NetSurf: Small, fast, free web browser

[draven]

It looks like today is Alternative Browser Day on HN.

So for those who don't know it, there's also Xombrero: https://opensource.conformal.com/wiki/xombrero

It's based on Webkit so it's more compatible with the "modern web" than dillo/netsurf.

[mtgx]

I think the only way new browsers are going to succeed in the future is if they adopt some major new technology that the mainstream browsers either will never use, or will wait many years until they consider it. Perhaps something like IPFS or some blockchain technology, or anything like that, that is proven to work well but the mainstream browsers still think it's too new and risky, or perhaps just don't want to piss of the MPAA, which by the way, is now a member of the W3C.

The new browsers will need to allow for significant new possibilities, for users to want to adopt them.

[mitchtbaum]

Also, Luakit: http://luakit.org/

It has lots of extensions, like Adblock and Noscript, written in highly-readable Lua, also making it very hacker friendly and very fast.

[XzetaU8]

"dwb" is also webkit based but more minimal (Support for Adblocking, among other things)

http://portix.bitbucket.org/dwb/

[arm]

Another WebKit-based option (for OS X) is OmniWeb (it’s still alive!):

http://omnistaging.omnigroup.com/omniweb/

[j_s]

Personal recommendations are appreciated; Wikipedia's pages are rather overwhelming.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_web_browsers

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_web_browsers

I'll add OffByOne for Windows, a demo of an ancient (2006) ActiveX control: http://offbyone.com/offbyone/

[Johnny_Brahms]

I am a growing fan of QupZilla. The only thing I miss is functionality similar to Self-destructing cookies.

http://www.qupzilla.com/

[digi_owl]

Frankly i have taken to consider all webkit browsers the same, meaning that the web is heading towards another monoculture akin to what we had when IE was what everyone developed for.

[jakeogh]

surf (best with tabbed) is another webkit option: http://surf.suckless.org/

[chippy]

I use Midori - another webkit based browser. http://midori-browser.org/

[TazeTSchnitzel]

Arachne is another, it's interesting because it can run on DOS or on Linux without a framebuffer: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10419516

[scholia]

There's also Vivaldi, for people who liked Opera before it went to Blink...

https://vivaldi.com/

[chmielewski]

Surprised nobody's mentioned xxxterm or uzbl.

[ams6110]

xombrero is my main browser. I like the minimalist, keyboard driven interface.

[eis]

It's a bit hidden on the page in the documentation so I'll write it here to save people time:

NetSurf doesn't support Javascript properly.

For some that might be OK but for most it'll be a showstopper.

[necessity]

It doesn't even support CSS2 properly (e.g. paragraph justification, em, etc). And despite claims of being blazing fast, as an user my experience is that it is very slow for more complicated pages, whereas for websites that are almost just plain text and images it beats any WebKit/Gecko browser out there.

It's great for Googling when debugging your code or reading HN when compiling, other than that I'd stick with <your favorite browser>.

[smcl]

Is it "NetSurf doesn't support javascript and likely won't" or "Netsurf doesn't support javascript yet"?

[jensen123]

Ok, so that explains why many sites did not work. Almost nice, though, not to experience all that annoying/excessive javascript that is so prevalent these days. I just love that NetSurf homepage - nothing that moves, pops up, scrolls oddly etc.

[Tepix]

Also it doesn't support HTML5.

[unexistance]

windows builds

http://ci.netsurf-browser.org/builds/windows/

not mentioned anywhere from download page

update: cannot open HN... no Ctrl-L

[j_s]

Not sure what you mean by "no Ctrl-L" (no shortcut to jump to address bar?); most connection issues with off-brand browsers are SSL-related:

http://download.netsurf-browser.org/netsurf/releases/ChangeL...

Removed support for all SSL versions due to vulnerabilities.

[awqrre]

Any https website that I visit with netsurf, I get this empty warning: http://imgur.com/7bmDqnP ... but I used the version available in my repo, which is 2.9 .

[edward]

NetSurf includes multiple framebuffer front ends, including: the Linux framebuffer, SDL, X and VNC.

The VNC server surface uses the libvncserver library to provide a straightforward unsecured VNC server. Multiple clients may connect.

[amelius]

While I applaud competition, I fear that more browsers will make it ever more difficult to develop working code that doesn't break at the next update. I guess the middle ground is that developers are supposed to follow the major browsers, while the small browsers have to follow them too. This could work in practice (I suppose users have gotten used to things breaking on the web), but somehow it still feels like a failure of the field of Software Engineering.

[JupiterMoon]

Isn't this what standards are for? If everyone follows them then no worries..

[bizarref00l]

http://tkhtml.tcl.tk/hv3.html HV3 Tcl/Tk Web Browser

[nine_k]

Posting this from NetSurf. Pretty neat. Unlike Dillo, NetSurf managed to let me log in to HN, post, and upvote.

Currently it is consuming ~50M of RAM, about 10x less than Firefox with the same one tab.

[splitbrain]

Most sites I tried were somewhat broken. But to my surprise my own website worked just perfectly (sans javascript powered comments and ads of course). And blazingly fast!

[oso2k]

The suckless guys have their webkit-based browser, surf [0].

[0] http://surf.suckless.org/

[sheenobu]

I'm getting blocked visiting the site... weird.

> Your page is blocked due to a security policy that prohibits access to category > Remote Proxies.

[swozey]

Probably because it has browser in the url or something idiotic. Complain to your IT staff who use blanket rules on their gateways,

[fit2rule]

Wonder if this will build on my old BeBox? Might be a reason to turn it on this year ..

[asiekierka]

NetSurf is not keystroke-centric enough, obviously.

(Also, uuterm is much lighter if you want a framebuffer-based terminal, however it needs a patch ( https://github.com/asiekierka/yuyulinux/blob/master/uuterm/u... ) to support 32-bit FBs properly.)

[copsarebastards]

Is there any analysis of the security of this browser?

[liamzebedee]

Forgive me, but why is this on the frontpage?

[lexicality]

You don't consider somebody writing their own browser from scratch to be frontpage worthy?

[jordigh]

Called it!

"I wouldn't be surprised that now that both of them [Firefox and Chrome] are too complex, in a few more years someone comes out with a browser that is simpler than both of them and is intended to replace them both."

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10400540

[bshimmin]

Well, except that the NetSurf project was started in 2002. Other than that, you were spot on!