Let's talk browsers
I've tried a lot of browsers. Starting from Chrome, to Chromium, to Firefox, to Links, to w3m, to, eventually, Qutebrowser, which I use for most of my browsing now.
At least for me, I had four things in mind while choosing a browser:
- I want it to be light
- I want it to be minimal
- I want it to be keyboard-oriented
- I want it to be able to use modern websites
I won't be going through all the browsers I've tried, but those I mentioned are the big ones, so I'll just do a quick check-list of these things.
Chrome/Chromium:
- Weighs like a sumo wrestler 1/5
- Cluttered 1/5
- Just some shortcuts and extentions 3/5
- The model, the idol to strife for 5/5
Firefox:
- Apparently lighter than Chromium, though not by much 1/5
- Cluttered 1/5
- Some shortcuts, famous extensions 3/5
- On point 5/5
Links:
- Very light and fast 5/5
- Minimal, though can go smaller 4/5
- Yes 5/5
- Doesn't support javascript 1/5
w3m:
- As light as it gets 6/5
- Pretty damn minimal 5/5
- Even works for blind 5/5
- Does javascript, but hard to use with cluttered wesites like Reddit or any news site 3/5
Qutebrowser:
- It is quite small and feels fast 4/5
- Can be easily modified to not have anything on screen, and command line-like controls 5/5
- Great, but hint system fails with javascript 4/5
- Doesn't work with Reddit, for some reason 4/5
With the things that I look for, Qutebrowser is the answer, with w3m being the close second. Of course, there are different things to look for in a piece of software, and you may want the extra stability and extensions Firefox provides, or privacy of Tor browser, or the suckless nature of surf, so I'd like to hear what is your browser of choice!
I'm happy with Firefox, since Quantum, it's design is appealing, it's robust, does what it's supposed to and the extension support is absolutely fantastic, allowing you to gain more privacy than in other browsers.
I'm on Firefox now too. I gave up on Chrom[ium|e] as soon as I started coding again because of poor tab management. The tab management extensions are a joke.
Firefox did away with their out of the box tab groups but there are extensions which reimplement it. I run a group of a dozen tabs or so for each language or project I do and I can cycle between them quickly with a keyboard shortcut or see all my groups in one window.
Of course once I switched to Firefox I found out it actually runs much better than chrome now on my comp. And it doesn't have any conflicts of interest in the privacy domain either.
IMHO Firefox wins simply because of the Tree Style Tabs extension. 😋
You should also try it on your phone if you run Android, since I am fairly sure it's the only way you can run uBlock Origin on mobile.
I just accept that having to run a second operating system (a web browser) is part of how we compute in the modern world, and therefore am willing to forgive how heavyweight Firefox is. I think you should weigh ethics into your rating as well - surely it's better (all other things being equal) to use Firefox over Chromium because Firefox is a product of Mozilla?
We run these modern browsers with 8 or even 16 GB of ram, sometimes more. I really don't notice the weight of FF with 8 GB. I think the days of worrying so much about browser "weight" are pretty much in the rear-view mirror for most basic tasks, as long as they're not egregiously leaking memory—but I'm not a person who complains "but I routinely have 200-300 tabs open!"
w3m does JS? Didn't know, TIL. I've asked a survey question similar in nature in the recent past.
It's very unfair to say that Firefox is not much different from Chrome when it comes to weight. It is lighter on resources than Chrome.
Almost all browsers out there, apart from eww, lynx, elinks, w3m, dillo, netsurf, and maybe a couple others (is there a browser out there w/ TkHTML?), are based off of some form of WebKit (either directly WebKit, or Blink, or that through Chromium), which is the essential heavy part. The weight is inevitable if you want to adhere to the standards, because the standards are whacky, the web developers are incompetent and sloppy, and the users don't know how to judge crap from not crap (most websites are like serving a cup of coffee using a fully automated, robotic assembly line).
And heavy depends. Do you mean it as performance? Then Qutebrowser (which I've used as my sole browser for a month) is heavier than Firefox Quantum. And it leaks memory (I've used it around last May), the more tabs you add, the more it leaks. At 20 tabs, it used to become unbearable for me.
The best bet out there is Firefox Quantum with uBlock origin (w/ content blocking and dynamic blocking); you can whitelist the "modern" web pages you want to work properly. It'll be fast and efficient. It'll also respect your privacy. I use this configuration, and also keep a spare Firefox profile for shopping where I don't block JS or anything, because all e-commerce websites are pieces of shit. I can at least contain the tracking stuff there.
The up and coming web browser I keep my eyes on is Next. It is WebKit based, but its own parts are written in Common Lisp, and offers Emacs-like extensibility. I'm waiting for it to become stable, then I'll probably jump over to it for my desktop browser. If I can also write or find a Firefox Sync front end for it, that'd be great.
For Firefox, I've read a lot of conflicting answers whether it's heavier or not, some saying it has better performance and takes less RAM, and some arguing the opposite. I'm not the most 'tech' person out there, especially compared to a lot of people on this site, so I mostly judge that by feel instead of hard numbers. Qutebrowser definetely 'feels' faster for me, and I haven't had more than 7 tabs open at a time. I admit I've probably overshot with that number, I should probably change it.
