MX Linux Forum

Posted: **Thu Oct 10, 2024 9:05 pm**

I had installed LibreWolf browser after a suggestion by @siamhie . It works great. I've been doing whatever I can to minimize RAM usage in this little HP Stream 13 notebook (2 GB RAM, non-extensible), so a lower memory browser was one thing to look for. Mind you, pretty much ANY decent browser uses a LOT of memory. I had tried light browsers like Midori, Slimjet, and others and they were really not acceptable for modern real-world browsing. I have used Chrome extensively, as well as dabbling with Brave, Chromium. LibreWolf, Firefox, WaterFox, Edge, Opera, Vivaldi, and Zen (and others!). Of these, I tried a number of tests to see which were the most suitable and used the least RAM. I tried to configure each pretty much the same as the way I would use them, including the two main extensions I would be using -- UBlock Origin and Bitwarden. I do use a couple of other extensions, but these two were essential. In reality, I prefer using the Adguard extension, due to the cosmetic removal of ads versus leaving the space they originally would have taken, but stuck with UBO (or UBO Lite) for the comparison. I almost left out UBO from Brave, because it has very extensive filtering built-in, but did add UBlock Origin Lite (full UBO was not offered).

I've been using LibreWolf for a while now, but have been disappointed when re-opening tabs that were marked as having "tab crash reaports". It's still a good browser, but both Brave browser (Chromium based) and Zen browser (Firefox based) give it a great run for the money. I do like the way Zen handles the screen, somewhat like Opera and Vivaldi, though it's kinda hard to get used to it. Zen is really cool, and Brave is fairly easy to get used to. In my testing for the stats that will be shown, I had the two extensions enabled (it would be good to do this again with Brave without the UBOL extension), with one tab loading the MX forums with "my" posts filtered, one tab with Google News headlines, and one New Tab. I'm impressed with the memory management of all three of these, but especially Brave. I used each browser in turn several times, took the memory usage reports in-between, left them all alone for a while, etc., and took memory reports. I wasn't thrilled that the only way to get the Zen browser was via flatpak, but it actually performs pretty well and looks great.

Here's the memory use over the time tested:

Code: Select all

157.0 MiB +  48.0 MiB = 205.1 MiB	brave (14)
190.8 MiB +  19.7 MiB = 210.5 MiB	zen (9)
251.2 MiB +  82.3 MiB = 333.5 MiB	librewolf (9)
=================================================
149.4 MiB +  37.1 MiB = 186.5 MiB	brave (15)
174.9 MiB +  33.5 MiB = 208.3 MiB	zen (10)
237.7 MiB +  26.5 MiB = 264.1 MiB	librewolf (7)
=================================================
149.4 MiB +  37.1 MiB = 186.5 MiB	brave (15)
174.9 MiB +  33.5 MiB = 208.3 MiB	zen (10)
237.7 MiB +  26.5 MiB = 264.1 MiB	librewolf (7)
=================================================
182.6 MiB +  15.7 MiB = 198.2 MiB	zen (8)
202.3 MiB +  33.1 MiB = 235.5 MiB	librewolf (7)
188.2 MiB +  61.3 MiB = 249.5 MiB	brave (15)
=================================================
170.9 MiB +  32.4 MiB = 203.2 MiB	zen (8)
201.5 MiB +  36.0 MiB = 237.6 MiB	librewolf (7)
188.4 MiB +  52.9 MiB = 241.3 MiB	brave (15)
=================================================
147.1 MiB +  33.6 MiB = 180.7 MiB	librewolf (7)
168.0 MiB +  34.1 MiB = 202.1 MiB	brave (15)
198.4 MiB +  29.9 MiB = 228.3 MiB	zen (6)
=================================================
162.5 MiB +  40.9 MiB = 203.4 MiB	brave (15)
235.2 MiB +  28.1 MiB = 263.3 MiB	zen (6)
231.9 MiB +  33.4 MiB = 265.3 MiB	librewolf (7)
=================================================
195.9 MiB +  47.9 MiB = 243.8 MiB	brave (15)
237.4 MiB +  30.3 MiB = 267.7 MiB	librewolf (7)
251.2 MiB +  27.7 MiB = 278.9 MiB	zen (6)
=================================================
147.5 MiB +  49.3 MiB = 196.8 MiB	brave (15)
242.4 MiB +  30.9 MiB = 273.3 MiB	librewolf (7)
298.0 MiB +  38.2 MiB = 336.2 MiB	zen (6)

I didn't calculate averages, but it seems pretty obvious that Brave has the lowest memory usage over the tests.

I'm not really sure what the numbers in parens are unless sub-processes. All three browsers were supposed to have the same loads, so not sure what they are. BTW, the MS Edge browser wasn't too bad, either, but I didn't care for the way it behaved on restart. Will be interested to see comments from any others who use any of these browsers.

