These are my reviews for some browsers. I do not have the ability to do what these fine people do and thank them for the time and effort for what they do. I have spent from 5 days up to 2 years with each one of these browsers besides seamonkey and K-Meleon CCFME. These are my reviews from the way I see them take it for what its worth. I seen in the one thread someone said about making reviews for a few that were listed. I couldn't review those because I haven't used them so I am reviewing what I have used. I am running an older slower computer on dialup so these may mean little to people on computers with a bunch of RAM and Broadband internet. So here we go onto the reviews:



Crazybrowser
http://www.crazybrowser.com

Is built on IE. Loads really fast. It is the fastest of the browsers that I have used including k-meleon. Only plugin that comes with it is a kill flash plugin. I have search for others but there don't appear to be any. It comes standard with a popup blocker and a content filter that you can import into but it doesn't recognize my Ad Block Plus(ABP) list correctly. A nice feature on the tabs is a bar that shows you how much of the page has loaded. That comes in handy if you like to wait for a page to load before you read it. So if you have a few tabs you can see which page has fully loaded or how far it has loaded without going to the tab. Also uses the least amount of resources.

OffByOne Browser
http://www.OffByOne.com

Is built on IE. Loads really fast. This a neat little browser if you don't want anything besides the web. It is a no frills tiny browser that isn't even installed on your computer. So that means when you close it so does your history though you can save favorites I only used this a few times but liked it for what I used it for. You can turn of scripts and images if you like. You have to click on a button to put in a url to go to. Its something like if you click on the search button in k-meleon and that search box pop up. There is also tabbed browsing. Technically it is the fastest and lightest resources using browser but I don't categorize it as something you would would want to use as a default browser so this is a reason I don't count is as such. But if you are in a hurry and need to check something real fast this one is nice.

Firefox
http://www.mozilla.com

Everyone here has probably used it I am just mentioning it because I have it installed like most of you probably still do. I only use it for one site anymore because the site was setup for Firefox and doesn't load with IE based browsers and K-meleon doesn't show the page right. I would still use it as my main browser if it didn't take forever to load and become a resource hog after awhile. Thats whats sad about it is I love it but can't use it right. It doesn't slow down but makes my computer slow down. With all the addon's you can get for everything and I mean everything it has to be the best when it comes to that. But with those addon's you pay a price with it loading slower and using even more resources. Most people hate the awesome bar I love it and wish k-meleon had it. If I had a fast computer this would probably be my favorite but sadly it isn't.

Seamonkey

I don't have the link I downloaded it and installed it. When I went to extensions to download ABP and it took forever to load I just went ahead and uninstalled it. That was 5 minutes after I installed it lol. So this isn't a review just being honest about it because I am reviewing every browser I use or have used. I could have given it more time but it didn't feel or act different then FF so I didn't wanna keep it.

K-Meleon

I don't think I need to link it for anyone lol. When I got tired of FireFox (FF) taking forever to load and eventually slowing down. I searched and this browser came up. I came here and read a little bit in the forums and the mainpage and decided to download it because people said it loads and runs faster because it operates a little differently then FF. Its amazing to me how this browser isn't as known as FF it runs really fast on my computer and uses 1/3 of the resources as FF. With it being based on arguably the most secure engine and to have the speed that it does only second to crazybrowser out of the ones I used its a keeper. I am on dialup and hate when ads on pages load and that slows it down so to have the luxury of having ABP and NoScript is great. All the addons for FF are great but these are two of them that I think are must haves and for them to be converted for k-meleon is great. Only things I wish were different was the skinning of it. Not how to do it but the actual skins. Its a little plain and even if you make your own the feel of it is the same. I gladly give up the frills if it stays the way it is speed wise and load time. Its easy to turn off alot of stuff you don't like just by going to tools and privacy to make it even quicker. Since 1.5 the searchbar doesn't open in a new tab only in a new window or in your current window. From what I have read that isn't KM's fault the searchbar just needs to be updated for it by whoever made it.








Some browsers with potential that aren't final versions:

Orca Browser
http://www.avantbrowser.com/release/alpha3/obeta.exe

This is a beautiful looking browser I don't like the light background as much because the buttons are light and tend to blend in but it still looks great. Looks aren't the only thing it loads faster then Firefox and K-Meleon(KM) the only reason why it might load faster then K-meleon is because of the two addons I have for KM and that this isn't a final version yet. Once it loads it isn't faster then KM or the IE based browser I reviewed earlier. It uses alot of buttons that in KM you'd have to click on tools to see. A neat thing is when you are loading a page a yellow bar is behind the url simulating the progress of the page load. The few negatives are it lets you download FF addons but when you restart they are not installed. I hope they either get that fixed or take out the ability to download the extensions from FF site to begin with. If they did work right out of the box and this gets a final release the people that wish they had FF2 back instead of FF3 this would be a great alternative because it looks better and is a little faster.


