Ask Slashdot: Best Small-Footprint Modern Browser?

Annirak writes "I've recently started a paid internship at a company which is expanding faster than their IT department can supply new hardware. As a consequence, I've been issued a P4 2.4GHz with 512MB of RAM. Currently, I am using Firefox 4, but I find that it eats up far too much of my limited RAM. I'd rather not give up some of the more modern UI features that are offered by the current versions of Firefox and Chrome, but I need a smaller footprint. What other browsers are out there which could help me conserve resources?"

Comments

X (padding to eliminate "Filter error")

[Sloppy]

Run the browser on the Corei7 guy's computer, use his RAM, and see it on yours. ;-)

Not always possible to install more ram

[AliasMarlowe]

How would you propose adding RAM to a maxed-out system?

The laptop I'm typing this from has 1GB of RAM. This is the maximum it supports; it cannot take more. Incidentally, the laptop is over 8 years old and runs fine, even the battery is still OK. It's a Celeron system currently running Lubuntu 10.04, since the LXDE desktop is leaner than Gnome or KDE (some unnecessary services are disabled also). I rely on Opera as the primary browser, and usually don't need a swap file even with a good number of tabs open in Opera, and some other applications running (right now: Inkscape, Gimp, Thunderbird, Pidgin, and a few lxterminal/bash/pcmanfm windows).

[warning: rant] This laptop has not been replaced partly because modern laptops with equivalent displays (1920x1200) are priced outrageously. I see no reason to downgrade to a 1920x1080 shortscreen, but object to the notion of paying double the money to keep the extra 120 rows of pixels. [apologies for rant]