Lightweight browsers [Solved]

[arjaybe]

I'm streaming Sportsnet through this laptop via HDMI to our TV. Using Firefox it's a bit laggy. The GPU is near 100% and the temp rises to 87 degrees.

I'm looking for suggestions for a browser that will run lighter and that I can use exclusively for streaming.

I have found Falkon, which SN says is not supported and must be at least version 89. Obviously it thinks it's looking at Firefox, and I can't find a way to spoof it. I tried Palemoon, which is jerky. I'm currently on Waterfox, which is fairly smooth and also runs cooler than Firefox and uses less GPU. I also found Midori, Viper and Dillo, which I haven't tried yet because they're not in the package installer.

Does anyone have any suggestions for a light browser?

Code: Select all

System:    Kernel: 5.10.0-18-amd64 [5.10.140-1] x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 10.2.1 
           parameters: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-5.10.0-18-amd64 
           root=UUID=<filter> ro quiet splash 
           Desktop: KDE Plasma 5.20.5 wm: kwin_x11 vt: 7 dm: SDDM 
           Distro: MX-21.2.1_KDE_x64 Wildflower October 20  2021 
           base: Debian GNU/Linux 11 (bullseye) 
Machine:   Type: Convertible System: HP product: HP x360 310 G2 PC v: Type1ProductConfigId 
           serial: <filter> Chassis: type: 31 serial: <filter> 
           Mobo: HP model: 8074 v: 66.40 serial: <filter> UEFI-[Legacy]: Insyde v: F.66 
           date: 06/08/2020 
Battery:   ID-1: BAT0 charge: 47.2 Wh (100.0%) condition: 47.2/47.2 Wh (100.0%) volts: 12.5 
           min: 11.4 model: 333-42-2A-A HV03048XL type: Li-ion serial: <filter> 
           status: Discharging 
CPU:       Info: Quad Core model: Intel Pentium N3700 bits: 64 type: MCP arch: Airmont family: 6 
           model-id: 4C (76) stepping: 3 microcode: 368 cache: L2: 1024 KiB 
           flags: lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 bogomips: 12800 
           Speed: 1064 MHz min/max: 480/2400 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 1064 2: 1085 3: 1140 4: 861 
           Vulnerabilities: Type: itlb_multihit status: Not affected 
           Type: l1tf status: Not affected 
           Type: mds mitigation: Clear CPU buffers; SMT disabled 
           Type: meltdown mitigation: PTI 
           Type: mmio_stale_data status: Unknown: No mitigations 
           Type: retbleed status: Not affected 
           Type: spec_store_bypass status: Not affected 
           Type: spectre_v1 mitigation: usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization 
           Type: spectre_v2 mitigation: Retpolines, IBPB: conditional, IBRS_FW, STIBP: disabled, 
           RSB filling, PBRSB-eIBRS: Not affected 
           Type: srbds status: Not affected 
           Type: tsx_async_abort status: Not affected 
Graphics:  Device-1: Intel Atom/Celeron/Pentium Processor x5-E8000/J3xxx/N3xxx Integrated Graphics 
           vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: i915 v: kernel bus-ID: 00:02.0 chip-ID: 8086:22b1 
           class-ID: 0300 
           Device-2: Cheng Uei Precision Industry (Foxlink) HP Truevision HD type: USB 
           driver: uvcvideo bus-ID: 1-5.2:8 chip-ID: 05c8:0379 class-ID: 0e02 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.14 compositor: kwin_x11 driver: loaded: modesetting 
           unloaded: fbdev,vesa display-ID: :0 screens: 1 
           Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1366x768 s-dpi: 96 s-size: 361x203mm (14.2x8.0") 
           s-diag: 414mm (16.3") 
           Monitor-1: eDP-1 res: 1366x768 hz: 60 dpi: 136 size: 256x144mm (10.1x5.7") 
           diag: 294mm (11.6") 
           OpenGL: renderer: Mesa Intel HD Graphics 405 (BSW) v: 4.6 Mesa 22.0.5 compat-v: 3.1 
           direct render: Yes 
Audio:     Device-1: Intel Atom/Celeron/Pentium Processor x5-E8000/J3xxx/N3xxx Series High 
           Definition Audio 
           vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus-ID: 00:1b.0 
           chip-ID: 8086:2284 class-ID: 0403 
           Sound Server-1: ALSA v: k5.10.0-18-amd64 running: yes 
           Sound Server-2: PulseAudio v: 14.2 running: yes 
Network:   Device-1: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet 
           vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: r8169 v: kernel port: 2000 bus-ID: 02:00.0 
           chip-ID: 10ec:8168 class-ID: 0200 
           IF: eth0 state: down mac: <filter> 
           Device-2: Intel Wireless 7265 driver: iwlwifi v: kernel modules: wl port: 2000 
           bus-ID: 03:00.0 chip-ID: 8086:095a class-ID: 0280 
           IF: wlan0 state: up mac: <filter> 
Bluetooth: Device-1: Intel Bluetooth wireless interface type: USB driver: btusb v: 0.8 
           bus-ID: 1-5.1:7 chip-ID: 8087:0a2a class-ID: e001 
           Report: hciconfig ID: hci0 rfk-id: 23 state: up address: <filter> bt-v: 2.1 lmp-v: 4.2 
           sub-v: 1000 hci-v: 4.2 rev: 1000 
           Info: acl-mtu: 1021:5 sco-mtu: 96:6 link-policy: rswitch hold sniff 
           link-mode: slave accept service-classes: rendering, capturing, object transfer, audio 
Drives:    Local Storage: total: 119.24 GiB used: 15.31 GiB (12.8%) 
           SMART Message: Unable to run smartctl. Root privileges required. 
           ID-1: /dev/sda maj-min: 8:0 vendor: SanDisk model: SD7SN6S-128G-1006 size: 119.24 GiB 
           block-size: physical: 4096 B logical: 512 B speed: 6.0 Gb/s type: SSD serial: <filter> 
           rev: 1006 scheme: MBR 
Partition: ID-1: / raw-size: 29.3 GiB size: 28.67 GiB (97.86%) used: 10.82 GiB (37.7%) fs: ext4 
           dev: /dev/sda1 maj-min: 8:1 
Swap:      Kernel: swappiness: 15 (default 60) cache-pressure: 100 (default) 
           ID-1: swap-1 type: partition size: 8 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) priority: -2 dev: /dev/sda3 
           maj-min: 8:3 
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 46.0 C mobo: 38.0 C 
           Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A 
Repos:     Packages: note: see --pkg apt: 2381 lib: 1310 flatpak: 0 
           No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list 
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian-stable-updates.list 
           1: deb http://debian.osuosl.org/debian/ bullseye-updates main contrib non-free
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian.list 
           1: deb http://debian.osuosl.org/debian/ bullseye main contrib non-free
           2: deb http://security.debian.org/debian-security bullseye-security main contrib non-free
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mx.list 
           1: deb http://mxrepo.com/mx/repo/ bullseye main non-free
           2: deb http://mxrepo.com/mx/repo/ bullseye ahs
Info:      Processes: 196 Uptime: 9d 20h 43m wakeups: 20 Memory: 7.63 GiB used: 1.74 GiB (22.8%) 
           Init: SysVinit v: 2.96 runlevel: 5 default: 5 tool: systemctl Compilers: gcc: 10.2.1 
           alt: 10 Client: shell wrapper v: 5.1.4-release inxi: 3.3.06 
Boot Mode: BIOS (legacy, CSM, MBR)

