11 Best Open Source Browsers For Linux PC – A web browser is a software that provides an interface for browsing the web. Since its introduction around 1991, it has experienced a lot of development and progress to its present stage.
11 Best Open Source Browsers For Linux! PC 2024
In the past, most sites were text-based with little to no image and graphic content, so only text-based browsers sufficed with some of the early browsers: Lynx, Netscape, and Opera. Linux open-source browser.
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However, with the advancement of technology to support audio, video, images, and even flash content, browsers must also be sophisticated to support such content. This has driven browser advancements as we see them today.
Modern browsers require the support of many software which includes: web browser engines such as Geeko, Trident, WebKit, KHTML, and rendering engines to render website content and display it in a proper format.
Linux as an open-source community gives developers around the world the freedom to experiment with the features they expect from an ideal browser.
Multiple Open Source Browsers on Linux
Listed below are some of the perfect Open Source web browsers. Usually, the features that distinguish a normal browser from a good one are the ability to support all types of data including audio, video, flash HTML, and HTML5, fast performance, memory friendly to fully adapt to old and new systems, ability to support maximum architectures such as Intel, AMD and operating systems such as Windows, Mac, Unix-like, and BSD.
#1. Google Chrome
Considered the most popular web browser on smartphones and PCs with more than half the share of web browser usage, Google Chrome is freeware developed by Google. No wonder we put Google Chrome at the top of our list of the best open-source Linux browsers.
Chrome used the WebKit layout engine until version 27 and Blink thereafter. Written mostly in C++, it is available for many Operating Systems including Android, iOS, OS X, Windows, and Linux.
Features provided by Chrome include: bookmarks and synchronization, enhanced security, malware blocking, and the addition of external plugins such as AdBlock are available on the Google Web Store and is provided as a default extension in Chrome. Also, it supports a user-tracking feature which can be enabled if needed.
It’s fast due to the inbuilt mechanism it uses, it’s also very stable with tabbed browsing mode, speed dial, and incognito mode (private browsing), providing custom themes that can be installed as extensions from the web store. It is widely accepted as one of the default browsers that can be found on almost all systems, with mostly positive reviews.
#2. Firefox
One of the popular Web Browsers, Firefox is also Open Source and available for major operating systems including OS X, Linux, Solaris, Linux, Windows, and Android. Firefox is written in C++, Javascript, C, CSS, XUL, and XBL and is released under the MPL2.0 License.
Since its introduction, it has been praised for its speed, and security and has even been cited as the spiritual successor of Netscape Navigator. Firefox uses the Geecko web engine on all supported platforms leaving the latest on iOS which doesn’t use Geecko.
Features supported by Firefox include tabbed browsing, spell check, incremental search, direct bookmarks, private browsing, and additional support that allows easy integration of many features.
Moreover, it supports many standards including HTML4, XML, XHTML, SVG, APNG, etc. It has become one of the popular web browsers in many Asian and African countries with more than one billion users worldwide.
#3. Opera
Another popular web browser, Opera is one of the oldest to date, with the initial version being released in 1995, 20 years ago. Opera is written in C++ with marked availability for all Operating Systems including Windows, OS, Linux, OS X, Symbian, and mobile phones including Android, and iOS. It uses the Blink web engine, whereas previous versions use Presto.
Features of this browser include: speed dial for quick search, tabbed browsing, download manager, Page Zoom which allows Flash, Java, and SVG to be increased or decreased according to user requirements, HTTP cookie deletion, browsing history, and other data on click. a button. Despite its critics for compatibility and other UI-related issues, it has become one of the favorite browsers with a total of around 291 million users as of mid-2015.
#4. Chromium
A widely known web browser formed from taking its source code i.e. Google Chrome, Chromium is another open-source web browser available for Linux, Windows, OS X, and Android Operating Systems. It is mainly written in C++ with the latest release in December 2016. Chromium is designed with a minimalistic user interface making it light and fast.
Chromium features include a tabbed window manager, support for Vorbis, Theora, WebM codecs for HTML5 Audio and Video, Bookmarks, and History and Session management. Apart from Google Chrome, Chromium also forms the basis for a large number of other Web Browsers some of which are still active while others have been discontinued. Some of them are Opera, Datum, Epic Browser, Vivaldi, Yandex Browser, Flock (discontinued), Rockmelt (discontinued), and many more.
#5. Midori
Midori is an open-source web browser developed in Vala and C with the WebKit engine and GTK+2 and GTK+3 interfaces. With an initial stable release in 2007 and the latest stable release in August 2015, Midori is currently the default browser on many Linux distributions including Manjaro Linux, Basic OS, SliTaz Linux, Bodhi Linux, Trisqel Mini, SystemRescue CD, Raspbian old version.
