Lightest browser.

Hi,
Any opinions please as to which browser members would consider the lightest on computer resources.
I would say at the moment firefox is the lightest i have used but are there any browsers which are lighter.

 

QTweb.

If you were watching browser footprints 5 years ago and 10 years ago, and even 15 years ago, you would see that today there is no such thing as a lightweight browser. Gone are the days of optimizing things for low end specs. Which means those with older hardware, or that just want spartan software, have fewer choises...

Sul.

 

If you want a browser that's light you're going to have to use somethign like Lynx, which has no features. What's changed 5, 10, 15 years is that numerous features have been added.

I would say Firefox is the lightest mainstream browser.

 

I always install Opera on slow computers. 2nd would be the Chromium family.

 

I use Crazy Browser on portable windows installations and rescue disks like BartPE because it's so small. The installer is on 722 KB, yet it still works well for basic browsing.

 

I would have thought Chrome is lighter than Firefox.... feels lighter anyway...

 

Faster and lighter are two very different things.

 

I have not seen a browser thats not resource hungry but how the browser performs is whats important.My experience with IE9,Chrome and Dragon which is based on chrome work well on windows 7.There snappy and pretty secure and besides that you can have mutiple browsers installed and use each one for different task.

 

True... I have never measured how much ram each uses or any specifics like that...

 

K-Meleon?
Been using it for years, although future development is iffy.

 

How about "Browzar Private Web Browser"

I use Pale Moon myself, I think this is a little lighter
than Firefox but still has all the advantages Firefox
without some of the downfalls of it

 

Another vote for QtWeb: http://qtweb.net/

And here is a comparative with really lightweight browsers: http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-web-browser-lightweight.htm

 

According to that website QTweb is not being developed anymore or is slow with the updates etc.

 

Optimized Firefox browser for pure browsing speed is SwiftFox:

http://getswiftfox.com/

Its an alternative if you want a browser that is light and also built on the Firefox browser code.

Unfortunately, its only available for GNU/Linux platform!

 

10 Web Browsers Tested for RAM and CPU Usage

Read more: http://www.raymond.cc/blog/battle-of-the-browsers-in-cpu-and-memory-usage/#ixzz29Fj4Xcbd

 

If running Firefox/Waterfox, you can use Firmin to manage memory leaks:

http://datum-forensics.com/downloads/?did=1

It will let you manage how much memory your browser uses when it runs.

 

K-Meleon is very light but the last update was in 2010. Do you think it's safe to use an outdated browser? I don't know ...

 

This made me test GreenBrowser and it surprised me. It's a very good browser!

 

A very interesting article.
Certainly for me the green and slim browsers looked very promising.they looked the lightest but this is just one test.

 

k-melon is pretty light,but its not be updated for 2 years,so i would not recommend it.

the lightest mainstream browser would be opera actually,considering the things it already comes pre loaded with like mouse gestures,sync,speed dial, the only plugin for opera that i use is last pass.

 

K-Melon is indeed dead.

 

Do you get WOT and adblock and other extensions like that in opera

 

WOT: https://addons.opera.com/en/search/?query=WOT

Adblock: https://addons.opera.com/en/extensions/details/adblockforopera/?display=en




Opera is turning around possibly. It's always been known as innovative, but over the years some of those ideas resulted in performance and security concerns (such as Unite). Unite is gone, the atrocity (my opinion) that was Widgets is now gone. Addons are becoming more plentiful and better quality, and Opera still retains its plethora of built-in options and features. I'm not certain I'd consider it "mainstream", but that's a disussion for a different thread and has been talked about many times over. It is still a very good option.

 

^^ is spot on. the only addon not available for opera is xmarks,possibly because they gave opera sync for ages.

and as far as i know opera is what i would call a browser suite,with mail. torrent client and rss reader inbuilt.

 

I'd agree in calling it a suite, and a pretty darn good one at that. Opera has its flaws, such as security and lack of massive use (said lack of use is also one of the main reasons attacks against it are rare of course). But, again, it has a lot going for it as well. More on-topic though, neither it nor any of the popular choices can really be considered "light". Then again, unless you're running on 1Gb of RAM or less or are worried your processor is going to commit suicide because of a Flash ad or game, I'm not sure "light" is that important on a modern system. Firefox is still suffering memory leaks however, so its "lightness" can vary like the direction of the wind.