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Ask HN: Can someone suggest an open source lightweight alternative to Chrome?

41 points by jessehorne 6y ago

I run a 2012-ish Macbook Pro which has 8gb of ram. I noticed today that Chrome takes up at least a couple of those gigs throughout the day. I'm looking for suggestions for alternatives, preferably extremely lightweight (memory efficient) and open-source. Would love to hear what the community is using.

altruly 6y ago
Also, if you run with tons of tabs open, try "The Great Suspender" chrome extension.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
NikolaeVarius 6y ago
Are we really complaining about browsers on a computer with 8gb of RAM?
- sushshshsh 6y ago
  I think the source of OPs problem is the type of websites he is visiting rather than the default memory usage patterns of a browser, but.... 8GB really isn't that much memory at all when it comes to the resource hogging that is occuring at every level of the stack. Win 10 is using like 4GB RAM at idle these days and one Youtube tab takes the other 4 :)
- jessehorne 6y ago
  Well, yeah. I figured that's a pretty standard amount of ram or are we at 16gb now? I'm sorry, I don't think I've been keeping up with progress.
- forinti 6y ago
  I didn't have any computer with more than 4GB in the house until this year. I had to buy more RAM because of Firefox and Chrome.
sushshshsh 6y ago
Dillo if you don't need javascript... hehe
nisa 6y ago
I can recommend the great suspender extension: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/the-great-suspender/klbibkeccnjlkjkiokjodocebajanakg https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/the-great-suspende... after a few minutes inactive tabs gets killed - works for me very well - you can also exclude sites.
- haffi112 6y ago
  I can't recommend this enough. Here is an option for Firefox users: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/auto-tab-discard/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/auto-tab-disc...
pyrophane 6y ago
Unfortunately most of the options that come to mind are not available for MacOS. I know this isn't what you asked, but if I wanted to reinvigorate a 2012 Macbook Pro I would look install something like Lubuntu on it, which focuses on being lightweight, and would run Falkon or Midori.
- jessehorne 6y ago
  Before this Mac, I used Lubuntu exclusively for years. Who knows...I may end up going back to it soon.
iamwpj 6y ago
It's no open source, but it is lightweight and good on battery. I use Safari on MacOS. The shortcomings keep me from expecting too much from my applications.
8ytecoder 6y ago
Safari is the most efficient in terms of memory and battery for macOS. The core of safari - WebKit - is open source. The browser itself is not. Firefox is what I use but it’s only marginally better than chrome.
anderspitman 6y ago
My dream is that someone will spec out a nice simple subset of modern HTML/CSS, and folks will start making compatible static sites. A few years of that and we could have some nice truly lightweight browsers again. Imagine how fast sites like Wikipedia or YouTube could be if JS wasn't even an option.
- saagarjha 6y ago
  The problem is that nobody is going to migrate unless a major web player swings a big and likely anticompetitive stick.
  - anderspitman 6y ago
    You don't need to migrate. Keep it compatible with current browsers. Users will reap the benefits of the lightweight sites regardless of what browser they use. It would sort of be like AMP that way. But over time if you get enough major sites with compatible versions it would become useful to have a browser that only speaks the lightweight web, and that's when things could start to snowball. At no point do you need big companies or browser vendors to do anything other than not break current HTML/CSS compatibility.
    - saagarjha 6y ago
      > It would sort of be like AMP that way. You may have noticed that this was pretty much exactly what I was talking about ;) Usability issues aside, nobody fixed their stuff until Google threatened their SEO.
      - anderspitman 6y ago
        Yeah you got me. AMP really is close on a technical level but my blood boils every time I see a /amp/ url.
        dngray 6y ago
        I've found this extension https://www.daniel.priv.no/web-extensions/amp2html.html https://www.daniel.priv.no/web-extensions/amp2html.html rather useful for dealing with that. It also means I am less likely to share an AMP link.
screye 6y ago
MSFT's edge chromium is not truly open source, but it is the easiest browser to migrate to from Chrome, and it is far less resource intensive. It also brings some really neat new features, and I find it mind boggling that Google never brought them to chrome. I have been using it as my primary for a few months now, and I miss nothing. disclaimer: I am affiliated with MSFT, but don't know anyone in the browser team and readily shit on other MSFT efforts that don't quite work.
magnusmorton 6y ago
I use Lynx and surf. surf also has no tabs, so that helps too.
- Alex63 6y ago
  +1 for surf. But I use it as part of a broader use of suckless tools, so not sure how it would feel if you are not using dwm & dmenu.
clscott 6y ago
You can very easily and inexpensively upgrade this laptop to 16GB of RAM. I highly recommend you do this, it makes a world of difference. If you don't already have an SSD in this device I recommend you swap that out also. I would like to echo the recommendation for Firefox + uBlock Origin - you will see big improvements in perceived performance. (typing this on my 2011 MacBook Pro in FF)
- skunkworker 6y ago
  I agree, though OP is a little ambiguous if this is a 2012 Unibody (which has USB3 and one of the best old machines) or a 2012 Retina which he would be out of luck. I've upgraded multiple 2011/2012 Unibody MBP for friends and family with 16gb ram and a 512gb ssd for about $150 in the past few years, it makes the machine feel completely new and "snappy".
