Browsers for computers. Fast browser for an old computer - myth or reality
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A browser (as it is also called a web navigator, web browser) is a special program designed to display information from the Internet on a computer or smartphone screen. It's applied software allows you to browse various sites, search necessary information, open web documents, and process requests.
In the era of active competitiveness in the field of browsers, it is quite difficult to surprise the demanding user and satisfy his requests. Therefore, versions of web navigators are constantly updated, optimizing already implemented functions and creating new ones. There are many worthy and convenient programs in the browser category for every taste and user needs, and our article will help you choose the best one.
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| Yes | Free | Yes | 5 | plugin | plugin | |
| Yes | Free | Yes | 5 | plugin | plugin | |
| Yes | Free | Yes | 7 | plugin | plugin | |
| Yes | Free | Yes | 5 | plugin | plugin | |
| Yes | Free | Yes | 5 | plugin | plugin | |
| Yes | Free | Yes | 6 | plugin | plugin | |
| Yes | Free | Yes | 6 | plugin | plugin | |
| Yes | Free | Yes | 7 | plugin | plugin | |
| Yes | Free | Yes | 10 | plugin | plugin | |
| Yes | Free | Yes | 8 | plugin | plugin | |
| Yes | Free | Partially | 10 | plugin | Yes | |
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Browser usage statistics
Stable, reliable and fast web browser. The interface does not "press" the user, it can be modified depending on the user's desires. Optimized Turbo and Speed Dial tools allow you to increase the speed of your browser and quickly access popular pages. Privacy, spelling, downloader, password manager and spam blocker are the main advantages of the web browser. 
A world-famous web browser that creates a comfortable and secure environment for the user to stay on the Internet. The software allows you to create your own file storage database - Google Drive. The possibility of various kinds of cyber-attacks and the penetration of "pests" is minimized. Smart omnibox, personalization, saving web surfing activity, translator, synchronization with mobile devices are the main, but not all, features of the utility. 
World famous web browser, winner of various ratings and tests, "favorite" of many millions of users. The probability of failures is reduced to a minimum percentage, and the flexibility and speed of work in the utility is amazing. The wide functionality of the software will surprise even the most demanding user, since the Fire Fox not only optimized the work of tabs, spelling, history saving, but also made it possible to view PDF files, parental control of visits to "forbidden" sites by children, 3D support and spam blocking. 
A popular web browser, which deservedly takes the fourth place among the software of this category in terms of the number of fans. A convenient search engine allows you to use various search services, the “remembering” function opens previously closed sites, convenient work with tabs and an RSS feed are one of the main advantages of the browser. 
Experimental development of the Opera company, amazing realism of work in the browser and “revival” of tabs when the cursor is touched. The developers have introduced a split-screen function, in which you can work in several tabs at the same time. The pop-up window for watching videos can be moved around the home screen, doing work and watching multimedia in parallel. The tab splash screen visually looks like a website, which makes it easier to find the desired web page. The screenshot taken from the screen can be instantly sent to a social network or by mail to a friend. 
It combines the best "chips" of Opera and Chrome and is popular and in demand among users. Loading pages on a weak network, automatic page translator, Turbo mode are some of the main features of a web navigator. Web surfing through this utility is protected by the work of Kaspersky Lab, and the creators of the software have synchronized its work with Yandex services and work with Yandex disk. 
An easy-to-use browser that works even on older computers. Can accept the interface of popular web browsers Chrome, Opera, Mozilla, Internet Explorer and Yandex.Browser. Cyber attacks through the utility are minimized, since they are not registered in the system due to their “age” of the browser. 
Reliable web browser powerful protection confidential information from the well-known company Komodo. The "portability" function reproduces all settings, saved tabs and history on other computers, and the "invisible" mode will hide your web surfing from prying eyes.
Interface copy Google Chrome. Has its own eponymous search engine, the ability to restore an interrupted session, its own file downloader and work with several social network accounts at the same time.
Compact browser with data loading speed and stability. Built-in useful plugins and a translator will make visiting web pages much easier and save time. A powerful built-in downloader and annoying spam blocker are other advantages of this web navigator. 
An analogue of Internet Explorer, but with additional and optimized work and data protection. Form autocomplete and pop-up blocker make web browsing much easier for the user. With the "G" button, you can set up certain commands for quick access to them. 
It is an analogue of Mozilla, but with reduced functionality and increased performance. Improved the ability to transfer all data from the Fire Fox to the Pale Moon. The start page is full of popular web services, and the bookmark of visited sites allows you to quickly navigate to them. 
A browser specially designed for a 64-bit system. It is a copy of Firefox, but with improved functionality and fast speed web surfing. Built-in players and downloaders allow you to listen and download your favorite content. 
