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biff baxter
- 464 posts
February 11, 2012 10:27:18 AM PST

Hi folks,

So I am locking in the apps and trying to make some final decisions. So here is your chance to weigh in. Thought of doing a poll, but figured this would be better to have a threaded discussion....

Here is the first debate...

Midori or Chromium?

Speak now - more to come. I have tested both, Midori certainly fits the model of lightweight, but is missing some things I like about Chromium. You can fake some of it, but how does that sit for a non-techie user to have to mess with the browser...I open it for you to comment :)

biff

This post was edited by biff baxter at February 11, 2012 5:12:34 PM PST
kevbo The Thinking Turtle
- 3 posts
February 11, 2012 6:37:08 PM PST

Chromium gets my vote just because simple is what tends to get new users to stick around. Tweaking is fun and fine if you know what you are doing, if you don't, you just want it to work.
Dave .
- 133 posts
February 11, 2012 8:03:00 PM PST

Midori. I don't think you'll actually need to be a technical user, and the addons are nice, though I only use the adblock. And, it doesn't look unfamiliar compared to the other gtk applications installed. I don't seem to be able to make chromium watch YouTube without flash, and you can actually choose your page shortcuts (instead of automatically making one for every page you visit) in midori, and you can have more page shortcuts. Chromium has 8 shortcuts, Midori by default has 9, and you can have more than that, if you want to, and, probably least importantly, you can identify it as any 'popular' browsers.

This post was edited by Dave . at February 11, 2012 8:04:59 PM PST
teejay .
- 58 posts
February 12, 2012 4:01:27 AM PST

I have never used Chromium, and dropped Midori 9mths ago after finding difficulty with a common website (reported in these forums). So I don't contribute user experience here.
My comment is that for wattOS the first two criteria in selecting apps IMO should be :
efficacy - it should work - and
a logical wattOS fit, as in "lightweight" and "small footprint, low power, and a simple quick interface". To borrow a quote or two.
Perhaps both these browsers meet those criteria and we're really sorting among gems.
Martin M
- 14 posts
February 17, 2012 9:33:41 AM PST

Midori, of course. Chromium is bloated and impossible to use on old machines.
Leenie Gilmore
- 149 posts
February 21, 2012 1:59:39 PM PST

Epiphany works well on old machines without the crashes Midori has.
Dave .
- 133 posts
February 24, 2012 6:43:02 AM PST

Which version are you reffering to? 3.0.2 is very, very, very, very crash-prone. But version 4.0.2 is the exact opposite. It's very stable. Can't seem to install 4.0.2 on 11.04, but in 11.10, it's already in the repository!
Leenie Gilmore
- 149 posts
February 24, 2012 7:16:39 AM PST

Yes, it's the version 4.0.2.
Dave .
- 133 posts
February 24, 2012 5:05:50 PM PST

How on Earth did you crash that thing? I Haven't been able to do that.
Leenie Gilmore
- 149 posts
February 24, 2012 6:37:59 PM PST

I guess I opened too many tabs...
Dave .
- 133 posts
February 24, 2012 7:43:44 PM PST

How many tabs? I was fine with 4, and with the adblock turned on.
Leenie Gilmore
- 149 posts
February 24, 2012 10:08:43 PM PST

Maybe 6 or 7, some pages have more to load too.
Gideon David
- 4 posts
February 27, 2012 9:57:01 AM PST

So my only question is. When will see a 64bit version of wattOS? Some of those older systems used 64 bit architecture with hyperthreading technology. Only a 64bit OS take full advantage of this. How about those of us who like wattOS enough to run in it on our main laptop with newer technology. I like my dual cores and want access to them. What say you?
Dave .
- 133 posts
March 2, 2012 8:31:21 AM PST

Peppermint??
Gideon David
- 4 posts
March 2, 2012 4:01:43 PM PST

Peppermint is fine but I would much rather see WattOS Dave.
I like the look and fell of WattOS better.
Insects and Bean Sprouts just do it for me.
Gideon David
- 4 posts
March 2, 2012 4:09:14 PM PST

Oh had the same problem with Midori crashing. I have an older customer who likes to play pogo games and the java game crashes the browser.
biff baxter
- 464 posts
March 4, 2012 3:04:23 PM PST

Ha...nice insect and bean sprout comment :)

I like Peppermint. Kendall Weaver (The distro maintainer) and I have talked several times, he is a brilliant guy and has helped me at times and has even retweeted my distro announcements, etc...

As far as 64 bit...not sure.. Likely some day, just not today....also questions about ARM, etc. have popped up. So maybe we throw that out as a poll. Should we include ARM and or 64 bit in the next release....? It probably becomes more of a bandwidth and testing time for me as I travel and work way to many hours in addition to this, sleep, etc..

biff
Peter Pan
- 7 posts
March 4, 2012 8:14:55 PM PST

I like the look and feel of Chromium better; plus, with Midori, I've found it causes websites to identify my computer as running OSX, which is an odd bug.

MY computer is fast enough to run Chromium, perhaps it plus a lighterweight browser for those with older computers?
biff baxter
- 464 posts
March 7, 2012 10:14:41 AM PST

I think a choice is good. I included midori since its lighter weight for older systems. I have a very fast core i7 laptop running on an SSD, so I use Chromium myself (I use a lot of google and other web based tools) so I understand. But not everyone needs all the extras, and hopefully Midori will meet those that are in-between with older systems.

biff
Leenie Gilmore
- 149 posts
March 7, 2012 1:29:58 PM PST

I found that Midori crashes on opening Facebook.
Saigua Tang
- 45 posts
March 15, 2012 10:27:13 PM PDT

Anything crashes on Facebook without something to KO scripts; by default popunders and stuff will hit until the machine falls over or all advertisers are well-served. ScriptNo (Chromium) can sit on a number of pages with tracking 'bugs' and sit there blocking 1000 things a minute; what's the Midori option, or is it a default (as in Safari (Mac OS X ?))