_wldu 6y ago
Gemini ;) https://gemini.circumlunar.space/ https://gemini.circumlunar.space/ I'm only half way joking.
rusinov 6y ago
Safari.
spanhandler 6y ago
I tried a few lightweight Linux browsers on a 2GB low-clocked Celeron machine a while back ("hacked", older-model Asus Chromebox). Chief candidates were Surf, Qutebrowser, and Midori. The best on the performance/ui-jank scale was Surf, by a long shot. In fact it was best on both counts. I can't remember which was which but one of the three was noticeably much heavier than the other two, taking a long time to load and sometimes having slow paints, and the other had a lot of weird UI issues that might have been ironed out by running under an all-the-bells-and-whistles DE (KDE or Gnome) which tend to helpfully fix all the UI problems they introduce, but if you're really resource-constrained there's no way you can afford to run either of those (especially Gnome). Surf's very shortcut-focused in its UI so there's a bit of memorization needed, and you may want to compile it with a few patches for convenience, but its performance and rendering were, in the field of low-resource browsers, outstanding. [reads post more carefully] Oh you're on Mac and have 8GB of memory? Just use Safari, it makes way, way better use of resources than Chrome or Firefox. Seriously, it's way better, at the cost of having worse extensions, but you're gonna give those up on any other low-resource option anyway. Also stop using the webapp versions of crapware like Gmail if you're going to leave it open all the time—use native mail clients or the "basic HTML" version. Keep your "webapps" in their own windows and close them when not in use, they all eat shitloads of memory for no good reason, no matter the browser.
dis-sys 6y ago
just install another 8GB of RAM, 2012 mbp allows you to do that, more recent mbp all took that luxury away from users.
shujito 6y ago
MacOS? what about Safari?
jmercouris 6y ago
I suggest Nyxt, very lightweight
jmercouris 6y ago
I suggest Nyxt browser, very lightweight and extensible
sesuximo 6y ago
I use safari on a similar Mac with no problems. Also this probably isn’t what you want to hear but I also got a headless desktop recently for all my dev related work... that made my Mac a lot faster!!
themodelplumber 6y ago
Not sure if you're running OS X or Linux or something else, but on my 2GB netbook I've had good results using Falkon and Links. The former plays YouTube videos just fine, and the latter is more like using a mainstream browser in reading mode. https://www.falkon.org/ https://www.falkon.org/ http://links.twibright.com/ http://links.twibright.com/
- jessehorne 6y ago
  I'm running OS X. I really wanted to try Falkon though!
axaxs 6y ago
Brave and Vivaldi are both Chromium based, but perhaps worth a shot. There's only two other engines left: firefox and webkit. You may want to look into a webkit based browser?
- basch 6y ago
  ill give Brave a nod as well. Everybody is so offput by its optional ads, they are missing out on the most efficient, fastest, and best "it just works" ad blocker out. It's a pleasure to surf the web again after years of ublock/umatrix and constantly having to tweak the settings for each site I visited. Edge has become my backup quick test of "is it something in Brave breaking it" I have Firefox open at all times as well, but find myself using it the least of the three.
  - axaxs 6y ago
    Yeah, Brave is probably my favorite as a browser. That said, its sync story sucks, which ultimately forced me over to Vivaldi.
  - skinnymuch 6y ago
    No other reason for Brave? Some don’t want to or care for blocking ads and others don’t do it at the browser level. Does Brave have anything at that point?
    - basch 6y ago
      It's hard for any browser to be "lightweight" without blocking javascript and ads. So of the ad blockers, Brave is the lightest weight. You could turn the ad blocker off, and still get paid to use Brave though, if you like ads.
      - skinnymuch 6y ago
        If ads or other things are already taken care of ourside the browser, doesn’t that make Brave heavier? It now has redundancy.
JakeWesorick 6y ago
Firefox? You can also go to "about:memory" and press "Minimize memory usage" to free up memory if you're having issues.
- jessehorne 6y ago
  Looking for something that I haven't tried already! Also wasn't aware that there was "minimize memory usage" functionality.
Y_Y 6y ago
Memory use isn't real though, especially with OSX and Chrome. It is just eating up what's available as an optimisation, not taking only what it needs. Also, get Firefox.
- saagarjha 6y ago
  It is not, but Chrome’s resource usage is.
sydd 6y ago
I'd use FF with an ad blocker like uBlock Origin, ads can hog tons of resources. Here are some other tips too https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-uses-too-much-memory-or-cpu-resources https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-uses-too-much-m...