A browser that has its own "cloud" storage and was created on two engines Webkit and Trident. The "isolated window" option allows the user to log into the site under different accounts. The ability to create a screenshot of the entire web browser window or a selected area, create your own “cloud” and various modes for high-quality surfing in the browser are the main features of the utility. 
The browser developed by Mail.Ru allows you to synchronize with social networks and make continuous work on the Internet. The built-in player allows you to create your own playlist of your favorite songs, search and play multimedia content from social networks. 
Interface similar to Internet Explorer and functionally Opera. An important feature of the browser is blocking from annoying spam and flash animations that interfere with normal network operation. Work in the web navigator can be completely switched to the mouse by setting up its gestures with the necessary buttons in advance. "Protected View", "smart" address bar and screen capture are important advantages of this software. 
It will become indispensable for the work of children on the Internet and for parents to control their safe web surfing. Tools "Stalker" and "Advertisement" recognize malicious content and block different kind spam. The browser has its own search of the same name and can open previously viewed sites in the absence of the Internet. 
The interface resembles the Opera browser up to version 15, but has a number of advanced options. When opening a large number tabs, the web navigator automatically groups them by topic, saving space on the work page. The user can leave notes directly on the pages of the site and use the integrated email client. The background of the web browser is automatically colored in the color of the open site. 
A browser similar to Google Chrome but with social media integration. The built-in chat allows you to communicate in social networks while surfing the web, and the sidebar will notify you of new messages from VK, Facebook and Odnoklassniki. The player allows you to listen to music directly from VKontakte. You can import bookmarks from other web browsers. 
Browser with a similar base Mozilla Firefox, but more anonymous and secure surfing the Internet. Traffic analysis is protected, which makes it possible to anonymously visit sites and send messages. IP addresses are encrypted, allowing you to download files on sites limited by the number of IP addresses. This software does not require installation and can be used portable on removable media. 
On duty, I have to maintain several computers of a very respectable age in working order. In terms of hardware, this is not difficult - fortunately, cars released 10 years ago are often assembled (soldered) better than modern consumer goods. But in terms of software, the task is more difficult. The biggest headache for me, it's antiviruses and browsers. Both those and others are very hungry for RAM, which, alas, is in short supply (for the last 1.5 years, the budget for updating computers at school has been tending to zero, and a small upgrade can only be done in the event of a complete failure of the old hardware). Meanwhile, it is highly desirable to update both the antivirus and the browser periodically. We will talk about choosing an antivirus some other time, but today I will try to find the fastest browser for older computers.
For starters, 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 crookedly display 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 fresh Opera behaves on old machines. Alas, as expected, Opera 30 (at the time of my experiment this version was up-to-date) behaved like a typical Chromium browser: it ate a lot of memory, causing the computer to swap a lot (with an IDE disk, heh ...). Things were a little better with other typical chromo-clones (Yandex Browser, Chrome itself). Fresh Firefox 40 behaves relatively decently, but it has obvious problems with rendering the interface (slows down) and memory consumption is still quite high (especially when opening 2-3 tabs). Well, since the browsers known to everyone do not cope with the task, let's try different exotics.
Part 1. Looking for a fast browser in the Chromium camp
I was pleasantly surprised in terms of speed. Being an add-on for Internet Explorer, it works very fast and does not eat up too much memory. But, alas, all this happiness is available only on Windows 7, and the weakest machines I have run Windows XP. No, under Windows XP the mentioned SlimBrowser works fine, but the IE8 engine, alas, is hopelessly outdated and differs little in rendering quality from the same Opera 12-.
Next, I decided to try out "unusual" variations on the Chromium theme. There were three candidates. The first one is . It is positioned by developers as a lightweight 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 easy enough.
The second candidate is Chinese. The younger brother of the well-known Maxthon was born about a year ago. In fact, it is a Chromium cut to the limit. It works really quite fast, but it still consumes a lot of memory. I would advise 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 for older computers, this browser is not suitable.
Finally, the last Chrome in my experiment is an OpenSource project . The developer positions it as a 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 the Otter (namely, this is how it is translated from English title browser) is a good idea to save memory. In terms of speed and functionality, Otter is also pretty good. But, alas, it is still very raw and not stable enough for everyday use. And the interface, to be honest, leaves much to be desired ... In addition, Otter is essentially a theater of one actor (in the sense of a developer) and, alas, there is almost no hope for a speedy bringing the project to a digestible state.
Otter Browser. In the bowels of the tundra Otter in spats ...
