Lightweight browser for netbooks. Which browser is better for weak computers - modern Mozilla Firefox or a project based on its old Pale Moon engine

When working with equipment, you want it to promptly carry out the instructions given by the user. But not everything and not always goes like clockwork. Thus, equipment that does not have significant operational capabilities does not meet this requirement. Such inconveniences are especially felt on inexpensive PCs and laptops. And within the framework of the article, we will look at which simple browser to choose for a weak computer and what are the features of its use.

Problem

To fully understand what we need, we need to have an idea of ​​what we are dealing with. In our case, it is necessary not only to use a lightweight browser for a weak computer, but also to configure it for optimal performance. Because even the most advanced software may not function at its best due to inept user actions. Moreover, optimization applies not only to the operation of the computer, but also to the display of the site.

What I want to say about popular browsers

And more specifically about Opera, Mozilla and Google Chrome. You can often hear complaints about them that these versions have become much heavier for equipment. This is not entirely true. If we open any browser of any such complainant, we will almost always be able to see that there is a lot of “body kit” installed there, which makes it so heavy. Therefore, it is first necessary to understand it in order to be able to talk about the speed of action. A browser for weak computers, Opera, will receive special attention. It has a special “Turbo” mode, with which, without additional settings and fiddling with hardware, you can optimize work and get improved performance on the Internet. Separately, it is worth mentioning about Google Chrome. It is not known what kind of computers the developers have, but they probably have 32 GB of RAM. Therefore, this browser often suffers from the fact that it begins to frantically “eat up” RAM. To avoid this, it is recommended not to leave tabs open for a long time and to restart them.

Customizing popular models

Let's look at this using Mozilla as an example. First of all, you need to make sure that all plugins are disabled. Of course, they allow you to conveniently navigate the Internet and get acquainted with multimedia content, but along with these operations the machine loads. But our goal is a lightweight browser for a weak computer. An exception can be made only for one category of plugins - those that are engaged in “cutting” heavy (usually advertising) elements from pages. This is an example where they will only help save operational power. Also, as an alternative possible solution, you can consider installing outdated versions. Let's take Mozilla version 2 or Opera version 9 - and we have a browser for weak computers. They are both quite functional and at the same time low-cost in terms of the use of system resources. But let's return to setting up the program.

The ideal browser for weak computers can be obtained by sacrificing some of the features. So, you can disable the loading of various videos, pictures and other optional elements - thanks to this you can get a machine that can perform the working functions of searching for information. But this all applies to ordinary Windows user operating systems. If you are looking for a lightweight browser for weak computers on which one of the versions of Linux is installed, then we suggest paying attention to Midori. It is easy to use and interacts correctly with various sites.

Paying attention to unpopular browsers

But what's popular doesn't appeal to everyone. Which browser should you choose for a weak computer if you want to try something new? There is a wide selection of different programs that are written in the open source Chromium engine. It should be noted that the merits of these browsers are that they take up little space and are quickly processed. But the other side of the coin is that they do not always have a user-friendly interface (although most are similar to Google Chrome) and errors often occur that make their comfortable use problematic. So, a little-used browser for weak computers:

1. Browsar Winstyle.
2. Comodo Dragon.

There is no consensus about them, but, nevertheless, if you are satisfied with their functionality, then you can safely use it.

Conclusion

In general, any computer with at least 256 MB of RAM can easily work with the modern segment of the Internet. Of course, in this case it will be necessary to carefully approach the programs that are installed on it, forget about autoloading various clients of social networks or other sites, but the end result will be pleasing - the browser will, albeit a little slowly, but confidently load any page of an arbitrary site. It is necessary to mention here that working with heavy flash player elements or 3D models will be unavailable (or very incorrect), but ordinary text documents will work without problems.

As part of my job, I have to maintain several very advanced computers in working order. In terms of hardware, this is not difficult - fortunately, machines produced 10 years ago are often assembled (soldered) to a higher quality than modern consumer goods. But in terms of software, the task is more difficult. The biggest headache for me is antiviruses and browsers. Both of them are very hungry for RAM, which, alas, is in short supply (for the last 1.5 years, the budget for upgrading computers at school has been approaching zero, and a small upgrade can only be done if the old hardware completely fails). Meanwhile, it is highly advisable to update both the antivirus and the browser periodically. We'll talk about choosing an antivirus some other time, but today I'll try to find the fastest browser for old computers.

First, a little background. Until recently, I installed the old Opera 12 on all old computers. But, alas, one fine day, this once wonderful browser began to display crookedly a vital site - an electronic magazine. Well, I had to say goodbye to the old Opera and look for alternatives.

