Choice of a web browser

C

CraigHB

I started with FreeBSD for the first time about a month ago. Looking to use it for a desktop system. All has gone surprisingly well, scripted my install, built a custom kernel, got X working, configured my window manager. Happy with the system at this point, really happy actually. Have to give a shout out for fvwm. I've been using it for years since my first Linux install decades ago. There's been a major revision to fvwm recently and I really like how it works now, excellent product. Have everything tweaked to my liking, looks really good.

So I need to decide on a web browser. I know there's good ol' Chromium and Firefox, but was wondering if there might be a few gems for FreeBSD I've not come across. Should I just go with Firefox? Not sure about Chromium due to the influence of Google and their tendency to mine personal data. Or is Chromium okay anyway. Looking for some suggestions.
 
For my part I use Firefox 58 atm, because the timers have been adapted to make Meltdown and Spectre via Javascripts non-viable.
Used PaleMoon for a while, but the recent squabbles of their team regarding their demand to use their own (potentially outdated and unsafe) libraries instead of the system ones put me off, in addition to the uncertainty of Palemoon being Meltdown/Spectre hardened.
Chrome is a no-go for me because of their data mining.
I have it installed only to verify that my own creations are being displayed correctly.

And it's always nice to see that FVWM gets used by many guys who recognized what a mess "desktop managers" are...
And yes, the latest FVWM works very well, didn't encounter any issue.
This is my FvwmPager screenshot right now:
screenshot.png
 
Firefox was my preferred browser going back to the Mozilla days. They recently added intrusive cruft (like Pocket) that make Firefox more intrusive like Chromium.

Opera would have been great but it is just too old now. I did not consider Pale Moon for the reasons as Snurg.

I did a simple test with Chromium, Firefox and Iridium.

Boot, login, open browser, then open xterm and type 'netstat -4' (no IPv6 on the LAN) to see open connections.

FF and Chromium showed a large number of connections to who-knows-what while viewing a blank default starting page. Iridium had a mere three TCP connections - two short lived connections to 'iridium-br' and one open connection to 'dfw06s49-in-f14'. Right now, while typing this out, netstat shows only connections to this website - and nothing else.

Iridium - compared to FF and Chromium - leaks *less* of your browsing habits. For the time being, Iridium is a tolerable compromise for privacy and compatibility (like video and audio work).
 
unitrunker

Thanks for making me curious about Iridium!
Looked at it and instantly decided to try out pkg install www/iridium.

I find very interesting that iridium is the first browser I encounter that disables third party cookies by default!
(This is very revealing, as practically all mainstream browsers hide the necessary settings very well, making one guess why)
 
fwiw, almost every web site you visit mines your data in some fashion. From mom-and-pop shops to the big ones, every client of mine grabs your data, as much as we can. Every commerce solution you have ever used, even before the internet, mined your data. Google is no exception. Microsoft does it, too. So does Bing and Outlook and Walmart and the New York Times and Visa and MasterCard and Disney.
 
Haha, feeling like I need to quote my mother on that one, just because everyone does it... Anyway that Iridim might be a good one to try. Problem with smaller name browsers it they often don't work right on some pages. Since web designers always test stuff with the big names you know everything will display right with those. If Iridium can do the job, it sounds good. It's amazing how heavy those name browsers have become, over two hundred meg for FF and almost the same for Chromium.

Snurg, yeah that's an impressive pager there. I imagine you can load up a system pretty good with that. I actually go a different way using a single page with the Icon Manager handling all the open programs. Icon manager runs horizontal on the bottom like a win task bar. In any case fvwm has amazing flexibility and has been simplified with a single configuration file which I like. Mine is only a hundred lines or so, yet fvwm has not lost any of its features or flexibility. I actually tried Fluxbox on this install, but blech, went back to fvwm.
 
Snurg said:
unitrunker

Thanks for making me curious about Iridium!
Looked at it and instantly decided to try out pkg install www/iridium.