K-Meleon CCFME

This is still in beta stage. I have just used this in the past couple of days so its not as great a review but I hope it gives you an idea incase ypu wamt to test it. From what I have used and how much it resembles the regular KM in its ability if it ever goes final I would probably switch over from KM because it loads fast and the pages run as fast as they do on KM. It looks like a tighter smaller version of KM. I believe its on a newer gecko engine and is stripped down from what little I have read here on the forum. The styling is pretty good. Not as good looking as Orca or as detailed as orca but the tradeoff of looks over speed wouldn't matter. When I first loaded it and seen the my12 page. Shows 12 sites that you place there so when it starts up you can click on one and go to that page. It even has a screengrab of the pages you have there. So you can click on the home button and be able to go to any of those twelve so you don't even got to type the address. That is neat. There are probably some others out there that have that feature but I haven't heard of them. I said this with nearly every browser but I wish it had the ability to use ABP. It has a built in ad filter but lacks an import feature and likely it wouldn't work the way I would want it to. It doesn't have all the privacy options that KM has like turn off background images and no frames. Most people don't surf that way but I do to speed things up even more adn I don't mind a dull looking page. Again it is not done but if it was a final version and had ABP this is the browser I would be using.


Thanks for reading and I hope I gave some of you an idea about some of those that maybe you didn't already know about.

Good job, reeko124!

A point-of-view take on some of the most interesting browsers out there... I didn't know Crazybrowser, but I have big expectations on Orca. Cool.

The first time I saw Crazybrowser was when I was at a Business Center in a Moscow hotel, using their computer to check email. Looked like IE but ran faster than IE.

thank you reeko for your very good and non-bias review.
i'd like to mention something, offby1 is not built on ie.. it's not an ieshell by any means; it uses it's own simple rendering engine based on html 3.2.

Oh I am sorry disrupted I thought that I read it was. Thats my fault I should have checked again to make sure. I wonder with it being built on html 3.2 if it is pretty secure or not. I mean thats a nice little browser to have if you are in a hurry like I said and if it is pretty secure that makes it better for that.

I tried to stay non-bias but at the same time this is a KM forum and wanted to compare them to KM is that ok?

Thanks again for reading guys

TheWorld browser in my experience is one of the best on the ie shell.
Particularly for speed. I swapped to it from Maxthon.

Autodetect O/S installer download
http://www.ioage.com/en/index.htm

All - inc stand alone zip versions
http://www.ioage.com/en/download.htm

K-meleon CCF is my K-M of choice.

This is what occurs to me now more than a review. I've been using various versions for three years and whist K-m is much more fun to configure, this is a good smooth browser to operate.

Many ie shell browser plugins are interchangeable so maybe try other ones with Crazybrowser reeko124. I've found that a good number of Maxthon plugins work in TW {some work, some don't, some require configuring in Maxthon first and then copying over to the TW plugin folder } most likley you will have more success with Maxthon 1x series plugins than 2x series http://forum.maxthon.com/viewthread.php?tid=62333

In TW I like the intelligent search from the address bar, plus it allows drag & drop of selected text to open in search engine with a flick of the mouse which is very handy.

Indispensable for me are Hotkeys to launch single urls or groups of urls from one key. TW series 1x was better for this than current 2 series as the number of url hotkeys was not restricted. This is what caused me to adapt, first Fred's 0.9 K-M versions and then Hao's CCFME versions to open urls from around 33 different hotkey combinations - with a lot of help along the way.

Custom configurable hotkeys for all menu functions is a very good feature.
Save entire webpage as an image is good for tutorials, Edit web page facility is vg for removing ads and crap before saving page.
One click media saver with hotkey options to save directly as is or rename. External downloader option,

A very good menu setup for quickly switching proxies, plus can import entire huge proxy lists from txt.


I think it has a good balance - not too many inbuilt features to make it bloated, but enough not to require too many plugins which can also slow a browser down.

The toolbar configuration system needs greatly improving as does the english language support. There is an english forum but not much goes on there, There are many more plugins and skins on the chinese forum but language puts a lot of them beyond me.



