The smallest browser for windows 7. Which browser is the fastest? Which browser is better

With the development of web technologies, the content displayed using a browser becomes more and more “heavy”. The video bitrate is increasing, caching and storing data requires more and more space, and scripts running on user machines consume a lot of CPU time. Browser developers keep up with trends and try to include support for all new trends in their products. This leads to the fact that the latest versions of popular browsers place increased demands on 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 Google Chrome, as the most voracious browser at the time of writing. During the process, we'll look at startup and running speeds, RAM and CPU utilization, and whether there are enough resources left to complete other tasks. Since Chrome provides extensions, we will test both with and without them.

It is worth noting that some results may differ from those you get from such testing. This applies to those parameters that depend on Internet speed, in particular, page loading.

Test configuration

To conduct the test, we took a really weak computer. The initial parameters are:

About browsers

Let's talk briefly about the browsers participating in today's testing - about the engines, features, and so on.

Maxthon Nitro

This browser was created by the Chinese company Maxthon International Limited based on the Blink engine - a converted WebKit for Chromium. Supports all operating systems, including mobile ones.

Pale Moon

This participant is the brother of Firefox 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, which is used by the developers of Opera. 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 reduced functionality. This move by the creators made it possible to minimize resource consumption and increase speed.

Startup speed

Let's start from the beginning - let's measure the time it takes for the browser to fully launch, that is, you can already open pages, make settings, etc. The goal is to determine which patient comes to a state of combat readiness faster. We will use google.com as the start page. We will take measurements until it is possible to enter text into the search bar.

• Maxthon Nitro – from 10 to 6 seconds;
• Pale Moon – from 6 to 3 seconds;
• Otter Browser – from 9 to 6 seconds;
• K-Meleon – from 4 to 2 seconds;
• Google Chrome (extensions disabled) – from 5 to 3 seconds. With extensions (AdGuard, FVD Speed ​​Dial, Browsec, ePN CashBack) – 11 seconds.

As we can see, all browsers quite quickly open their window on the desktop and show readiness for 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 experimental subject, having first opened three identical pages - Yandex (main page), YouTube and the website. Measurements will be taken after some waiting.

Let's launch a video on YouTube with a resolution of 480p and see how much the situation changes.

Now let's complicate the task by simulating a real work 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 page loading speed. The results will be recorded based on subjective feelings.

• Maxthon Nitro experiences slight delays when switching between browser tabs and when opening programs that are already running. The same thing happens when viewing the contents of folders. In general, the OS behaves quite well with minor lags. The page loading speed is not annoying.
• Pale Moon beats Nitro in terms of speed of tab switching and page loading, but the rest of the system is somewhat slower, with longer delays when launching programs and opening folders.
• When using Otter Browser, page rendering speed is quite slow, especially after opening several tabs. The overall responsiveness of the browser also leaves much to be desired. After launching Paint Otter, it stopped responding to our actions for some time, and running applications were very slow to open.
• Another thing about K-Meleon is that the loading of pages and the speed of switching between tabs is very high. “Drawing” starts instantly, other programs also respond quite quickly. The system overall responds well.
• Even though Google Chrome tries to unload the contents of unused tabs from memory (when they are activated, they are reloaded), the active use of the page file makes the work completely uncomfortable. This results in constant page reloading, and in some cases, showing an empty field instead of content. Other programs also “don’t like” the proximity to Chrome, as there are high delays and refusals to respond to user actions.

The latest measurements showed the real state of affairs. If under gentle conditions all products produce similar results, then when the load on the system increases, some are left behind.

Since CPU usage may differ in different situations, we will look at the behavior of browsers in idle mode. The same tabs shown above will be opened.

All patients show good results, that is, they do not load the “stone” during the absence of actions within the program.

Watch video

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 Fraps 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 capable of fully playing video 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 characteristics of our current test subjects. Based on the results obtained, we can draw the following conclusions: K-Meleon is the fastest in operation. It saves maximum resources for other tasks, but is not entirely suitable for watching videos in high quality. Nitro, Pale Moon and Otter are approximately equal in 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 slowdowns and freezes due to the high load on the paging file, and therefore on the hard drive.

Users who have little knowledge of programs and the computer in general are unlikely to want to install each of the browsers and compare them with each other. Therefore, it is useful to know the usage shares around the world. Google Chrome is in first place with a share of about 40%, followed by Mozilla Firefox - 20%, Internet Explorer -15%, Opera - 10%, and Safari and other software products close the top five. This is the general distribution of forces around the world. Of course, in individual regions the situation may be different. For example, Yandex Browser is gaining popularity in Russia.

Distributing browsers by speed, you can see that Google Chrome will still be first. Behind it are Safari and Internet Explorer. But when choosing such a software product, you cannot use only this option. The interface, ease of use, developed plugins and various systems for better work with the Internet are also important.

What affects the speed of work

By the way, the speed of your browser directly depends on its settings, the speed of your Internet, plugins and connected third-party bars or add-ons. The more programs you build into your browser, the slower it will run. An example of such add-ons would be an anti-virus panel, Mail.ru applications, etc.

