My search for minimal web browsers

Hi there, if you are reading this you’re probably in the search of a new web browser that does not have bookmarks or other features that you don’t and won’t use. A browser that won’t suck. I was and, am in the same search right now. There are some browser that do what we want, but not quite right. There are some in the mire of G00gle and I don’t like G00gle.

What have I tried?

Chrome, Chromium, Brave, Opera, Edge, Vivaldi, Min and etc.

Yea, self-explanatory.

Mozilla Firefox

I’ve been a firefox user since I learned how to change browsers. Not because it was better at the time but because it wasn’t as G00gled as Chrome was and to this day I still use Firefox. It has improved a fuck ton, believe me.

The problem with Firefox tho, it is not as minimal as I like, I has bookmarks for GNU’s sake! I can not use something with bookmarks and all that feature that, again, I don’t and won’t use. Yet still, Firefox, I like you a lot. I use Vi keys for Firefox which makes browsing a whole lot easier for me.

Ungoogled Chromium

So, this is actually a very good browser in that, it omits most of the G00gle features and respects privacy more than other browsers but loses by still being a Google product. And also has bookmarks and etc. Features that I don’t use.

Surf (Suckless)

Okay suckless, I’ve got some things to say to you. Yeap, you guessed it, it sucks.

I love suckless’ philosophy, I love not having bookmarks, tabs and install just the things that I wanted, I used. Suckless is an excellent browser other than, it is slow. It is very, very, vey, very slooow. Suckless will open a webpage at least theree times slower than Firefox does. Also, hardware acceleration won’t work properly, if there is actually one.

Also suckess, not having docs is NOT cool, it’s dumb.

qutebrowser

So, qute, is actually very good in terms of minimalism. I really like the idea of a browser that is not very heavy on the resources, minimal and customizable. I’ve used qute for a time, BUT there is that little thing. There is no way to enable hardware acceleration, at least not in a secure way. I’m not going to buy a new PC for my YouTube or other internet consume, mostly video based, needs. Try to watch a video with it, you’ll suffer a lot and I don’t like that. If qute had or will ever have hardware accelaration it would, is going to be my first choice.

Vimb

I love Vi keys on the web, they help me navigate fast and I don’t have to buy a new mouse because mine’s scroll thumb is broken. Vimb uses WebKit engine, it in not G00gled and it is kinda minimal, I’m not so happy with the performance yet I’m still willing to give it a few more updates and see where it goes.

Projects I haven’t tried yet

• Next
• Luakit
• Safari (and I won’t)

So, Burak, what do we use then?

I genuinely don’t know that. As for me, I’ll try Vimb on the side and wait for qute to make video acceleration better and while doing that use Firefox, with Vi keys. I might make another update to this post or, yet better share a new blog. Who knows…

If you have any suggestions about what to use and according to my needs, please get in touch with me, I’ll be happy to try whatever.