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 08/27/2008 12:14AM by Arrow.

I haven't really used any of the IE based browsers after I got k-meleon. Like you mentioned plugins just slow down already slow programs even more. I would like to use KM CCF but I like my ad blocker plus to much and it isn't made for that. I have been testing Orca Browser more and I am beginning to like it a whole lot. The only two problem is the coloring of it makes my eyes hurt. You can change the colors but the buttons stay the same and they are real light in color. They should disable it from downloading any FF extensions if they won't work on it to begin with. I will keep testing off and on and add anything else I find.

I've used both platforms in tandem for years. I usually have K-M and TW open.

Can you change the buttons using ccs ?
I tried Orca ages ago when it first came out so i can't remember what it has and doesn't have.

ps I just remembered, It might sound silly but once I found I could close tabs using right click in both ccfme and Theworld, then using middleclick ctrl+w, aiming at a close button or double click seemd like something from the stone-age



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/27/2008 01:07AM by Arrow.

I once tried Cazy browser but had to let it go as the font was so small my old eyes couldn't read it even with reading glasses. And I couldn't figure out how to change the font size. But it did seem to load pages rather fast.

Charlie

~~If it ain't broke, why screw it up?~~

Thanx, reeko. What about new Opera? Is it any good?

ob1 is pretty secure and supports ssl connections.. the problem is; you won't find many sites where security is much needed(like banking, online stores etc) that don't rely heavily on javascripts or web 2.0 apps and unfortunately those will not work on ob1

I have never used Opera you might want to ask someone else but from the reviews I seen people say it is like firefox in the startup and running speed. Thats why I didn't try it. I am always trying to find something that uses lower resources, has a quicker start, and loads pages faster. K-Meleon is the best at what I want currently but I still try out other browsers if they catch my intrest. I joined the forums for the Orca Browser and when they said it is done it will be able to use all FireFox addons. Who knows how long that will be. Maybe someone else can offer a review for Opera for us. I might download and check out a couple of the ones that I believe you provided and asked for reviews.

i like opera, it's quite nice.. but i get the amateurish feel with it, not that it's an amateur browser but it makes me feel like an amateur.. in the sense it's the opposite of kmeleon where you control everything when in opera you control very little. nonetheless it's an outstanding browser and the presto engine is truely fast, quite secure and very responsive.

it's much faster than firepox at startup, there's no comparison.

i didn't like the latest releases much when it comes to interface, i preferred the pre 9.0 simple ui.

in the end, it's a great product for those who don't care to fiddle.

Quote
disrupted(unlogged)
i like opera, it's quite nice..

I too have Opera 9, though I rarely use it any more. It does seem to render images a bit faster that others. But more often than not, KM's v. 1.5.0 loads everything so fast on my discount dialup connection that AFAI can tell it's second only to broadband, and I'm conparing it to my 'neighbor's' Roadrunner. Even though some may think I'm exagerating, 1.5.0 is really fast. If it were a woman I'd prabably be drooling. The Dev's really took the limits to the sky with this one the way I see it.

Charlie

~~If it ain't broke, why screw it up?~~

I use dialup to and I gree with you that it loads everything real fast. Of course downloads aren't fast but that has nothing to do with the browser. KM has been starting up slower the past few days tho. Its still ok but increasingly getting slower like over 45 seconds

reeko, 45 seconds is way too much and unacceptable.. even on very slow computers, i;ve tested 1.5 on a p3 1.2 with only 512 mb ram,using all my settings and plugins from my main pc, it takes no more than 4 seconds to fire-up from cold, on p4 2.6 it takes less than 2 seconds.. so if your computer is anywhere within that range.. then there's something definitely wrong with your installation.. try checking if some plugins are causing any problems, though i doubt that would cause a 45 seconds delay!.. i'd also check for viruses.

Has somebody tested how slower is K-Meleon if it is running from USB stick compared to K-meleon which is running from desktop?

45 = too slow - unless there are problems with a slow PC, or when other software steels PC power ( can be anything: started programs, services, malware: spies... )

I have: ca. 10 seconds a Pentium III 500 mhz with 192 (64&128) Ram on Windows ME = for cold start for resource:///locales/de-DE/readme.html.

On Windows XP it is IMHO slower (on Pe500) - & @ Vista all is slowest. Vista came pre-installed on another much faster PC. On that PC Amilo pa2510. & I compared XP and Vista & decided use the old XP from my brocken Gericon Webgine laptop.