You should not strive for maximum speed in the Windows operating system, because its optimization will still not allow this. If you want faster work, use an SSD hard drive on super-fast wires and MAC computers from Apple.

The distribution of loads between running processes in Windows and MAC is completely different. In addition, Windows has always sold well, but Apple technology began to be used in Russia and around the world not so long ago; it was possible to gain popularity only due to better quality.

When choosing a browser, what you are more used to also has an important influence. If you've been using Mozilla for 5 years, you'll continue to use it for the same amount of time. To prevent programs from slowing down, it is better to regularly update them to the latest versions. Browsers are updated on average once a month, which is quite frequent. Work on optimization in updates is also underway, so after some time you will notice an increase in speed. Well, if you still want to choose the best browser for yourself, then download and install everything, they are free.

Choosing a browser is simple: just download any of the most popular ones and, sooner or later, you will definitely get used to it. But in order for the process of learning and further use to be as comfortable as possible, you must know what to look for and count on. Here is a list of the most famous free browsers for Windows 7/8/10. Downloading them and trying them yourself is the best option, but don’t be lazy to read the entire text and save time.

Google Chrome - the forefront of web technologies

Google Chrome is the most popular browser today, installed on almost every computer. At first, Chrome gained popularity for its speed and flexibility in settings, including through the installation of browser extensions. Now this is not the fastest browser, but the most functional with support for all innovations in web technologies. A truly huge library of add-ons allows you to get any functionality.

Chrome has the Chromium engine under its hood, which has become the standard for modern browsers. Most popular browsers are made using the Chromium engine. The engine is responsible for rendering the code of pages and scripts -> into a visible page on the monitor screen.

Browser advantages:

• All kinds of extensions that can replace standard programs
• Failure control allows you to keep your browser working even if there is an error in one of the open windows
• Warning the user about visiting malicious sites
• Import settings from any browser
• Multilingual interface
• Automatic updates
• There is a developer toolbar
• with a Google account
• The built-in task manager allows you to assess which tabs are consuming a lot of processor and memory resources

• Bookmarks are not very convenient, there are no built-in visual bookmarks, but there are
• Works poorly with many open tabs, and eats up a lot of memory, but frees it up the fastest after closing them.

Currently, Google Chrome is considered the best browser for Windows 7 and Windows 8/10. But to each his own. For example, I don’t like the uninformative download manager when opening many tabs. True, there is an extension called The Great Suspender, which, after a specified time, frees memory from unused tabs. But Chrome doesn’t close them, and to see these pages again, you just need to refresh them.

Chrome launches the fastest in Windows 7, but in Windows 7 and 10 things are bad - the loading time increases up to two times!

Opera is the best choice

There is perhaps no browser that is clearer, more understandable and easier to learn for a beginner than Opera. Although Opera now runs on the Chromium engine, it has everything you need for surfing without installing additional extensions.

I used to use Opera because of its convenient visual bookmarks (tiles with the most necessary sites on an empty tab) and the file download manager. Here it is done very conveniently and clearly. Opera is the best browser for working with many open tabs, and in general. You can keep several dozen sites open, and this will not particularly affect the speed of work.

Particularly useful in today's realities, built-in and unlimited traffic. And plus there is a “Turbo” function for compressing transmitted data for . But here you need to experiment. Sometimes, on a slow connection, the opposite effect occurs - the speed decreases even more.

When choosing a program to work on the World Wide Web, many are mainly interested in what is the fastest browser for Windows 7 today.

Although there are simply a huge number of other criteria for choosing a browser.

Today you can find and download many “homemade” browsers, that is, those that were developed by novice programmers, and not by teams of professionals.

So, their main drawback is the speed of work.

There is no talk about data security and safety.

In any case, today we will look at all the main characteristics that will help you choose a program for accessing the Internet, and the main one will be the speed of operation.

As for how this very speed will be tested, a very simple method will be chosen, which consists of launching a browser or performing other operations with a stopwatch on it.

In particular, the speed will be tested on such operations as launching the browser itself, opening a website, logging into a Google email account, launching a video and installation speed.

The tests will not be conducted on a new computer.

This choice is due to the fact that one wants to achieve maximum objectivity of the research.

Yes, usually “clean” machines are used in such tests, but we all don’t have the opportunity to reinstall the operating system every month.

This would make it possible to turn a used computer into a completely “clean” machine.

In general, the conditions will not be as close to reality as possible; they will be quite real. Go!

Helpful information:

Pay attention to the utility. It is a tool that increases the security of using the Internet. The operating principle of the program is based on encrypting DNS traffic between the user and the provider.

Opera

This browser was released in 1994. Until 2013, I worked on my own engine, then I switched to Webkit+V8, which is familiar to many developers, which, by the way, is also used a little in Google Chrome.

According to research by some sites, it is the fifth most popular browser in the world. Users like the mobile version, which is called Opera Mini.

The main advantage of this program is its excellent ability to save traffic. This allows many users to pay less for the Internet.

