bill

q4osteam · 2020-01-10 07:51

You could also try Palemoon
https://github.com/q4os-installers/pale … ag/v3.1-a1
https://www.palemoon.org/

Midas · 2020-01-12 18:53

Thank you for the suggestions. Any help with the window settings?

DavidB · 2020-01-13 22:48

I've found a "work-around" way of getting a full screen launch, with Palemoon. The following is from the Palemoon user forum:

There's a roundabout way of doing it. It relies on the fact that a profile will open with the same width+height as when it was last closed. So...

Open the profile manager from a teminal with the command palemoon -no-remote -p
Select the option to create a new profile. Call it "full".
Start the new profile "full", hit {F11} to make it fullscreen, and then {ALT}{F4} to exit it
You can how start it from a terminal; e.g. palemoon -no-remote -p full cnn.com

The navigation URL bar will show up for a few seconds, then disappear once the page is loaded. If you temporarily want the menus, move the mouse pointer to the top edge of the screen. The menus will disappear when you move the mouse pointer away from the edge.

Midas · 2020-01-15 00:27

Thanks for the tip DavidB. Will try that.

satu · 2020-01-15 02:36

mirrors.evowise.com/mxlinux-packages/antix/buster/pool/main/p/palemoon-nonsse2/

27.9.4 (2018-07-17) is the final update for palemoon version 27 releases

No problem with youtube. Use less resources than normal palemoon.

detoo · 2020-01-15 07:49

satu wrote:

27.9.4 (2018-07-17) is the final update for palemoon version 27 releases
No problem with youtube. Use less resources than normal palemoon.

Apparently "normal palemoon" in this context means version 28.x and later (?)

Last edited by detoo (2020-04-05 03:10)

Aidan1970 · 2023-08-31 18:17

Falkon is an excellent lightweight web browser!

It's almost perfect for TDE.

Rademes · 2023-09-02 16:30

Personaly I prefer Firefox, because it is actively developed, has nice privacy functions, such as tracking protection, DNS Over HTTPS, pop up window blocking, and it has uBlockOrigin, which can block 99% of ads, and also filters malicious and phishing websites.
But, if you are looking for a lightweight web browser, try Falkon. You can easily install it using Q4OS Software Centre. (attachment)
You could also try Palemoon: https://www.palemoon.org/

PRSoftware · 2023-09-07 17:47

On my old laptop, Falkon crashes with segmentation fault ...

I tried to uninstall it completely and reinstall (version 22.12.1) from Synaptic but nothing changes : segmentation fault after 1 or 2 seconds.

If I launch it from a terminal, it writes

Falkon: 1 extension loaded
Segmentation fault

and crashes.

I tried with option "-e" to disable extension: same result.

I tried to remove the default profile directory: same result.

How can I make Falkon working ?

Last edited by PRSoftware (2023-09-07 18:05)

q4osteam · 2023-09-12 16:29

@PRSoftware
Please create a new topic in the Support section with a help request regarding to your Falkon crashes. This topic should rather serve as a more general discussion about lightweight browsers on netbook as suggested by the OP.

Aidan1970 · 2023-10-15 17:29

Praying to the Q4OS Gods...the Devs.

Last edited by Aidan1970 (2023-10-15 17:34)

Aidan1970 · 2023-10-15 17:32

Aidan1970 wrote:

Falkon is an excellent lightweight web browser!
It's almost perfect for TDE.

I most definitely have to reiterate this. Falkon is perfect for TDE. It's basically flawless on Q4OS. And if it were the default browser that comes preinstalled instead of Google Chrome then that would be great

Q4OS Forum

#1 2020-01-10 00:08

Lightweight browsers on netbook

#2 2020-01-10 03:05

Re: Lightweight browsers on netbook

#3 2020-01-10 07:51

Re: Lightweight browsers on netbook

#4 2020-01-12 18:53

Re: Lightweight browsers on netbook

#5 2020-01-13 22:48

Re: Lightweight browsers on netbook

#6 2020-01-15 00:27

Re: Lightweight browsers on netbook

#7 2020-01-15 02:36

Re: Lightweight browsers on netbook

#8 2020-01-15 07:49

Re: Lightweight browsers on netbook

#9 2023-08-31 18:17

Re: Lightweight browsers on netbook

#10 2023-09-02 16:30

Re: Lightweight browsers on netbook

#11 2023-09-07 17:47

Re: Lightweight browsers on netbook

#12 2023-09-12 16:29

Re: Lightweight browsers on netbook

#13 2023-10-15 17:29

Re: Lightweight browsers on netbook

#14 2023-10-15 17:32

Re: Lightweight browsers on netbook

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