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Hello folks, I am currently using LibreWolf but unfortunately it is still Firefox.
I tested other alternative browsers and the best one I found has been: Surf; however it didn't match all my needs, which are:
Usually lightweight browsers, like Dillo, does not support JavaScript therefore it is very hard to find one…
I look forward for your recommendations 🙏
May 25 · 2 days ago · 👍 norayr
😎 flipperzero · May 25 at 01:17:
you should look into falkon as it's supported across most platforms or source code available
I had hope for webkitfltk/fifth, but the project seems to have died. neosurf from cobaltbsd looks cool, have not tried it. Full feature browser wise, you have ungoogled-chromium and librewolf, so yeah, there is no browser that is both lightweight and full featured.
The web is a wasp nest, and going there with anything less than Torbrowser or at least Librewolf with PrivacyBadger, Ghostery and uBlock is just foolish. Any half-assed, I mean small browser, is completely leaking information left and right. I haven't even addressed being able to deal with all the standards and sites out there.
I think Ladybird fits the bill perfectly:
It’s fully independent, built from the ground up, not relying on WebKit / Gecko / anything, really nimble.
(Tho personally I use Orion)
❄ freezr [OP] · May 25 at 15:15:
Never heard about ladybird, thanks... 🙏
❄ freezr [OP] · May 25 at 15:31:
@stack modern web is garbage that's why we love Gemini, despite its many limitations, many modern websites rely on JavaScript and do not offer html-only alternative. When you disable JS you won't find this crap anymore but then you cannot navigate 90% of the WWW.
JavaScript is now everywhere even on the desktop, GNOME relies on JavaScript too...
Simple browsers like Dillo, NertSurf, etc... have JS disabled and this makes them safe, but also unable to navigate the WWW.
Unfortunately on the WWW JavaScript is required, Surf by Suckless Tools supports JS but to disable ADS or trackers it relies on modifying /etc/hosts which is a very poor implementation.
The situation is critical... 😩
There are many different things to worry about on the web. Obviously executing malicious code, having cookies hijacked, or being faked into giving up passwords... I am more concerned with tracking, fingerprinting, and third parties collecting data.
If you are using a weird browser, you stand out like a sore thumb -- you are completely unique. Never mind blocking cookies or JavaScript, every tracker out there will know exactly who you are.
If you are doing it to save a hundred meg of RAM and just don't care about anything else, sure. If you are doing it to take a moral stand, the joke's on you!
@stack For web browsing i use LibreWolf with the addons you mentioned, but honestly it's a band-aid and still crappy. Qutebrowser not an option now that it uses chromium/qtwebengine. TorBrowser is too slow and unreliable most of the time.
the problem is that we say 'smallweb' but we don't have the html subset defined for it.
so maybe we can do the opposite? call smallweb whatever is possible to open in netsurf? otherwise it's not small web, but big fat complicated web?
When you disable JS you won't find this crap anymore but then you cannot navigate 90% of the WWW.
exactly, those 90% aren't small web.
i guess more than 90, alas.
The only thing I personally miss in gemtext is boldface and tables, and I am constantly wrangling with the fixed-font tables!
@stack I would like to have a simple browser to open Mastodon, Diaspora, a couple of fora (Devuan, FreeBSD), Phoronix and an Italian newspaper... The fact is 90% of my internet browsing is made through an SBC and the browser is the Achilles' heel...
— omg.pebcak.club/~freezr/gemlog/2023-12-06-stealthbox-with-devuan-and-libre-computer-renegade.gmi
For anything else I would use LibreWolf... 😉
@freezr LibreWolf run through flatpak is not too bad. With Ghostery, UBlock, Privacy Badger, Dark Reader, DNS over HTTPS ...
If you can offload the computing required for adblocking to eg a local PiHole or to NextDNS or an adblocking VPN then you can significantly speed up your browsing experience on the SBC.
☕️ tenno-seremel · 9 hours ago:
@freezr I don’t think “simple” is enough for Mastodon. It’s JS‐heavy. You don’t even have a basic HTML version if you don’t have JS enabled (there was in the past, but alas). Your best bet is a dedicated client, IMO.
requiem, thank you for mentioning ladybird. i didn't know about it.
requiem, i made some research and i think ladybird is based on chrome. it's not a completely newly written browser, as i first thought and was a bit inspired by it.
freezr, i hope one day i will write the gemlog, on how to install an oberon system to an arm board, and how to use gemini on it.
techno-seremel, i am quite sure i have saw js free mastodon frontend, but alas, i lost the link, so i cannot link to it. :/
https://gitlab.com/brutaldon/brutaldon
@gemalaya the problem is the hardware I use to run LW, I would need something lighter...
Hmmm; I looked through the GitHub repo and their blog and I see no use of Chrome. What brought you to that conclusion?
@requiem I may try this route but my internet comes from Android USB tethering... 🤔
@tenno-seremel now my main client for the Fediverse is Friendica, and I don't believe it exists any desktop client... 🤷♂️