# Any good "simple-yet-fast" browsers for PC?



## nerdbat (Oct 27, 2016)

Welp, while I was quite a fan of Chrome back when it was a relatively new browser, and Firefox was my primary choice for several years, my disdain for those two grew quite a bit over time - they seem to slowly turn into ultraheavy bloatfests, taking up all available RAM, booting up for minutes, and leaving gigabytes of temporary files that I have to clean manually. It got to the point where I installed BlueStacks and used mobile version of Firefox instead, and it ironically was a much better experience. Opera was a good alternative back in a day, being that one "stable no-nonsense browser", but then it literally became a reskin for Chrome. Not too long ago I tried Microsoft Edge out of curiosity, and was pleasantly surprised by how fast it boots and how fluidly it works. and well, this is pretty much how I want my expecience with World Wide Web to be. The only thing I dislike about it is how bookmarks are organized, as well as lack of customization, so yeah, that's where my question comes from: Are there any good, lightweight alternative browsers to try out, preferably with good customization options?


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## Somnium (Oct 27, 2016)

yes, my ass!


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## Zenoth (Oct 27, 2016)

Have you tried out Puffin Browser ?  I use it on my phone because I hate mobile browsers, and it's a desktop browser that doesn't mind working on phones.


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## jayhusky (Oct 27, 2016)

Try Vivaldi or Chromium, either of those are reasonably ok, Chromium is less bloaty than chrome so it should help somewhat.


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## Saiko (Oct 27, 2016)

Your choices are Chrome, Chromium, Firefox, Safari, or whatever Microsoft's thing is. The rest won't be deliberately supported by any websites.


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## nerdbat (Oct 27, 2016)

Saiko said:


> Your choices are Chrome, Chromium, Firefox, Safari, or whatever Microsoft's thing is. The rest won't be deliberately supported by any websites.


Don't know if you read the post or not, but you kinda missed the point with this answer. As for support, never had any problems with alternative browsers like UC and Maxthon in terms of website compatibility - it was a problem probably 4 years ago or so, but nowadays everything runs everywhere if software isn't a complete crap.

Anyway, I'll check Puffin, then Vivaldi. Chromium is a decent browser, but I look for something a bit more (pre-Chrome) Opera-esque. Thanks for suggestions!


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## Deleted member 82554 (Oct 28, 2016)

Sound like it's time for an upgrade. I found Windows 10 to be a lot more ram efficient, makes less use of the pagefile too. A huge benefit if you're on a dinosaur with a HDD.

Build (or buy) a modern i7 PC with a decent SSD with a least 8 GB of RAM, you'll thank yourself for it later...


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## nerdbat (Oct 28, 2016)

Mr. Fox said:


> Sound like it's time for an upgrade. I found Windows 10 to be a lot more ram efficient, makes less use of the pagefile too. A huge benefit if you're on a dinosaur with a HDD.
> 
> Build (or buy) a modern i7 PC with a decent SSD with a least 8 GB of RAM, you'll thank yourself for it later...


I expected a "get a better PC" comment sooner or later, so I kinda prepared to argue with it 
First, despite my PC being quite a dinosaur (bought it in 2007 or so, lol), it still boots up quickly, runs most programs well, doesn't have problems with running majority of games I'm interested in with a good framerate, and the only thing I'll do with it is probably buying a 4GB RAM and some relatively new video card (though I would probably just buy a console for modern games). In other words, it's technically outdated, but it works perfectly with everything I do on it, and I don't see any good reasons for spending my dosh. Second, related to first, is that while everything else runs perfectly, it's browsers that bloat the system to hell - and again, only some of them, while other ones boot up and work great, and even those that run through emulation (which should technicaly be slower) are much more smooth, all while offering mostly the same stuff. Third is that aside of my home PC, I have a cheap $110 Windows 10 tablet that I use mostly for my work. It has only 1GB of RAM, loads stuff from a cheap SD card and uses an integrated GPU - in other words, it's as powerful as some old-ass netbook from 2006. And yeah, it still works great with stuff like emulated Firefox Mobile and Microsoft Edge. So yeah, while I understand that having a better hardware would brute-forcingly solve the problem, in this case, I tend too see an actual trouble in software being needlessly bloated.

That is a long ass post, lol


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## Deleted member 82554 (Oct 28, 2016)

What sort of PC do you have?


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## nerdbat (Oct 28, 2016)

Mr. Fox said:


> What sort of PC do you have?


AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+, GeForce 9800 GTX, 2GB RAM, 150GB HDD.


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## Deleted member 82554 (Oct 28, 2016)

nerdbat said:


> AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+, GeForce 9800 GTX, 2GB RAM, 150GB HDD.


Oh jesus man, upgrade already. I can list many good reasons why to, one being that your GPU is severely bottlenecked by your CPU for starters, another that 2GB RAM ain't gonna cut it for a desktop PC running Windows 10 and modern apps, and so on and so forth...