Code: Select all

System:
  Kernel: 6.1.0-26-amd64 [6.1.112-1] arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 12.2.0
    parameters: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-6.1.0-26-amd64 root=UUID=<filter> ro quiet nosplash
    zswap.enabled=1 zswap.compressor=zstd zswap.zpool=zsmalloc zswap.max_pool_percent=40
    init=/lib/systemd/systemd
  Desktop: IceWM v: 3.3.1 info: tint2 vt: 7 dm: LightDM v: 1.26.0 Distro: MX-23.4_fluxbox_x64
    Libretto September 15 2024 base: Debian GNU/Linux 12 (bookworm)
Machine:
  Type: Laptop System: Hewlett-Packard product: HP Stream Notebook PC 13 v: Type1 - ProductConfigId
    serial: <superuser required> Chassis: type: 10 serial: <superuser required>
  Mobo: Hewlett-Packard model: 802A v: 56.12 serial: <superuser required> UEFI: Insyde v: F.14
    date: 08/25/2015
Battery:
  ID-1: BAT0 charge: 14.2 Wh (51.8%) condition: 27.4/27.4 Wh (100.0%) volts: 11.2 min: 11.4
    model: Hewlett-Packard Primary type: Li-ion serial: N/A status: discharging
CPU:
  Info: model: Intel Celeron N2840 bits: 64 type: MCP arch: Silvermont level: v2 built: 2013-15
    process: Intel 22nm family: 6 model-id: 0x37 (55) stepping: 8 microcode: 0x838
  Topology: cpus: 1x cores: 2 smt: <unsupported> cache: L1: 112 KiB desc: d-2x24 KiB; i-2x32 KiB
    L2: 1024 KiB desc: 1x1024 KiB
  Speed (MHz): avg: 583 min/max: 500/2582 scaling: driver: intel_cpufreq governor: ondemand
    cores: 1: 583 2: 583 bogomips: 8666
  Flags: ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3
  Vulnerabilities:
  Type: gather_data_sampling status: Not affected
  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: reg_file_data_sampling status: Not affected
  Type: retbleed status: Not affected
  Type: spec_rstack_overflow 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; BHI: Not affected
  Type: srbds status: Not affected
  Type: tsx_async_abort status: Not affected
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel Atom Processor Z36xxx/Z37xxx Series Graphics & Display vendor: Hewlett-Packard
    driver: i915 v: kernel arch: Gen-7 process: Intel 22nm built: 2012-13 ports: active: eDP-1
    empty: DP-1,HDMI-A-1,VGA-1 bus-ID: 00:02.0 chip-ID: 8086:0f31 class-ID: 0300
  Device-2: Chicony HP Truevision HD type: USB driver: uvcvideo bus-ID: 1-1:2 chip-ID: 04f2:b45e
    class-ID: 0e02
  Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 1.21.1.7 compositor: Picom v: 9.1 driver: X: loaded: modesetting
    unloaded: fbdev,vesa dri: crocus gpu: i915 display-ID: :0 screens: 1
  Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1366x768 s-dpi: 96 s-size: 361x203mm (14.21x7.99") s-diag: 414mm (16.31")
  Monitor-1: eDP-1 model: Seiko Epson 0x3859 built: 2012 res: 1366x768 hz: 60 dpi: 118 gamma: 1.2
    size: 293x165mm (11.54x6.5") diag: 336mm (13.2") ratio: 16:9 modes: 1366x768
  API: OpenGL v: 4.2 Mesa 22.3.6 renderer: Mesa Intel HD Graphics (BYT) direct-render: Yes
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel Atom Processor Z36xxx/Z37xxx Series High Definition Audio vendor: Hewlett-Packard
    driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus-ID: 00:1b.0 chip-ID: 8086:0f04 class-ID: 0403
  API: ALSA v: k6.1.0-26-amd64 status: kernel-api tools: alsamixer,amixer
  Server-1: PipeWire v: 1.0.0 status: active with: 1: pipewire-pulse status: active
    2: wireplumber status: active 3: pipewire-alsa type: plugin 4: pw-jack type: plugin
    tools: pactl,pw-cat,pw-cli,wpctl
Network:
  Device-1: Broadcom BCM43142 802.11b/g/n vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: wl v: kernel pcie: gen: 1
    speed: 2.5 GT/s lanes: 1 bus-ID: 02:00.0 chip-ID: 14e4:4365 class-ID: 0280
  IF: wlan0 state: up mac: <filter>
Bluetooth:
  Device-1: Broadcom BCM43142A0 Bluetooth Device type: USB driver: btusb v: 0.8 bus-ID: 1-4.3:4
    chip-ID: 0a5c:216c class-ID: fe01 serial: <filter>
  Report: hciconfig ID: hci0 rfk-id: 1 state: up address: <filter> bt-v: 2.1 lmp-v: 4.0
    sub-v: 210b hci-v: 4.0 rev: 148
  Info: acl-mtu: 1021:8 sco-mtu: 64:1 link-policy: rswitch hold sniff
    link-mode: peripheral accept service-classes: rendering, capturing, audio, telephony
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 29.12 GiB used: 15.97 GiB (54.8%)
  ID-1: /dev/mmcblk0 maj-min: 179:0 vendor: SK Hynix model: HBG4e size: 29.12 GiB block-size:
    physical: 512 B logical: 512 B type: SSD serial: <filter> rev: 0x7 scheme: MBR
  SMART Message: Unknown smartctl error. Unable to generate data.
Partition:
  ID-1: / raw-size: 28.87 GiB size: 28.25 GiB (97.85%) used: 15.97 GiB (56.5%) fs: ext4
    dev: /dev/mmcblk0p2 maj-min: 179:2
  ID-2: /boot/efi raw-size: 256 MiB size: 252 MiB (98.46%) used: 274 KiB (0.1%) fs: vfat
    dev: /dev/mmcblk0p1 maj-min: 179:1
Swap:
  Kernel: swappiness: 60 (default) cache-pressure: 100 (default)
  ID-1: swap-1 type: file size: 3 GiB used: 1.52 GiB (50.7%) priority: -2 file: /swap/swap
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 44.0 C mobo: N/A
  Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A
Repos:
  Packages: 2018 pm: dpkg pkgs: 2008 libs: 995 tools: apt,apt-get,aptitude,nala,synaptic pm: rpm
    pkgs: 0 pm: flatpak pkgs: 10
  No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/brave-browser-release.list
    1: deb [arch=amd64 signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/brave-browser-archive-keyring.gpg] https://brave-browser-apt-release.s3.brave.com/ stable main
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian-stable-updates.list
    1: deb http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm-updates main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian.list
    1: deb http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
    2: deb http://security.debian.org/debian-security bookworm-security main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mx.list
    1: deb http://mirror.math.princeton.edu/pub/mxlinux/mx/repo/ bookworm main non-free
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/extrepo_librewolf.sources
    1: deb [arch=amd64 arm64] https://repo.librewolf.net librewolf main
Info:
  Processes: 225 Uptime: 2d 6h 44m wakeups: 1 Memory: 1.81 GiB used: 1.55 GiB (85.5%) Init: systemd
  v: 252 target: graphical (5) default: graphical tool: systemctl Compilers: gcc: 12.2.0 alt: 12
  Client: shell wrapper v: 5.2.15-release inxi: 3.3.26
Boot Mode: UEFI

Posted: **Thu Oct 10, 2024 11:01 pm**

What the heck, averaged out the 8 unique test results.

Brave -- 193.3 MB
Zen -- 240.9 MB
LibreWolf -- 257.2 MB

Posted: **Fri Oct 11, 2024 3:48 am**

I also am interested in low-memory browsers. I don't need a browser that will work with 100% of websites, just 100% of the ones I use

But my search is complicated by the fact that 'memory used by an application' is a really slippery concept in Linux. How did you arrive at the memory figures that you showed? When we have an application that is made up of multiple processes, each with multiple threads, each of which has some uniquely-reserved memory and some shared memory, I'm not even sure how to define memory usage, let alone measure it.

If I just sum the 'RSS' figure reported by top for all the firefox/librewolf processes, I end up with a figure in excess of 1Gb, even when looking at a single text page. Of course, that doesn't tell me how much of that memory is shared between processes.

BR, Lars

Posted: **Fri Oct 11, 2024 3:31 pm**

lars_the_bear wrote: Fri Oct 11, 2024 3:48 am I also am interested in low-memory browsers. I don't need a browser that will work with 100% of websites, just 100% of the ones I use

But my search is complicated by the fact that 'memory used by an application' is a really slippery concept in Linux. How did you arrive at the memory figures that you showed? When we have an application that is made up of multiple processes, each with multiple threads, each of which has some uniquely-reserved memory and some shared memory, I'm not even sure how to define memory usage, let alone measure it.

If I just sum the 'RSS' figure reported by top for all the firefox/librewolf processes, I end up with a figure in excess of 1Gb, even when looking at a single text page. Of course, that doesn't tell me how much of that memory is shared between processes.

BR, Lars

Ah, sorry Lars. I forgot to mention that the figures came from the output of the ps_mem.py application (which needs to run as root, so via sudo). It does what you want it to do, summarize all the processes for a given application. And yes, there is a "slippery" calculation of memory usage due to shared memory and so forth. You can read more about it here.

Posted: **Fri Oct 11, 2024 4:11 pm**

I wonder what that ps_mem.py reports at "shared" if anything why would you add it to the total used by an app since that's I assume libraries shared with other applications.

I'm surprised to see Brave so light. By the way you have to keep in mind that you might not even compare apples with apples if you have extensions installed those have their own process and RAM usage.

Posted: **Fri Oct 11, 2024 4:38 pm**

Adrian wrote: Fri Oct 11, 2024 4:11 pm I wonder what that ps_mem.py reports at "shared" if anything why would you add it to the total used by an app since that's I assume libraries shared with other applications.

"How much memory does X use?" is one of those seemingly simple questions one asks and the reality of the answer often ends up being so complex and nuanced that young and naive people alike think you're mad for saying it's hard to answer. If multiple resources are using a block of shared memory, do you count that for one application or for all of them? It becomes even more complicated when dealing with versatile applications like browsers which will consume more resources when you, say, are streaming multiple concurrent video sources across a dozen tabs than when you're say, just loading a static page like lite.cnn.com.

