So, you might have heard that Microsoft will be retiring their own HTML engine, EdgeHTML, and will base the next versions on the Chromium engine, called Blink. I think it’s time to take a look at some of the browsers available on Linux, that use the Blink engine !
1 – Chrome and Chromium
Obviously, you know these guys. Chrome is based on Chromium, which is itself open source, and they both use the Blink HTML engine. The main difference between the two are codec support, since Chrome comes with AAC, H264 and MP3 support, as well as the flash plugin and a few restrictions on which extensions you can install. They both are pretty speedy, but gobble enormous amounts of RAM to deliver that performance. They both look mostly the same, and support a plethora of extensions to improve and extend your web browsing experience.
2 – Opera
Opera used to have its own rendering engine, called Presto, but they canned it in 2013 and moved to Blink, Google’s fork of Webkit. Opera has some nice features though, such as a built in ad blocker, a picture in picture mode, as well as a battery saver and a way to make browsing faster by compressing images on the webpages. It can also be customized with themes, and can be synced with an Opera account to keep all browsing history, favorites, passwords and open tabs on all your devices. It’s a well rounded proposition, even though it doesn’t integrate all that well with the Linux desktop and works well on Linux.
3 – Vivaldi
This browser has been created by Opera’s co founder, and was supposed to bring a complete browsing experience for heavy internet users and Opera users which wereunhappy with the migration from the Presto engine to Blink, which removed a few features, at the time. Ironically, Vivaldi also uses the Blink engine. Its integration with Linux is subpar, and it does look pretty alien compared to other native applications, even though it supports themes. It comes with a bunch of tools, such as integrated notes, a screenshot tool to capture a whole web page, and a handy image information panel that lets you know a few metadata about the image displayed in the browser.
You can also sync your browsing data between devices with a Vivaldi account.
4 – Brave
This one might be less well known. it’s aimed at the privacy focused crowd, and has been created by the cofounder of Firefox and the creator of Javascript. Brave is based on Chromium, and is advertised as 2 times faster as Chrome on the desktop, since it blocks ads and trackers.
Brave also implements a reward system for publishers, where users can make micro payments and reward publishers with blockchain based tokens.
Brave tries to offer a new approach to reward content creators on the internet, one that is not based on ads. Since its marketshare is still pretty low, it has not succeded yet in bringing this new model to the major web publishers, though.
5 – Other options
So, what if you don’t want to use any browser based on the Blink engine ? Well there are few options : you could use Firefox: it has good system integration on Linux, is now as fast as Chrome (SPEED TEST / BROWSER MARK) since the Quantum project started to land, and is backed by a company known for trying to uphold a free and secure web.
If Firefox is not to your liking, and your browsing needs are simple, any webkit based, linux native browser can do the trick ! Epiphany, also called GNOME Web, can do the trick, with support for ad blocking, syncing with Firefox account, and speedy browsing. Falkon is a great option for KDE users as well. Neither of these will be as fast as Firefox or Chrome, though, but if you value system integration over speed, they are good options.
There are not many other options apart from these, and it shows that the web is starting to be dominated by one rendering engine, which has always been a bad thing for the web. Google already is under suspicion of making YouTUBE slower on non-Chrome browsers, and they start to implement some features that are not part of the W3C standards, making other browsers and engines play catch-up to display the Google websites correctly.
I won’t pester you to use Firefox over Chrome, but if you value an open web, driven by good standards, I can only recommend you try some of the non-Blink based options first, and see if you like them ! If not, well, everyone is free to choose the right tool for their job !
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i started browsing when i was a kid with firefox, many of my friend migrate to google chrome, but somehow i still stick to firefox 🙂 i don't really care about the performance different, it's about feeling homy
You know, this could become a cycle: Internet Explorer was good, then it was bad, then other browsers took over. Chromium is good, but could be brought to it's knees because of a virus or some vulnerability (think monoculture banana problem), then some other non-chromium based browser would take over, and the same thing would happen again years later. I guess we'll see.