- quicklime 6y ago
  I’m also using Firefox, but instead of ublock origin I’m using an extension called “Disable JavaScript” combined with the out of the box tracking protection (in strict mode). On my laptop with 4G of RAM, this works fairly well. For the vast majority of news websites, running without js is a huge improvement to both performance and user experience. It even gets around a lot of paywalls. I don’t think the sites that run slowly would be helped by a “lightweight” browser, since it’s not the browser itself that’s slowing things down, but the website. The only way to fix this is to remove those features from the website, whether that’s by disabling them, or using a browser that doesn’t support those features (eg a text-only browser).
  - lavignegagnon 6y ago
    I discovered this only months ago, but you can configure uBlock Origin to disable javascript, block remote fonts, and/or large media files (check "I am an advanced user" in the settings). One extension to rule them all!
    - genpfault 6y ago
      Can Origin whitelist specific fonts? Google's bugtrackers & Android docs are an absolute trainwreck without whatever wonky Webfont they're using.
      - adamhearn 6y ago
        Off the top of my head I know you can reenable specific things such as JavaScript for individual web pages. Probably the same is possible with fonts.
ulfw 6y ago
Why wouldn't you use Safari on it? When it comes to being optimised for the Mac, that's where it's at. You're on a closed sourced OS, webkit is open.
- drcongo 6y ago
  Safari is incredibly lightweight and efficient compared to Chrome. I use Safari for all my actual browsing and Firefox for dev stuff. Never Chrome.
- rochak 6y ago
  But how would you configure Safari to block ads?
beervirus 6y ago
Firefox. Block ads. It’ll do fine.
cientifico 6y ago
I can suggest qutebrowser.
- jessehorne 6y ago
  I checked it out but not really interested in the keyboard-focused controls. I may try it out when I have more time to learn it.
- kdmarrett 6y ago
  Seconded
jmnicolas 6y ago
I use Firefox but it's a memory hog too. To be fair, websites are the memory hogs imo. Sadly I don't think you can have the full web experience without sacrificing a couple gigs of ram if you have several tabs open at once. I know it's not open source but on a Macbook I would expect Safari to be the lightest browser. If you really want open and still like Chrome, you could try ungoogled chromium here : https://chromium.woolyss.com/ https://chromium.woolyss.com/
- haffi112 6y ago
  For Firefox I am using an extension called auto tab discard (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/auto-tab-discard/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/auto-tab-disc...). It will suspend tabs from memory that have not been opened for a given time but you can easily open them again by pressing the tab. You can also whitelist some domains to prevent them from being suspended. Give it a try. There is also the great suspender for Chrome.
  - jmnicolas 6y ago
    Contrary to OP, my problem with a browser (or Electron app) consuming a lot of RAM is philosophical not material : I have 16G at home and 32G at work so it's more than enough to accommodate any gluttonous browser.
- pdonis 6y ago
  > To be fair, websites are the memory hogs imo. Some are, yes, and when your browser is eating a lot of memory, it's usually the website's fault. But there are many sites out there that are quite lightweight (including this one). On the laptop I'm writing this on, I currently have 31 tabs open in Firefox on Linux (not counting tabs that are just viewing PDF files, only tabs that are on actual websites) and the browser's memory resident set size is less than 700 MB.
seba_dos1 6y ago
If you want lightweight browsing, use Firefox with NoScript.
XzetaU8 6y ago
Pale Moon, open-source and very lightweight https://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/62312/pale-moon https://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/62312/pale-moon
knoebber 6y ago
Emacs - eww
anthk 6y ago
Falkon.
fulafel 6y ago
Dillo and Netsurf are much smaller than mainstream browsers. But it takes some dedication to use these as ypu have to forgo many web services that aren't compatible. Another option is to use a remote server to run the browser.
jneplokh 6y ago
As you are on Mac, Safari is your best choice. It is already optimized for it. I recently switched to it as my main browser, and I doubt I will look back. Sure it is closed-source (although WebKit is open), but you already use Apple's OS.
bigasscoffee 6y ago
Auto Tab Discard for ff+chrome kills off old tabs without closing them. This frees up the resources allocated for that tab, and the page will reload when you focus on it again.
- bigasscoffee 6y ago
  https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/auto-tab-discard/jhnleheckmknfcgijgkadoemagpecfol?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/auto-tab-discard/j...
bigasscoffee 6y ago
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/auto-tab-discard/jhnleheckmknfcgijgkadoemagpecfol?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/auto-tab-discard/j...
enduku 6y ago
Give Netsurf (http://www.netsurf-browser.org/ http://www.netsurf-browser.org/) a try. This lightweight browser is a derivative of Presto engine.
maps7 6y ago
getfirefox.com
deeblering4 6y ago
Give Brave a try, it is open source and should perform better than chrome on your hardware. Plus it has great inbuilt ad filtering and privacy features.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
sys_64738 6y ago
lynx or dillo.
rcarmo 6y ago
You should just use Safari. There is nothing more efficient on the Mac, and it’s been kept up to date as far back as High Sierra (just got an update a couple of weeks ago on my oldest mini).
bishalb 6y ago
If you are ok with using older versions of Firefox(2014), they are pretty lightweight and much faster than Chrome or current Firefox.