In general, the spirit of the question is "If I run X, how much DRAM is it going to consume?" The simplest way to measure this is to set up a machine with nothing else, measure the amount of free memory, then run the application and measure the amount of free memory again. Close the application, and measure again. Write this down, then restart the machine and do it again a few thousand times to prevent outliers. This will establish a general idea of how much DRAM that application uses by roughly telling you how much less DRAM you have available for other things while you're running X.

Unless you want to run the application through a debugger and literally count how many times it calls mmap(), it's a faster, easier way to assemble a benchmark. Anyone can do it and it's hard to argue that the method isn't practical.

Posted: **Fri Oct 11, 2024 5:09 pm**

Adrian wrote: Fri Oct 11, 2024 4:11 pm I wonder what that ps_mem.py reports at "shared" if anything why would you add it to the total used by an app since that's I assume libraries shared with other applications.

I'm surprised to see Brave so light. By the way you have to keep in mind that you might not even compare apples with apples if you have extensions installed those have their own process and RAM usage.

I sorta assumed that might be inter-process communication memory, but I dunno. Supposedly ps_mem.py is quite (or fairly) accurate.

As I stated at the top, my tests were done with consistency in mind. I tried to have the same two (and only two) extensions added to each browser, although one did not offer UBlock Origin, only the Lite version. I also did my best to open the same three articles (plus one new tab). As I ran and re-ran the ps_mem command while the browsers weren't being asked to do anything else, I could see what I figured was some freeing of memory for inactive tabs that many browsers sport now. Brave and LibreWolf seemed to be the best at this; Chrome was horrible.

In no way should this be considered a scientific study, but I think I did pretty well to make it as consistent as I could.

I had used Brave browser before, and for some reason stopped using it (might have been the fact that it's almost TOO strict in its blocking -- for example, I have to "lower its 'shields'" just to be able to log on to this forum). And I was also quite surprised at Brave's performance. It also seems to have done well in a speed comparison with other browsers (don't have the URL on me right now), not the fastest but fairly high in the list. That also piqued my interest, so I'm slowly adding more and more of my regular browsing/bill paying/etc. chores using Brave. I'll be dumping Chrome. I'm also considering seeing just how good Brave's built-in filtering is, and try it without UBO. Not having the added memory of that extension would only raise it (Brave) up in my estimation. And not to forget, the tests were done on my highly constrained (2 GB RAM, non-expandable) HP Stream 13 notebook, to find the lightest current browser I could.

Posted: **Fri Oct 11, 2024 6:26 pm**

Latest Seamonkey runs good on my atom clam shell atom n270 intel notebook. I run 32 bit on it.

I installed mine through package installer. Not synaptic or apt.

https://www.antixforum.com/forums/topic ... ost-155746

It comes with a lot of functions.

Posted: **Fri Oct 11, 2024 10:12 pm**

rokytnji.1 wrote: Fri Oct 11, 2024 6:26 pm Latest Seamonkey runs good on my atom clam shell atom n270 intel notebook. I run 32 bit on it.

I installed mine through package installer. Not synaptic or apt.

https://www.antixforum.com/forums/topic ... ost-155746

It comes with a lot of functions.

Thanks, Roky! I've installed it and started it. Um, not the prettiest face to the world.

Wasn't looking for anything more than a good browser that at least had UBO (

) as well as Bitwarden password manager (

) extensions. One out of two ain't bad, but it does mean I'll have to have Bitwarden available somehow elsewhere (they do have a native Linux app, I believe).

I wasn't expecting, nor needing the email client stuff, but it still took off setting that up. I imagine that the email, calendar, RSS, and chat functions take up some room in the program (thus resident RAM). True? If so, is there any way to get rid of that excess baggage? It certainly seems to take up less memory right now than does Brave. I'll put it on the Stream 13 shortly and see how it does there. In any case, thanks for pointing me to this one!

Posted: **Fri Oct 11, 2024 10:22 pm**

Durhammer wrote: Fri Oct 11, 2024 10:12 pm Bitwarden password manager ( ) extensions.

Bitwarden Password Manager extension for Firefox. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefo ... d-manager/

Posted: **Fri Oct 11, 2024 11:00 pm**

siamhie wrote: Fri Oct 11, 2024 10:22 pm
Durhammer wrote: Fri Oct 11, 2024 10:12 pm Bitwarden password manager ( ) extensions.
Bitwarden Password Manager extension for Firefox. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefo ... d-manager/

I'm writing this in Seamonkey. Mozilla addons site says "You'll need Firefox to use this extension". You'd think they'd be more compatible with their offspring!

I must have some default theme on my main laptop such that Seamonkey just looked plain gaudy (per above). This is a lot more tolerable. Had to do away with the big icons for Back/Forward/etc. -- too ugly, too busy, and no way to otherwise change the icons that I can see, so plain text it is!

Initially kinda disappointed that Seamonkey was taking so much more RAM than Brave:

Code: Select all

331.7 MiB + 100.1 MiB = 431.9 MiB	brave (15)
511.4 MiB +  12.3 MiB = 523.7 MiB	seamonkey

So went back and opened up the same Google news and same two other articles and closed any other tabs. Now they're both somewhat active and here's the news:

Code: Select all

468.9 MiB +   9.5 MiB = 478.4 MiB	seamonkey
408.1 MiB + 128.1 MiB = 536.3 MiB	brave (16)

Not quite enogh of a shave for my monkey money. If they'd just concentrate on the browser part, I might be sticking with it. BUT -- it is WAY ahead of other "light" browsers I tried, such as Midori, Slimjet, etc. But Brave has so much more going for it right now.

On second thought,it might be different if I wasn't currently entering this post in SM vs just showing post index in BB. I'll test that after posting.

EDIT: Did that -- both browsers showing the same pages, refreshed each tab, and now Seamonkey looks leaner -- but keep in mind it still doesn't have the Bitwarden extension:

Code: Select all

466.3 MiB +   6.7 MiB = 472.9 MiB	seamonkey
453.3 MiB + 119.4 MiB = 572.7 MiB	brave (16)

Bitwarden on Brave makes up about 41 MB of the difference. At this stage, 60 MB difference is not enough to sway me. But I love the chase!

Posted: **Sat Oct 12, 2024 12:08 am**

Durhammer wrote: Fri Oct 11, 2024 11:00 pm I'm writing this in Seamonkey. Mozilla addons site says "You'll need Firefox to use this extension". You'd think they'd be more compatible with their offspring!

You can save Firefox addons by right clicking on the blue "Add to Firefox" button and select Save Link As.
You will end up with an xpi file which you can install from the extensions page of the browser.

Posted: **Sat Oct 12, 2024 10:45 am**

siamhie wrote: Sat Oct 12, 2024 12:08 am
Durhammer wrote: Fri Oct 11, 2024 11:00 pm I'm writing this in Seamonkey. Mozilla addons site says "You'll need Firefox to use this extension". You'd think they'd be more compatible with their offspring!

You can save Firefox addons by right clicking on the blue "Add to Firefox" button and select Save Link As.
You will end up with an xpi file which you can install from the extensions page of the browser.

Nice! Did not know that! So I can go ahead and add Bitwarden for the comparison. Thanks for the graduate-level crib sheet hint! This is a great forum, so many dang helpful people and get my continuing education!

Mega sighhhh.... Kinda hit a wall there on Seamonkey (writing this in Brave). I don't know what triggers this, or just when it started, but the Forum has been asking me to prove I'm human, and invites me to click a simple Catpcha checkbox. I get that under Brave, but the checkbox never even shows up under Seamonkey!