I find very interesting that iridium is the first browser I encounter that disables third party cookies by default!
(This is very revealing, as practically all mainstream browsers hide the necessary settings very well, making one guess why)
Click to expand...
With this browser I can't signin to my Google. It lighter than Chromium, but made me lose all of my bookmarks.
 
I have a standing project to become more familiar with www/links, this is only for general browsing through articles for the funsies. I have this silly idea at some point I may end up at an older machine not running X and if I want to be able to browse I will have to stick to the text-based browsers.

Also some minimalists has mentioned www/qutebrowser.

The Iridium seems interesting though, may give it a look!
 
Snurg said:
For my part I use Firefox 58 atm, because the timers have been adapted to make Meltdown and Spectre via Javascripts non-viable.
Used PaleMoon for a while, but the recent squabbles of their team
.
.
.
And it's always nice to see that FVWM gets used by many guys who recognized what a mess "desktop managers" are...
Click to expand...
+1 (Firefox 58, totally avoiding PaleMoon)

I use twm instead of fvwm though.
 
michael_hackson said:
I have a standing project to become more familiar with www/links, this is only for general browsing through articles for the funsies.
Click to expand...
Nowadays that's a difficult thing to do. Most sites give no credence to proper engineering and make it near impossible to read with text browsers. I require our web sites to be absolutely readable and usable in text browsers but this is a slap it together wild, west internet where "git 'er done" is more important than what the web really is--computer science.
 
tankist02 said:
What about Midori, does anybody use it?
Click to expand...
I used it in the past. If you want to load some toy like site it's OK. But for something serious it will very slow/unable to load at all/or just crash.
 
I tried Midori. It looks okay, it's light. Just a basic web browser which is fine. I tried Epiphany as well and it's similar to Midori, light and basic. Right now I'm typing this with SeaMonkey which is a Mozilla offshoot. So far I think I like this one the best. It's not light by any means, but it's a suite and I can really use a mail client, newsgroup reader, and IRC client. I also tried Iridium and it's pretty much just Chromium with the data mining removed, which is fine. I think I'm leaning toward the Mozilla based SeaMonkey though.
 
CraigHB said:
Right now I'm typing this with SeaMonkey which is a Mozilla offshoot. So far I think I like this one the best. It's not light by any means, but it's a suite and I can really use a mail client, newsgroup reader, and IRC client.
Click to expand...

I've been using Seamonkey (was previously Mozilla Suite, and before that it was Netscape Communicator) since 1997. My email spool dates back to March 1997 :) I still find it the best browser under FreeBSD with the advantage that it is also my mail client.
 
CraigHB said:
I tried Midori. It looks okay, it's light. Just a basic web browser which is fine. I tried Epiphany as well and it's similar to Midori, light and basic. Right now I'm typing this with SeaMonkey which is a Mozilla offshoot. So far I think I like this one the best. It's not light by any means, but it's a suite and I can really use a mail client, newsgroup reader, and IRC client. I also tried Iridium and it's pretty much just Chromium with the data mining removed, which is fine. I think I'm leaning toward the Mozilla based SeaMonkey though.
Click to expand...
I'm also using SeaMonkey, too. But for composing HTML. As a Web Browser it lacks so many addons (nearly it doesn't have any serious addon, even Adblocker!).
 
giahung1997 said:
I'm also using SeaMonkey, too. But for composing HTML. As a Web Browser it lacks so many addons (nearly it doesn't have any serious addon, even Adblocker!).
Click to expand...

I use "uBlock origin" for ad blocking, "CYS" (Complete YouTube Saver) for downloading YouTube videos and "Lucifox" for reading EPUB ebooks in Seamonkey.
 
trev said:
I use "uBlock origin" for ad blocking, "CYS" (Complete YouTube Saver) for downloading YouTube videos and "Lucifox" for reading EPUB ebooks in Seamonkey.
Click to expand...
How can you? AMO only said Ublock Origin is only available for Firefox, even with old versions of it :(
 
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