First of all, of course, I checked how the fresh Opera would behave on old machines. Alas, as expected, Opera 30 (this version was current at the time of my experiment) behaved like a typical Chromium browser: it consumed a lot of memory, forcing the computer to swap heavily (IDE disk, heh...). Things were a little better with other standard chrome clones (Yandex.Browser, Chrome itself). The latest Firefox 40 behaves relatively well, but it has obvious problems with interface rendering (it slows down) and memory consumption is still quite high (especially when opening 2-3 tabs). Well, since the browsers known to everyone cannot cope with the task, let’s try different exotic ones.

Part 1. Looking for a fast browser in the Chromium camp

I was pleasantly surprised in terms of speed. Being an add-on to Internet Explorer, it works very quickly and does not eat up too much memory. But, alas, all this happiness is available only on Windows 7, and my weakest machines run Windows XP. No, the mentioned SlimBrowser works great under Windows XP, but the IE8 engine, alas, is hopelessly outdated and is not much different in rendering quality from the same Opera 12-.

Next, I decided to try out “unusual” variations on the Chromium theme. There were as many as three candidates. The first of them is . It is positioned by the developers as a light and fast browser. In general, this statement is true - for a chromo clone, Midori is really quite light and fast. But, unfortunately, on computers with 1 gigabyte of RAM (and even more so with 512 megabytes) it is not light enough.
The second candidate is Chinese. The younger brother of the well-known Maxthon was born about a year ago. In essence, it is Chromium stripped to the limit. It really works quite quickly, but it still consumes a lot of memory. I would recommend it rather as an addition to the main browser on normal machines (when you need to quickly read something without waiting for the main browser to load - Nitro loads almost instantly). But this browser is not suitable for older computers.

Finally, the last Chrome in my experiment is the OpenSource project. The developer positions it as the successor to the good old Opera, but on a modern engine (guess which one?). True, from a technical point of view, this browser is built a little differently - it does not create a separate process for each sneeze. This feature allows Otter (and this is how the name of the browser is translated from English) to save memory quite well. In terms of speed and functionality, Otter is also doing pretty well. But, alas, it is still very crude and not stable enough for everyday use. And the interface, to be honest, leaves much to be desired... Besides, Otter is essentially a one-man show (in the sense of a developer) and, alas, there is almost no hope for quickly bringing the project to a digestible state.

Otter Browser. In the depths of the tundra Otter in spats...

Part 2. Looking for a fast browser in the Gecko camp

Well, since the Chrome community can’t please us with anything in terms of speed, let’s try to turn to the second opposing side and look at browsers based on the Gecko engine. This engine is no less popular among developers, although it has its own specifics. While browsers based on Chromium (and Blink) are mainly built by various commercial companies (Otter is a rare exception), Gecko is more popular among the OpenSource community. Unfortunately, this community, for the most part, is busy changing the basic functionality of Firefox, as a result of which clones of Ognelis (or Firepanda - as you prefer) with different sets of functions are born. Against this background, several projects stand out that make optimized assemblies for certain platforms. Among them, only two focus their efforts on improving the speed of Firefox. The first project is . Within its framework, they make assemblies that work (according to the developers) 25% faster than the original FF. Until recently, the PaleMoon project even had a separate assembly optimized for Windows XP, but due to the cessation of official support for this OS, its release was discontinued. However, to this day there is a separate build for weak Atom-based machines, which can be used on any old computers.
In terms of speed, I was very pleased with PaleMoon - the subjective speed of launching the browser and loading pages on a computer with 1 GB of RAM is even higher than when working with Opera 12 (although it uses a little more memory). The interface, by the way, is rendered noticeably faster than that of its ancestor in the face of FF (the cut Australis has an effect). True, for greater ease of use, the “lunar” browser will have to be modified a little (in particular, and turned on in the settings). In general, the impressions from this browser are the most pleasant. Among other things, PaleMoon supports extensions from FireFox, which means expanding its functionality will be quite simple.

Finally, the last contender for the title of “fastest browser for older computers” is the . This project, which appeared at the dawn of the popularity of Firefox, was in hibernation for many years and only recently began to be revived. Essentially, this is a very distant relative of Firefox, taking only the Gecko engine from its ancestor. Due to its close relationship, K-Meleon does not support extensions from the original Firefox and does not inherit all its problems (working speed in particular). As a result, we have a very fast and quite functional browser. In terms of operating speed today, K-Meleon is the leader. The only thing that prevents us from definitely recommending it for use is the clumsy interface and the fact that it is overloaded with not all the necessary functions.

K-Meleon 74. The fastest browser…

As a conclusion. Based on the results of many days of testing (including on real users), I personally chose PaleMoon (more precisely, its assembly for Atom). In conditions of severe lack of RAM, it works noticeably faster than all other browsers. On computers with 512 megabytes of RAM, K-Meleon showed the best results in terms of memory consumption, but users in almost 100% of cases complain about its inconvenient interface (read: unusual appearance and non-standard arrangement of controls). In theory, all this can be solved by fine-tuning the interface (fortunately, K-Meleon provides such an opportunity), but in practice the difference in the speed of working with PaleMoon is not so great. The final decision, however, is yours.