I actually have the same CPU on my desktop I built in 2006. Good performer for it's day, not so much now, which would also be contributing to your issue.


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## nerdbat (Oct 28, 2016)

Mr. Fox said:


> Oh jesus man, upgrade already. I can list many good reasons why to, one being that your GPU is severely bottlenecked by your CPU for starters, another that 2GB RAM ain't gonna cut it for a desktop PC running Windows 10 and modern apps, and so on and so forth...
> 
> I actually have the same CPU on my desktop I built in 2006. Good performer for it's day, not so much now, which would also be contributing to your issue.


Again, why should I? I'm not a power user, and this oldie works perfectly fine for me - the only "issue" I have is a desire to switch to a more compact and lightweight browser. When my PC will get unusable or uncomfortably slow, I'll ditch it for something brand new, currently I don't feel any urge to do that.


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## Saiko (Oct 28, 2016)

If a standard web browser is using all available RAM then that PC does not work perfectly with all the software you use, particularly the software you probably use most.

You need a new computer.


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## Deleted member 82554 (Oct 28, 2016)

nerdbat said:


> Again, why should I? I'm not a power user, and this oldie works perfectly fine for me - the only "issue" I have is a desire to switch to a more compact and lightweight browser. When my PC will get unusable or uncomfortably slow, I'll ditch it for something brand new, currently I don't feel any urge to do that.


Well if you're happy with what you have, keep it, you're just missing out on far superior technology. At least max out your RAM (should support 8GB, most decent boards did back then), and I wouldn't bother getting a better GPU either, a waste of money with your current configuration...


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## nerdbat (Oct 28, 2016)

Saiko said:


> If a standard web browser is using all available RAM then that PC does not work perfectly with all the software you use, particularly the software you probably use most.



If a "standard" web browser eats up several times more RAM and CPU than anything else on said PC, especially compared to "non-standard" web-browsers, then I'll rather change my standards. I would shut up already if it was the problem with any browser, but in case of Chrome and Firefox, there are already enough articles and evidences about them becoming more bloated over the years, mainly being a victim of "featuritis" (aka getting more overfilled with needless stuff like hard-coded Pocket support). Whether they run well on modern software or not, those two browsers are much heavier and power-consuming than they could be or needed to be, and that's a sign of a poorly made software for me, that's all I can say on my behalf.



Mr. Fox said:


> Well if you're happy with what you have, keep it, you're just missing out on far superior technology. At least max out your RAM (should support 8GB, most decent boards did back then), and I wouldn't bother getting a better GPU either, a waste of money with your current configuration...


Probably, yeah, but it's like saying "You're missing out on this slick tuned-up Porsche Carrera GT" to a guy who lives in a tiny town and drives some Lada 21010 to ride to grocery store and back - it surely is infinitely better and more comfortable, but certainly doesn't excuse its price for that particular guy, who will never even use that to a half-full potential. Same story with me - my PC is an outdated junk, but since I use it for drawing/animating/editing stuff and playing indies or Minecraft, I don't mind that much anyway 

Thanks for all advices, though, I'll keep that in mind. Welp, I hope we can return back to the topic now, lol.


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## nerdbat (Oct 30, 2016)

UPD: After spending some time trying various browsers, decided to stick with Chromium-based ones - they actually happen to be pretty fantastic in terms of speed and boot time - honestly, they put Google Chrome to shame. Chose UCBrowser as my default one, since mobile/PC synchronisation and neat design. Thanks for the help, dudes!


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## jayhusky (Oct 30, 2016)

No worries, thanks for keeping us up to date with your testing and final decision. Happy browsing.


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## MrPhox (Nov 3, 2016)

nerdbat said:


> AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+, GeForce 9800 GTX, 2GB RAM, 150GB HDD.




I have a AMD Athlon 62x2 Dual core 4200+ 2.20Ghz

I got three HDD, 500 x 2 and 200 x 1, video card is 1024 MB and 4 gig of ram.

I have no money for a new com, my com was a refurbish and my motherboard die in early jun after almost two year of use.

I got another motherboar and keep the stuff that I put on after, video card and after the new old mother board another HD.

the mother board is Asus M2N-SLI. Yea its old, can't spare 500$ for a new one


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## MrPhox (Nov 3, 2016)

As for your question, Firefox. Maybe the other one from Mozilla, I think its Aurora?

Chrome is slow and freeze a lot. Well Firefox freeze less and crash more often


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## EdgyMemeLord0 (Nov 7, 2016)

Steam in-game browser
(NOT)


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## nerdbat (Nov 7, 2016)

EdgyMemeLord0 said:


> Steam in-game browser
> (NOT)


Steam by itself is kind of a crap when it comes to booting up, coming to think of it - all those constant updates every time I run the client to play some small game for 15 minutes is why I prefer to buy stuff from GOG nowadays.


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## Martin2W (Feb 4, 2017)

Opera


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