Best up to date browser for 2GB laptop?

[Majdanov]

Hello people, I volunteer for one small NGO here in Novi Sad, Serbia, and was tasked to take one really small 2GB ram laptop which will be donated to some student so that he can finish his studies or to some child which will follow classes from It.

Puppy Linux is ideal for these because it is small and It can run other programs like some type of word and etc. With that said, It would be ideal If I could find some small browser so that future user could have as normal experience as possible with this not-so-powerfull laptop. Sooooo, can you help me?

[01101001b]

Hi @Majdanov!

[...] one really small 2GB ram laptop [...] With that said, It would be ideal If I could find some small browser so that future user could have as normal experience as possible [...]

These days that's a tough request Nowadays browsers are ram hogs. It's clear you need a 32bit browser. So I guess you have at least 3 choices:
Pale moon
Firefox
Vivaldi (EDIT: here in the forum)
(note: those links are optional. Perhaps someone else can help you find those browsers as .pet files here in the forum).
Have in mind that none of them is perfect. You'll have to try. But remember: 32bit browser support is near to end, so sooner or later there'll be no such a thing as "normal experience" regarding 32bit browsing.
Hope it helps!

[mikewalsh]

Depending on what you want to do with the browser, for that machine I would recommend PaleMoon. It'll play YouTube videos if required, although I'm afraid NetFlix and the like will be a no-go, since it doesn't support Widevine - necessary for DRM-protected stuff to play.

To add to 01101001b's recommendations, you also have 32-bit Iron.....another Chromium 'lookalike'. I'd recommend this myself, personally, as it's the best Chrome/Chromium 'clone' there is in my opinion. It has the exact same interface, with neither Google's proprietary 'nosy' stuff nor Chromium's requirement for bleeding-edge dependencies.

You can find a 'portable' version here:-

viewtopic.php?f=90&t=771

Hope some of these might help.

Mike.

[bigpup]

one really small 2GB ram laptop

What is it?????
Make and model?????
Specs if you know them???????

That is a typical computer for Puppy Linux.
2GB of RAM is more than enough RAM.

[JASpup]

If your interest is browsers, it matters significantly which version of Puppy Linux you are booting.

Why? Old puppies will struggle installing/running new browsers, and new browsers tend to be heavy on old computers. I stopped installing Chromium yesterday because the installation was over 200mb.

With this in mind, every version of Puppy appears to come with a default browser that can be recommended, either Pale Moon or Firefox.

Update and you're off browsing!

P.S. - I'm typing on a 2gb laptop and it browses well if you don't open too many Windows. You see the RAM usage jump but the bottleneck is usually the CPU.

[mikewalsh]

@JASpup :-

It's why the default browsers are chosen.Because they are as light as possible, while still being up-to-date and fully functional.

I produce packages of Chrome & the 'clones' for those who have more powerful hardware and want a better browser.....but one of the main reasons we between us produce as many browsers as we do across the community, is to try and ensure there's something functional (and reasonably secure & safe) for every Puppian.

No matter what the computer's capabilities/performance (or lack thereof), there should be something for everyone. Which is important, as I'm fond of saying, given that browsers are the 'glue' that hold on-line communities of all stripes together, and enable them to keep functioning.

Mike.

[JASpup]

@mikewalsh someone mentioned this recently in another browser discussion - sometimes specific browsers are required.

Personally I would use Dillo half the time if it worked.

Otherwise I'll repeatedly assert my issue with browsers is user-data and privacy.

You have to be a professional to know all the ways our personal data is harvested and used, but it's obvious the average user only sees the front end, and that's how exploitation is normalized.

All that information in Pup-SysInfo, what can be seen by a website? (not to mention all our clicks and entries)

I'm all for light browsers, but I need more than one. What I'm unaware of is how others feel about their browsing circumstances.

If they're as content as most seem here with the default windows manager, I'm probably consistently anomalous.

When you've used Windows most of your life and come from Mint XFCE, Puppy is both a relief and a struggle. I still believe usage would explode if LXQt and XFCE were offered as mainline default flavors vs puplets.

[Eastler_Dart]

something not directly to the Question,
because my hint is for also the need of an Email-programm,
and my solution ist not really a up-to-date one.

Here I'm on a Lappy, single-Celeron at 2200Mhz with original 2GB Ram.
Actually I try to build up upup as a german puppy, upup has the Light-Browser build in.

Light is good, sure, small and quick. Because I'm working long time with puppies,
I like the mozilla-Suite Seamonkey. OK, its a projekt, which seems a little sleeping,
but it brings all build in. Browser, Email and more.

In tests with upup-ef-32bit I had tried the last version of Seamonkey, 2.53.
When starting something in Adobe Flashplayer, in short time is to see:
2.53 brings the lappy in heat ))
So I switched to the Seamonkeyversions backward, and found the 2.49.4,
which runs well, quick, dont take all the power of the Laptop.

A little worst is the skin of Seamonkey - it needs GTK3, I had experimented long time,
until i had build up a additional Gtk3-Theme, so that Seamonkey looks like the
rest of the puppy ( I use a colourful theme, with no additions Seamonkey cames in grey).

The next is, Videos. there are some Vids in Inet, Seamonkey doesn't play,
and there are some, which Seamonkey offers to download instead of play in the site,
you can then play that vids from your harddisc with the Player installed in your puppy.

So if you also need a emailprogramm, take a look to Seamonkey 2.49.4,
in the old forum i remember a Sfs to install / deinstall it on the fly.

Good whiches with your project

[mouldy]

I have been using 2GB RAM for long time with latest Firefox and Chrome. Then started having problems with Firefox locking up. It was lot more sensitive than Chrome. Seems one of sticks RAM went bad. Firefox didnt like sharing 1GB RAM. I upgraded to 4GB and no more problem. I think 2GB still ok, but into future as ever more complexity, not sure for how long.

Now at bare minimum I use free version Ghostery (custom settings) and Cookie Autodelete addons. This helps a lot on less powerful computers. Modern websites are filled with scripts and other garbage that really exercise a browser. Websites basically want to use your computer and bandwidth to profit them.

As to the the smaller browsers, if they do what you need, great. But I had problems finding anything that worked on them to control website scripts. Usually at best, you had to work with some ancient version of NoScript and lucky to get that. For me a locked down mega browser worked better than a small browser running nekkid.

[mikeslr]

PipzDex just called Waterfox again to our attention. viewtopic.php?p=11289#p11289. AFAICT, 64-bit only. Along with backi I can confirm that it plays youtube music videos with sound OOTB. The website indicates 512 Mbs of RAM, but I don't know if that means required or recommended. Limiting the number of webpages simultaneously open is more important than minimum requirements. Note, two versions are available from the publisher. I think 'The Third Generation' is based on firefox-quantum; Classic, like palemoon, on the older technology. However, unlike palemoon you can also install some newer addons. I was able to easily install Adguard and Privacy Badger.