Updated March 18, 2016
I tested a couple more programs that claim to be the “fastest browser for an old computer.” My impressions are in .

Updated February 19, 2019
It turns out that enthusiasts continue to make PaleMoon builds that work on older computers. Here, in particular, (you need to download the file mypal-28.3.1.win32.installer.exe).

At work I have a weak, outdated computer with 512 meters of RAM and Windows XP.

The eternal problem is that it slows down and freezes, especially at the end of the day.

I clean Windows with all sorts of cleaners, utilities, optimizers, but I don’t get any noticeable effect.

There is an eternal problem with browsers - they load the system, eating up the already frail RAM. My beloved Opera is finally disappointing. She became like Firefox - fat and clumsy. Google Chrome, which is praised so much as the fastest and clearest, is not fast and clear on my computer, for some reason it loads the system and the flash player in it is always glitchy. It finally has a wonderful feature: it updates itself in the background without asking. And this cannot be turned off anywhere. Suddenly the computer starts to slow down terribly, I go to the task manager - and this dear Chrome has decided to update and is loading the CPU by 80%.

Chrome, Opera, Firefox, Yandex browser are not suitable for weak computers. A special horror begins when entering heavy sites like slando or ria.ua - a bunch of loading interface elements, the browser slows down and drags the entire computer along with it.

I would like to say about the Opera that it is like the Dynamo football club (Kyiv). He has been loved by everyone for a long time, but has fallen behind in development and has become heavy and weakly developing, glitchy in modern conditions, but still having an old crowd of loyal fans who suffer, but use it and are all waiting and waiting for him to become the best and most competitive again. A huge plus of Opera is its awesome customizability. Lots of settings, you can customize the browser to suit you and your needs. Chrome settings - the cat cried.

I looked through a lot of information on the internet, read a lot of opinions and reviews. I was looking for a EASY browser that would consume less resources on a weak computer. I installed several little-known browsers that position themselves as “light and fast.” For example, Browsar Winstyle. Yes, they are light and fast. But they're not convenient and don't work well. So that's not an option either.

In the end I settled on Comodo Dragon. Externally and internally it is similar to Chrome, because it is made on the open source Chromium engine. Calls itself "a faster, more secure version of Chrome."

And guess what? Yes, yes! I achieved what I wanted - the browser works quickly on my weak computer. Really fast compared to others, loads pages and all content correctly. I don’t know how it works in Windows 7, but in XP it’s great. Heavy modern sites load significantly faster than in other well-known browsers.

For those who have a weak computer and Windows XP, I highly recommend the Comodo Dragon browser

Not everyone can afford a computer that is equipped with the latest technology and works quickly. Some owners of weak PCs simply don’t want to get rid of it, but it’s also very difficult to use such a machine even for banal surfing the Internet. In this case, you can find a fast and lightweight browser. The task is not the simplest, but still solvable. From this article you will learn how to choose a web browser for your weak PC.

Web browser for a weak computer

There is no definition as such – “weak computer”. Over time, a good PC will no longer be relevant and will be considered obsolete.

It all depends on the characteristics of the PC, for example, users look at the RAM (random access memory), processor clock speed and number of cores, video card (memory, frequency) and, last but not least, the hard drive capacity.

Which browser is the lightest?

To understand this, you need to install several web browsers. Next, we will launch them one by one under the same conditions, that is, the same pages will be loaded at startup.

For comparison, let's take the following three Internet pages:

Every time you open the site we will call "Task Manager", where we pay attention to processor load and memory.

Internet Explorer or Microsoft Edge

Since the PC does not shine with performance, you can use what the system offers - a standard browser. Although Internet Explorer not so convenient and not many people use it, yet it consumes less memory than the well-known ones Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox.

1. Launch the Internet Explorer browser on the page http://lumpics.ru/about/. IN "Task Manager" pay attention to "Memory"– 66.7 MB.

Actually, we can end here. Now it's up to you to decide which web browser to choose for your weak PC.

With the development of web technologies, the content displayed using a browser becomes more and more “heavy”. The video bitrate is increasing, caching and storing data requires more and more space, and scripts running on user machines consume a lot of CPU time. Browser developers keep up with trends and try to include support for all new trends in their products. This leads to the fact that the latest versions of popular browsers place increased demands on the system on which they are running. In this article we will talk about which browser to choose for a computer that does not have enough power to use the Big Three browsers and the like.

