What browser do you use on the lite version (16.3). I have tried firefox and after a couple of tabs it gets slow with 4gb of RAM and only a Dual Pentium CPU. Edge isnt bad and Iron too as I need the Dark Reader Extension which is available in both FF and Chrome variants.
So what lite browser would you recommend for a low spec machine?
Gday @banger
I like firefox aswell, & Duck-Duck search engine.
try disabling the hardware accel on firefox , i found this site to explain, how to do this... hope this helps.
https://www.makeuseof.com/enable-disable-firefox-hardware-acceleration/
You mat also consider running swap at zero, as you have a low capacity machine.
I think the base Chromium browser is enough.
You could try Epiphany. It's not perfect, but it's lightweight.
You could also try falkon (formerly qupzilla), or if you like dark mode and not bothered about images, a terminal browser.
Brave is also another lite use Browser but go on Youtube and find the best way to configure it for security and privacy .....
The reality is that software has caught up to the hardware standards of today, and the specs on your computer are simply on the lower-end.
Browsers in particular are one of the most complex pieces of software you run, and are designed to consume RAM in order to increase performance. I don't dare running more than a few tabs of Firefox when I have little RAM available, but I have experienced the same thing with other browsers as well i.e, Brave, Vivaldi, Epiphany...
Disabling hardware acceleration and other features is your best bet, but you should also consider installing an ad content blocker extension like uBlock Origin to reduce the amount of unnecessary bloat that the web has become. This alone will avoid laoding all sorts of junk that runs on your computer without your knowledge, consent nor benefit to you i.e, analytics, ads, pop-ups, cookie consent forms, and so on, thereby increasing performance and battery life.
This advice will not be as useful depending on your use. For example, don't underestimate the workload on the CPU that decoding tons of images or high resolution videos can have. You've surely experienced this on your phone, noticing how it warms up on your palms while watching videos or browsing "simple" websites or apps like Instagram.
Tried Epiphany but it doesn't render pages pretty much the same problem I had on 17 with Help and nvidia driver.
I have changed my swappiness to zero as noted in the tutorial best for SSD.
Didn't like falkon was a bit slow. I installed Brave when I first setup the machine but lack of extensions made it a non starter.
The search continues.
When you like Firefox there would be Librewolf.
Librefox is fast at the start but as soon as you load a few add-ons it gets slow. I wonder if some of my add-ons are causing slow downs.
Could be; depends what Add-Ons do You use. I've heard that the Hardware Acceleration could be a Problem too.
I have disabled hardware acceleration and a little difference. Add-ons are Ad-blockers, Dark reader, top cashback, fb purity, will have a play around with add-ons.
There will be trade-offs and that may be a positive spin. But until its retirement last summer, I had a very old (19 yrs) and low-end (2GB RAM) Toshiba Satellite. The SeaMonkey browser was the only browser I could use on it for the last few years. I didn't try any add-ons but it was the only browser to resemble normal rendering and speed, albeit with a stale UI.
Tried Seamonkey but some sites just had rendering problems. Also a bit complicated to setup but got there in the end.
Well I have settled on SRWare Iron browser. A Chrome clone with the Google stuff removed. Seems nice on Zorin Lite.
@swarfendor437 Web doesn't display pages for me so that is a no go.
My browser strategy consists of separation of concerns by using different browsers with specific purposes.
I mainly rely on Firefox for most things, as I already have it setup for my taste and know all the shortcuts that I need, but I have multiple profiles for it with dedicated settings and plugins that I again use narrow down to specific use cases.
Brave is another Chromium-based alternative that doesn't have as much Google dependencies. Vivaldi as well, although I always run into issues with it. Ungoogled Chromium is also very good.
Web is another one that I've been using on and off for some time now, as it comes by default with Gnome, and while it cannot handle a lot of the JavaScript-heavy websites it does the job fine for simpler tasks.
I have changed again. I am now using MinBrowser based on chrome. It is minimal and fast. Now and again I open Firefox for my passwords for Min but once I have logged into a site I just leave it open.
what do u mean with that, can u explain more about the problem?
I have to do the same thing using Brave Browser ...... Brave won't open my banking website so I have to go back and use Vivaldi Browser to do any banking ..... but all other sites work just fine ..... maybe that is what they mean .......
