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Web browsers

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

Major Browsers

Free software

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.

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.

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.

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 which means its just a skin for chrome and has been shit ever since.

>implying Opera was ever good

Safari is a WebKit-based browser for Apple OS/X. Will sync across Apple devices using Apple ID. Available for Windows, but I haven't seen anyone use it on Windows. The best for Macs, guaranteed.

Niggernet Wangblows Exploder, or IE, is a demon hell-spawn that uses Trident to try to be a unique speshal snoflack 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.

^^^ The most common opinion about Internet Explorer. However, IE11 evolved into something that can be called browser. Due to a perfect integration with Windows and normal Flash Player right out of the box (not shitty pepper-flash, like in Chrome), Internet Explorer is usable nowadays. Also, it has AdBlock.

Other / Hipster Browsers

  • Seamonkey is a derivative of the classic Netscape Communicator internet suite. Ever since Opera betrayed its users with V13.0 and up, many users have migrated to Seamonkey. With Firefox's introduction of Australis and the abandonment of customisation, Seamonkey takes the crown as the most customisable browser in the world, and due to it sharing the Gecko engine with Firefox, can even run Firefox addons. Free software.
  • Midori, minimal WebKit browser
  • rekonq, WebKit browser with Qt interface
  • Konqueror, KHTML browser and file manager
  • uzbl, Minimalistic browser that follows the UNIX philosophy
  • luakit, Highly configurable minimalistic browser
  • 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.
  • SRware Iron, think Chrome but with less tracking and more security
  • NetSurf, small light and fast, also, barely any website works properly - what else could you ever need?
  • 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.
  • Otter, a project aiming to recreate the Opera 12 GUI/features in QT5. Open/Libre software
  • Dillo, minimalistic and fast browser that only loads text and basic HTML.
  • ELinks, a text based web browser that runs from the terminal. Used by rms.

Recommended User Scripts

  • ViewTube - Replaces flash video players with HTML5.