Introduction
Lightweight browsers are an alternative to heavyweight or mega browsers because many people need a browser that will run on older systems or simply one with fewer features.
The lightweight browsers offer a large variety of alternatives from the traditional heavyweight browsers. This review highlights the key features of each lightweight browser and specify if the browser is good for older systems or has unique functions. Browsers that have not been maintained by the developer for 12 months or longer will not be considered. All the reviewed browsers will have the essential features of a quality browser including active security, web search, privacy viewing, pop-up blocking, download management, plug-in and extension support.
This page covers Lightweight Browsers. Read also our reviews on Mega Browsers and Specialised Browsers.
Rated Products
Platforms/Download: Windows (Desktop) |
Version reviewed: n/a
Gizmos Freeware
Our Rating: 3.5/5 |
Read more...
Platforms/Download: Linux | Mac OS | Windows (Desktop) |
Version reviewed: n/a
Gizmos Freeware
Our Rating: 3/5 |
Read more...
Platforms/Download: Windows (Desktop) |
Version reviewed: n/a
Gizmos Freeware
Our Rating: 3/5 |
Read more...
Platforms/Download: Windows (Desktop) |
Version reviewed: n/a
Gizmos Freeware
Our Rating: 3/5 |
Read more...
Platforms/Download: Windows (Desktop) |
Version reviewed: n/a
Gizmos Freeware
Our Rating: 3/5 |
Read more...
Related Products and Links
You might want to check out these articles too:
- Best Free Mega Web Browser
- Best Free Specialised Web Browsers
- Best Free Web Browser for Android
- Best Free Web Browser for iOS
- Best Free Browser Protection Utility
- Best Internet Safety Check Freeware
Editor
This software category is in need of an editor. If you would like to give something back to the freeware community by taking it over, check out this page for more details. You can then contact us from that page or by clicking here.
You are welcome to join the discussion in our web and networking forum.
Back to the top of the article
Comments
Does Comodo IceDragon download is in CNET? My Bluhell Firewall blocked a site that host the file from CNET, thus, I did not risk my pc for that. Is there any way to download IceDragon aside from CNET?
Yes, the link leads to Comodo website but the download link leads to CNET. Thank you for the Softpedia link, and the other link to know about bundled softwares. I guess I will trust the one that is being hosted at Softpedia.
Thank you all. :)
The hyperlink in the review directs you to Comodo. The problem is the download link on Comodo's site redirects you to Download.com (AKA Cnet).
[Suggestion]
Change the hyperlink in the review to http://www.softpedia.com/get/Internet/Browsers/Comodo-IceDragon.shtml
For what it's worth, I've always used the CNet page to get Ice Dragon and so far it's always been a clean file with nothing bundled and no wrapped installer.
The Major Geeks link (http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/comodo_icedragon.html) downloads directly from Comodo but as far as I can tell it's exactly the same file.
For weak netbooks the best REALLY lightweight brs are QtWeb 3.8.5 and QupZilla, so was SeaMonkey 2.0.14 (but now this version is a little old). All three have portable versions.
Just tried K-Meleon, uninstalled it right away. I did not like it's functions or performance at all. And no (native or otherwise) adblocker.
Slimbrowser crashes all the time.
It displays this message on the tab:
This browser session has crashed for some reason. You can choose from the following two options:
•Open the same web page again.
•Open the same web page in compatibility view.
It uses as it's default in text search this page: http://search.flashpeak.com/?sbSource=searchbtn (their own web site)
which is a customized file: "Google (custom).qseg" None of the other search engines that are used by in page context are customized (wiki, youtube et al.)I'm not sure where to get a standard google qseg file and I didn't feel like editing in notepad.
I uninstalled slimbrowser right away.
Will add that it does have a good native ad blocker with a good list.
Thanks!
Vote in K-Meleon...
I am using an old DELL Dimension 4300 with 256 megs of RAM. I am a Firefox fan and was using the latest ver 26. But I noticed how slow the computer became after opening FF. It was really using up the memory so I decided to try a lightweight browser. Came here to Gizmo's for a lightweight browser. Saw that K-Meleon was top rated so I downloaded and installed it. I liked it 's appearance and the way it handled bookmarks. Started using it. But the more I used it, the more problems I encountered. A lot of web pages didn't load right making a jumbled mess. Then I kept getting script error messages all the time. Pages wouldn't load until I stopped script. After disabling JAVA the script errors went away BUT web pages wouldn't load because of that. I searched the K-Meleon forums and there were no answers. Support was very poor I found. Then I missed a bunch of addons that FF had. The list goes on and on. All this with a new install of XP. Just a very bad experience with K-Meleon. Just a terrible browser. I'm going to try a few of the other lightweights.
After reading the comments here and at raymond.cc about GreenBrowser, I went to the MoreQuick website. At the bottom of the product page is an Award section with logos from eleven websites, most of which are unfamiliar to me. For one of those websites, the logo says simply "editor's pick"; but for each of the others there is a 5-star award.
I clicked on the Softpedia logo to find that Softpedia editor's rating is actually 3.5, not 5, for the current version; the 5-star rating was from 2006. Next, I found that 4 of the other "awarding" websites have been detected by some blacklist engines.
Similarly, I looked at the Awards page from Maxthon.com, and found that 10 of their 33 "awarding" websites have been detected by some blacklist engines.
So, from those two products, that's one-third of the "awarding" websites detected by some blacklist engines. Now I'm interested in the opinions of others, because this makes me wonder if it's common for legitimate developers to link to possibly unsafe "awarding" websites (perhaps just an oversight due to overzealous marketing on their part), or if this shows an ethics problem with developers who do this.
That's a great story, I'd not heard of that before :-D
I did have a look at the Maxthon awards page (Maxthon having been my secondary browser for about a year now) and I found an award from a site that WoT flags as red. On the other hand when I ran the URL through Virus Total it scored 1/51 with WoT being the only one that flagged it.
I did notice that there's a "Gizmo's Top Picks - Product of the Year" award which no longer seems to exist, it just links to a "OOPs - We can't find that page" notice.
Other awards state the year, although there are a lot I've never heard of.
I'll check them all out more closely sometime and probably raise it on the forum to see if they have anything to say about it.
I'm wondering about Java and Flash capabilities of the lightweight browsers. I'm using FF 21 and stuck with flash 10.3 since flash 11 makes FF bug. I'm using win XP on an Intel Dual core 4300 1.8 Ghz with 2 GB of Ram.
For the Avant Browser the web site claims to have the lowest memory usage but according to http://www.raymond.cc/blog/battle-of-the-browsers-in-cpu-and-memory-usag... they have the worst.
Pages