Arch Linux

mac57

Member

From: St. Somewhere

Registered: 2006-01-06

Posts: 302

Website

Lightest, Fastest Web Browser?

Hi all, as some of you may know from my recent posts, I have just home built a new vintage Pentium Pro 200 MHz system with dual CPUs and 128 MB of RAM. Arch is 686 optimized and the Pentium Pro is a the original 686 - it was a no brainer to put Arch on this machine.

I have it up and running nicely under Arch these days and it is surprisingly functional and zippy using the combination of XFCE4 (without the XFCE4 destop) and Rox Filer as the desktop. The only thing that really bogs down is the web browser. I have of course loaded Firefox 2.0.0.4, but it is very, very slow to launch. I hunted down an old version of Opera (6.06) that is much faster, but which has a tendency to simply crash and burn when it hits things on web pages it doesn't understand due to its age (1997 I think).

Of the current set of browsers available in the Arch repositories, which is the fastest and lightest? I have heard that maybe Epiphany is pretty good, or perhaps Galeon, but I haven't found any real evidence one way or the other, so I am soliciting your input.

In your experience, what is the lightest full function web browser I could load on this older, slower hardware?

Thanks!

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Cast off the Microsoft shackles Jan 2005

psych

Member

Registered: 2007-06-04

Posts: 19

Re: Lightest, Fastest Web Browser?

Try Opera 9.21 with static linked qt....

http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?d … ns=&SeB=nd

Last edited by psych (2007-06-11 14:20:01)

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Sorry for my bad English

jean-paul

Member

From: Germany

Registered: 2007-03-26

Posts: 61

Re: Lightest, Fastest Web Browser?

Hi,

I prefer Kazehakase. You'll find it in community.
Kaze loads in less than 0.5 sec. and renders very fast.

Jean-Paul

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I'm root. if you see me smile, you'd better have a backup!!

Bralkein

Member

Registered: 2004-10-26

Posts: 354

Re: Lightest, Fastest Web Browser?

Dillo is very light and fast, but it only renders simple websites properly. Still, it might be worth a try. PKGBUILD is in the AUR.

mac57

Member

From: St. Somewhere

Registered: 2006-01-06

Posts: 302

Website

Re: Lightest, Fastest Web Browser?

Hi I tried Kazehkase - it does load quickly, but seems slow to render pages, almost as if it delays for a time before starting. There also doesn't seem to be any way of setting a home page. I have set the UI level to "expert" but still cannot find this. Do you know how to set a home page? Certainly this is a promising looking browser!

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Cast off the Microsoft shackles Jan 2005

mac57

Member

From: St. Somewhere

Registered: 2006-01-06

Posts: 302

Website

Re: Lightest, Fastest Web Browser?

Yes, Dillo is the speed king, but as you say, it only does very simple websites. Unfortunately, it seems that no further progress is being made on Dillo. Its home page says it has been frozen. Too bad.

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Cast off the Microsoft shackles Jan 2005

Zoranthus

Member

From: muc

Registered: 2006-11-22

Posts: 166

Re: Lightest, Fastest Web Browser?

If it comes to fast page rendering I'd recommend Swiftfox-[your cpu here] (found in AUR) together with the "Fasterfox" addon (found on firefox addon page).

mac57

Member

From: St. Somewhere

Registered: 2006-01-06

Posts: 302

Website

Re: Lightest, Fastest Web Browser?

After doing this the hard way, and loading all sorts of different browsers, I find that on this machine at least, epiphany seems to load up and run the fastest. Painfully slow by today's standards. A warm start of epiphany (has been run before and exited, now restarting) takes around 7 seconds. This is about half the time that Firefox 2.0 takes for a warm start though, and about 1-2 seconds faster than Galeon. Plus, I like the nice clean look of Epiphany. Thanks for all the pointers everyone.

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Cast off the Microsoft shackles Jan 2005

mac57

Member

From: St. Somewhere

Registered: 2006-01-06

Posts: 302

Website

Re: Lightest, Fastest Web Browser?

Zoranthus, just saw your post. I will look up swiftfox and let you know! Thanks.

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Cast off the Microsoft shackles Jan 2005

Lord_Bad

Member

Registered: 2005-04-17

Posts: 54

Re: Lightest, Fastest Web Browser?

I'll give my vote to Epiphany. In my opinion swiftfox is nothing but an abomination.

shining

Pacman Developer

Registered: 2006-05-10

Posts: 2,043

Re: Lightest, Fastest Web Browser?

Hi I tried Kazehkase - it does load quickly, but seems slow to render pages, almost as if it delays for a time before starting. There also doesn't seem to be any way of setting a home page. I have set the UI level to "expert" but still cannot find this. Do you know how to set a home page? Certainly this is a promising looking browser!

Of course it loads quickly and renders slowly, it uses its own interface (which I find very crappy btw), but gecko engine

Anyway, it looks like "full function" and "light and fast" are contradictory, at least for now. I'm still waiting for the ideal web browser which will prove this wrong.

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pacman roulette : pacman -S $(pacman -Slq | LANG=C sort -R | head -n $((RANDOM % 10)))

Husio

Member

From: Europe

Registered: 2005-12-04

Posts: 359

Website

Re: Lightest, Fastest Web Browser?

IMO links -g is much better than Dillo.
No idea why, but firefox on Damn Small Linux  is damn fast

klixon

Member

From: Nederland

Registered: 2007-01-17

Posts: 525

Re: Lightest, Fastest Web Browser?

i'd say either links or lynx in a terminal

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Stand back, intruder, or i'll blast you out of space! I am Klixon and I don't want any dealings with you human lifeforms. I'm a cyborg!

idjut

Member

From: Oslo

Registered: 2006-05-15

Posts: 177

Re: Lightest, Fastest Web Browser?

Kazehakase is a nice nice browser, but the rendering is too slow. I am back with opera again now.

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Linux user #403491

"Men have called me mad; but the question is not yet settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence– whether much that is glorious– whether all that is profound– does not spring from disease of thought– from moods of mind exalted at the expense of the general intellect." - E. A. Poe from Eleonora

Stoffi

Member

Registered: 2007-03-15

Posts: 107

Re: Lightest, Fastest Web Browser?

I know this isn't what you asked for, but have you considerd opera 9.5 (development snapshot)?
there are 2 versions in AUR I think.

praka123

Member

From: Kerala,India

Registered: 2008-03-04

Posts: 188

Website

Re: Lightest, Fastest Web Browser?

well,if u r a Gnome user,do consider Epiphany browser(with gecko or webkit engine).

if ur asking console based browsers,lynx is what I like !

pyther

Member

Registered: 2008-01-21

Posts: 1,395

Website

Re: Lightest, Fastest Web Browser?

idjut, why the hell would you dig up a trhead that is over 6 months old, and you don't even provide a solution!!!!!

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synthead

Member

Registered: 2006-05-09

Posts: 1,337

Re: Lightest, Fastest Web Browser?

Cause it's the coolest.  All the kids are doing it.

wuischke

Member

From: Suisse Romande

Registered: 2007-01-06

Posts: 630

Re: Lightest, Fastest Web Browser?

To answer the question despite being old: midori and netsurf are very light browsers. Midori uses webkit and has therefore good rendering, netsurf not quite so.