I have been a huge fan of LibreWolf. Gives me that added security that Firefox kinda just lets slide under the table but still gets the good performance of Firefox.
fuck google. Back door of Cia.
BTW I use arch
Use Firefox
Like Spongebob once said: "Everything is Chrome in the future."
meizo
Anyone else come from the medium post?
watching dis on Firefox, got no issues n we'll continue to fight da Chromium monopoly
3:18 oh boy did that change
Tried many browsers & I'm starting to like Brave more & more!
Firefox/Mozilla supported the censoring of Parler, I am an independent voter, I view any censoring, especially in my country, as a very bad thing. Mozilla says they want an open free internet, funny way of showing it.
Mozilla cannot be trusted either.
Nice content, all of your stuff
Ive been using chrome and windows for years, but a few months ago i installed linux and switched to firefox after learning that windows and chrome arent what they used to be. chrome and windows now collects a lot of data, and they are both now slower and unoptimised. i wish powerful companies would stop collecting and selling peoples data.
What distro?
Firefox is my option since Firefox 3.5, people says chrome is better but I don't see any differences and Firefox has all I need. I have tried Brave and it's a very interesting option, it has gave me a good experience.
I finally ditched Google Chrome on my Zorin OS install for GNOME Web and I'm glad I did. It's definitely not as fast but I value my privacy and security and I'm not a fan of Google's telemetry baked into all their products. I love how it uses the system theme so it makes it more coherent!
Been trying to shift away from blink and gecko based browsers.
So far I've found Basilisk and Falkon to be pretty great. Basilisk was forked from the old firefox so the old extensions are compatible. Also it's made by the palemoon guys so the work put in reflects in the quality. Variety in the web sphere is absolutely necessary to maintain whatever is remaining of our privacy and internet freedom.
Falkon : https://falkon.org/
Basilisk: https://basilisk-browser.org/
Luakit: https://luakit.github.io/
Here is a lovely list of web browsers: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/List_of_applications/Internet#Web_browsers
I switched from chrome to Firefox but ended up switching back. Firefox just wasn't stable. With Firefox, the FIREFOX IS RUNNING BUT…. message made me switch.
i think you are missed the basilisk and it's engine : )
Brave's ad blocking works very well but it is very unethical project. They are basically scamming by printing their own money. They "issued" a digital token that is leaning on the buzz word "blockchain" but you need to register with photo of you passport to withdraw it and sell it. They are not using any of the merits of blockchain which are decentralization and censorship resistance, self custody of the value and pseudonymity. Their token is issued on a centralized network that is controlled by the Ethereum corporation, a big business that makes money on hype and promises, they hold the control over the issuing smart contract which also destroys any censorship resistance and they pretend that they give you tokens when you watch ads but they don't actually send them to you, the Brave rewards in your browser still go to an address controlled by them and you need to register with passport to claim them. They said they used "crypto" instead of PayPal to make it easier for anyone anywhere from any age to get rewarded for good content, without discrimination etc but this is not where their project is aiming at the moment. They went crypto because it allowed them to go around the unlicensed securities law and to print these tokens out of thin air and sell them for money without being prosecuted. They could've used dollars or euros or bitcoin for the rewards but this wouldn't allow them to get them for free and to sell them to the users.
lynx is as well not powered by blink.
Opera is the best browser out there, I don't get why nobody uses it. It has some of the most convenient features and practically no useless ones. Aside from what you've listed, it also has a free built-in VPN. I've been an Opera user since before they switched to Blink, as this has always been the only one browser to save your open tabs. But I must say, it's become much better once it switched to Blink, not to mention it opened up a library of Chrome's extensions on top of its own Opera extensions. Even though I am somewhat concerned with Google's monopolization, for now I don't see any way for me to remove Google from my life completely anyway. And for now I don't see any browser that'd be better. I will probably eventually switch to Firefox, but I dunno when.
I've been a Firefox user since forever. It was good until it started annoying me with memory leakages. Then I tried Chromium and never looked back.