Also, since, as you said, the WebKit is the heavy part, the front-end matters, as it is going to determine which of the two browsers running the same engine is going to be faster and/or lighter (unless I'm missing something).
(I'm not sure if this actually matters, but I found that the package itself without any dependinces weighs 20 times less than Firefox.)
I definetely can't say Qutebrowser is perfect, but I care a lot about the keyboard-accessibily and simpisity of the software I use. I choose ranger not because I want to show off, but because it's simple, minimalistic, and I can understand how it works and customise it to my liking. I use the same Ratpoison for the same reason. I don't care about how my icons look, and I don't want to see my system information all the time, I want what's important to be on the screen. That's another reason I use Qutebrowser, it doesn't have that annoying part at the top as most other browsers do.
I'll also keep my eyes on Next from now on, it looks interesting.
FWIW, Both FF and Chromium & sons have Vim and Emacs keybindings extensions.
WRT, Qutebrowser, I'm generally talking out of how I "felt" back in the time too. Maybe they fixed some issues in the mean time, or maybe indeed as the # of tabs grow, FF performs better.
WebKit is heavy w.r.t. the resources it uses while running. I've never checked the disk space they used myself.
I've tried the Firefox extentions, and I don't like them nearly as much as Qutebrowser's hint system. Plus, they don't give me control over the whole browser. I can't open bookmarks using my keyboard, for instance, nor can I access the settings or type in a url. It's just not the same.
It was... before the XULocide. Pentadactyl was great. But the new web extensions aren't there, and the API is not as good and broad, AFAIK. So yeah, Qutebrowser is definitely better on that front.
I am currently using links for normal browsing and surf (by suckless) when I have to login to some site or need JS.
This way it just works and is also very light.
Edit: I no longer use links/surf and I am back to Firefox. It is easier to manage everything with one browser, before my websites were all scrambled. Some were open in surf, some in links, in some workspace there is rtv running, in other mpv is playing video! Now I can do all in one browser and I feel like this is how it should be for me, I am however using uMatrix & uBlockOrigin.
Try old.reddit.com with the last 2 browsers.
I use Chrome because on phone it has good tab related gestures Firefox doesn't have (I tried extensions), on desktop it's been for years and hardware is strong enough to run it well, and they sync bookmarks.
Before Chrome a long time ago I used as exotic browsers as Opera and ... Safari for Windows.
I've never used new Reddit, though. The old.reddit is better, of course, but it's still a mediocre design.
new reddit is hilarious. it's literally all diary posts and weak pics.
The content is exactly the same on reddit.com and old.reddit.com, the latter is just a way to keep using the old UI (for now).
They’re probably talking about the old logged out front page vs the new r/popular algo.
yeah i know, just took the opportunity to bitch a bit.
I think of it more as a delivery system for inline ads. That's what they wanted, and that's what they got. A place for the common facebook user to feel comfortable with an endless scroll and tons of ads. It's hilarious what people are willing to put up with in the name of memes and pics of cats.
I'm not fussy, I'll use the firefox-esr provided by Debian because it's supported by them. Before 60 though and all the extension changes it was a little screwy
I'm using Vivaldi (Opera successor) and Firefox. I have a hard time using a browser than doesn't have mouse gestures, needs 20 plugins to do anything, good keyboard shortcuts, custom searches (e.g. typing "y something" search "something" on youtube), notes, etc. But Vivaldi also has some issues so I always have Firefox opened along it (it's also more convenient to manage different accounts).
Foxy gestures is great.
Firefox has a pretty comprehensive set of keyboard shortcuts.
DuckDuckGo has that feature in the form of "bangs." For that search you'd type "!y something."
I also have different browsers installed to help where Qutebrowser fails. Namely, Firefox to use sites that don't work there, Tor browser for bypassing censorshop, and w3m for when I actually start learning how to use it.
Where do you live that you regularly need to bypass censorship?
Honestly, I really love Netsurf. It's very minimal for a graphical browser and even supports CSS. The only issue is that it doesn't support JavaScript, so modern websites often will not work. But if they ever do add JS it will probably become just as bloated and slow as any other browser.
For personal use, I've mostly been content enough with Safari to not bother changing. The continuity of Safari on Mac with Safari on iPhone and my iPad makes it hard to let go of. Plus it's fairly zippy. My only complaint has been that I have some script blockers and extensions that are intended to kill sticky headers and tracking scripts, but they tend to break a lot of website functionality.
I use Chrome for work related stuff, however, since my company uses GSuite and Chrome's really good at restoring your state from one machine to the next. In a way I treat it almost like a virtual desktop to access my company's services. Since I'm always plugged in and not doing anything else while working, the heaviness of Chrome hasn't been an issue.
I used to be a big fan of Opera back in the day, so I've been considering giving Vivaldi a try but haven't gotten around to it.