As a long time Linux user finding a good and stable web browser have always been important. I used Opera for Linux since v. 7 and was happy with it up to v 12.x. It was my browser, e-mail client and even Usenet news and IRC client. I could do it all in Opera. Then Opera started lagging behind and I was looking for other options. The two obvious ones were Google Chrome and Firefox. Firefox as the default browser on most major Linux distributions was first of course and I used it for a while without problems. Then Adobe was dropping Flash for Linux and I started having problems with certain Flash based content. I decided to try Chromium and also Chrome and it ended up becoming my new default browser. After some time I ended up Chrome since Chromium also had Flash problems while Chrome has it’s own Pepper Flash implementation making sure you always have the latest version available. Chrome worked very well on Linux and synced without problem between computers and to my Android phone.
Then after a trivial Chrome update the browser stopped working. And since a browser is a piece of software that needs to work all the time I freaked out and went Firefox again but soon got stuck on a site that needed the latest and greatest Flash which Firefox couldn’t offer. I looked for a solution and found a way to get Pepper Flash from Chrome to work in Firefox through a wrapper application. But I still had problems with sites that detected the wrapper and wouldn’t play. Now what? It turned out that the non working Chrome was fixed after a few days and I could return to my prefered browser.
I had been reading about Google’s Aura graphics stack which replaced GTK+ on Linux, and got it whether I wanted it or not with a recent update. I use Gnome-Shell and was going to install a couple of extensions to my desktop, but no, that didn’t work anymore in Chrome with Aura. Back to Firefox to do that and it works. I then thought I would simply use Firefox again for a while but found out that I for some reason do not have full hardware acceleration working with my graphics card. It turns out it is because Firefox blacklists computers with dual graphics cards like mine has even if one of them has been disabled. In Chrome I have full hardware acceleration, but can’t install Gnome-Shell extensions.
Finding the perfect browser on Linux has been nearly impossible since I left Opera 12.x, and I’m pretty sure it will continue to be a matter of small compromises until one browser vendor gets it right, or a new shiny browser comes along supporting Linux perfectly. I’m not sure what is most likely to happen.
I see the internet becoming too fractal. I have an old Vista OS that suits my needs fine, except for utilizing cloud websites where one browser is supported the other not. One website works great with flash, but not so with the other browser. The developers have over extended themselves without trying to make one standard for all browsers. What good is one’s proprietary software that won’t work in every browser?
What good is a browser that won’t work at every website? Instead the developers seem to concern themselves with other add on gizmo’s that further gum up the ability for simple standards. I use Pale Moon as it seems to give me somewhat of a balance between the cloud sites and the flash sites. If Opera or Vivaldi would make a browser that could have universal appeal, it would be a great advantage over the others. Forget some of the bells and whistles, and concentrate on the BASICS.
I have to agree with you both.
Since I have moved off Windows to Linux I have found I now need at least 3 browsers installed.
Opera (prefered), SeaMonkey (next choice), and the default FireFox (OK but it is my last choice) .
– Neither Opera or SeaMonkey work properly on WordPress
– Opera and GMail do not seem to like each other but Opera seems to work well on GoogleMaps
– Opera is OK with Hotmail, not so with SkyDrive
I have just downloaded PaleMoon for Linux and will check it out this weekend…
greybeard, let us know what you think of Pale Moon. I have similar problems with browsers and I also publish on WordPress. Chrom/opera did not work well for me after loading it up.
will do…
Stay tuned.
The wish “concentrate on the BASICS” is easier said than done when it meets reality:
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[*] Fact is, that most of the web “designers” are lazy and simply copy and paste existing solutions. Often those solutions use non standardized or not yet standardized and often prefixed stuff, how to cope with that?
[*] Many pages still use browser detection instead of feature detection.
[*] Most of the web pages contain errors and the browsers correct them. Sometimes that does not work out because there are too many different kinds of errors, so browser vendors have to concentrate on the most common ones.
[*] The ever growing size of scripting in pages (most of those are not needed for the main functions but for optics or some really unnecessary effects) adds another layer of complexity. There is no such thing as error free code, the old rule that there is at least one error in 100 lines of code is still valid. Some errors can be corrected by some browsers, some can not. Depending on which was the preferred browser of the developer, the page might show errors in others. Yes, the developers often test in others too, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they test everything or work for a longer time with those, some errors add up over time (I am looking at you, Facebook and Google, you have some Cross DOM Scripting “Memory” leaks which can bring down some browsers on slower machines. No you can’t rely on the browser’s garbage collection to cope with that.).
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Additionally a website once made is often never changed. On websites that use some kind of CMS a switch of the basis often means that all old content is lost because nobody bothers to convert it to the new structure (“It is sooo old”
Thanks for presenting the issues. This is the kind of “stuff” that really annoys me:
“The ever growing size of scripting in pages (most of those are not needed for the main functions but for optics or some really unnecessary effects) adds another layer of complexity.”
The problem then might be more on the webpage makers than the browser developers. The answer is the still the same. Get rid of all the truly unnecessary “stuff” and “concentrate on the BASICS”
Humans have a tendency to over build or over develop things. This leads to the inevitable collapse of what we build. IMHO, the “KISS” principle works best: keep it simple stupid. đ
Konqueror is better than it once was – if you use KDE. Almost usable as a regular browser now. :p I don’t use WordPress, can’t say how that works.