browser: alternatives to Firefox 57

[xfrank]

So... Firefox, our old beloved browser, has changed drastically in its 57th version (Quantum). UI and workflow has ben distrupted, many extensions doesn't work anymore, the UI is rather ugly (reminds Edge) and customization is poor. In Mate and Cinnamon, is virtually impossible to remove the title bar.
What alternative browsers are worthly as replacement of Firefox?
I've tried:
Opera and Opera Developer - good looking and efficient, but has the same title bar problem as FF57.
Vivaldi - a dream of customization, beautiful and very convenient. No problem with the title bar.
Otter Browser - is also customizable, lean on resources, but doesn't render well some sites.
Chrome - is not that bad, it's fast, clean, with a lot of addons, but consumes too much resources
Slimjet - very good browser, but I'm hesintant to convert it in my main browser
Midori - minimalist and frugal on resources, but, as Otter, has problems with some sites

I've not tried yet Palemoon and some other browsers.

For the moment, until Firefox will not fix the UI, I'm forced to move to another browser, and Vivaldi plus Chrome seems to me the better options.

[catweazel]

Slimjet - very good browser, but I'm hesintant to convert it in my main browser

I run slimjet. AFIAC, it's the bee's knees.

[trytip]

i'm sticking with Palemoon and force lock FF 56 even though i don't really use firefox on regular basis. hope Palemoon doesn't do the same thing. but committing to Palemoon has it's flaws. i never upgraded the flash player and still using the old libflashplayer_11.2.202.644 which i'm satisfied with

i should say as of the last 3 months i been a chrome user with palemoon as secondary and FF only for testing

[Schultz]

A new option is Basilisk (which is put out by the Pale Moon team). It supports both legacy add-ons and webextensions. It's still in its early stages (it was just initially released today) so there may still be some bugs.

http://www.basilisk-browser.org/

Article on ghacks about it: https://www.ghacks.net/2017/11/17/pale- ... k-browser/

ADDED:
I just want to add in case I wasn't clear, Basilisk should be considered as beta software (now and for the near future).

[wallyUSA]

I like Google Chrome. Easy to install and keep up-to-date. I get by with minimal extensions/add-ons. Good performance. Very convenient to go use a windows machine on occasion to use the same browser.

[ugly]

I think Vivaldi is already the best and it's always improving.

[karlchen]

i'm sticking with Palemoon

No problem. At the moment I am doing the same. When FF56.0 entred the scene, I made PaleMoon my default browser.

and force lock FF 56

Very bad idea really. Every new Firefox version, like every other browser's new version, closes a number of security holes. Clinging to an outdated, no longer patched browser version is increasing your risk of becoming the victim of a browser security exploit.

hope Palemoon doesn't do the same thing.

If you bother to read Moonchild's announcements about his PaleMoon plans e.g. in the PaleMoon forum here, Will Pale Moon support WebExtensions?, then you will learn that PaleMoon will not drop xul support.

but committing to Palemoon has it's flaws.

I would not know of any such flaws. Care to elaborate a bit?

i never upgraded the flash player and still using the old libflashplayer_11.2.202.644

Hm. This is your fault, not the fault of PaleMoon. Flash Player 27.0.0.187 is compatible with Pale Moon 27.6.1, as far as my own experience tells.

Personally, at the moment I will stick to PaleMoon as my default browser and keep my Flash player up-to-date. In addition I will keep my Firefox up-to-date as well and use it regularly. How else should I find out whether Firefox is technically going the right way and improving, and whether I can get used to the Firefox UI, although full themes have gone forever?

Karl

[xfrank]

I like Google Chrome. Easy to install and keep up-to-date. I get by with minimal extensions/add-ons. Good performance. Very convenient to go use a windows machine on occasion to use the same browser.

Indeed Chrome is good, efficient and fast. It Has two weak points, tough: the hig RAM usage (bad for old hardware) and all the Google efforts to track the user (avoidable, of course).

[xfrank]

Slimjet - very good browser, but I'm hesintant to convert it in my main browser

I run slimjet. AFIAC, it's the bee's knees.

Slimjet is indeed a forgotten gem: it's fast, has a minimalist upper bar, open flawlessly whatever site, and has some usefuil in-built features. Admit Chrome addons, but not all of them works, for example doesn't work "reader view", which I use a lot.

[xfrank]

I think Vivaldi is already the best and it's always improving.

If not the best, it's really great, a joy to use for the power user because its customization. Maybe could be considered as the replacement for FF as the default browser in LM or other distros, if Mozilla insist in following a "Window-ish" path.

[Pjotr]

In my opinion, there are no realistic alternatives to the "Big Three" Firefox, Chrome and Chromium (Big Four, if you count Opera in as well)....

The issue here is security. Only the big web browsers have enough manpower in their dev teams, to keep them secure. Given that your web browser is generally the most attacked piece of software in your system, that's an important consideration.

[Hoser Rob]

I like Google Chrome. Easy to install and keep up-to-date. I get by with minimal extensions/add-ons. Good performance. Very convenient to go use a windows machine on occasion to use the same browser.