So I can add Bitwarden, but maybe not post anything to the forum! Dang!

Posted: **Sat Oct 12, 2024 10:58 am**

Just went through Human verification in Firefox-ESR 128.3.1 to get on here myself. So don't blame Seamonkey.

viewtopic.php?t=82297

Posted: **Sat Oct 12, 2024 11:10 am**

Interesting. I wondered if the problem had something to do with the IceWM environment, so I logged out and switched back to Fluxbox. Fired up Brave, and did NOT get the "verify you are human" business. Fired up Seamonkey, and I can't even simply bring up the forum.mxlinux.org website without the castrated "verify you are human" screen showing up. So no way to use the forum under Seamonkey???? Sorry, but that's another dagger.... Love the concept (sort of a lighter weight Vivaldi?) but so far, not the implementation. I guess I should file a Bugzilla report (which to do, I need to take a lot of time to read and digest the posting rules and sign up or find my old login). Again, mega-sigh....

(Also -- well, now, I DID get the captcha again when I went to switch to full editor to post, but obviously was able to continue.)

Posted: **Sat Oct 12, 2024 11:33 am**

Read elsewhere... The forum has been under attack for 2 days, these are new security measures nothing to do with any browser at all..

viewtopic.php?f=133&p=794130#p794130

Posted: **Sat Oct 12, 2024 12:07 pm**

AVLinux wrote: Sat Oct 12, 2024 11:33 am Read elsewhere... The forum has been under attack for 2 days, these are new security measures nothing to do with any browser at all..

viewtopic.php?f=133&p=794130#p794130

I see! Thanks, but still doesn't help poor ol' Seamonkey. Even when not under DDoS, there could be other instances to need to pass the/a Captcha, and Seamonkey can't go there. Could be with many other web sites or services, not just this forum. For now, the browser is dead to me.

Posted: **Sat Oct 12, 2024 12:11 pm**

Help me understand. You say you cannot use Seamonkey with the Forum. is your objection that the challenge comes up or you cannot see the Forum at all?
Our choice is to implement that challenge or have the Forum go down randomly for hours with a DDOS attack.

Posted: **Sat Oct 12, 2024 12:35 pm**

AVLinux wrote: Sat Oct 12, 2024 11:33 am Read elsewhere... The forum has been under attack for 2 days, these are new security measures nothing to do with any browser at all..

viewtopic.php?f=133&p=794130#p794130

I was going to ask... That explains it. Thanks to all who work so hard behind the scenes.

Any idea what/who is behind the DDS?

Posted: **Sat Oct 12, 2024 12:36 pm**

@uncle mark We have suspicions but no clear evidence at this point.

Posted: **Sat Oct 12, 2024 1:19 pm**

richb wrote: Sat Oct 12, 2024 12:11 pm Help me understand. You say you cannot use Seamonkey with the Forum. is your objection that the challenge comes up or you cannot see the Forum at all?
Our choice is to implement that challenge or have the Forum go down randomly for hours with a DDOS attack.

It does seem to be an issue with Seamonkey (I also had it installed on my main laptop). See the screenshot on previous page. It says that it's connecting to Cloudflare , and downloading the Captcha (get the swirly thing), but when it's all said and done, there's nothing there to click on -- no checkbox, no info about being supplied by Cloudflare, etc. NOTHING. Can't get to ANY page in the forum, can't even get into the main page, login, etc.

There are probably other places on the interweb that implement such Captcha challenges, and I suspect Seamonkey can't handle those either, Rich. I also appreciate the efforts taken to protect the forum (this is a GREAT forum, greatest I've ever participated [or precipitated] in). Thanks for all your work!

Posted: **Sat Oct 12, 2024 1:25 pm**

Clear your cache and clear the cookies used by this forum. See if that helps.

Posted: **Sat Oct 12, 2024 1:32 pm**

@Durhammer
Thank you for the clarification. It may very well be a Seamonkey issue. The server people have helped us find this solution. I do not know if there is another but we can continue to look for one. I cannot promise that there is one. At the moment I am afraid your only recourse is another browser.

EDit: I see Eadwine has suggested clearing cache and cookies. Worth a try.

Posted: **Sat Oct 12, 2024 1:34 pm**

Eadwine Rose wrote: Sat Oct 12, 2024 1:25 pm Clear your cache and clear the cookies used by this forum. See if that helps.

Thanks, Eadwine! A little late, however. Seamonkey just wasn't cutting it as my go-to browser, no matter how much I wanted to like it (and I WANTED to like it a lot!). It's gone now.

Posted: **Sat Oct 12, 2024 1:44 pm**

Ah well.. might help someone else still. :)

Posted: **Sat Oct 12, 2024 1:48 pm**

He has a valid point. I just booted up my 32 bit clamshell netbook.

Tried to get past cloudfare to get on here.

No check box like he says in Seamonkey. Refreshed page numerous times. Cache is cleared.

In Pale Moon. It just goes into loop and never settles down. Booted up my IBM T530 to post this.

Posted: **Sat Oct 12, 2024 1:58 pm**

There used to be a UA override that would resolve this, not sure if it still works, but worth a try.

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:60.9) Gecko/20100101 Goanna/4.3 Firefox/60.9 PaleMoon/28.6.1

How to here:
https://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=3106156

Posted: **Sat Oct 12, 2024 5:14 pm**

richb wrote: Sat Oct 12, 2024 12:36 pm @uncle mark We have suspicions but no clear evidence at this point.

C'mon, spill it. Lets get a good scandal going.

Posted: **Mon Oct 14, 2024 9:10 am**

Running 'links' with full graphics and mouse support uses 10Mb (as reported by ps_mem, looking a simple page with no scripts). I can't imagine anybody would do that routinely, but this seems to me to be the target other browsers should be aiming at. The problem is that it's easy to get low memory usage if you sacrifice features. I suspect that all modern browsers have a stack of features that I'll never use. I don't need my browser to play media, for example -- I have other applications for that. Nor do I need Gnome integration, or Wayland, or any of the audio back-ends except ALSA. And yet, so far as I know, all mainstream distributions provide versions of Firefox et al., that have all features included.

I normally use Gentoo Linux, and it's relatively easy to install a version of Firefox that has no features that I don't want, and will use much less memory. But this means it has to build from source, which takes longest on low-resource systems that are most in need of this kind of optimization.

I guess what I'm saying is that it's harder to compare browsers than it might seem because, not only is 'memory usage' a slippery concept, all the common browsers can be configured in ways that have radically different memory usage, if you're willing to build from source.

BR, Lars.

Posted: **Mon Oct 14, 2024 1:16 pm**

Thanks, @lars_the_bear -- I'll certainly give it a try! Looks like no HTML5 support, though I don't know what that does or doesn't do for me. Looks like the only ad blocking is via some filter for animated GIFs (do choosy mothers choose GIF?). Maybe more but I just skimmed the features. I do use a browser for reading articles in news feeds, and that quite often needs more hunky ad suppression. Right now, I'm hooked on Brave, though it often blocks TOO much when I land on a page. With "Links" I'd probably have to do better at remembering all my site login passwords, too! (Poor poor pitiful me!)

EDIT: Okay, it's more than a little clunky.

Is JavaScript support HTML5? Whatever it is, Links doesn't seem to support it. THIS site requires it. Probably so does say Google News. Not so much utility as futility. I'm sure it's enjoyed for specific uses, but it doesn't fall under "full featured." Thanks for the suggestion, though!