Part 2. Looking for a fast browser in the Gecko camp
Well, since the Chrome community cannot please 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 with its own specifics. If Chromium (and Blink) is used to build browsers mainly by various commercial companies (Otter is a rare exception), then Gecko is more popular with 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 like) with different sets of functions are born. Against this background, there are several projects that make optimized builds for certain platforms. Of these, only two focus on speeding up Firefox. The first project is . Within its framework, builds are made that work (according to the assurances of 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 termination of official support for this OS, its release was curtailed. However, until now there is a separate build for weak machines based on Atom, which can be used on any old computers.
In terms of speed, PaleMoon was very pleased - 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 eats a little more memory). The interface, by the way, is drawn noticeably faster than that of the ancestor in the face of FF (affects sawn Australis). True, to enhance the convenience of the “lunar” browser, you will have to finish a little (in particular, and enable it in the settings). In general, the impressions of this browser are the most pleasant. Among other things, PaleMoon supports extensions from FireFox, which means that it will be quite simple to expand its functionality.
Finally, the last contender for the title of "the fastest browser for old computers" is the . This project, which appeared at the dawn of the popularity of Firefox, was dormant for many years and only recently began to revive. In essence, this is a very distant relative of Firefox, which took only the Gecko engine from its ancestor. Due to the distance of kinship, K-Meleon does not support extensions from the original Firefox and does not inherit all of its problems (speed, in particular). As a result, we have a very smart and quite functional browser. In terms of speed, today K-Meleon is the leader. Only the clumsy interface and overloading with not all the necessary functions prevent it from being unambiguously recommended for use.
K-Meleon 74. The fastest browser…
As a conclusion. Based on the results of multi-day testing (including on real users), I personally chose PaleMoon (more precisely, on its assembly for Atom). In conditions of severe lack of RAM, it works noticeably faster than all other browsers. On computers with 512 MB of RAM top scores in terms of memory consumption, K-Meleon showed, however, in almost 100% of cases, users complain about its inconvenient interface (read - an 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 speed 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 keep making PaleMoon builds that work on older computers. Here, in particular, (you need to download the file mypal-28.3.1.win32.installer.exe).
Category contains free programs for surfing the world wide web and browsing the web. Free browsers are an important part of the arsenal of any Internet user. And it is here that you can find and download a web browser that you will like.
Chromium is free and open source software that guarantees easy, comfortable and fast Internet access and is a favorable platform for web applications. Download Chromium latest version for Windows 7 and 8 you can follow the link below. It is worth noting that this software product served as the basis for the creation of well-known browsers, such as Google Chrome or ...
Opera is one of the most popular internet browsers. Opera in Russian is being developed for personal computers and mobile devices. Features of this browser: page zoom, mouse gestures and an integrated download manager. Opera's security features include built-in phishing and malware protection. malware and the ability to delete HTTP cookies, clear the history...
Tor Browser Bundle is a program that ensures the privacy of its owners. The complete package of the program, thanks to volunteers on all continents, encrypts traffic and routing, enabling individual users to maintain anonymity of their movements on the network. So Tor allows you to hide the real location of the user and blocks monitoring of his Internet connection ...
Maxthon Cloud Browser is a modern universal multifunctional web browser aimed at a wide range of users. It provides a huge package of tools for fast and comfortable Internet surfing and contains a built-in cloud service in its arsenal. Thanks to the use of two engines in the work of Maxton 4, the activation of cloud services, high-quality...
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Pale Moon - Internet browser, whose name translates as "pale moon", was developed on the basis of the well-known Mozilla Firefox. The program is very popular among both Windows users and Linux fans. There are also versions developed for Android and OS X. The main task that the Pal Moon developers have set for themselves is to create ...
With the development of web technologies, content displayed using a browser is becoming more and more "heavy". The video bitrate is increasing, caching and data storage requires everything more space, scripts running on user machines consume a lot of CPU time. Browser developers keep up with trends and try to invest in their products to support all new trends. This leads to the fact that the latest versions of popular browsers put forward increased requirements for 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 the most voracious browser at the time of writing. In the process, we will look at the speed of startup and operation, RAM and CPU usage, and also find out if there are enough resources left to perform other tasks. Since Chrome provides extensions, we will test both with them and without them.
It is worth noting that some results may differ from those that you get by conducting such testing. This applies to those parameters that depend on the speed of the Internet, in particular, page loading.
Test configuration
For the test, we took really weak computer. The initial parameters are:
About browsers
Let's briefly talk about the browsers participating in today's testing - about the engines, features and more.
Maxthon Nitro
This browser was created by the Chinese company Maxthon International Limited based on the Blink engine - a redesigned WebKit for . Supports everything Operating Systems including mobile ones.
Pale Moon
This member 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 used by . 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 truncated functionality. This move creators allowed to minimize resource consumption and increase speed.
