Min Browser

[Member PPC]

I just discovered what may be my default browser for home use- MinBrowser ( https://minbrowser.org/ )- it offers 64bits .deb files that run great in antiX 19 and 21. Their github has a 32bits .deb file that (although over 3 years old) runs like a dream in my old 32 bits laptop- I won’t by doing my homebanking over it, but, on my 32bits/1Gig of RAM HP laptop, it’s the most fluid browser yet- I can watch even youtube videos, via the official site, at 360p (or even at 480p) resilution, and it remains fluid (using less than 500mb of RAM and 75% of the CPU, or about 100% at 480p. It’s responsive- even when a video is playing, if I close a window, it closes instantly – the only real slowdown is entering/exiting fullscreen video playing mode (even so, way faster than in other browsers).

For newer system- it runs great, and looks very nice- it has small great details- like (in the 64bits current version) showing a mini progress bar showing the page loading on the top of the tab, etc…

…Why on earth I never heard about this browser?

antiX + Min 32bits + xine Media Player + LibreOffice makes my old 32bits lappy almost as usable as a system that’s a couple of years old, not 20 years!

P.

• This topic was modified 6 months, 1 week ago by PPC.

[Member ile]

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Hello PPC
min three years ago will be quite different than latest min versions of thirty days ago.
I used min on mx19kde64 with great results. upon install it forced its foot into default browser.
I am a “New Window” kind of user habit; min has only “New Tab.” It is rather distraction-free. i too think min is a good browser, in its newer verisons.
Glad you found something you like.

[Member techore]

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PPC wrote:

Why on earth I never heard about this browser?

At a guess, it is using electron which is disliked by many folks due to installation size, not conforming to themes, etc.

I agree, it is very pretty and I like the distraction free idea.

[Member ModdIt]

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Thanks PPC, techore.

the min homepage says

Min is written entirely with CSS and JavaScript using Electron, and is open-source software, available on GitHub.

Trouble is, seems it is written dependant on java script, a very common attack vector.

Due latter I will be sticking with Ungoogled Chromium and LibreWolf. Both are pretty much distracton free after
installing ad blocking in Ungoogled that is. Something unlikely to stay that way, ad blockers are googles enemy,
they lessen profits.

[Member oops]

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Tried min-browser
Min v1.26.0 = Chromium v104.0.5112.124
but I had to do:
min --disable-gpu --disable-software-rasterizer
With only: min , I had these errors.
[5588:1029/034638.138857:ERROR:gpu_process_host.cc(966)] GPU process exited unexpectedly: exit_code=11
[5588:1029/034638.358290:ERROR:gpu_process_host.cc(966)] GPU process exited unexpectedly: exit_code=11
[5714:1029/034638.366931:ERROR:gpu_init.cc(486)] Passthrough is not supported, GL is disabled, ANGLE is

I did not have this issue with the old version of min for amd64 and i386 , min_1.9.2_amd64.deb & min_1.9.2_i386.deb

Edit: thanks for the link @Moddlt (ungoogled-chromium) I will try too.
https://www.antixforum.com/forums/topic/ungoogled-chromium-updated-to-107-0-5304-68-1/#post-91742

• This reply was modified 6 months, 1 week ago by oops.

[Member techore]

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ModdIt wrote:

Due latter I will be sticking with Ungoogled Chromium and LibreWolf.

@Moddit

Is ungoogled chromium getting regular updates.. now? I uninstalled ungoogled chromium after using for several months and observing security advisories with no updates to the package.

A bit off topic, perhaps.

[Member blur13]

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This is also a bit off topic, but how does xine Media Player compare to mpv or vlc, in cpu and memory usage? Also, what is the best way to install it? xine-ui in the debian repos?

[Member PPC]

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@blur13 – You may not believe it – on slower devices (the difference is negligible in faster computers), sometimes, Xine uses about 1/3 of the CPU that MPV uses- HD videos that are unable to be played even with the best MPV configuration (skipping frames, etc)- that make my CPU peak at 100% and freeze the screen (on my 32bits laptop and 64 bits single core netbook), run on some 30-40% of CPU, and extremely fluid!
Never measured RAM usage, but it’s minimal too.
And yes, you can install Xine with “xine-ui”, from the repos – I’ve been suggesting that anti introduces xine in antiX Package Installer, with a description that it’s perfect for very old hardware for ages!- It looks a bit like MPV- just a window that displays the video, but with an optional floating (and themeable) “floating GUI” (that has been the same for a dozen years or so). It may not look modern, but it operates miracles on slow computers- install it, test it, you won’t regret it…

P.

• This reply was modified 6 months, 1 week ago by PPC.

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

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@PPC: In years past I used to use Xine all the time; good to know that it’s still a useful (arguably “superior”) tool, based on this information.
In any case, it’s a worthwhile alternative for interested people to try out and see how well it works on their system.

--
Brian Masinick

[Member ModdIt]

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Ho techore,
keeping UngoogledChromium up to date seems easiest when running the
portable version from
https://ungoogled-software.github.io/ungoogled-chromium-binaries/

That is a third party binary but in months of usage it has been an excellent choice.
only occasional problem was GCC Mismatch and a compile with i7 flag. Both issues occurred once.

Unsure if OBS packages are kept up to date. Or even if they can be compiled against an older Glib
C version.

At present no antiX Bullseye handy to check with, sorry. Sadly future changes by google to make ad
blocking more difficult might make the browser somewhat less attractive, and hosts ad and tracker
blocking more needed.

[Member oops]

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… Min is a light web-browser, I like Otter-Browser too (and Palemoon).
https://github.com/OtterBrowser/otter-browser

• This reply was modified 6 months, 1 week ago by oops.
• This reply was modified 6 months, 1 week ago by oops.

[Member techore]

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ModdIt wrote:

Ho techore,
keeping UngoogledChromium up to date seems easiest when running the
portable version from

I will probably give the binary a try. I liked it but you are correct that many of us are watching the goofiness with breaking extensions that prevent ad blocking. Dick move by Google.

Thank you for sharing that tidbit, @Moddit.

[Member blur13]

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hijacking this tread for Xine

I gave it a try on an eee pc netbok and I get:

vo_vdpau: video surface doesn’t match size contraints (1920 x 1080) -> (1920 x 1080) != (1920 x 1088). Segfaults ahead!

Basically it does not scale the video to fit the screen, so its playing 1080p on a smaller screen displaying a corner of the video. Trying to enter full screen crashes the program. Did some online searches and this problem seems common. It might be related to radeon display drivers.

Memory used is about 70 MiB, MPV uses about 80.

CPU is a few percent less than MPV.

Conclusion: Xine is not for every computer.

This sort of reminds me when I posted about hwdec=auto as an MPV config that worked wonders on my netbook, reducing cpu from unusable 80% to around 20%, and not that many other people found it made any difference at all. YMMV as they say.

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