Key features provided by it include HTML5 Support, Bookmark Management, Private Browsing, Windows, Tab and Session management, Speed Dial, Easy integration of extensions writable in C and Vala, and Unity Support. Midori has been mentioned as one of the alternative web browsers for Linux by LifeHacker and many other sites including TechRadar, ComputerWorld, and Gigaom.
#6. QupZilla
QupZilla is another known web browser that started as just a Research Project with its first release in December 2010 written in Python and later released with C++ to develop a mobile web browser. It is licensed under GPLv3 and available for Linux, Windows, OS X, and FreeBSD.
QupZilla uses the WebKit engine with QtWebKit to sync with modern web standards. It provides all the functionality of a modern web browser including Speed Dial, built-in Ad Block feature, bookmark management, etc. Additional features that will make you choose this browser include Performance Optimization with lower memory consumption than most popular web browsers including Firefox and Google Chrome.
#7. Konqueror
Another multipurpose Web Browser and File Manager, Konqueror is another one on the list. Developed in C++ (Qt) and available for Operating Systems including Linux and Windows and licensed under GPLv2. As the name suggests, Konqueror (starting with ‘K’) was the default browser for the KDE Desktop environment, replacing the then-known KFM.
As a web browser, it uses the KTML-derived web rendering engine and also supports JavaScript, Java applets, CSS, and JQuery. Its rendering capabilities are unquestionable and better than most web browsers highlighting its performance optimizations.
Other features include a Customizable search service (even custom search shortcuts are also included which can be added), the ability to display multimedia content within web pages due to Kpart integrated, the ability to open PDF, Open Document, and other specific file types, integrated I/O plugin system that allows multiple protocols including HTTP, FTP, WebDAV, SMB, etc, ability to browse user’s local file system. Konqueror Embedded is another embedded version of Konqueror that is also available.
#8. Web (Epiphany)
Originally named Epiphany is another browser that deserves a mention on the list. Written in C (GTK+) it was originally a fork of Galeon and has since been part of the GNOME project and adheres to GNOME guidelines at every stage of its development.
Initially, it used the Geeko engine but with version 2.20, it started using the WebKitGTK+ engine. The Web provides support for Linux and BSD operating systems with source code available under GPLv2.
Features include HTML4, CSS1, and XHTML support including support for HTML5 and CSS3, inbuilt plugins from Adobe Flash and IcedTea, bookmarks and “smart bookmarks” features that allow easy search in a find-as-you-type way, full integration with GNOME Features include GNOME Network Manager, GNOME printer, etc, and other features supported by most browsers. While it has received mixed reviews, one ability that many have praised is its fast launch and page readability.
#9. SwiftFox
A browser based on Mozilla Firefox, SwiftFox is next on the list. It is built specifically for Linux with code carrying fully Open Source under MPL 1.1 and proprietary binaries.
SwiftFox is an optimized version of the Firefox platform for Linux. It employs Binary Code Optimization techniques with -O3-level compilation, and optimizations specific to architectures including AMD, AMD64, and Intel.
Other features that make it more advanced than Firefox are security improvements and Pango disabled to reduce package size and rendering. Version 1.5.6.0 has been reported to have a speed increase of around 1.7%.
#10. Pale Moon
Another browser based on Mozilla Firefox, Pale Moon is a replacement for Firefox on Linux, Windows, and Android. It is developed in C/C++ with source code available under MPL2.0 License. It retains the user interface seen in previous versions of Firefox, focusing solely on web browsing capabilities. The latest version will use Gonna, which is an offshoot of Geeko the Firefox web browser engine.
Pale Moon focuses on speed optimization features and leverages Microsoft C Compiler’s auto-optimization and automatic parallelization features. In addition, it removes unnecessary add-ons to unneeded features i.e. crash reporter, and accessibility hardware features, and targets Windows Vista and newer OS because of which it may fail on older hardware. Other features include DuckDuckGo’s default search engine, IP-API geolocation service, functional status bar, and increased customization.
#11. Links
Links is an open-source text and graphical web browser written in C and available for Windows, Linux, OS X, Open VMS, and DOS systems. This browser is released under the GPLv2+ license.
Links is the ideal browser for those who want to experience GUI elements in a text-only environment. Links 2 is the latest version released in September 2015 and it is an advanced version of Links that supports JavaScript, resulting in a much faster web browser.
The main feature of Links is that it can run in graphical mode even for systems that don’t have X Server due to its support for Graphics drivers for X Server, Linux Framebuffer, svgalib, OS/2 PMShell, and Atheos GUI.
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Conclusion:
This is the explanation of some best open-source browsers for the Linux version Technowizah.com, most of which are the best and most popular browsers of choice.
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