Launch speed
Let's start from the beginning - we will measure the time during which the browser starts up completely, that is, you can already open pages, make settings, and so on. The goal is to determine which of the patients quickly comes to a state of combat readiness. We will use google.com as the start page. We will take measurements until we can enter text into the search bar.
- Maxthon Nitro - 10 to 6 seconds;
- Pale Moon - 6 to 3 seconds;
- Otter Browser - 9 to 6 seconds;
- K-Meleon - from 4 to 2 seconds;
- Google Chrome (extensions disabled) - 5 to 3 seconds. With extensions (, Browsec, ePN CashBack) - 11 seconds.
As we can see, all browsers quickly open their window on the desktop and show that they are ready to 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 test subject, having previously opened three identical pages - Yandex (main page), YouTube and the site. Measurements will be made after some waiting.
Let's run a video on YouTube at 480p resolution and see how much the situation changes.
Now let's complicate the task by simulating a real working 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 the page loading speed. The results will be recorded based on subjective feelings.
- Maxthon Nitro experiences slight delays in switching between browser tabs and when opening programs that are already running. The same thing happens when viewing the contents of folders. In general, quite a working behavior of the OS with small lags. The page loading speed is not annoying.
- Pale Moon beats Nitro in terms of tab switching and page loading speed, but the rest of the system is somewhat slower, with long delays when launching programs and opening folders.
- When using Otter Browser, page rendering speed is quite slow, especially after opening multiple tabs. The overall responsiveness of the browser also leaves much to be desired. After starting Paint Otter, for some time it stopped responding to our actions, and running applications opened very “tight”.
- Another thing K-Meleon - loading pages and switching between tabs is very high. "Risovalka" starts instantly, other programs also respond quickly enough. The system as a whole responds well.
- Even though Google Chrome tries to unload the contents of unused tabs from memory (reloading them when they are activated), the active use of the swap file makes the work completely uncomfortable. This is expressed in the constant reloading of pages, and in some cases in the demonstration of an empty field instead of content. Other programs also "do not like" the neighborhood with Chrome, as there are high delays and refusals to respond to user actions.
Recent measurements have shown the real state of affairs. If in gentle conditions all products give similar results, then with an increase in the load on the system, some were overboard.
Because in different situations cpu usage may vary, we'll look at the behavior of browsers in idle mode. The same tabs as above will be opened.
All patients show nice results, that is, they do not load the "stone" during the absence of actions within the program.
Video viewing
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 able to fully play videos 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 features our today's test subjects. Based on the results obtained, it is possible to following conclusions: The fastest in operation is K-Meleon. It also saves maximum resources for other tasks, but is not entirely suitable for watching videos in high quality. Nitro, Pale Moon and Otter are about equal in terms of 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 brakes and freezes due to the high load on the paging file, and hence on the hard drive.
A browser is a piece of software that is essential in every computer. You can choose and download a browser for Windows 7, 8, 10 for free on our website.
We have collected the most popular latest Russian browser versions of 2018.
Why is it needed? Firstly, it is designed to work on the Internet (and this is necessary everywhere these days). It opens web pages and all kinds of web documents. Secondly, the browser also comes to the rescue in managing the machine, making it easy to view computer files and their directories. Regarding the management of web applications - also to the browser.
To date, browsers for Windows - a truly great variety. You can download the best browsers for Windows from our website. And they differ not only in the shortcut that you see on the desktop (although it’s a sin to complain here, the developers tried to make each one individual and not like the others). all sorts of additional functions, built-in extensions that give the user all the new features and make life easier on the network. One gets the feeling that developers from different companies are just competing with each other. And, perhaps, somewhere it is. The competition among browsers is serious, so you have to puzzle over how to stand out so that users choose your product. You can download several browsers and try them out, leaving the most convenient for you.
Nevertheless, if we discard all the additional "goodies", the browsers look very similar. Even despite the fact that they were created using different engines. This is explained international standards followed by all developers. They do this not out of hopelessness (no one twists their arms and does not force them to work ONLY like that). However, uniform requirements make it possible to ensure that all information will be displayed correctly in the browser, and the user will not want to put the mixer in his eyes when he sees the open page.
Browsers are distributed for free, they don’t take up much space, they don’t conflict with each other (unless everyone wants to be the “Default Browser” without fail). So it is not uncommon for several such programs to be installed on one computer at once, according to the principle “each is good in something of his own.” This option is also convenient when several users work on the same machine at once - each has its own browser, and there are no problems with saving tabs, bookmarks and passwords.
So you can start downloading from our site right now as many browsers as you need, and those that you like. If it suddenly turns out that you made a mistake, and the browser of your dreams is not hidden behind the “beautiful label”, you can always replace it with another one.