One of the best things in Linux is the many alternative options a user has. Many different applications are out there, ready to download. To end up with the best one, a user should try a few and choose the one that helps him do his job better. The same happens with web browsers. Firefox might be the most popular, and without any argument it's a great browser. However in the world of Linux and open source there are many other web browsers. They differ in appearance (GtK+, Qt), rendering engine (WebKit, KHTML, Gecko) and speed in java and acid3 benchmarks. But you don't know which you like most until you try them. So here is the list of top 10 Linux web browsers along with some screenshots. All of them are free, and apart from Opera, are open source. Some of them are cross-platform also, which means that run in Windows also. Those browsers might be ready for download through your distribution's PMS (Package Management System) e.g. Synaptic for Ubuntu/Debian or Yum for Fedora.Graphical Linux web browsers
The following web browser all have a graphical interface (read on and you will understand why I mention this here ;) ).Firefox
Firefox is developed by Mozilla. To display web pages, Firefox uses the Gecko engine. Some of its main features are tabbed browsing, incremental find, password manager and maybe the feature that has made Firefox so popular, the use of external add ons.
Opera
Opera is developed by the Opera Software company. Opera features include tabbed browsing, page zooming, mouse gestures, a download manager and a password manager. Apart from being a web browser, Opera sends and receives e-mails, connects to IRC, downloads files via BitTorrent and reads feeds. Many people consider it to be the fastest browser.
Konqueror
Konqueror is the web browser of the KDE (K Desktop Environment). Apart from a web browser, Konqueror is also a file manager and file viewer. It uses KHTML as its layout engine, however it also supports the use of WebKit.
Epiphany
Epiphany is the web browser of GNOME desktop environment. It uses Webkit rendering engine to display web pages. It also supports the use of extensions.
Arora
Arora is a cross-platform open source web browser using the WebKit rendering engine, built on top of Qt. It features a minimalistic and lightweight interface, including tab management, simple history and bookmarks system and global user CSS. It has tabbed browsing, private browsing mode and supports kwalletmanager which integrates it very well in KDE.
Midori
Midori is a web browser that aims to be lightweight and fast. It uses the WebKit rendering engine and the GTK+ 2 interface. Midori is part of the Xfce desktop environment's Goodies component. As of February 2009, the project is still at alpha status. However it scores 100/100 in the Acid3 test! It supports tabbed browsing, windows and session management, use of extensions written in C and toggle full image zoom.
Seamonkey
SeaMonkey is a free, open source, and cross-platform Internet suite. It is the continuation of the former Mozilla Application Suite, based on the same source code.
Dillo
Dillo is a minimalistic web browser particularly intended for older or slower computers and embedded systems. It supports only plain HTML/XHTML and images over HTTP; other aspects of web pages, such as scripting and styling, are ignored. If you look at the screenshot you will see how www.my-guides.net appears! However it supports tabbed browsing and PNG images with Alpha transparency! Dillo is available for Linux, BSD, Solaris and Mac OS X.
Text Based Linux web browsers
And for those of you who prefer using console for everything, even for web browsing!! (or don't have any other choice) here are some text based web browsers.
Elinks
ELinks is a free text-based console web browser for Unix-like operating systems. It supports tabs (though still in text mode), mouse support and colour text display. Protocols supported are local files, finger, http, https, ftp, fsp, IPv4, IPv6 and experimentally BitTorrent, gopher, nntp.
Lynx
Browsing in Lynx consists of highlighting the chosen link using cursor keys, or having all links on a page numbered and entering the chosen link's number.
I hope you will find the best Linux web browser among those. Of course there are some other browsers which I have ommited. If you use another web browser and you like it drop me a comment here! Oh, and if you liked this article why not digg or stuble it?! Enjoy!
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Subscribe to this comment's feedWhat about Chromium?
Although currently under development, there are articles that generally conclude that Google's Chromium works fine already in Ubuntu.
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September 07, 2009
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You are right Donovan. Crhomium is gaining many linux fans. I haven't tried it till now but I read very good comments about Chromium.
A little notice. I haven't included Chromium in this article since at the time I wrote it there wasn't a native Linux version. A little update is needed.
A little notice. I haven't included Chromium in this article since at the time I wrote it there wasn't a native Linux version. A little update is needed.
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September 08, 2009
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