Posted: **Mon Oct 14, 2024 6:36 pm**

Thanks for your work Durhammer (did not read the thread yet). I also think browsers need aaalottttt of mem ...bloat

Posted: **Tue Oct 15, 2024 5:47 am**

Durhammer wrote: Mon Oct 14, 2024 1:16 pm EDIT: Okay, it's more than a little clunky. Is JavaScript support HTML5? Whatever it is, Links doesn't seem to support it. THIS site requires it. Probably so does say Google News. Not so much utility as futility. I'm sure it's enjoyed for specific uses, but it doesn't fall under "full featured." Thanks for the suggestion, though!

Good grief: I wasn't actually suggesting that anybody should use links :) My point was only that it's possible to implement a web browser in low memory, if you're willing to sacrifice enough common functionality. And use a very old-fashioned user interface. The more contemporary stuff you include -- JavaScript, HTML5, media support, X, Wayland -- the more bloated the browser will be.

I don't think modern browsers are designed to be efficient in their use of resources but, when you consider what they are called on to do, ~200Mb of RAM doesn't seem all that unreasonable to me. There's a kind-of spectrum of bloat, from full-fat Chromium at one end, to 'links' at the other. All we can do is pick the best compromise we can, between features and bloat, from the small number of browsers that are available.

The real culprit here are the website designers -- I would un-invent JavaScript if I could, but that ship has already sailed. Still, designers -- and the tools they use -- care little for the users of resource-constrained computers.

BR, Lars.

Posted: **Tue Oct 15, 2024 9:51 am**

No worries, @lars_the_bear !! I just figured, what the hey, let's see just what it can do. Totally agree with you on the business of web page design -- much of it now dedicated to monetizing the web in one way or another (ads, paywalls, what have you). Maybe if someone designed a search engine or news feed/reader that only delivered HTML4 sites, minimalist browsers would be great, but there probably wouldn't be much to see. Sigh.... Anyway, I actually did enjoy trying out these various browsers in my quest. Kinda eye-opening.

Posted: **Tue Oct 15, 2024 10:12 am**

Durhammer wrote: Tue Oct 15, 2024 9:51 am Maybe if someone designed a search engine or news feed/reader that only delivered HTML4 sites, minimalist browsers would be great, but there probably wouldn't be much to see. Sigh....

That's the problem with initiatives like the Gemini protocol. Yes, there's a 'small web' movement, and we can have a simple protocol and lightweight sites, but there's hardly any content. It isn't just because mainstream websites are full of advertising cruft, although many are. It's not cost-effective any more to crank out a large site by hacking on HTML and what-not; site designers and content management systems mostly generate bloated, tech-heavy sites, because it's easier for them to do this than to do something lighter.

As somebody who remembers the web before it became an advertising platform, I have to say that I find this disappointing. But that's progress, I guess :/

BR, Lars.

Posted: **Tue Oct 15, 2024 11:13 am**

Yeah, me too, Lars. For the record, my foray into computing started ~50 years ago at an outfit in the Research Triangle Park in NC, where we hosted the "Triangle Universities' Computation Center" (TUCC), which had a huge IBM 360 mainframe with 200K magnetic cores memory and row after row of IBM tape drives. Woo! Your average low-end cell phone has more computing power than that. Those were the days! No email, before usenet even, and certainly no WWW (and no Microsoft, no Windows, no viruses, and no Linux!). We were an "information retrieval" service for research; people either would call in or snail-mail requests, engineers would run queries against various specialized databases, and would snail-mail back reports to the requestors. As someone now famous says, "we're not going back"! :-)

Posted: **Tue Oct 15, 2024 12:32 pm**

Finally got on here on 32 bit Midori. You are welcome to test out 64 bit I guess.

https://astian.org/midori-browser/download/linux/

Posted: **Tue Oct 15, 2024 7:52 pm**

Thanks, @rokytnji.1 -- I had tried Midori on my main Laptop (MX-21, Xfce) and did not have a convincing experience with it -- it might have been from leftover settings from a previous install, I dunno, but it just did weird things there. HERE, it behaves much better (I'm writing this in Midori). Still, I decided to do a more or less head-to-head comparison with Brave, which I continually am surprised by. After going through the Midori setup, and adding the same two extensions I use on Brave -- Bitwarden and UBO -- I copied/pasted URLs from Brave into Midori, and refreshed each tab on each browser, then started my ps_mem.py tests. I just re-ran the command somewhat randomly over a period of 30-40 minutes. I did NOT touch either browser in the meantime, letting each just do whatever they do in the background. It's VERY interesting to see how the memory use goes up, goes down, for each, but in the end, it appears that Brave just does a bit more to "get out of the way" than does Midori. I find it both weird and compelling. Initially, Brave took more RAM than Midori. Then, over time, doing nothing with either, in general Brave shrank and Midori grew. WEIRD!

Code: Select all

322.5 MiB +  41.7 MiB = 364.2 MiB	midori (12)
414.9 MiB +  79.5 MiB = 494.4 MiB	brave (17)
---------------------------------
329.7 MiB +  42.2 MiB = 371.8 MiB	midori (12)
403.6 MiB +  81.0 MiB = 484.5 MiB	brave (17)
---------------------------------
330.7 MiB +  42.2 MiB = 372.8 MiB	midori (12)
404.4 MiB +  81.2 MiB = 485.6 MiB	brave (17)
---------------------------------
331.6 MiB +  43.5 MiB = 375.1 MiB	midori (12)
402.8 MiB +  80.2 MiB = 482.9 MiB	brave (17)
---------------------------------
326.2 MiB +  53.9 MiB = 380.0 MiB	brave (17)
419.2 MiB +  87.4 MiB = 506.6 MiB	midori (15)
---------------------------------
349.0 MiB +  86.2 MiB = 435.2 MiB	brave (17)
430.5 MiB +  69.6 MiB = 500.1 MiB	midori (15)
---------------------------------
341.9 MiB +  85.8 MiB = 427.6 MiB	brave (17)
429.6 MiB +  84.2 MiB = 513.8 MiB	midori (15)
---------------------------------
346.5 MiB +  85.9 MiB = 432.4 MiB	brave (17)
426.7 MiB +  83.9 MiB = 510.6 MiB	midori (15)
---------------------------------
345.6 MiB +  86.8 MiB = 432.4 MiB	brave (17)
432.9 MiB +  84.0 MiB = 516.9 MiB	midori (15)
---------------------------------
341.6 MiB +  89.4 MiB = 431.0 MiB	brave (17)
433.2 MiB +  84.2 MiB = 517.4 MiB	midori (15)
---------------------------------
345.9 MiB +  96.5 MiB = 442.5 MiB	brave (18)
449.9 MiB +  85.5 MiB = 535.4 MiB	midori (15)
---------------------------------
332.9 MiB +  87.0 MiB = 419.9 MiB	brave (17)
450.6 MiB +  85.8 MiB = 536.4 MiB	midori (15)
---------------------------------
271.2 MiB +  62.8 MiB = 334.0 MiB	brave (17)
528.8 MiB +  53.9 MiB = 582.7 MiB	midori (15)
---------------------------------
285.9 MiB +  71.5 MiB = 357.4 MiB	brave (17)
435.4 MiB +  71.9 MiB = 507.3 MiB	midori (15)
---------------------------------
287.7 MiB +  71.7 MiB = 359.4 MiB	brave (17)
462.3 MiB +  87.1 MiB = 549.3 MiB	midori (15)
---------------------------------
291.4 MiB +  72.4 MiB = 363.8 MiB	brave (17)
433.8 MiB +  87.1 MiB = 520.9 MiB	midori (15)
---------------------------------
289.2 MiB +  72.7 MiB = 361.9 MiB	brave (17)
432.3 MiB +  87.0 MiB = 519.3 MiB	midori (15)
---------------------------------
291.9 MiB +  72.9 MiB = 364.7 MiB	brave (17)
431.2 MiB +  87.2 MiB = 518.4 MiB	midori (15)

Posted: **Wed Oct 16, 2024 4:53 am**

One word: NoScript

With the appropriate latest versions of the add-on installed ,,,

Firefox 128 ESR 6 tabs:

Code: Select all

287.9 MiB +  28.4 MiB = 316.4 MiB	firefox-esr (11)

SeaMonkey 2.53.19 48 tabs (yes, I know), 1 Mail window, 1 Mail message window

Code: Select all

421.8 MiB + -13374.5 KiB = 408.8 MiB	seamonkey

The reason for using SM is not just that it's generally a low memory browser but because it's the only platform for classic Mozilla add-ons that make browsing and email bearable. The reason for using FF is that it supports NoScript, and is not Chrome.

