Have you tried simpler Gecko engine based browsers? The fact that they use it on the Nokia Internet Tablets (considerably weaker than your laptop, I'd imagine) implies that you might have more luck trying something like Epiphany. Not sure if that particular project is terribly succesful, but it's a starting point. Opera, though not free, also warrants a try for the same reason. It tends to perform quite well on older and embedded platforms. That said, the first thing I'd try is installing FlashBlock and ad blocking plugins on your existing Firefox install. That generally does the trick for me, on these older machines. It's not the browser but the poorly designed/over-designed flash ads that tend to cause the vast majority of the problem.
Of course, there's always Lynx if the above doesn't work.
Sean Crago Kathmandu, Nepal
On Monday 06 October 2008, Sean Crago wrote: Have you tried simpler Gecko engine based browsers? The fact that they
use
it on the Nokia Internet Tablets (considerably weaker than your laptop,
I'd
imagine) implies that you might have more luck trying something like Epiphany.
On Mon, Oct 6, 2008 at 7:05 PM, Luke -Jr luke@dashjr.org wrote: Actually, that's WebKit.
Epiphany's moving to Webkit in recent CVS builds. Even if I missed something and they've made a formal release of a Webkit-based version, the Gecko based ones are still going to be more common in the current stable distributions.
I held off mention of the Webkit builds of Epiphany, as I haven't heard anything indicating that they're stable enough for day-to-day use (you'd think they'd put out a beta release), but it's probably worth a shot if the other options fall through. I still say that optimizing Firefox is the best bet, though.
Sean Crago Kathmandu
On Monday 06 October 2008, Sean Crago wrote:
Try July of *last year*. Epiphany has been WebKit-based for 15 months now, starting with 2.19.6: http://blogs.gnome.org/epiphany/2007/07/30/epiphany-2196-released-webkit-bac...
I was also referring to the Nokia Internet Tablets, which are known to also use WebKit (though not Epiphany, AFAIK).
Maemo (as of the current build, 4.1 - Note the lack of any major browser upgrade mention in the release notes: http://tablets-dev.nokia.com/4.1/maemo-sdk-relnotes_4.1.txt) still ships with MicroB, which is Gecko based. No other browser is installed by default, though there were apparently multiple successful ports released in 2007 (one based on Epiphany) - Not sure how mature they are/can't vouch for 'em. While I'm pleasantly surprised to learn that I was (partially) wrong about the status of Webkit in Epiphany, it is still a build option that is considered to be in beta status. Perhaps I'm misreading your statement, but if you meant to imply that Webkit was used by default in Ephiphany or Maemo, I believe you were mistaken.
Epiphany's most recent release notes seem to back up the above - http://blogs.gnome.org/epiphany/ Luckily I am wrong about the CVS thing - It's further along than that - but my core point that it wasn't quite ready for primetime and wouldn't be present in any stable distro's binaries is still likely true. If major distros are compiling in webkit, though, that's great - The more choice the better. Are they? And if you do compile in Webkit support does it still compile in Gecko support and let you switch back and forth?
More importantly for Leo's question, is it faster/substantially more efficient than an optimized Firefox config?
Sean Crago Kathmandu
On Monday 06 October 2008, Sean Crago wrote:
More importantly for Leo's question, is it faster/substantially more efficient than an optimized Firefox config?
Firefox is bloated and slower than pretty much any other browser, so I would assume so. As I already suggested, both Konqueror and Arora are faster.
That's funny, that's not what almost every single analysis I've read has said. Back it up with numbers or I call shenanigans. Yes, there are FASTER browsers out there, especially if you talk about ones that are lacking in features. But it's certainly not "bloated and slower than pretty much any other browser".
J.
On Mon, Oct 6, 2008 at 10:56 AM, Luke -Jr luke@dashjr.org wrote:
--- On Mon, 10/6/08, Sean Crago cragos@gmail.com wrote:
Since I had no interest in Flash to begin with, I didn't install Flash. The difficulty there is that I can't figure out how to tell Firefox that I'm not interested in Flash, as Firefox keeps "helpfully" pointing out that Flash is not installed and the webpage "needs" Flash to be installed.
Of course, there's always Lynx if the above doesn't work.
I may not desire Flash, but I still want to occasionally see images (load images by default is of course turned off). I've heard that an alternative text-only browser, Links, can do images, but I know Lynx can't do images.
On Mon, Oct 6, 2008 at 12:03 PM, Leo Mauler webgiant@yahoo.com wrote:
Since I had no interest in Flash to begin with, I didn't install Flash. The difficulty there is that I can't figure out how to tell Firefox that I'm not interested in Flash, as Firefox keeps "helpfully" pointing out that Flash is not installed and the webpage "needs" Flash to be installed.
Could you tell it that flash is handled by /bin/true?
--- On Mon, 10/6/08, David Nicol davidnicol@gmail.com wrote:
I knew it, Ubuntu's ease-of-use *is* making me forget to consider solutions not handled by a button in a GUI.
Thanks for the excellent suggestion.
I could swear that there's a Firefox extension out there that allows you to do just this. Can't remember it offhand though.
Jeffrey.
On Mon, Oct 6, 2008 at 12:12 PM, David Nicol davidnicol@gmail.com wrote:
Hi,
On Mon, Oct 06, 2008 at 10:03:36AM -0700, Leo Mauler wrote:
I may not desire Flash, but I still want to occasionally see images (load images by default is of course turned off). I've heard that an alternative text-only browser, Links, can do images, but I know Lynx can't do images.
Perhaps "do images" isn't a builtin but I have configured my Lynx to display images when I want to see them. I use "zgv" to display images without X. In /etc/mailcap I have a line like:
image/* ; /usr/bin/zgv %s ; needsterminal ; test=test -z $DISPLAY
that says to use zgv if there is no X ($DISPLAY is zero length). Configure Lynx options to have "Show images" be "as links" and then just "click" on the images you want to see.
This setup is very responsive on my 32 meg P100 laptop. Lynx may not be what you want but it is lightweight and will let you see images.
-
David Nicol -
Jeffrey Watts -
jim＠jimani.com -
Leo Mauler -
Luke -Jr -
Sean Crago