Web Browser landscape August 2013 edition

[Crystallas]

I get asked about browsers a lot(not, "hey dude, what browser ya got". But more, "Chris, do you know how to fix this issue with X-browser, I hate this junk, is there a better solution?). Not so much here, but in other developer channels. Mainly because I used to do a lot of solaris open development and linux kernel programming back in the day, and a lot of web design. I'm big into following web standards. But now every single major browser (Chrome, Internet Explorer, FireFox, Opera, Safari) have all been slipping between a rock and a hard place(worldwide privacy worries as well as sneakily promoting social networking and data sharing standards - YES, this is a conflict), the topic has been coming up a lot. Firefox's version 22 and 23 both added non-web standard features, and removed interface options which pissed a lot of people off as well. If you're one of these people, this post is for you. Otherwise, sorry for wasting your time with nerd words, just go back. I'm not trying to be some alarmist, just trying to open up some available options to people(especially if you're unsatisfied with the Web Browser landscape), so more users can make better choices to help shift better decision making into the internet applications that we most commonly use.


Over the last year, there has been a big swing from browser developers to push users into features without any demand from the marketplace of users.
Chrome established a lot of respect for a simple, fast browser built on KDE's open source Konqueror platform, just like Safari. Then Google started integrating more and more features to the browser to fix security issues and aid with compatibility, which started shifting the trend back to other browsers like firefox and opera.

Some Chrome lovers switched to SRware Iron, which is actually a solid alternative based on the same design.

Now Firefox users either have to tweak the hell out of it after every update to get their preferred look and feel, or bulk the package up with add-ons. A well configured gecko browser blows webkit out of the water as far as performance and compatibility. Unfortunately, with the last few releases of firefox, it has become bulky and users keep using it only due to familiarity. The other builds aren't maintained as well or have the plugin development, such as SeaMonkey. If you're a windows user, you're lucky, because PaleMoon is amazing, and you can install it, and use a tool to import your firefox user profile(bookmarks, theme, add-ons, settings, ect) and you wont skip a beat. But for Linux, Mac, you otherwise would have to compile your own gecko source to get around all of these oddball changes.


Chrome is not so GNU friendly, neither is Opera, even though both are fairly open source and free to use. Even though I maintain both for testing, and Chrome does some things better than Firefox, so I just open those pages with Chrome. Webkit(chrome, safari, madori) rendering has advantages over gecko(mozilla) for rendering sloppy CSS dominating sites. Although most would argue, if the site is coded sloppily, you're likely not going to want to view it, which is why gecko is more practical. Internet Explorer is only worth running dominantly if you use Microsoft affiliated sites, and it's the furthest from being GNU friendly(which should matter if you value actual privacy and not just the promises made by representatives of the companies acting in public relations.) But hey, if you like that sort of thing, have fun with Internet Explorer(Trident).

• For Windows Firefox users, try Palemoon http://www.palemoon.org/ Windows 32bit and x86-64 builds. And use this: http://www.palemoon.org/migrationtool.shtml I actually LOVE Palemoon, it's my favorite of all maintained browser builds. These developers get "it", and I hope Mac and Linux geeks start testing builds.
• For Linux Firefox users, you don't need me. Either your repos are updated with GNU friendly builds(Iceweasel), or you already have a safe working preference.
• For Mac Firefox users, you have no worthy alternative.
• For all Chrome users, try SRWare Iron http://www.srware.net/en/software_srware_iron_download.php There is no native 64bit webkit based browser, so this is all 32. Any browser that claims to be x64 using webkit, is a hybrid x64 version and not native.
• For Internet Explorer users, you have Maxthon as a somewhat viable alternative and it actually runs most sites better than IE, but it's not GNU friendly. http://www.maxthon.com/ Note, Maxthon also runs on OSX, so if you're a Mac user that needs to access web sites that only render correctly in Internet Explorer, Maxthon could come in handy.
• There are no Presto(Old Opera) alternatives. Also, there are no Blink(Current Opera, based on hybrid webkit) alternatives.

 

[Crystallas]

Welp, no browser talk? I put a lot of effort into that post.

#Crysfails

 

[Omeletpants]

For me a browser is just a utility. I work for the world's second largest software company and I have enough technology to learn and track on a daily basis. I'm trying to simplify my life not add more to understand

 

[Crystallas]

I would hope that I made my post in a manor that actually would save someone time, making things easier to understand. Instead of doing all of the leg work and researching solutions, they are right in that post. (TL;DR, skip to the bullet points)

As far as people who don't need any of this, as I said in the post, feel free to ignore it, go back, continue doing whatever. I'm just trying to help by providing information to those who don't know what information to trust, or don't know who has what bias, ect.

 

[Omeletpants]

I would hope that I made my post in a manor that actually would save someone time, making things easier to understand. Instead of doing all of the leg work and researching solutions, they are right in that post. (TL;DR, skip to the bullet points)

As far as people who don't need any of this, as I said in the post, feel free to ignore it, go back, continue doing whatever. I'm just trying to help by providing information to those who don't know what information to trust, or don't know who has what bias, ect.

