Web browsers

There are many great web browsers to choose from, and many different ways of viewing the web, from text-only to 3D rendered pages.

Avoid Flash, as it's buggy and soon to be out of support for GNU/Linux.

Major Browsers

Free software

Chromium, the open-source project that Chrome is based on and is also developed by Google. It is basically Chrome minus the in-built Pepper flash plugin, PDF viewer and a few of the tracking features and it is fully extension compatible with Chrome.

Firefox is historically known for being the most compatible, stable, and customizable browser available, but some of those points have been challenged in recent times, such as with Australis. Firefox is by far the most customizable browser, and is generally considered to have better plugins.

Non-free software

Chrome, developed by Google, is an upstart competitor of Firefox. It tends to be more stable and seem much faster, but that is mainly due to the fact that it renders UI and webpages separately. In exchange, you are joining a botnet - Chrome sends a lot more data than necessary back to Google, tries to convince you to sign in to Google services and has their menus inside. Speed between Firefox and Chrome is not something to worry about as both perform different in different situations and both can be equally fast. It used to have issues with customization, but that has been reduced in recent times. In recent times there have been outbreaks of extensions that have malware or track you for their own benefit, but if you have common sense then that shouldn't be much of a problem. Based on Chromium, which is free software.

Niggernet Wangblows Exploder, or IE, is a demon hell-spawn that uses Trident to try to be a unique special snowflake by advertising with a waifu named Inori Aiwaza. Developed by a crack-team of apes straight out of compton otherwise known as Microsoft, there are many better alternatives, including death.

Opera is one of the oldest browsers still developed, and comes with many useful features right out of the box. It looks great and performs well, and is well known for its standardization of web protocols and completion of tests. Recent updates have made it a shit clone of Chrome. Used to have its own Presto engine, but since 13.x version is now using WebKit Blink, a joint project with Google, which means its just a skin for chrome and has been shit ever since. shares code with Chrome, reducing overhead for Opera ASA and making Opera partially open source. Opera's current development path is strikingly different from what it used to be, but there are compelling reasons to use Opera, including the additional extensions made available for it using a compatibility layer for Chrome extensions. The browser is undergoing a complete re-transformation, and the end result is a compelling browser with a bright future.

Opera with its new rendering engine is not available currently for Linux, only Windows and OS X; 12.16 is the latest version available for Linux, which was the last version using the Presto engine.

Safari is a WebKit-based browser for Apple OS/X. Will sync across Apple devices using Apple ID. Has a bit of customization abilities, but less than Firefox. Very few add-ons compared to other browsers, and it's hard to find the website for add-ons in the first place. Available for Windows, but not seen on Windows normally. The best for Mac's battery life, guaranteed.

Other Browsers

• Dillo, minimalistic and fast browser that only loads text and basic HTML.
• dwb, a lightweight web browser based on webkit and gtk. It aims to be keyboard driven with vi-like shortcuts.
• ELinks, a text based web browser that runs from the terminal.
• Iceweasel, a rebranded version of Firefox by the Debian project, due to Firefox artwork being non-free. Therefore, Iceweasel is even more free than Firefox, but is mostly only easily available if you run Debian.
• K-Meleon, Open-source GPL licensed web browser based upon Mozilla's Gecko engine. Old as fuck now, but works well on older versions of Windows (Win2K/ME/98 etc.) and better than using IE.
• Konqueror, KHTML browser and file manager developed for K desktop environment (KDE)
• luakit, Highly configurable minimalistic browser
• Midori, minimal WebKit browser
• NetSurf, small light and fast, also, barely any website works properly - what else could you ever need?
• Otter, a project aiming to recreate the Opera 12 GUI/features in QT5. Open/Libre software
• rekonq, WebKit browser with Qt interface
• surf, a minimalistic WebKit browser created by suckless.org people
• SRware Iron, a fork of Chromium with dubious claims of being more secure than Chrome, while adding no additional features.
• uzbl, Minimalistic browser that follows the UNIX philosophy

Recommended User Scripts

• 4Chan Linkify - Turn text links into clickable links.
• MayhemYDG's 4Chan-X - /g/ approved 4chan extension.
• OneeChan – Also dormant but project of cweed for ricing.
• Seaweedchan's 4chan X – Better than the "/g/-approved 4chan extension" my illiterate colleague has suggested. No longer under development, although still functional and more feature-rich.
• ViewTubePlus - ViewTube for porn.
• ViewTube - Replaces Flash video players on many sites including YouTube with HTML5.
• YouTube Center - The YouTube userscript. [Developer Version]
• Zixaphir's Appchan-X - 4Chan-X rolled into a theme engine script.