Linux Web Browsers Compared

Rob Valliere writes: "The best Linux Web browsers have dramatically improved in the past few months: they are all stable, standards compliant and loaded with solid feature enhancements and additions. Using Red Hat 7.2 and the KDE desktop, the premier Linux browsers are Galeon 1.0.3, Mozilla 0.9.8 and Opera 6.0 TP3. The best Web downloads and installs were from Opera and Mozilla, which have minimal dependencies. Galeon is a small download but can be difficult to upgrade due to its Mozilla and GNOME dependencies."

Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone forgot to mention Konqueror in the summarizing article...

Re:What about Konqueror

[nick255]

And the version in KDE 3 betas is even better. It's the only Linux browser I know of which displays the ticker at the top of the BBC News website [bbc.co.uk] correctly. The others don't even try.

Just displaying right is a big plus.

[nesneros]

Having been (in the last year) through Konqueror, Galleon, Netscape (4.whatever), and Mozilla on a Mandrake box, I've found that Mozilla's the only one that consistantly displays pages correctly. The other 3 I found would often screw up font sizes and leave side bars unreadable.

it's SUPPOSED to be intrusive

[Anonymous Coward]

They want you to buy it, after all.
They have to make money somehow!
You cheap bastard.

I'll go with Opera

[Uttles]

I'm using it on both a Windoze and Linux platform and I have to say that it is extremely fast, just like the slogan says. The program just feels lightweight the way it pops right up and "loads" all your pages instantly (ok so they're not always refreshed, but hey). Anyway, be sure to install the java lib with it under windows or you may have some problems there (at least I do sometimes) but under linux it doesn't seem to matter.

Re:What about Konqueror

[RagManX]

Another vote for Konqueror. I can't get any version of Netscape to run stably on a system at work. Version 6 hangs on a few pages I need to access, while Version 4 segfaults on one X display when another instance is started using a different X server to display. We use a browser to view our IDS logs, and multiple users need to have access. Segfaulting on each new unique display instance makes that hard.

Opera runs fine, but the display is not as good as Konqueror. I still use Lynx, but for what I use the browser at work, I have to have graphical. Looks like Konqueror is it for me.

RagManX

Konqueror is not a MUA/newsreader/HTML editor!

[tomRakewell]

Since Mozilla 0.9.8 seems to keep crashing (0.9.6 seemed to me to be the peak of stability for the browser), I've been using Konqueror a lot more.

It does make me miss good Mozilla things, like tabbed browsing. I've also run into a number of pages that Konqueror does not handle all that well, but I'm not sure if its due to standards violations in those pages or in Konqueror.

I might be missing it, but I also can't find a way to do a text zoom in Konqueror!

Konqueror seems to be as fast as Opera at rendering pages (but no in-gui ads!). And, for the paranoid, it handles cookie requests as well as... Lynx!

And Konqueror doesn't have a ton of dependencies like Galeon or skipstone... (it just depends on the whole of KDE!)

Best of all, Konqueror is *just* a web browser, which is something all the other browser projects should come to terms with. I am never going to use Mozilla's mail client, their news reader, or their HTML editor. In fact, the inclusion of these items tends to slow me down when I accidentally invoke them.

Wouldn't these massive browser projects benefit greatly by focusing on only *one thing*, like making a nice, fast, stable, standards-compliant browser? Isn't that hard enough?

Lately, when I build Mozilla, I choose not to build those components, which speeds up the build process nicely!

Re:I'll go with Opera

[Anonymous Coward]

Be prepared for Opera to just disappear (crash) sometimes.

Also, sometimes when downloading, it will lock up.

It is fast though. Fast to load and fast to use. I hate that tab completion doesn't work in the URL line though. That alone is enough to not make me use it (although the crashing for no reason doesn't help).

The somewhat portly Mozilla seems to be the best at this point.

png/alpha full support

[Dante'sPrayer]

I found the hability of displaying images with a transparent background and smooth borders a big plus. Right now, the only browsers I know of fully supporting the alpha channel on .png images are Mozilla and Opera 6; Konqueror trims the borders of the image. I don't know if Galeon support png/alpha channel, but given that it uses the Mozilla renderer (Gecko) it maybe does.

That is the biggest grip that I have about Konqueror; some effects on my home page display somewhat broken.

Internationalization, anyone?

