Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)
Date:      Wed, 4 Jan 2012 14:30:46 -0800
From:      Gary Kline <kline@thought.org>
To:        Peter Harrison <four.harrisons@googlemail.com>
Cc:        Chad Perrin <perrin@apotheon.com>, questions@freebsd.org, freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: Browser
Message-ID:  <20120104223046.GB4332@thought.org>
In-Reply-To: <8C0EEF92-18FD-45A8-90EF-F26EC8762704@googlemail.com>
References:  <CAHsiZG-op0MO79qaWG2gRLYLeaTKcip8iabQ%2B0AYQVK7iDZ5pg@mail.gmail.com> <20120104165405.GF8500@hemlock.hydra> <8C0EEF92-18FD-45A8-90EF-F26EC8762704@googlemail.com>

next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
On Wed, Jan 04, 2012 at 08:48:35PM +0000, Peter Harrison wrote:
> Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 20:48:35 +0000
> From: Peter Harrison <four.harrisons@googlemail.com>
> Subject: Re: Browser
> To: Chad Perrin <perrin@apotheon.com>
> Cc: questions@freebsd.org, freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
> X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.1251.1)
> 
> 
> On 4 Jan 2012, at 16:54, Chad Perrin wrote:
> 
> > On Wed, Jan 04, 2012 at 07:17:47AM -0500, Daniel Lewis wrote:
> >> Im running Free BSD 8.2 and was wondering whats a good web browser for
> >> version 8.2?
> >> Where and how would we install it? ( Im really new to unix)
> > 
> > There are at least as many answers to this as there are browsers, and
> > probably quite a few more answers than that.
> > 
> > For minimalist browsers in the X Window System environment, I quite like
> > Surf.
> > 
> > For its incredibly rich extension system, I use Firefox (and extensions
> > such as Pentadactyl, Perspectives, HTTPS Everywhere, and Scrapbook).
> > 
> > For a combination of excellent GUI design, smooth built-in features, and
> > stability (relative to Firefox), Chromium is a good choice (that's the
> > open source project behind Google Chrome).
> > 
> > For a relatively lightweight, modular design that offers an interesting
> > alternative interface for people who prefer keyboard navigation rather
> > than mouse navigation, there's Uzbl (though the Pentadactyl extension for
> > Firefox offers some of the same benefits).
> > 
> > For the most complete feature set of any console-based browser I've used
> > (which means I don't necessarily need a running X Window System session
> > to use it), there's w3m.
> > 
> > Some OpenBSD people have started working on the xxxterm project, which
> > looks quite promising to me, and I intend to give it a serious look very
> > soon.
> > 
> > There are others as well.  Others have already mentioned Epiphany,
> > Midori, and Opera.  Lynx and Links are a couple more console-based
> > browsers.  In addition to Firefox, the Mozilla guys also offer SeaMonkey.
> > Konqueror is the canonical choice amongst KDE users, I think, and Flock
> > has a small but dedicated following.  Conkeror, despite the similarity of
> > its name to Konqueror, is not a KDE browser; instead, it appears to be a
> > Firefox variant specifically designed for keyboard navigation (with a
> > less vi-like set of default keybindings than Pentadactyl provides).  I
> > think NetSurf is a popular browser for the Haiku OS, but has been ported
> > to other OSes such as FreeBSD.
> > 
> > I don't have a favorite.  All browsers I have encountered disappoint me
> > in some way (though I hold hope for xxxterm when I get around to giving
> > it a try).  Each of the browsers I mentioned in their own paragraphs are
> > browsers that I use at least occasionally, except for xxxterm -- which
> > gets its own mention basically because it looks promising.  For the
> > negatives:
> > 
> > Surf - It's so feature-minimal that I would need to build a bunch of
> > custom scripts to interact with it and give me the functionality I need.
> > I have not tried yet.
> > 
> > Firefox - It's getting huge, bloated, and unstable for my purposes, and
> > its recent rapid iteration model regularly breaks the very things that
> > keep me using it at all: the extensions.
> > 
> > Chromium - The extension system is (intentionally) brain-dead.
> > 
> > Uzbl - It's a bit of a pain in the butt to configure to my preferences,
> > and the extension "system" is very, very ad-hoc.  I like some of the
> > principles of the underlying architecture, but in practice I do not think
> > it is as well executed as it should have been.
> > 
> > w3m - I find its keyboard navigation capabilities somewhat less than
> > convenient and, as a console-based browser, that's kind of a fatal flaw.
> > It's still better than any other console-based browser I've used though.
> > Then, of course, there's the fact that it lacks the conveniences of the
> > major GUI browsers (plugin support, for instance).
> > 
> > xxxterm - It's not in FreeBSD's ports system (yet), and I don't need a
> > new custom software installation project this week.  Beyond that, I don't
> > know what I may or may not dislike about it.
> 
> Chad,
> 
> xxxterm is in ports - at least I have it installed on my netbook and although I can't remember how it got there, I never (ever) install stuff that's not in ports.
> 
> I installed for exactly the same reasons you're looking at it - fast lean browser with good (vi-like) keybindings.
> 
> Firefox runs like a dog on my atom processor, but I do still keep it around for some stuff although compiling to keep their release schedule is gradually turning me off.
> 
> First impressions of xxxterm are that it's very good. The keybinding is quite as good as uzbl or vimperator on firefox, but it's live-able with, and it seems to have fewer performance or configuration downsides.
> 
> 

	i hope this isn't too far offtopic, but here's the
	situation: i need a tts reader to read text to me in some
	cases.  i have been using one that is good-enough.  but it's
	author says that this firefox 'addon' will not work with
	firefox-9.  So: does anybody know of a browser with a
	builtin text-to-speech reader?  i have searched ff and found
	no other such readers. 

	in any case, great list of browsers:)

	--gk

> 

-- 
 Gary Kline  kline@thought.org  http://www.thought.org  Public Service Unix
           Journey Toward the Dawn, E-Book: http://www.thought.org
          The 8.57a release of Jottings: http://jottings.thought.org
             Twenty-five years of service to the Unix community.




Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?20120104223046.GB4332>