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Linux Web Browsers Compared
Rob Valliere writes: "The best Linux Web browsers have dramatically improved in the past few months: they are all stable, standards compliant and loaded with solid feature enhancements and additions. Using Red Hat 7.2 and the KDE desktop, the premier Linux browsers are Galeon 1.0.3, Mozilla 0.9.8
and Opera 6.0 TP3. The best Web downloads and installs were from Opera and Mozilla, which have minimal dependencies. Galeon is a small download but can be difficult to upgrade due to its Mozilla and GNOME dependencies."
It rocks, except for a few JavaScript nasties.
Using X on a small laptop via a fairly powerful firewall machine, I eventually realised that I could run Mozilla on the firewall and put the display on the laptop. Although Mozilla is a rather bigger browser than Opera, it actually runs better in that mode than when I ran Opera on the laptop.
Come on, the test only briefly mentioned about testing with graphics, CSS, and Javascript. Any modern browser can handle that so easily, it's not even worth testing.
When car magzines do a car review, they floor the gas pedal to get the fastest 0-60mph time. They cut corners much faster than street driving speed to test the suspension and handling characteristics of the car. What I don't understand is, why does this browser review treat these browsers like babies? Throw in some DOM2/3, CSS2/3, bidi text, DHTML, and XHTML! Let the best engineered browser shine, instead of fixating on those performance numbers!
I like "open in background" and the "mouse gestures".
I'd register if it was Native FreeBSD, but its actually the Linux one in compatibilty mode.
One area where IE simply trashes Netscape and Mozilla is rendering huge tables. I'm talking about the 1 meg of text variety. Has anyone tried putting the various browers through the paces on this kind of test?
If one uses Ximian Gnome, keeping up with all those "horrible" dependencies is a snap. I understand why it can seem like a pain, but what does the reviewer want? STATIC builds of everything? Screw that. I'll just pop open Red Carpet and grab it all at once, thanks...
The Free desktop that Just Works
may not be the best, but with there latest security options, it makes live nice.
Go into
Edit>Preferences>Advanced>Scripts & Windows
and uncheck "open unrequested windows"
The pop-up nightmare has ended!
Not saying other browsers cant do this, but if they can't, they will be real soon.
Now I am just waiting for the "block these sites" style of entry which can be seeded by a downloaded file to block ad servers.
-- Knowing too much can get you killed, but knowing who knows too much can make you rich.
What about 128-bit support for online transactions? Ease of installing plugins?
There was a linuxjournal article last month comparing many browsers and their ability to handle ssl, printing, etc. I don't think this is the same article (can anyone verify that?).
:)
Anyway, on to my flamebait of a title. Most geeks are developers of some sort, and need to see 'under the hood'. Yeah, you've got source code, but if you're a webmonkey, you need to see the source of the page you're one. That's usually not possible in Mozilla or Netscape if you've POSTed stuff. As much as I'd like to use Mozilla for everything all the time (once it speeds up just a bit more!) I can't - I have to use something else (IE, Konqueror, depending on platform). Why the heck isn't this fixed YET? I see we can get MathML builds, but something as basic as this STILL isn't addressed.
"Go code it yourself" is an answer I feel coming on from someone, but you and I both know it's not a realistic solution.
creation science book
Except this is exactly the point of Microsoft's .net initiative. To make the internet (or what most people think is the internet - www) not be HTTP based anymore, but to rely on proprietary extensions/applets/applications built around the .net framework.
In their eyes 90% of the web will require IE in order for the "web services" to work. And they will leverage things like MS Office to get the ball rolling. No longer will new features be added directly to office, but will be available on the web - provided the user has Windows and is using IE...
Mod this as flamebait if you want, but that certainly seems to me to be the direction they are heading. Heck, MS execs are even talking about how http's days are coming to an end...
What features are you referring to? All the features you mentioned are in Opera 6 for Linux (and others are even exclusive to the Linux version).
...
... Need I say more? I *have* to use C-c and C-v? Even when cut & pasting from one tab to another? No thanks.
I'm using my web browser 10 h a day (work & play), and for me there's simply *nothing* which even remotely compares to the usability and robustness of Opera (yes, I do have the whole bunch installed).
It's the only program on Linux I ever bought a license for, and looking at the current selection, it likely will hold that position.
