Browsers for old CPUs

[Member olsztyn]

jfUd3X5Oh4C5 wrote:

Interesting part:

Thank you for this additional info…
From my brief experience with Epiphany, triggered by this thread, it seems an efficient browser for normal use to me. I have not identified anything yet for which I would need a much more bulky Firefox or something similar…

[Member jfUd3X5Oh4C5]

Just to summarize, here are the web browsers (which have up-to-date version until today) working on a CPU without SSE2:

Gnome Web (epiphany-browser), using WebKit: can open/play/render anything, full blown web browser
Surf (surf), using WebKit: can open/play/render anything, has minimal GUI, starts from terminal
Firefox (firefox-esr), using Gecko: crashes when a YouTube video tries to play
———– line of practical everyday usability —————-
NetSurf (netsurf-gtk), using own engine: has some CSS support, displays images, no JavaScript
Links2 (links2), using own engine: graphical mode, displays images, no JavaScript
w3m (w3m), using own engine: text mode, displays images in xterm, no JavaScript
Lynx (lynx), using own engine: text only, no JavaScript

[Member sybok]

I am glad that Lynx made the list. 🙂
In another thread, it was suggested as a fall-back – for sites that work well with it – in a case of a low-end PC.
Mix text-mode browsers with more modern ones to save resources.
I use it to browse several web-pages (find a movie on the current, but soon to be old, version of IMDb etc.).
Everyday non-exclusive usability is still a possibility.

[Member jfUd3X5Oh4C5]

olsztyn wrote:

I have not identified anything yet for which I would need a much more bulky Firefox or something similar…

You can check https://html5test.com with both browsers (Firefox and Gnome Web (epiphany)). The only thing I identified is that Gnome Web doesn’t have WebRTC support and WebGL2. WebRTC can be useful in case of direct-connect to other browsers, use-cases are games, internet-telephony, etc.

[Member olsztyn]

jfUd3X5Oh4C5 wrote:

The only thing I identified is that Gnome Web doesn’t have WebRTC support and WebGL2. WebRTC can be useful in case of direct-connect to other browsers, use-cases are games, internet-telephony, etc.

Thank you. Greatly appreciated. I do not think these will affect me. In the interim I have tested compatibility of Epiphany with various sites I care about, including major banks and so far no problems that I see. Also I have seen some reports of rendering tests done for Epiphany with excellent results of 100% accuracy, if I interpret correctly.
All in all I do not mind a bit simpler gui of this browser as it is elegant enough and appears to save memory footprint vs. major ones…
Thanks and Regards.

[Member Murdock2525]

Load Midori and see what happens ? It’s “lighter”

[Member jfUd3X5Oh4C5]

Murdock2525 wrote:

Load Midori and see what happens ? It’s “lighter”

It only WAS lighter.
Wikipedia literally says that “Midori was a lightweight web browser”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midori_(web_browser)

Midori changed its rendering engine to Chromium. This means that it now requires SSE2 too.
By the way, it is not just using Chromium, but it is using Chromium through Electron, what is criticized by many as a resource hog.

[Member userzero]

I guess there are two versions of midori?

(a)

>_ apt show midori
Package: midori
Version: 7.0-2
Depends: [...] libwebkit2gtk-4.0-37 (>= 2.15.4) [...]
Description: fast, lightweight graphical web browser
 Midori is a lightweight web browser based on WebKit.

The current version is 9.0 (29 jul 2019) … Some possibility to add this version to the repositories.
https://github.com/midori-browser/core

(b)
Midori Web Browser – astian

https://astian.org/blog/2020/11/18/midori-web-browser-y-su-evolucion/
https://astian.org/en/blog/2020/11/18/midori-web-browser-and-its-evolution/

[Member userzero]

Before, if the session failed, it was nice to have a text-mode browser like elinks … 🙂

[Member Sondro]

After skimming this thread, there is SSE Pale Moon for old browsers, I think you would need to find the Linux version or compile it yourself: https://www.romanstefko.com/pale-moon-sse/

https://github.com/roytam1/palemoon27

• This reply was modified 4 weeks, 1 day ago by Sondro.
• This reply was modified 4 weeks, 1 day ago by Sondro.
• This reply was modified 4 weeks, 1 day ago by Sondro.

[Forum Admin anticapitalista]

It’s already in the antiX repos.
palemoon-nonsse2

Philosophers have interpreted the world in many ways; the point is to change it.

antiX with runit - leaner and meaner.

[Member Sondro]

anticapitalista wrote:

It’s already in the antiX repos.
palemoon-nonsse2

Nice, is there a FirefoxESR SSE too? Maybe that would be useful: https://github.com/roytam1/mozilla45esr

[Member skidoo]

45esr was a too-early version to fork from.
It lacks some important HTML5 capabilities, and few no one maintaining such a fork would have the stamina to patch all the known vulnerabilities. roytam1 is tailcoating the tenfourfox project, and only “203 commits” indicates nearly zero attention to applying the myriad patches available…

The final non-SSE2 firefox release was 48.0.[2?]
I would steer friends//family away from relying on these (v48 and older) to safely surf the “modern web”.

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