[ThinkingGuy]

I surf a lot of pages in Japanese. While I've found Netscape sufficient for viewing Japanese (and other double-byte character set) language pages, I've often had trouble getting things like web forms to work (this is on the Linux version).
One of my biggest disappointments with Opera (which I last tried out about a year ago) was its lack of support for far eastern languages. I hear this has been resolved in newer versions.
BeOS's NetPositive actually worked the best for me as far as displaying and inputting Japanese.

Anyway, it would be nice if more of these "browser comparison" articles included internationalization (i18n) along with "speed," "standards compliance," "ease of installation", etc. as one of the features tested.

Re:What about Konqueror

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't understand why mozilla and friends get so much more attention to konqueror?! I've been using konqueror for over a year now and since i started using it I will never go back. It's:
-FASTER
-highly configurable
-smaller
-rarely crashes
-handles netscape plugins
-javascript will be fixed in kde3
-and handles crossover plugins so you can view quicktime videos if you want.

so WHY isnt' it mentioned in the article above? WTF.

one of my favorites is 'links' (not 'lynx')

[keithmoore]

it's pure text-based, but it supports tables and a mouse (in xterm, anyway). and it's *fast*.

no java, javascript, cookies, or any of that crap. so it's not good for everything, but when you just want fast access to stuff that is mostly text, or if you're trying to read a site that is too busy (maybe because it's slashdotted), it's a winner.

http://artax.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~mikulas/links/

New Opera

[srichman]

the premier Linux browsers are Galeon 1.0.3, Mozilla 0.9.8 and Opera 6.0 TP3

FYI, Technology Preview 3 is no longer the current version of Opera for Linux. They recently released 6.0 Beta 1 [opera.com].

Re:Before anyone else says it.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Lynx and links are good for console use. If you want a fast X browser (one that doesn't require 64 MB RAM + 450Mhz+ proc), dillo [sourceforge.net] is quite good. I think it's the fastest graphical browser I've ever used.

Konq, Moz and friends are getting a little too fat and bloated for my tastes these days...:-(

Re:Push them to the limit!

[iangoldby]

Edge [meyerweb.com].

That sorts the men from the boys - CSS-wise anyway.

Re:My question is this -

[starseeker]

You might take a look at Dillo (http://dillo.sf.net) - it is small, fast, doesn't depend on mozilla, and generally makes a good fast browser. It is under development, but even so for what you describe it should work fine.

Well the fastest is probably...

[Sits]

Dilo [sourceforge.net] if you don't mind imperfect rendering (doesn't do frames yet).

If you don't mind having a text only interface, Lynx [isc.org] and Links [mff.cuni.cz] are both good and surprisingly functional.

Of course fast does not necessarily imply best but it's a welcome addition.

Minimal dependencies?!

[Anonymous Coward]

When's the last time you tried to instal galeon on solaris, or, let me say that as when is the last time you installed gnome properly on solaris (and the sun package is crap -- I'm talking compiling baby -- 3 days of tracking down every dependency in your spare time)

That is *not* minimal dependencies. If there is one thing kde got right, it's having all the depencies right in the source package, rather than scattered across the world.

Konqueror is not a renderer.

[secondsun]

Yes Konqueror is used as a webbrowser, but the renderer is called khtml. Konqueror is the pane that the different kparts embed into. It is possible, has been done, and isn't a bad idea to use mozilla inside of konqueror to render webpages (now there are some benchmarks I would like to see.)

Konquerer should get a lot better soon

[pointwood]

As can be read in the KDE3 beta2 announcement, Konqueror in KDE3 should be a lot better than the KDE2 version. Here is the quote:

"One of the major improvements brought by KDE 3.0 over KDE 2.2 is the Javascript/DHTML support in Konqueror," stated David Faure, a Konqueror and KOffice developer. "The DOM 2 model, used to render an HTML page, is now mostly implemented, and changes to the DOM tree are handled much better. The Javascript bindings and support is almost complete, faster and more stable than in KDE 2. These changes result in a much-improved rendering of dynamic websites and is something users will immediately appreciate."

IIRC, the tabbed browsing feature is planned for KDE 3.1.

Re:Konqueror failure - how does Redhat package it?

[bero-rh]

Does Redhat not package the KDE environment in pieces? If not - why not?

We do. kdelibs+kdebase is enough to run Konqueror.
We aren't splitting things up even more (like, maybe, splitting kcontrol off kdebase) mostly to keep a "ls *.rpm" tree you can bear to look at, and also to save translation cost for package descriptions.

Re:Konqueror is not a MUA/newsreader/HTML editor!

[fferreres]

Ok, i use Galeon, so i will just comment my personal view...

