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Browser Battles: Opera, CrossOver Chromium and Flock

Issue 179

From Issue #179
March 2009

Mar 01, 2009  By James Gray
 in
Firefox is the wunderkind of Linux browsers, but is it right for you? We take a look at three competing browsers—Opera, CrossOver Chromium and Flock—that may just give you more Webvergnuegen.
Let Your Philosophy Decide

With the above and more options available, what are you going to choose as your browser? We are fortunate that each browser niche is being filled with great options on the Linux platform. For those who believe that efficiency lies in integration and feature-richness, Flock and Opera are excellent options. Flock integrates the most tightly with other services, and Opera builds in as much functionality as possible. Neither browser is known for its page-load speeds. Meanwhile, browsers like Firefox and its more streamlined cousins (such as IceCat and Epiphany) hold the middle ground, seeking to balance speed with essential functionality, leaving many features to the extensible extension system. Currently, Firefox is the fastest we've got. However, although CrossOver Chromium is not so nimble, it gives us an enticing preview of the forthcoming Google Chrome for Linux. Chrome for Windows is faster than Firefox. If you pride speed and agility above all else, keep your eye out for Chrome. Whatever your philosophy, you'll find a great Linux-based browser to meet your needs.

James Gray is Linux Journal Products Editor and a graduate student in environmental sciences and management at Michigan State University. A Linux enthusiast since the mid-1990s, he currently resides in Lansing, Michigan, with his wife and cats.

______________________

James Gray is Products Editor for Linux Journal

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chromium on linux

micky allen's picture
Submitted by micky allen (not verified) on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 17:20.

Chromium runs natively under linux, I have it running on Ubuntu 9.04 and it is blindingly fast !

cheers

Micky

Very good article ,thank you

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 03/24/2009 - 23:44.

Very good article ,thank you for your share.
Here I also have a good share: Tradestead , there are many kinds of cheap and beautiful consumer electronics!

Another Bump For Opera

raashell's picture
Submitted by raashell on Wed, 03/04/2009 - 13:53.

I disagree with the author on Opera's speed. It is faster then it's peers in both speed and speed of use. Most of the benchmarks that I've seen put Opera at, or just under the top. For example:

http://lifehacker.com/5160709/browser-speed-tests-how-safari-4-stacks-up

Feature wise, it's in a whole different league then its peers. One of my favorites is the developer tools it comes with. Very cool browser.

opera is the best one

cthubik's picture
Submitted by cthubik on Wed, 02/25/2009 - 12:27.

Thanks for finally mentioning Opera. I use it as my main browser. I really don't care that it's not open source, I find it's the most polished browser available, has a ton of useful features, it's highly configurable, and I can get things done in far fewer keystrokes/mouse clicks than in Firefox. I never use Firefox unless I absolutely have to, and that's practically never.

Oh, the irony...

rbarraud's picture
Submitted by rbarraud on Tue, 02/17/2009 - 04:18.

... an article solely about Web Browsers, with nary a URI to be seen...

Please add a Resources block to this (also missing in the print edition!)

Cheers
R>

Cheers
Rog.

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