K-Meleon on USB depends on USB I or USB II speed - here with old Pentium500 and USB I - 1.5 started after a little more than 20 seconds for loading the same local file (I messure startup for local files else I may end to messure conection speed for loading an exeternal resource). Other USB I can be slower.

Warm start: Restarting a K-Meleon is much faster since it reuses system libraries that the OS does not care to unload after use. Faster startup also seems to result when other programs have use the libraries.

Cold start = starting K-Meleon after new boot & for the first time.
Warm start = starting K-Meleon another time after it was shut down & no new boot.

Correction - the K-Meleon 1.5 for XP started slightly faster today.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/28/2008 05:55PM by guenter.

Reeko, why is crazybrowser faster than K-meleon?

i've also noticed something, some adblockplus subscriptions will dramatically slow down kmeleon's launch especially that one called malware domains.. and a very big HOSTS file may also cause a delay.

panzer, any ie shell browser will start faster than any other non-ie browser.. because most (if not all) the dlls it uses have already been loaded with windows.

I don't know why but an IE based browser loads 2-6 seconds after I click on it. Gecko based like Firefox and K-Meleon take forever and always have. 30 seconds to a minute everytime no quicker then that sadly. I downloaded opera last night and it only take 15-20 seconds to load. Once they are open they are ok and are fast but until they do its a pain lol. I have no spyware or adware or any other programs running. It just doesn't load faster at all. Thought it might be my ABP but that doesn't appear to be it.

what are the specs of your computer? if it's old then maybe you should try using the kmeleon loader(add to startup).. it will make kmeleon launch almost instantly, it will however use some of your ram.

395mhz and 256mb ram.Thats what I got it isn't much but this was a go between computer(friends used) until I got a new one but have had it for awhile now. Even with the loader it still takes some time. I am not the only one that has this problem people with newer and faster computers have the same problem I do at a few forums I found. There doesn't seem to be any solution but its ok. I can turn on k-meleon and leave the room do something and come back in and it will be up. I am gonna clean out ABP to see if that fixes it but I had that problem before I ever installed it on firefox.

EDIT: My win98 is 800mhz and has 56mb ram and loads it faster lol. I know win98 is less ram intensive but its amazing to me how well it runs and handles FF3 lol. Yes it runs on Win98 if you know what to do or someone smarter then you tells you how to do it lol lol



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/29/2008 09:03AM by reeko124.

Good to see some variety and review - thanks for starting this thread, reeko'

Another IE frontend that may interest is the Sleipnir - they offer some extensions and skins that are workable, also lots of userscripts on the native forums (the English forum was riddled with pr0nspam the last time I looked ick ). It offers a 'gecko plugin' to switch trident/gecko, but the gecko is somewhat old. Lots of easy customizations, but not entirely stable (the UI anyhow). Fun to play with.

Also did like TW - not as wildly custom as Sleipnir, and even seemed a bit slower with the filters on.

Opera very quick for me, and the customizations are very stable - did not like the 9.5 series when it first came out (ugly mouse-dropping standard icons for one, plus they changed some UI but still a do-able version .. a few things improved, even) but running it from a USB stick at the moment `til I get more familiar (9.27 preferred at the moment on WinME). Really nice wiki for help & etc .. F12 rules for fast prefs (usually .. it surprised me in Puppylinux!)

SeaMonkey 1.1.11 - spent too much time on it. Can be workable, but slow and unstable if you mess with extensions (the skins are fun, especially incognu's and CatThief's .. why is it all the good stuff is 'unofficial', lol). Lots of conflicts between extensions sometimes, hard to tell which one rules settings.

And yep, too much rules or features can slow KM down, I always like KM very simple

ø
.. trade is always of value ...

How on earth do you change the font size in kmeleon?

When I change it in Options-page display-fonts it will not save it!

it's driving me away friom the fastest browser known!

Very frustrating.

Can anyone please help?

Jon

Make sure You have writing rights where the profiles are. No bug known.

If it really does not accept a setting in a new XUL made settings dialogue?

There are still the old ways: via about:config and via userContent.css.
You reach the input fields via Edit > Configuration >...

How 2 via older Forum posts & Forum search.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/16/2008 06:09AM by guenter.

@ Jon

You can tell if your settings are being kept by looking at the browser configuration under EDIT - CONFIGURATION. Changes you make are in bold letters and have "user set" instead of "default".

My eyes are not so good any more so I have changed the minimum font size to 14. That line, "font.minimum-size.x-western" shows bold and has "user set interger 14" as the values.