[SOLVED] an actively developed, lightweight, keyboard-driven browser

drelyn86 · 2014-11-06 16:00:22

The list of web browsers in the Arch Wiki is looking pretty sad. Many of the lightweight browsers haven't had a release in years. I'm looking for something lightweight and preferably keyboard-driven (I'm using a tiling WM and would prefer reaching for my mouse as little as possible).

I don't feel that I have many options.

dwb: listed as "unmaintained as of October 2014"
jumanji: last commit in master branch was almost 3 years ago
luakit: version 2012.09.13.r1-7
surf: version 0.6, about 21 months ago
uzbl: version 2012.05.14-3. This project seemed promising. It's sad to see it fade out so soon.
vimprobable2-git: 2014.01.19

Now that the HTML5 spec has achieved W3C Recommendation status, it seems that my only option for staying up-to-date is one of the mainstream browsers. That is, of course, unless one of you can recommend something new that maybe I haven't covered in the list above.

Last edited by drelyn86 (2014-11-06 19:32:06)

karol · 2014-11-06 17:00:18

There's also https://github.com/conformal/xombrero

Maybe a heavier browser + some plugin to make it more keyboard-friendly? Have you tried either versions of opera?

Edit: There's also palemoon.
Edit 2: What about dillo and netsurf? Too simple, not very keyboard-driven I'm afraid, but you can have a look at them.

Edit 3: See also https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=96589 in case you haven't already.

Last edited by karol (2014-11-06 17:22:14)

\hbar · 2014-11-06 17:08:54

This probably isn't very helpful but in webkit based browsers (e.g. luakit), the HTML parsing is taken care of by webkit-gtk which is actively maintained.

jasonwryan · 2014-11-06 17:28:29

\hbar wrote:

This probably isn't very helpful but in webkit based browsers (e.g. luakit), the HTML parsing is taken care of by webkit-gtk which is actively maintained.

Exactly: that is why, eg., Vimprobable is not that active; the browser does everything people want of it and is only sporadically updated. Patches, however, are always welcome.

drelyn86 · 2014-11-06 17:35:56

karol wrote:

There's also https://github.com/conformal/xombrero
Maybe a heavier browser + some plugin to make it more keyboard-friendly? Have you tried either versions of opera?

Edit: There's also palemoon.
Edit 2: What about dilllo?
Edit 3: See also https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=96589 in case you haven't already.

A heavier browser + an addon (Firefox with Pentadactyl or Chromium with Vimium, for example) is outside the scope of this question.

xombrero: last commit was 4 months ago. Definitely not the worst I've listed... I'll try it!
palemoon: will need to look into this, but if it's not significantly lighter than Firefox then it doesn't really provide an alternative to Firefox for my needs
dillo: No javascript support... among many other things.

\hbar wrote:

This probably isn't very helpful but in webkit based browsers (e.g. luakit), the HTML parsing is taken care of by webkit-gtk which is actively maintained.

Actually, that's a very important detail to consider.

karol · 2014-11-06 17:41:13

I've also suggested netsurf (too many edits, sorry), but it's similar to dillo in many ways, although not _that_ barebones.

Last time I checked palemoon used about 1/3 less RAM than firefox.

matyilona200 · 2014-11-06 18:31:07

There's also vimb, it's like luakit. I did not use it much, because I switched back to luaki after a few days, but it's in the AUR.

Last edited by matyilona200 (2014-11-06 18:32:55)

karol · 2014-11-06 18:37:36

Hmmm, now that I've looked at the list in the wiki, I see that xombrero and vimb are listed there. So is dillo, netsurf etc.
Bad drelyn86 (or just lazy me ;P).

rikn00 · 2014-11-06 19:27:28

You can try qutebrowser (http://www.github.com/The-Compiler/qutebrowser. It is in quite early stage now but it atleast I like using it. It is similar to dwb.

drelyn86 · 2014-11-06 19:30:33

karol wrote:

Hmmm, now that I've looked at the list in the wiki, I see that xombrero and vimb are listed there. So is dillo, netsurf etc.
Bad drelyn86 (or just lazy me ;P).

Yeah, I kind of cherry-picked, didn't I?

I think I can mark this thread as solved. As \hbar noted, a lot of the browsers discussed here are based on webkit-gtk, which is still very actively developed. This keeps these projects from falling too far behind the curve. For functionality unrelated to WebKit, there is probably some work needed which would be best resolved by contributing.

okraits · 2014-11-07 07:42:42

There's also lariza which is a simple webkitgtk+ based browser which is actively developed.

Last edited by okraits (2014-11-07 07:43:53)

ANOKNUSA · 2014-11-07 13:53:22

Now that the HTML5 spec has achieved W3C Recommendation status, it seems that my only option for staying up-to-date is one of the mainstream browsers.

This probably isn't very helpful but in webkit based browsers (e.g. luakit), the HTML parsing is taken care of by webkit-gtk which is actively maintained.

I'd also add to this that the fact that although HTML5 is now an "official" standard, the fact is a) many developers have been using it for years; and b) There's probably not a huge rush to update all the decade-old XHTML sites that still work just fine. The fact that dwb et. al. aren't constantly updated means nothing.

Arch Linux

#1 2014-11-06 16:00:22

[SOLVED] an actively developed, lightweight, keyboard-driven browser

#2 2014-11-06 17:00:18

Re: [SOLVED] an actively developed, lightweight, keyboard-driven browser

#3 2014-11-06 17:08:54

Re: [SOLVED] an actively developed, lightweight, keyboard-driven browser

#4 2014-11-06 17:28:29

Re: [SOLVED] an actively developed, lightweight, keyboard-driven browser

#5 2014-11-06 17:35:56

Re: [SOLVED] an actively developed, lightweight, keyboard-driven browser

#6 2014-11-06 17:41:13

Re: [SOLVED] an actively developed, lightweight, keyboard-driven browser

#7 2014-11-06 18:31:07

Re: [SOLVED] an actively developed, lightweight, keyboard-driven browser

#8 2014-11-06 18:37:36

Re: [SOLVED] an actively developed, lightweight, keyboard-driven browser

#9 2014-11-06 19:27:28

Re: [SOLVED] an actively developed, lightweight, keyboard-driven browser

#10 2014-11-06 19:30:33

Re: [SOLVED] an actively developed, lightweight, keyboard-driven browser

#11 2014-11-07 07:42:42

Re: [SOLVED] an actively developed, lightweight, keyboard-driven browser

#12 2014-11-07 13:53:22

Re: [SOLVED] an actively developed, lightweight, keyboard-driven browser

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