Indeed Chrome is good, efficient and fast. It Has two weak points, tough: the hig RAM usage (bad for old hardware) and all the Google efforts to track the user (avoidable, of course).

I've heard that about the RAM that Chrome uses but that's never been my experience. It runs a HELL of a lot better than Firefox on my netbook which has limited RAM.

The only thing about Chrome that bugs me is that you need a 3rd party extension to delete data when you close. Which seems like pretty standard security to me.

[toad1]

Firefox 57 has failed for me.
Total lockups requiring power button reset.

High CPU on Web Content PID.
Strange effects when watching telly, keeps going into screen lock. No screen lock with 56 but that was also high Web Content.

A pity, I liked the feel of it and menus.

Now trying Chrome, none of these problems.

Alan

[Moem]

Indeed Chrome is good, efficient and fast. It Has two weak points, tough: the hig RAM usage (bad for old hardware) and all the Google efforts to track the user (avoidable, of course).

Then consider Iridium. I don't think it's lighter, but it is fully Googlefree. More so than Chromium.

[trytip]

Personally, at the moment I will stick to PaleMoon as my default browser and keep my Flash player up-to-date. In addition I will keep my Firefox up-to-date as well and use it regularly. How else should I find out whether Firefox is technically going the right way and improving, and whether I can get used to the Firefox UI, although full themes have gone forever?

Karl

i'm using the older flash because it uses less cpu and i'm not worried about exploits on outdated browsers. i use an arsenal of privacy tracker blocking in my hosts, i use a configurable /etc/adobe/mms.cfg to block flash cookies, i disable dom storage, i poison canvas data, i use cookie controller which is one of the most important tool not yet available for FF57, i block RefererHeader and some other about:config options
on my laptop which has a better cpu i don't give much thought but on my pc i learned to optimize it for performance.

i am not impressed that FF always comes enabled with send crash reports to "make my browsing experience a better one" it's had 56 version to optimize it for performance and now it wants to start over with 57?

say what you will but my system is 100% more secure with the way i optimized my browsers than any default current profile on every new installed browser, i can guarantee you that.

not saying to keep outdated software to anyone, so please if you don't know what you're doing do not force lock anything.

[Minterator]

Firefox was the most customizable browser, but apparently that is not what the majority of users want (FF = 8% ?!).

I've put FF on ignore as of v56 and trying out Chrome (ouch).

Extensions:

- NoScript alternative, ScriptSafe seems to work (any others?)

- Cookies, I've found nothing good so far, using Chrome's built-in (which is far from perfect).

- An absolute must is font & color control, without which any browser is useless, using "Change Colors"
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/deta ... mlapalklgn
or http://www.chromeextensions.org/appeara ... ge-colors/

- Adblock Plus works!

Like:
The quick profile switch (top right button). Nothing else!

Dislike:
- It's probably spyware like w10.

- Unable to open URLs in the same tab from the command line (for remote controlled HTPC applications).

- Memory hog, though not as bad as FF

[Teksonik]

Memory hog, though not as bad as FF

Looks like FireFox 57 uses about 310 megs here. Is that a problem in the day when 4 Gig or 8 Gig systems are pretty much the norm ?

[Minterator]

Memory hog, though not as bad as FF

Looks like FireFox 57 uses about 310 megs here. Is that a problem in the day when 4 Gig or 8 Gig systems are pretty much the norm ?

32-bit ESR FF in my XP virtual machine uses about that. But on 64-bit OSes it eventually hogs 4GB or more.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/qmoai64iy2sax ... .PNG?raw=1

[ugly]

In my opinion, there are no realistic alternatives to the "Big Three" Firefox, Chrome and Chromium (Big Four, if you count Opera in as well)....

The issue here is security. Only the big web browsers have enough manpower in their dev teams, to keep them secure. Given that your web browser is generally the most attacked piece of software in your system, that's an important consideration.

Do you think that there are security issues with browsers that are built on the 'big three' (Opera, Vivaldi, Brave are all built on Chromium. I'm not sure how Slimjet is built)?

Once concern might be that they might lag the release of some updates of Chromium, but they seem to get up to date fairly quickly. But I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.

[Pjotr]

In my opinion, there are no realistic alternatives to the "Big Three" Firefox, Chrome and Chromium (Big Four, if you count Opera in as well)....

The issue here is security. Only the big web browsers have enough manpower in their dev teams, to keep them secure. Given that your web browser is generally the most attacked piece of software in your system, that's an important consideration.

Do you think that there are security issues with browsers that are built on the 'big three' (Opera, Vivaldi, Brave are all built on Chromium. I'm not sure how Slimjet is built)?

Once concern might be that they might lag the release of some updates of Chromium, but they seem to get up to date fairly quickly. But I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.

In these cases, release lag would be the key factor for deciding about their security..... If you're considering one of those, it's worthwhile to investigate their track record. And to always keep monitoring the swiftness of their release pace.