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.
Ask HN: Can someone suggest an open source lightweight alternative to Chrome?
81–90 of 92 posts
Re: Ask HN: Can someone suggest an open source lightweight alternative to Chrome?
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
Yeah you got me. AMP really is close on a technical level but my blood boils every time I see a /amp/ url.
It also means I am less likely to share an AMP link.
Re: Ask HN: Can someone suggest an open source lightweight alternative to Chrome?
#83Re: Ask HN: Can someone suggest an open source lightweight alternative to Chrome?
#84Re: Ask HN: Can someone suggest an open source lightweight alternative to Chrome?
#85Re: Ask HN: Can someone suggest an open source lightweight alternative to Chrome?
#86Give 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.
Re: Ask HN: Can someone suggest an open source lightweight alternative to Chrome?
#87I 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://chromi…
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.
Re: Ask HN: Can someone suggest an open source lightweight alternative to Chrome?
#88My 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 JAMStack is a thing, and it seems to be gaining momentum.
Re: Ask HN: Can someone suggest an open source lightweight alternative to Chrome?
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
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?
You could turn the ad blocker off, and still get paid to use Brave though, if you like ads.