Open Source Browsers

Currently there are 3 browsers installed on my PC, Firefox, Google Chrome, and Internet Explorer (IE), the latter of which I despise, as its' mission in life is to be my nemesis. All 3 are required for my job, and I use each of them daily. Logging into our VPN requires IE, from there the client’s link is available, once clicked, a Citrix network login environment loads. After logging into Citrix, IE window containing 4 choices for launching various apps opens. When one of these options are chosen, a Firefox window is opened with a blank white page containing a link to the Java run loader which opens the actual production interface. I use Chrome to access our CrowdHub community, Blackboard meetings/training sessions, tech chat room, and the scheduling and KPI report sites. Alternately, I can use Firefox to access these as well. The later 3 being a personal preference not set by VPN requirements. I'm 99% sure that that the company that provides access to our client platforms, like my college, APUS, uses a combination of closed source and open source software solutions.

Getting back to the subject of this post; Google Chrome and Firefox are both “open source” browsers that I really like. However, due mostly to habit I guess, I primarily use Chrome for everyday browsing, email, social networks, and courses.

I imagine, if I took the time to set everything set up to my liking, I would use Firefox as my preferred browser. And, I have been meaning to do just that for awhile now. One thing I am not sure about is, although one can access Gmail from any browser, I am not sure it would work as seamlessly, with all the features, as it does from the Chrome browser. I also dread setting up all my passwords and bookmarks. The main reason I am thinking of switching to Firefox, is my escalating annoyance with the countless Chrome processes running in task manager, sapping my PC's resources. This was especially prevalent on my previous PC which had only 4 GB of RAM. Not many people realize, whenever a new tab is opened, Chrome treats it somewhat like a new instance of the exe program, hence opening another process. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had 10+ Chrome processes, that I’ve had to shut down individually, in order to unfreeze my computer rather than completely shutting it down, and risk losing something important.

As far as downloading and installing. I have found that both Chrome and Firefox have always downloaded very quickly and installed practically by themselves, as well as keeping updates simple. The process for these and installing add-on's and extensions is "usually", quick and easy.

I have also used Chromium and Tor in the past. Simply put, Chromium in my opinion, is just lightweight and faster version of Chrome. It is easy to download, install, sign-in and sync everything from your previous Chrome settings. It’s actually kind of adorable, like Chrome’s little sister or brother. Although, I don’t understand all the inner workings of Tor, I find the aspect of privacy it provides very appealing. I don't know about you, but I can easily get caught up in the mild paranoia of "THEM WATCHING" LOL, especially after seeing the documentary, Citizenfour and the later released movie, Snowden, In a perfect world, I believe that everyone should use Tor all the time. However, it is very hard to get acclimated and accustomed to, as well as impractical, if not completely impossible to use for certain work and school related environments, social media sites, email clients, etc.

For a great article on open source browser choices see Techmints: 

11 Best Open Source Web Browsers I Discovered for Linux in 2016.