Are we really complaining about browsers on a computer with 8gb of RAM?
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.
Ask HN: Can someone suggest an open source lightweight alternative to Chrome?
21–30 of 92 posts
Re: Ask HN: Can someone suggest an open source lightweight alternative to Chrome?
#22Unfortunately 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.
Before this Mac, I used Lubuntu exclusively for years. Who knows...I may end up going back to it soon.
Re: Ask HN: Can someone suggest an open source lightweight alternative to Chrome?
#23It'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.
Re: Ask HN: Can someone suggest an open source lightweight alternative to Chrome?
#24Safari 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.
Re: Ask HN: Can someone suggest an open source lightweight alternative to Chrome?
#25My 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.
Re: Ask HN: Can someone suggest an open source lightweight alternative to Chrome?
#26MSFT'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.
Re: Ask HN: Can someone suggest an open source lightweight alternative to Chrome?
#27Are we really complaining about browsers on a computer with 8gb of RAM?
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.
Re: Ask HN: Can someone suggest an open source lightweight alternative to Chrome?
#28Memory 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.
It is not, but Chrome’s resource usage is.
Re: Ask HN: Can someone suggest an open source lightweight alternative to Chrome?
#29I use Lynx and surf. surf also has no tabs, so that helps too.
Re: Ask HN: Can someone suggest an open source lightweight alternative to Chrome?
#30My 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.
The problem is that nobody is going to migrate unless a major web player swings a big and likely anticompetitive stick.