FWIW ps_mem.py is included in the MX-Goodies package.

Posted: **Wed Oct 16, 2024 7:47 pm**

Thanks for the suggestions, @/df ! I'll have to find and try out FF ESR (I think it was default in some distro I tested under VBox). Earlier in this post, I had already dismissed Seamonkey. Sorry!

Meanwhile, I installed NoScript on both Midori and Brave. I do like the fact that NoScript's initial installation (saying that because I think all of them have to store somewhere what sites are accepted and what aren't, right?) is a mere 943 KB, whereas UBO is 4 MB *initially* in Midori, and whereas in Brave, UBO is not offerred, but UBO Lite is, and it is taking up 35.1 MB right now, and NoScript is taking up 2.3 MB. Quite a considerable savings or memory right there! I don't know how to tell how much the extensions are taking up currently in Midori -- all I get is the initial extension size.

And yet -- and yet -- I figured this would be a great chance to test these as ad blockers, 'cause otherwise, why have them at all?

So with the current two browsers standing (for now!) -- Brave and Midori -- I think Brave is Chromium based and Midori Firefox, I turned off any ad-blocking or script-blocking and ran a baseline test on "adblock-tester.com" . Midori has UBlockOrigin (original) and NoScript installed (ignoring Bitwarden installed everywhere). Brave has NoScript and UBlockOrigin Lite installed.

Baseline test results (test is a score of x out of 100 for adverts and such blocked by the ad blocker), NO ad-blocking at all -- oddly enough-- 39/100.

In *either* Midori or Brave, without any other ad-blocking, NoScript earned a score of 65/100.

Strangely, in Brave, adding Brave's "Shields Up" seems to have been stifled by NoScript being active -- no better score (still 65/100). Strange.

UBlockOrigin (the full monty, only on Midori), earned a 100/100 score. Rah!

On Brave, other than the NoScript results as above, UBlockOrigin "Lite" all by itself scored 91/100.

With both NoScript and UblockOrigin Lite *disabled*, and Brave's "Shields Up", it got a score of 96/100. Nice!

Both UBO and UBOL, and Brave all have script blocking, so I don't thing NoScript adds much -- especially given the fact that by itself, Brave blocks more than when in combination with NoScript or UBOL.

So what does all this mean? Well, for ME, it would seem that all I need is Brave. No NoScript, no UBOL. It means I can save a little more memory that is just taken up by the extension itself. I'll be giving it a try.

A final note: I don't know why, but Midori is slow as molasses. It's on the way out, ready for a trial of FF ESR. More later!

Posted: **Wed Oct 16, 2024 8:50 pm**

A side note about Ad-blockers -- for one thing, the handwriting is on the wall for UBO's demise. Raymond Hill probably only will keep UBlockOrigin Lite going. My favorite Ad-blocker is Adguard, with its near-perfect ad blocking and its cosmetic massaging, but it's way too big for this 2 GB RAM machine.

Posted: **Wed Oct 16, 2024 9:10 pm**

All right, yet another update. Got rid of Midori and LibreWolf, installed Firefox ESR. Loaded up my minimal two -- Bitwarden and UBlockOrigin (yay -- not the Lite version!). Loaded both browsers with the same 6 tabs (one being the respective "extension" manager), and while the nice thing about FF ESR is that it has good ole' UBO, getting 100/100 on the ad-blocking test site, the memory usage while either active or idling still favors Brave (entering this update now in Brave, the active browser and thus active in the final memory stats):

Code: Select all

=================================
246.3 MiB +  56.3 MiB = 302.5 MiB	brave (15)
464.1 MiB +  92.0 MiB = 556.1 MiB	firefox-esr (14)
=================================
247.5 MiB +  56.3 MiB = 303.9 MiB	brave (15)
450.0 MiB +  92.1 MiB = 542.1 MiB	firefox-esr (14)
=================================
247.3 MiB +  56.3 MiB = 303.6 MiB	brave (15)
451.2 MiB +  92.1 MiB = 543.3 MiB	firefox-esr (14)
=================================
247.4 MiB +  56.4 MiB = 303.8 MiB	brave (15)
451.4 MiB +  92.1 MiB = 543.5 MiB	firefox-esr (14)
=================================
222.7 MiB +  55.2 MiB = 277.9 MiB	brave (15)
445.9 MiB +  90.4 MiB = 536.3 MiB	firefox-esr (1
=================================
225.8 MiB +  60.1 MiB = 285.9 MiB	brave (15)
451.1 MiB +  88.9 MiB = 540.0 MiB	firefox-esr (13)
=================================
294.4 MiB + 102.7 MiB = 397.1 MiB	brave (15)
400.5 MiB +  60.5 MiB = 461.0 MiB	firefox-esr (13)

It's not worth extending this test. I think this eliminates Firefox ESR as a contender as well. Y'all, I'm not trying to sell Brave -- I think it's doing a pretty good job all by itself. I had used it then dismissed it for whatever reasons long ago, but I'm glad I decided to try it out again. My next foray will be to unload the UBlockOrigin Lite extension and just use the built-in Brave filters for a while and see what the memory footprint and usability looks like. Stay tuned!

Posted: **Thu Oct 17, 2024 12:30 am**

Durhammer wrote: Wed Oct 16, 2024 8:50 pm A side note about Ad-blockers -- for one thing, the handwriting is on the wall for UBO's demise. Raymond Hill probably only will keep UBlockOrigin Lite going. My favorite Ad-blocker is Adguard, with its near-perfect ad blocking and its cosmetic massaging, but it's way too big for this 2 GB RAM machine.

Don't forget the zero memory consumed MX Adblock a host file blocker. I wrote a doc for it - MX Settings: Adblock – how does it work?

Posted: **Thu Oct 17, 2024 12:41 am**

Durhammer wrote: Wed Oct 16, 2024 9:10 pm It's not worth extending this test. I think this eliminates Firefox ESR as a contender as well. Y'all, I'm not trying to sell Brave -- I think it's doing a pretty good job all by itself. I had used it then dismissed it for whatever reasons long ago, but I'm glad I decided to try it out again. My next foray will be to unload the UBlockOrigin Lite extension and just use the built-in Brave filters for a while and see what the memory footprint and usability looks like. Stay tuned!