[arjaybe]

I found that Viper is also unsupported, for the same reason. Midori and Dillo are reluctant to load the page. So far it looks like Waterfox is the best choice, unless I can find a way to spoof Falkon or Viper, unless there is a better suggestion.

[dolphin_oracle]

if you are streaming HD, I would look at seeting if you can drop the quality to 720p or even 480p (standard def)

[Huckleberry Finn]

Slimjet.

(In general.. It was in MXPI but was removed from Popular Apps due to some issues, you can simply install with the deb file)

[colin_b]

I have been using Firefox for streaming YouTube videos on a 2016 laptop for some time now. Watching av1 videos at 480p generally had the CPU running at 43%.

About a week ago I started using the Brave browser, and I found that the same video codec & resolution playback on YouTube had the CPU running at 30%.

Brave may not be lightweight, but it does a better job when playing YouTube videos.

[oops]

Otter-Browser is light too.

[arjaybe]

Turns out that Waterfox is failing on the DRM now. It's selected in preferences. It says it's installing the necessaries. Just fails.

I'll try Slimjet and Brave and Otter and 720p.

Are there any Chrome candidates?

[arjaybe]

I see that Brave and Vivaldi are chromium-based. Brave works as well as Waterfox and the DRM works, so good. Reducing the quality didn't seem to do much.

[arky217]

Waterfox has been good for me, but I switched to Librewolf to try it out.
Librewolf works just fine for me; will stick with it for now.

[Huckleberry Finn]

... Also try with 1-2 browsers what happens if you disable "Hardware Acceleration" within its preferences, (... better/worse ...)