Since Mozilla 0.9.8 seems to keep crashing

It's not crashing here (not once), i am using 0.9.7 though (0.9.6 had a bug with javascript and couldn't play yahoo chess :))

I've also run into a number of pages that Konqueror does not handle all that well...

That's the single most important problem with Konqueror imho. If i develop with Konqueror i will not know if it looks fine under Windows, so they wouldn't let me use Linux...(at work at least)

...but I'm not sure if its due to standards violations in those pages or in Konqueror.

If things show well on IE, they will not fix the problem. That's a problem. The broser should try it's best to display non conforming HTML as other browers do (not Konquerors fault, but...).

It does make me miss good Mozilla things, like tabbed browsing.

Galeon has tabbed browsing before Mozilla (and i find it better than Mozillas built-in). Opera first implemented t.b. though.

I might be missing it, but I also can't find a way to do a text zoom in Konqueror! Galeon has it...

Konqueror, for the paranoid, it handles cookie requests as well as... Lynx!

Cookies management in Galeon is the best i've seen so far. It really has and advanced and flexible cookies database.

Best of all, Konqueror is *just* a web browser

Same here :)

Some Real Observations...

[John Goerzen]

This review was done very poorly. First, he confuses problems with his distribution with problems with the browser. The fact that he either does not know how to use modern packaging tools or is unwilling to is not the fault of any browser. On Debian, installing all three is exactly this easy:

apt-get install mozilla konqueror galeon

Frankly, I don't care that the RedHat 7.2 KDE upgrade didn't work for him. How is that relevant to a web browser review? His immediate dismissal of Konqueror because of his own distribution is silly. Let's look at some more useful comparisons:

Desktop environment integration is useful. If you're running Gnome, use a browser that is Gnome-based. If you're running KDE, use Konqueror. There is much utility in being able to drag URLs straight to your desktop or folders, to having a unified interface. One nice feature of Konqueror is its Web Archive Pages are just tar.gz files with a .war extension. Click on a .war file in any folder, and it'll pop up in the browser exactly as it was shown originally.

JavaScript support. Mozilla/Galeon are doing quite well here. The Konqueror in KDE 2 has trouble with a lot of site's more complex JavaScript code. Rumor has it that the Konq in KDE 3 will be a lot better; they've apparently rewritten the JavaScript engine. I use Konqueror mainly, but fall back to Netscape for some of these sites.

Crypto. All of them support SSL. How configurable are they regarding sites with self-signed certs? They'll all do OK in that situation. Konqueror has an added feature where you can pick exactly which ciphers you'll allow it to speak, and refuse to allow it to speak the insecure ones.

Search engine integration. This is a great feature of Mozilla/Galeon that is missing from Konqueror. Basically, it'll realize when you've done a search at a popular place and put the results in a little box for you. No more "Back" button clicking to check out the other hits, or dealing with multiple open windows.

Browsing experience. Konqueror has a nice feature to block JavaScript popups entirely or ask you before running them. This is a great way to get rid of those annoying pop-up or pop-behind ads without completely disabling JavaScript. Konq also has a user agent configurator. This tells Konqueror to lie about its identity to certain sites that refuse access if they detect you're not running Netscape or IE. It lets Konqueror work very well with a number of sites like that.

Stability. All these browsers crash sometimes. They seem to have different crash cases -- most of them relating to complex JavaScript. Sometimes Konq takes quite a long time to render pages with lots of graphics or lots of javascript (the "sell this item" page on Ebay is just such a place.)

Printing. Printing from Konq is a pain -- it always want to print things really tiny. I use Mozilla for printing webpages.

So, look at what's important for you. If you don't use Gnome or KDE, then desktop integration is going to be irrelevant. There's no "one size fits all" browser, and don't let this article scare you. Installing a browser is easy in any modern distro.

Give credit where it's due !

[kigrwik]

Konqueror is *not* a web browser.

kHTML is.

Konqueror is a mostly empty shell that wraps around components that use the KPart architecture to display context-dependent widgets/menuitems, or kio_slaves that provide a filesystem-like display of stuffs.
Konqueror technically has the ability of embedding mozilla through the kMozilla component.

But then, you can also view DivX, PS, PDF (through KParts), browse an audio CD (and rip in .ogg or .wav with a simple drag n' drop (including freedb.org querying)), your POP3 account (possibly still in development) in Konqueror, and lots of other things (through KIO).

Actually, Konqueror is what looks most like the good old Unix philosophy of small tools:
"cat slashdot.org | kHTML | Konqueror"

Besides, with anti-aliased fonts, it's truly gorgeous !