As Jaw Tooth says - 'But wait, there's more!' See Comparison of lightweight web browsers

Posted: **Thu Oct 17, 2024 10:54 am**

Thanks, Michael! (@FullScale4Me) I'll have to try the built-in AdBlock, but it's certainly not as fluid to tweak as with built-in browser extensions, where you can click to disable or enable this and that without having to restart the browser altogether. HOWEVER, it might be interesting to try it out with the "little" MX-Viewer browser that is supplied with MX Linux (more later). And while I already had seen the Wikipedia page, I hadn't paid as much attention to it for the "scores" -- looks like Falkon and qutebrowser ought to be tested as well. Thanks again!

First thing I noticed this AM after removing other browsers (Midori, LibreWolf, and -- sigh, 'cause I like it -- Zen), and letting the 'puter just sit there overnight, is that without competition from other large apps (or just other browsers?), Brave does NOT "get out of the way", RAM-wise. It had been taking up gobs of MBs and not freeing up any memory. Not having the above other browsers left to check this notion out, I decided to try out the MX-Viewer. Move over, links2 browser! Well, sorta -- see the RAM usage results. Also for the record, MX-Viewer is s-l-o-w.

I ALSO discovered a small Brave helper (overseer?) that's about the same size as the icewm-session module for IceWM, that I did not previously notice and left out of all the previous test reports. Not that it puts much of a dent in the usage, as it's only around 17 KB. But yes, as I suspected, Bravve starts dropping memory once MX-Viewer gets cranked up. See the test results below. Last note for now (?

), found out last night that the Brave browser "shields" code is written in Rust. Dunno how much of the rest of the browser is, but that supposedly allows Brave to not worry about full Google Manifest V3 implementation. Without further ado, this is what I saw:

Code: Select all

  4.0 KiB +  13.5 KiB =  17.5 KiB	brave-browser-s
473.0 MiB + 135.6 MiB = 608.5 MiB	brave (16)
---------------------------------
  4.0 KiB +  13.5 KiB =  17.5 KiB	brave-browser-s
556.8 MiB + 142.9 MiB = 699.8 MiB	brave (17)
---------------------------------
  4.0 KiB +  13.5 KiB =  17.5 KiB	brave-browser-s
561.4 MiB + 142.8 MiB = 704.1 MiB	brave (17)
---------------------------------
  4.0 KiB +  13.5 KiB =  17.5 KiB	brave-browser-s
561.3 MiB + 142.8 MiB = 704.1 MiB	brave (17)
---------------------------------
  4.0 KiB +  13.5 KiB =  17.5 KiB	brave-browser-s
448.4 MiB + 122.0 MiB = 570.4 MiB	brave (14)
---------------------------------
  4.0 KiB +  13.5 KiB =  17.5 KiB	brave-browser-s
106.5 MiB +  37.4 MiB = 143.9 MiB	QtWebEngineProcess (4)
132.4 MiB +  26.1 MiB = 158.5 MiB	mx-viewer
373.3 MiB +  78.8 MiB = 452.2 MiB	brave (14)
---------------------------------
  4.0 KiB +  13.5 KiB =  17.5 KiB	brave-browser-s
165.1 MiB +  24.5 MiB = 189.6 MiB	mx-viewer
139.2 MiB +  77.4 MiB = 216.6 MiB	QtWebEngineProcess (5)
374.8 MiB +  78.9 MiB = 453.7 MiB	brave (14)
---------------------------------
  4.0 KiB +  12.5 KiB =  16.5 KiB	brave-browser-s
 92.8 MiB +   9.0 MiB = 101.8 MiB	mx-viewer
343.2 MiB +  53.5 MiB = 396.6 MiB	QtWebEngineProcess (7)
387.3 MiB +  51.2 MiB = 438.5 MiB	brave (14)
---------------------------------
  4.0 KiB +  12.5 KiB =  16.5 KiB	brave-browser-s
103.0 MiB +   8.4 MiB = 111.4 MiB	mx-viewer
310.7 MiB +  62.0 MiB = 372.7 MiB	brave (14)
363.9 MiB +  53.4 MiB = 417.4 MiB	QtWebEngineProcess (7)
---------------------------------
  4.0 KiB +  13.5 KiB =  17.5 KiB	brave-browser-s
102.1 MiB +   7.7 MiB = 109.9 MiB	mx-viewer
300.3 MiB +  58.6 MiB = 358.9 MiB	brave (14)
366.0 MiB +  45.2 MiB = 411.2 MiB	QtWebEngineProcess (7)
---------------------------------

Posted: **Thu Oct 17, 2024 8:05 pm**

FullScale4Me wrote: Thu Oct 17, 2024 12:30 am Don't forget the zero memory consumed MX Adblock a host file blocker. I wrote a doc for it - MX Settings: Adblock – how does it work?

Good job, Michael! Turning on all the available block lists, testing out ole MX-Viewer with it active got its ad-block test score up to a respectable 70! Whole lot better than 39 or so without the hostss file. Doesn't change a thing for Brave with only its Shields Up -- I still get a score of 96 there. But it's useful to have in the arsenal! (And makes me think about setting up a Pi-Hole!) Off to find and test Falkon and qutebrowser....

Posted: **Thu Oct 17, 2024 9:43 pm**

Awright ! Got the Falkon browser downloaded and installed -- a somewhat time-consuming process, possibly due to all the KDE (if is, after all, FalKon!) dependencies. I do not see any way to add other extensions, so not being able to even have Bitwarden is a huge negative, though it does have somewhat decent built-in ad-blocking capabilities. When tested all by its lonesome on the adblock-test site, it pegged in at a respectable score of 73 (somewhere along the line, I THOUGHT I saw a 75, but couldn't get back to that place). Adding in the MX Ad-Block hosts file (all available settings) got the score up to 85! Nice!

Like the MX-Viewer, it uses the QtWebEngine, so it's also a bit slow (sorry!), though not as slow as MX-Viewer. Together, they can take up a reasonable chunk of memory, but I do admit, it does a great job of "getting out of the way" when it's idle and there's competition. FWIW, I'm using Brave right now, so it will be larger at the end of the memory test listings. (And NOTE: I did not include the 17-18 KB brave-browser-s module in the report -- just know that it's there.)

Code: Select all

 86.6 MiB +  36.3 MiB = 122.9 MiB	QtWebEngineProcess (4)
358.3 MiB +  23.3 MiB = 381.6 MiB	falkon
383.7 MiB +  49.6 MiB = 433.3 MiB	brave (15)
---------------------------------
 78.7 MiB +  37.6 MiB = 116.3 MiB	QtWebEngineProcess (4)
354.9 MiB +  23.6 MiB = 378.5 MiB	falkon
405.8 MiB + 111.8 MiB = 517.6 MiB	brave (16)
---------------------------------
 51.0 MiB +   7.6 MiB =  58.6 MiB	QtWebEngineProcess (4)
 62.8 MiB +   8.9 MiB =  71.6 MiB	falkon
287.6 MiB +  67.4 MiB = 355.1 MiB	brave (16)
---------------------------------
 53.0 MiB +   8.1 MiB =  61.0 MiB	QtWebEngineProcess (4)
 69.5 MiB +   7.8 MiB =  77.3 MiB	falkon
277.6 MiB +  69.2 MiB = 346.7 MiB	brave (16)
---------------------------------
177.1 MiB +  14.3 MiB = 191.3 MiB	falkon
177.1 MiB +  69.1 MiB = 246.1 MiB	QtWebEngineProcess (6)
222.6 MiB +  65.7 MiB = 288.3 MiB	brave (15)
---------------------------------
100.1 MiB +   9.1 MiB = 109.2 MiB	falkon
230.3 MiB +  37.7 MiB = 268.0 MiB	QtWebEngineProcess (8)
362.9 MiB + 124.4 MiB = 487.3 MiB	brave (16)
---------------------------------
100.3 MiB +   9.3 MiB = 109.6 MiB	falkon
225.6 MiB +  37.6 MiB = 263.1 MiB	QtWebEngineProcess (8)
367.7 MiB + 120.9 MiB = 488.5 MiB	brave (16)
---------------------------------

Yes, Falkon's memory footprint is quite commendable. However, for a few MB more with Brave's footprint, and with Brave being able to add Bitwarden, AND have a better ad-blocking score (with or without the hosts file), Brave wins hands down. Beef up Falkon's builtin ad-blocking capabilities and allow at least Bitwarden password manager (or another, even), and it's a good contender. Next up -- qutebrowser....