As part of the article, we will conduct a kind of testing of four browsers - Maxthon Nitro, Pale Moon, Otter Browser, K-Meleon - and compare their behavior with, as the most voracious browser at the time of writing. During the process, we'll look at startup and running speeds, RAM and CPU utilization, and whether there are enough resources left to complete other tasks. Since Chrome provides extensions, we will test both with and without them.

It is worth noting that some results may differ from those you get from such testing. This applies to those parameters that depend on Internet speed, in particular, page loading.

Test configuration

To conduct the test, we took a really weak computer. The initial parameters are:

About browsers

Let's talk briefly about the browsers participating in today's testing - about the engines, features, and so on.

Maxthon Nitro

This browser was created by the Chinese company Maxthon International Limited based on the Blink engine - a converted WebKit for . Supports all operating systems, including mobile ones.

Pale Moon

This participant is a brother with some modifications, and one of them is optimization for Windows systems and only for them. This, according to the developers, makes it possible to significantly increase the speed of work.

Otter Browser

"Otter" was created using the Qt5 engine, which is used by the developers. The data on the official website is very scarce, so there is nothing more to say about the browser.

K-Meleon

This is another browser based on Firefox, but with the most reduced functionality. This move by the creators made it possible to minimize resource consumption and increase speed.

Startup speed

Let's start from the beginning - let's measure the time it takes for the browser to fully launch, that is, you can already open pages, make settings, etc. The goal is to determine which patient comes to a state of combat readiness faster. We will use google.com as the start page. We will take measurements until it is possible to enter text into the search bar.

• Maxthon Nitro – from 10 to 6 seconds;
• Pale Moon – from 6 to 3 seconds;
• Otter Browser – from 9 to 6 seconds;
• K-Meleon – from 4 to 2 seconds;
• Google Chrome (extensions disabled) – from 5 to 3 seconds. With extensions ( , Browsec, ePN CashBack) – 11 seconds.

As we can see, all browsers quite quickly open their window on the desktop and show readiness for work.

Memory consumption

Since we are very limited in the amount of RAM, this indicator is one of the most important. Let's look into "Task Manager" and calculate the total consumption of each experimental subject, having first opened three identical pages - Yandex (main page), YouTube and the website. Measurements will be taken after some waiting.

Let's launch a video on YouTube with a resolution of 480p and see how much the situation changes.

Now let's complicate the task by simulating a real work situation. To do this, we will open 10 tabs in each browser and look at the overall responsiveness of the system, that is, we will check whether it is comfortable to work with the browser and other programs in this mode. As mentioned above, we have Word, Notepad, a calculator running, and we will also try to open Paint. We will also measure page loading speed. The results will be recorded based on subjective feelings.

• Maxthon Nitro experiences slight delays when switching between browser tabs and when opening programs that are already running. The same thing happens when viewing the contents of folders. In general, the OS behaves quite well with minor lags. The page loading speed is not annoying.
• Pale Moon beats Nitro in terms of speed of tab switching and page loading, but the rest of the system is somewhat slower, with longer delays when launching programs and opening folders.
• When using Otter Browser, page rendering speed is quite slow, especially after opening several tabs. The overall responsiveness of the browser also leaves much to be desired. After launching Paint Otter, it stopped responding to our actions for some time, and running applications were very slow to open.
• Another thing about K-Meleon is that page loading and the speed of switching between tabs are very high. “Drawing” starts instantly, other programs also respond quite quickly. The system overall responds well.
• Even though Google Chrome tries to unload the contents of unused tabs from memory (when they are activated, they are reloaded), the active use of the page file makes the work completely uncomfortable. This results in constant page reloading, and in some cases, showing an empty field instead of content. Other programs also “don’t like” the proximity to Chrome, as there are high delays and refusals to respond to user actions.

The latest measurements showed the real state of affairs. If under gentle conditions all products produce similar results, then when the load on the system increases, some are left behind.

Since CPU usage may differ in different situations, we will look at the behavior of browsers in idle mode. The same tabs shown above will be opened.

All patients show good results, that is, they do not load the “stone” during the absence of actions within the program.

Watch video

In this step, we will enable the graphics card by installing the NVIDIA driver. We will measure the number of frames per second using the program in full screen mode and 720p resolution with 50 FPS. The video will be included on YouTube.

As you can see, not all browsers are capable of fully playing video in HD quality. When using them, you will have to reduce the resolution to 480p or even 360p.

Conclusion

During testing, we identified some important characteristics of our current test subjects. Based on the results obtained, we can draw the following conclusions: K-Meleon is the fastest in operation. It saves maximum resources for other tasks, but is not entirely suitable for watching videos in high quality. Nitro, Pale Moon and Otter are approximately equal in memory consumption, but the latter lags far behind in overall responsiveness under increased load. As for Google Chrome, its use on computers similar in configuration to our test one is completely unacceptable. This is expressed in slowdowns and freezes due to the high load on the paging file, and therefore on the hard drive.