Konqueror -- the distro's desktop

[Anonymous Coward]

The easiest way to upgrade KDE is to wait until your distro with the user friendly install comes out with a new version.

Unless someone knows of a userfriendly installer/upgrader for KDE? Something that ensures dependencies are satisfied and installs everything the correct order? I thought once-upon-a-time someone was working on this, but it doesn't seem to have materialized.

Re:What about Konqueror

[quinto2000]

and it is mentioned heavily in the article. Why don't you people read?

Then you are voting for Mozilla

[Pac]

I understand Mozilla has had this feature for a long time. It is not a menu/GUI driven option, though.

You can edit the file user.js using the instructions in Custumizing Mozilla [mozilla.org]

Not exactly user friendly, but fairly easy anyway.

Re:Some Real Observations...

[sircrown]

This review was done very poorly. First, he confuses problems with his distribution with problems with the browser. The fact that he either does not know how to use modern packaging tools or is unwilling to is not the fault of any browser. On Debian, installing all three is exactly this easy: apt-get install mozilla konqueror galeon Frankly, I don't care that the RedHat 7.2 KDE upgrade didn't work for him. How is that relevant to a web browser review? His immediate dismissal of Konqueror because of his own distribution is silly.

Oh sure, the developers shouldn't be at all concerned with whether or not their users can actually install the software! No, they should just leave that to someone else to figure out.

Just because the installation went smoothly for you doesn't mean it will for everyone under all circumstances. Even those running debian with the method you described. Too many things can go wrong and apparently in the authors case something did.

Hrm

[Etriaph]

Ok, I don't want to get upset and this guy did do a decent comparison, but I have to argue with his evaluation of Konqueror. He talked about some problems/bugs in Konqueror under the RedHat 7.2 install. I totally agree with him, RedHat packaged it wrong. The KDE 2.2.1 RPMs for RedHat 7.2 (and even the updated 2.2.2 RPMs for 7.2) had problems. KHTML would just crash now and again (well, kio_http) for whatever reason. So I went and compiled KDE 2.2.2 on my system, and it's fine. Konqueror is perfectly normal. I have run tests on my own PIII 800EB w/256MB of RAM and have noticed something significant: Galeon does not run *faster* than Konqueror. I'm not sure how other people are getting this result.

Granted, Galeon is light years ahead of Mozilla in speed (Mozilla is after all based on the Netscape browser that everyone loves to hate) but it's not faster than Konqueror. I don't even want to think about how fast Konq/KHTML will be under 3.0 which is due in a couple of weeks. Another thing that bugs me is he went to all the trouble to download a copy of everything else but didn't even think to get a recent version of Konqueror. I'm not sure if his comparison was very objective.

Re:Internationalization, anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

"One of my biggest disappointments
with Opera (which I last tried out
about a year ago) was its lack of
support for far eastern languages.
I hear this has been resolved in
newer versions."

It has.

Opera 6.0 beta1 just came out a few days ago.
the Opera 6.0 tp3 mentioned in the review is
last most recent version.

One of the big improvements
_is_ the use of unicode1 to support
Asian languages. (also E.european)

I have seen quite a few posts from Opera
users who say that this fixes their one reservation with Opera.

Re:Huh?

[Annnoying Coward]

To be more specific, the problem is that Mozilla does not cache the result of a posted query. When you view the source, it posts the query again. Now if the server has somekind of unique id to a query or timestamp has gone stale, the result does not match the original.

This really lessens Mozillas usefulness as a test tool for a web project as you are not guaranteed to see the original source. I haven't checked the situatiopn for a while, but I believe the fix is going to be post 1.0.

Re:Opera needs a full-featured set for Linux

[gosand]

OK, looks like I need to make sure I have the latest version of Opera for Linux.

Another thing I like about the mouse gestures in combination with tabbed windows is being able to open a link in another window in the background. (right click on link, move mouse down, up, release button). For reading /., this is great, as I can open up the stories I want to read in their own windows as I am browsing, then go back and read them.

Re:Opera ads became intrusive

[nafmo]

Thank you for helping to put me out of my job (I'm an Opera Software employee). If you have a problem with the ads, 39 USD will get rid of them (15 if you are a student). If you can't live with ads, and can't afford to pay, I'd recommend you use one of the open source browsers instead.

If you find any intrusive ads, please contact the Opera staff directly (contact details on website) or post in the opera.pr-marketing group (available on news.opera.no, as well as several other servers).