Your post is great as is all your tech advice. You were asking why no responses and I'm giving you the perspective of someone not particularly technical. For the rest of use it's enough to just keep up with the influx of technology. Safari works for me and that allows me to move on to another technology I really dont understand

 

[Crystallas]

Your post is great as is all your tech advice. You were asking why no responses and I'm giving you the perspective of someone not particularly technical. For the rest of use it's enough to just keep up with the influx of technology. Safari works for me and that allows me to move on to another technology I really dont understand

Ah yeah yeah yeah... fair enough. I thought you meant the OP.

 

[Monk]

I'm working on a web developer certificate so this will likely make a lot more sense over the coming semesters. I have Chrome and Firefox for testing right now. I rarely use IE unless I am trying something that needs special IE consideration.

That's what I said, that's what I said.

 

[nvanprooyen]

The main reason I still use Firefox as my primary browser are for a handful of extensions that aren't available elsewhere. That's it.

 

[Crystallas]

The main reason I still use Firefox as my primary browser are for a handful of extensions that aren't available elsewhere. That's it.

Yeah, you :apple: users need a better FireFox alternative. Like PaleMoon accepts all of the firefox add-ons, themes, everything. Look and feel is 100% the same, but it's more stable, faster, and has no WebRTC built in or update services sleeping in the background. I wonder why nobody has decided to fork PaleMoon or do something similar for MacOSX? I would imagine it's just build and go.

 

[botfly10]

In my experience, Firefox has had so many problems with their updates going back at least a year or more. For my use, I feel like Firefox kind of became a piece of shit over the last 6 months or so that was pissing me off all the time.

Chrome is the fastest browser with the least amount of hiccups of everything I have tried as a consumer type user. In my experience its still faster than the x64 browsers I've tried.

I really bums me out cause I try to stay away from google now and so want to use firefox. But chrome's performance has basically forced me to use it.

 

[malcore]

I miss the days of Phoenix, when these browsers were built to combat "bloat".

I still use Waterfox a lot (portable version), but it hasn't had an update since January. Chrome, for trusted sites, tight cookie and script control. I'll have to give Iron a try.

This forum always looked better to me on Chrome.

 

[clonetrooper264]

I did not understand...and I'm slightly sad that I didn't. Is this a privacy/security deal or just having unnecessary bulk reducing browser performance?

 

[malcore]

Both, I believe.

 

[ShiftyDevil]

Thankfully, in my line of work the only interaction I really have to deal with that's even remotely related to web architecture is to tell the webdev what functions to call and what arguments to pass my database.

 

[Crystallas]

I did not understand...and I'm slightly sad that I didn't. Is this a privacy/security deal or just having unnecessary bulk reducing browser performance?

Yes, both.

I tried to include as many simple options into the OP to suit different needs. The one thing I didn't want to do, is tell everyone what is the best, or what works best for them. This came out of me getting pretty angry that FireFox and Chrome started pushing out shifty changes. They basically called out the users bluff, while anyone that knows how to read code, can go in and see what they did( <3 Open Source.)

Plus, this is a forum, even though the OP was formatted like a blog entry, so others can call me out on anything wrong/misleading, or add their own input ect.

 

[botfly10]

wtf happened to firefox and are they ever gonna rebuild that thing so it doesn't suck anymore?

 

[Crystallas]

wtf happened to firefox and are they ever gonna rebuild that thing so it doesn't suck anymore?

No idea. But Servo is going to replace Gecko(mozilla's longtime layout rendering engine) at some point. IMO, Gecko 19 > Blink. But the firefox project uses something called jetpack(One of the add-on APIs) on top of it that ruins many advantages(at least in my opinion) over a Blink or newer webkit based browsers. That is why other gecko 19+ based browsers render better than firefox, because firefox has added a lot of unnecessary code as the default.

Servo, on the other hand, is using a great concept that more resembles how web layouts are rendered natively. Each set of standards are kept in their native rendering environment, with full optimization for each. Instead of a browser engine that tries to determine how to render the whole kitten-caboodle together(and this is also part of the mess Chrome has as well.) Users don't notice the rendering issues for the most part, because the web developer builds their site to render according to the rules of the browser, not the rules of the actual web standards and languages.

 

[Crystallas]

Bump


Um. Firefox 29 is kicking major ass for me.

It just came out, and performance-wise, it's crushing my speed builds of other browsers almost 2:1. There were a few poorly coded sites that I used which ate up over a gig of ram per instance on Chrome and Firefox 28(as well as other non-firefox Mozilla builds) and now on firefox 29, all of my usages are down to 380mb for the same page with lower CPU usage.


With all of the IE hub-bub going around, I might have to do a 2014 version of this thread. But I'm going to wait on ALL of the latest threats from the <3bleed aftermath to be addressed in all of the browsers. So far, most are addressed for out of the box installations, but not all.

 

[nvanprooyen]

Did they get rid of the status bar? I vaguely remember seeing someone bitching about that a week or so ago.

 

[nvanprooyen]

Damn, this is nice! I'm a fan (so far).