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Ask HN: What's the best alternative to Chrome, and why?
I'm a longtime Chrome user, but the browser is driving me insane. It crashes constantly, and after experiencing issues with my fan, I noticed it was taking up something like 80% CPU. Is there a lightweight browser that's as fast and intuitive, and maybe one that doesn't spy on me as much?
- theandrewbailey 6y agoIt sounds like you're asking for Firefox. Most other browsers with a similar feature set to Chrome are based on Chromium (like Chrome itself). If you want lightweight, try a text-mode browser.
- alecmg 6y agoadding a vote for Firefox It is not lightweight by default, loves to use memory and cpu cores (and now even gpu) when possible. But doesn't use excessive amounts. I am not a regular user, my Firefox would often have hundreds of tabs open. But performance is not impacted one bit. Background tabs do not take much memory or slow browser down until you get to them. Of course with any browser try to use fewer extensions
- anarbadalov 6y agoFirefox it is. Thanks to you both!
- ntw1103 6y agoSadly, the options are rather limited. Palemoon (https://palemoon.org https://palemoon.org) is what I use as my primary browser. I they are better off as far as the privacy/security is concerned, but certain features, like webRTC are intentionally disabled. DRM video sites won't work either. For unsupported features, I use Firefox. Privacy is slightly better than chrome/chromeium I think, if you disable google safe browsing. The rest of the modern browsers out there are based on chromium, so it probably won't be much of an improvement. I would highly suggest using ublock though, Ads now use up a lot of CPU and memory, some even trying to mine crypto currency with your computer. Because I'm not happy with the current browser landscape, I've been working on my own browser, including rendering engine, from scratch, but is isn't ready for use yet.
- als0 6y agoLooking forward to hearing more about it.