A good web browser for netbooks?

[Dark Aspect]

Firefox seemed slow on my Asus EeePC 1001P with Windows XP and Arch/Gnome so I reinstalled arch with a minimal desktop. Now, with openbox+xcompmgr+bmpanel Firefox still seems slow. I don't get it, my EeePC can handle some impressive applications but yet Firefox is a dog.

Any suggestions on a firefox replacement? I wanna be able to run something similar to adblock plus and I was thinking SeaMonkey might work. Moderators, feel free to modify the poll as I only added the web browsers that I am aware of.

[silkworm2.5]

Google Chrome/Chromium because it is small, fast, and takes up little screen space.

[aysiu]

Firefox is still my favorite browser after all these years of trying Konqueror, Epiphany, Opera, etc.

But if you find Firefox slow, and you're using a netbook, I'd highly recommend Google Chrome. Instead of a static bottom status bar, it just shows you relevant information at the bottom of the screen if you need to see it (if you're hovering over a link or downloading a file). And the tabs are flush with the window buttons. So it doesn't use as much of the vertical screen real estate.

Despite occasional freeze-ups mid-page-load, it is a pretty speedy browser. If you have a lot of tabs open, it may chew up a bit of RAM, though, since every tab is its own Chrome process.

[jrothwell97]

Seamonkey is basically Fx with an e-mail client attached, in a similar vein to the Mozilla Suite of ye olden days.

If it's speed you're looking for, you'll want a WebKit-based browser such as Chrome or Epiphany. (The former is way more stable and capable, though.)

[leef]

Fennec might be a good option, it was pretty buggy last time I tried it (which was a long time ago) but it was quite fast. to be honest though, you might be best off with chrome since it loads JavaScript faster than the other browsers, listed.

[Dark Aspect]

Thats kinda what I thought, does Google Chrome have a way to fight ads?

[chessnerd]

Chrome has Ad-Block Plus.

Not sure about SeaMonkey, as I've never used it.

Opera has a similar feature where you edit a file called urlfilter.ini and then it blocks all the sites placed there. There are pre-built lists out there that you can just drop into the folder. It's a bit more roundabout, but it works the same.

I prefer Opera, so I would recommend at least trying that, but if that doesn't work go with Chrome.

[jerenept]

Midori or Epiphany ;)

[Joe of loath]

Midori or Epiphany ;)

Epiphany is essentially a dumbed down FF. +1 on midori though, great browser! Probably the fastest I've ever used.

[dragos240]

Chromium is great, fast, light, uses the screen very efficiently. Just awesome.

[geet89]

chromiun is the most light one out there , but my personal favourite is firefox FTW

[speedwell68]

Swiftfox, Chromium and Midori in that order of preference.

[libssd]

Chrome is typical Google design, as minimal as required to do the job, but highly functional. It's fast, and makes more efficient use of limited screen space than any other browser I have used.

There are a growing number of extensions to Chrome, but beware that some may be resource hogs. I couldn't understand why my CPU pegged at 100% for a minute or more, and memory usage shot up to 750gb every time I started Chrome. I started disabling extensions one by one, and found that Better Facebook Fixer was the culprit.

Occasionally I have to start FF for a Javascript problem or, on the Windows side of my Acer, MSIE in order to download Windows security updates, since Microsoft doesn't like to deal with other browsers. But, they both feel like slugs after using Chrome.

[morrcahn]

I would use Seamonkey. Simple, fast, never crashes, and yes it has Ad-Block Plus.

[Dharmachakra]

Epiphany is essentially a dumbed down FF.

Disregard this bit.

Anyways, I'd recommend Chromium. I used it for all the reasons aysiu listed.

[Dark Aspect]

I am using google chromium now and it works great on small screens, thanks for the suggestions. I would use Midori but I didn't really like the GUI out of opinion.

[Helkaluin]

One thing to keep in mind: the ad-block plug-in in Chromium/Google Chrome doesn't actually stop the elements being loaded: it simply hides them. Loading wise it doesn't actually speed things up as much as the Firefox addon.

To really block ads with a speed advantage in Chromium/Chrome (along with some other benefits) I'd suggest you look into a customised hosts file: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=241460#2

[Dark Aspect]

One thing to keep in mind: the ad-block plug-in in Chromium/Google Chrome doesn't actually stop the elements being loaded: it simply hides them. Loading wise it doesn't actually speed things up as much as the Firefox addon.

To really block ads with a speed advantage in Chromium/Chrome (along with some other benefits) I'd suggest you look into a customised hosts file: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=241460#2

Thank you, I was going to ask but I figured I would find out how to get the speed advantage on my own since I have no life.