Extremely lightweight web browser, anyone?

[romansky]

Hi!

I run Vector 5.8 on a PIII, 4 GB HD ,32 MB Ram box. With IceWM as windowmanager, it actually runs quite decent, and I'm impressed with vector in terms of usability and features, compared to other low-specs-distros. My problem is web browsing. Vector has firefox, opera, seamonkey and dillo preinstalled. Problem is, on my old box, ff, opera and sm are all virtually useless. Firefox uses more than 5 mins to start up, and both op and sm crash even before start up. Dillo is more acceptable as far as pace is concerned, but there are many pages that just doesn't work in this one. I even tried Links2: Very fast, and an interesting experience, but in the long run, text-based browsing just ain't the same.

So; anyone know of a browser that is lighter than gecko, but still renders most pages correctly?

[tqk]

I run Vector 5.8 on a PIII, 4 GB HD ,32 MB Ram box. With IceWM as windowmanager, it actually runs quite decent, and I'm impressed with vector in terms of usability and features, compared to other low-specs-distros. My problem is web browsing. Vector has firefox, opera, seamonkey and dillo preinstalled. Problem is, on my old box, ff, opera and sm are all virtually useless. Firefox uses more than 5 mins to start up, and both op and sm crash even before
[snip]
So; anyone know of a browser that is lighter than gecko, but still renders most pages correctly?

Don't know if it's lighter (ps shows it comparable to ff), and Debian Sarge's Epiphany doesn't appear to grok RSS, but it does well otherwise.

[netstrider]

What about trying an older version of Firefox ? Or maybe build upon firefox itself since it's open source and make it lightweight (or) try finding someone whom has already done that . Sorry that's all I can think.

[valan]

Your problem is your ram. 32mb just isnt enough. I had a p2 400mhz with 256 mb ram that started Firefox in 4 seconds. I did compile it myself with some optimizations, but if you get more ram you will be fine.

[BlahBlah_X]

I would try Gaeleon.

If that is too slow, get a little more RAM or get links, lynks, or w3c.

[antidrugue]

Your problem is your ram. 32mb just isnt enough.

Exactly, if you can find some RAM, that would really help.

Otherwise, as suggested earlier, try an optimized build of Firefox. An easy solution here is Swiftfox, which offer specific Firefox builds optimized for different CPU.

[Oxygen]

Your problem is your ram. 32mb just isnt enough. I had a p2 400mhz with 256 mb ram that started Firefox in 4 seconds. I did compile it myself with some optimizations, but if you get more ram you will be fine.

I have 512MB of RAM, no optimizations whatsoever, installed straight from the Ubuntu file repository, 9 add-ons to start up too. Loads in 4 seconds flat.

[Dapper Dan]

The fastest browser I've ever used is Links with graphics enabled. It is as fast as Links in text mode only with pictures too! It's even possible your distro has the graphics enabled already. Try:

links -g

[Draciron]

Do a search on www.freshmeat.net I remember seeing some very lightweight browsers there. Couldn't name one off hand. I have a min of 512 on all the machines I expose to the net and often have 2 or 3 browsers running plus dozens to hundreds of tabs open in each of them. Normally Firefox and Opera for main stuff with some Konquerer windows open as well.

[Tainted_Girl]

Kylie and Dillo are 2 lightweight graphical browsers that are both less than 1MB.