Let's go through them:
Konqueror: No tabbed browsing. Nuff said. I usually have about ten browser windows open
Mozilla, Netscape & Galeon: I'm an editor in a webboard and that f*cking textarea input bug makes it hardly bearable to use it for that.
It just shouldn't be that a browser in this day and age inserts text where *it* wants and not where *I* want.
Cut and paste
And no browser I know compares to Opera when it comes to bookmark management, especially with the new search function in 6.0.
My 2c
b.
--
"Just believe everything I tell you, and it will all be very, very simple."
And, for the paranoid, it handles cookie requests as well as... Lynx!
Actually, I think Konqueror is the best browser available for cookie handling. One major feature it has that all of the others (I've seen) lack is the ability to look at the cookie before deciding to accept/reject it. In particular I like to look at the expiration date, because cookies that don't last long don't bother me much.
Looking at those expiration dates inspired me to hack my copy of Konqueror so that I can configure it to automatically accept any cookies of short duration (i.e. expiration not specified or specified to be within one day) on a per-site basis.
The other thing I want to change but haven't gotten round to, is to give myself the option of rejecting cookies based on the origin server instead of the stated cookie domain.
You might this this is a lot of bother, but I find that with a few such options in place I can both minimize the number of cookies that are tracking me and avoid having to deal with a lot of "Accept this cookie?" dialog boxes popping up all the time. The "accept short cookies" option was a huge win in achieving a nice balance.
Oh, and yes I'm going to submit my patches, but they're pretty rough right now -- not something that any maintainer would accept.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Opera has a few features that I think that sets it apart from the other browsers(I may be wrong though...). Mouse Gestures... I sometimes get tired of having to go hit the back button, the forward button and so on and so on... I can hold the Right Mouse Button and then hit the Left Button and I go back, I do the opposite to go forward. I can go over a link, right click and pull downward and it opens the link in a new window. The Bookmark Shortcuts... You can give a bookmark a shortcut name so now, instead of going into bookmarks, you could just put your shortcut name for the url. These are 2 features I'm amazed that no one else has done yet and something that I think sets Opera apart from the rest.
The galeon example here wasn't a great one, either, because I (apparently) already had all of the prerequisites installed. What's really cool is bringing up a really basic box that has practically nothing installed on it, and typing "apt-get install kde" (or whatever other large, complex system) and watching it get and install all of X, KDE, etc.
It's even nice when you want to configure/build yourself. Just "apt-get source galeon" instead and it'll download and unpack the source tree. You then have the option of configure-make-make install or you can look in the debian directory, tweak all of the config params and use "dpkg-buildpackage" to build your own customized installable package that meshes seamlessly with the system. And if there's no debian package available for an app, it's pretty trivial to add your own debian directory to the source tree and build and install a package so that, again, it fits into the system.
Oh, and don't let all of the "but Debian stable is *ancient*" naysayers discourage you. Just run "testing" or "unstable" and you'll have all of the latest. And don't let the description fool you, "unstable" is very solid. I run "stable" on servers (actually, I'm running "testing" on my servers right now; they're not mission-critical and 3.0 is really close) and "unstable" on my desktops, although when 3.0 is released, I may switch to "testing" on the desktops (i.e. stick with Sid).
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Mozilla is missing here, although it really shouldn't be. After all, no Galeon without Mozilla. So what's it killer feature?
And if anybody can tell me how to do the "web shortcuts" with galeon, I'd be very grateful.
I've been using Opera since the 3.x days, back when it was only offered on Windows. Now it is my main browser for linux, and it works for 95% of the sites that I visit. Opera is one of the very few programs I'm willing to pay money for, in fact I am grateful that they actually made the effort to port their browser to so many different platforms.
Three are a few things I just can't live without in a browser now:
1. Mouse gesters. Once you learn them you will *NEVER* go back. In fact, whenever I'm using one of those other browsers I end up trying the mouse gesters (which of course does nothing).
2. Tabbed windows (I know most of the browsers offer this now, but Opera has always had it).
3. All those cool search boxes/quick links you can customize and put into your personal bar.
4. The main search box (deafaul google of course but it can be anything you want).
I'm sure I'm forgetting a bunch. My only gripe is that Opera sometimes crashes, although the newest version 6.0 B1 hasn't crashed on me once yet (although it has only been released a few days ago).