Posted: **Thu Oct 17, 2024 10:02 pm**

I apologize if this offends any fans of qutebrowser, but it ain't worth the time. It's got a really, really, really strange interface that relies on you remembering the key combinations. I couldn't figure out how to go back to previous pages, and navigating to new ones is a PITA (type "o", enter the URL). I don't even want to know if it supports any extensions, 'cause (1) I suspect it doesn't and (2) won't be using it anyway. Without the MX-AdBlock hosts file, it scored the expected ad-block tester score of 39. WITH the MX-AdBlock hosts file, it only got up to 68. Add to that the fact that it's not particularly frugal of the memory usage, and I deem it even below the lowly MX-Viewer!

Code: Select all

105.2 MiB +  38.9 MiB = 144.1 MiB	QtWebEngineProcess (5)
303.1 MiB +  31.2 MiB = 334.3 MiB	qutebrowser
382.7 MiB +  77.9 MiB = 460.7 MiB	brave (16)

That;s right, I didn't see that it needed an extensive memory test. Low functionality, low ad-block score, meh memory. Outta here!

Next?

Posted: **Thu Oct 17, 2024 10:11 pm**

BY THE WAY, for the last couple of browser tests, I chose Falkon and qutebrowser specifically because they appeared to have the two highest compatibility scores (acid3 and HTML5, plus others) in the Wikipedia page ("Comparison of Lightweight Web Browsers") pointed to by @FullScale4Me . K-meleon sorta looked good, but it's a Windows thing, so would have to be run under Wine. Fuggedaboutit!

Posted: **Thu Oct 17, 2024 10:23 pm**

Allright, lite full featured browser fans, I'm done here. Thanks for all the suggestions. I hope I tried each in good faith and with due dilligence.

In the end, I'm satisfied with discovering that Brave Browser is pretty durn good overall. It's not the lightest browser out there, but it's lighter than most of the big guns, and it runs rings around them, performance-wise and adblock-wise. I don't know how much of the browser other than the "Shields" is written in Rust, but even if it's just that, I'm a big fan. (Rust is going to rule! When Redox OS is mature, I think it will be a great "Linux" like OS, but that's a different topic altogether -- but watch for it!)

Again, thanks for all the ideas, suggestions, and so forth. If you don't believe me on my choice, do your own damn tests! :-)

Posted: **Fri Oct 18, 2024 10:12 am**

One final (?) note: I had left the MX-AdBlock hosts file in place, and found out that I couldn't browse Reddit posts because of it (probably the social media filters). Since it doesn't add anything to Brave's "shielding", I undid it and now can see Reddit stuff again.

Posted: **Mon Nov 18, 2024 10:19 pm**

Sorry, couldn't help myself. Now have learned about a feature of Brave Browser -- Brave News. Besides being a news aggregator site like Gargle Gnus, you can add your own RSS feeds so you don't need a separate RSS feed reader app. The "only" problem with it is addiction to it.

Posted: **Mon Jan 06, 2025 12:26 am**

Once again! Just found out about another cool feature -- "Brave Talk" . You can start a video call or conference (up to 4 participants for free) with no time limit, and the other participants can use other modern browsers (Chrome, Edge, Firefox). Communication is encrypted and all goes away when the session ends. No need for Zoom for you and your friends. Over 4 participants and you need a subscription, but so?

Posted: **Sat Jan 11, 2025 12:57 pm**

Sorry, can't help it. Have to add more for the record!

Read an article in one of my news feeds that compared the most used (popular?) browsers for memory use, and Firefox came out on top (or bottom, in the memory used stat). They compared Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and Opera. The gist was that the Chromium-based browsers (all but FF) had the same memory management or something like that, so somehow Firefox came out on top. BUT THEY DIDN'T TRY Brave! So of course, I had to re-install Firefox and do a comparison. I installed the same 3 add-ons (Bitwarden, PrintFriendly & PDF, and AdGuard). I fired up clean versions of the two browsers. Firefox indeed used the smallest amount of memory! Let's start really browsing, opening Google News and opening the same articles on each browser. They stayed neck and neck for a few tabs, but when they got to 7 same articles opened, Brave was WAY under Firefox (as shown by ps_mem,py output):

1.4 GiB + 224.2 MiB = 1.6 GiB brave (27)
2.1 GiB + 141.0 MiB = 2.2 GiB firefox-bin (23)

I think the difference would be even more if I ditched the AdGuard extension on Brave, since it is mostly superfluous. Go Brave!!!

EDIT: Incredible -- I left the FF browser as-is, tab-wise, but refreshed the Brave browser with all 17 tabs (over 2 windows) I had open, and with the default "Balanced" memory setting in place (there is one to be even more aggressive about saving memory!), here's the comparison now:

1.8 GiB + 238.1 MiB = 2.0 GiB brave (33)
1.9 GiB + 136.4 MiB = 2.0 GiB firefox-bin (21)

I'll be removing Firefox -- again.

MX Linux Forum

Low memory full feature browsers

Low memory full feature browsers

Re: Low memory full feature browsers

Re: Low memory full feature browsers

Re: Low memory full feature browsers

Re: Low memory full feature browsers

Re: Low memory full feature browsers

Re: Low memory full feature browsers

Re: Low memory full feature browsers

Re: Low memory full feature browsers

Re: Low memory full feature browsers

Re: Low memory full feature browsers

Re: Low memory full feature browsers

Re: Low memory full feature browsers

Re: Low memory full feature browsers

Re: Low memory full feature browsers

Re: Low memory full feature browsers

Re: Low memory full feature browsers

Re: Low memory full feature browsers

Re: Low memory full feature browsers

Re: Low memory full feature browsers

Re: Low memory full feature browsers

Re: Low memory full feature browsers

Re: Low memory full feature browsers

Re: Low memory full feature browsers

Re: Low memory full feature browsers

Re: Low memory full feature browsers

Re: Low memory full feature browsers

Re: Low memory full feature browsers

Re: Low memory full feature browsers

Re: Low memory full feature browsers

Re: Low memory full feature browsers

Re: Low memory full feature browsers

Re: Low memory full feature browsers

Re: Low memory full feature browsers

Re: Low memory full feature browsers

Re: Low memory full feature browsers

Re: Low memory full feature browsers

Re: Low memory full feature browsers

Re: Low memory full feature browsers

Re: Low memory full feature browsers

Re: Low memory full feature browsers

Re: Low memory full feature browsers

Re: Low memory full feature browsers

Re: Low memory full feature browsers

Re: Low memory full feature browsers

dRe: Low memory full feature browsers

Re: Low memory full feature browsers

Re: Low memory full feature browsers

Re: Low memory full feature browsers [Solved]

Re: Low memory full feature browsers

Re: Low memory full feature browsers

Re: Low memory full feature browsers

Re: Low memory full feature browsers