You can download this browser absolutely free of charge on the official website www.opera.com/ru.

This site has one large “Download Now” button, which allows you to start downloading.

For our tests, we will use the latest version downloaded from the official website.

Speed ​​tests yielded the following results:

• Browser launch time – 3 s;
• Website opening time – 2 s;
• Video start time – 2 s;
• Installation time – 1.3 minutes (from launching the installer program to closing it).

By the way, the design of the installation window for this program is very beautiful, but at the same time minimalistic.

The installation process itself takes very little time.

The user only needs to press one button and nothing else - he does not select a path, does not read a bunch of license conditions, does not watch presentations, and so on.

On the one hand, this is, of course, good, because a simple user does not need all this.

But some will say that this is bad, because “who knows what they write in the license.”

But since we evaluate the speed of work, Opera performs excellently in this regard.

Other advantages and disadvantages of Opera

In addition to speed when choosing a program for Internet access, it will also be useful to know about the following advantages of Opera:

1. Traffic savings. A signature feature of this browser.
2. The presence of a Turbo mode, which allows you to work even faster on slow computers and still save traffic.
3. Its own express panel with bookmarks. In other browsers, this function must be installed additionally. Yes, there are bookmark bars, but they are not as functional.
4. Hot control keys. In fact, this browser can be operated without a mouse.
5. Ease of use. Opera is not loaded with plugins for privacy and other similar functions, so it can work many times faster.

The disadvantages of Opera include the following:

1. On old machines it may not work at all. On the other hand, nothing from the modern standard user set already works for them. And who uses such old computers now?
2. Incorrect operation of some scripts. In defense of Opera, we can also say that not all scripts that exist today work on other browsers.
   Complaints about instability - it restarts, throws out, and so on. It also doesn’t happen very often – if you’re unlucky, you’ll have to restart.

Google Chrome

This browser was released in 2008 - relatively recently.

Its direct ancestor is the Safari browser, which was then also tried to be adapted for Windows, but these attempts were unsuccessful - it turned out to be too slow, and was often restarted.

Safari was originally designed for Mac computers. Google Chrome runs on its own engine called Chrominium.

Last year, this browser was first in many polls in RuNet.

You can download Google Chrome on the official website - www.google.ru/chrome/browser/desktop/index.html (a very non-standard link that could be shortened).

There is also a single button that you need to press.

By the way, here on the download site you can read the license agreement, as well as set Google Chrome as the default browser and check the box to send work reports to Google.

By the way, many people refuse the latter.

To do this, you just need to uncheck the box highlighted in green in Figure 4.

Testing the speed of this browser gave the following results:

• Browser launch time – 4 s;
• Website opening time: 5 s;
• Authorization time for a Google email account is 1 s;
• Video start time – 1 s;
• Installation time – 1.5 minutes.

When installing here, by the way, some additional content is downloaded, which makes the whole process a little longer.

Otherwise, Google Chrome performs really well, but still a little worse than Opera.

And this despite the fact that many authors of similar articles call this browser the fastest.

As you can see, tests in real conditions gave a different result.

Advantages and disadvantages of Google Chrome

It will also be very useful for users who choose a program to access the Internet to know about the following advantages of Google Chrome:

1. Safety. Great attention is paid to this here. Google Chrome has a huge number of additional programs and scripts that protect against various types of attacks and viruses. In addition, this browser has its own database with these same viruses and malicious sites.
2. “Incognito” mode, which allows you to be unnoticed on various sites. This means that the site will not leave cookies or any other information about the stay of the user working in Incognito mode.
3. Stability at work. It is very rare to hear about Google Chrome that it reloads or cannot handle a large number of sites.
4. Your own “Task Manager”, which makes it possible to see how many resources a particular site consumes, as well as a plugin.
5. Normal work with extensions. It is also very rare to hear complaints about this.
6. Voice control search.

The disadvantages include the following:

1. Lack of support for NPAPI plugins starting from version 42.0. A lot of modern plugins work on this platform. And users are faced with difficulties in installing them or even with the inability to complete this task.

Otherwise, Google Chrome performs just fine.

As you can see, its operating speed is not too much inferior to Opera, therefore, taking into account all the other advantages, it is not surprising that this particular browser is called the best today.

Mozilla Firefox

In 2014, this browser took a strong first place in all foreign surveys. But then the two programs described above took away the leading positions from.

Still, the contribution that the “sly fox,” as many users call him, made to the development of browsers as a whole deserves respect.

According to good tradition, the site has one large “Download for free” button.

There are no longer any license agreements on the site. And in general, the download occurs automatically and this process is not delayed by anything.

In the installer window you can use additional settings. The settings window is shown in Figure 6.

As you can see, you can specify where program shortcuts should be installed, the installation path, and whether this browser should be made the main one.

Advice: When installing, be sure to use the advanced settings window, because otherwise, program shortcuts will appear on the taskbar, on the desktop and in the Start menu, which is often not needed by users! In addition, installation information will be sent to Mozilla specialists, and the browser itself will become the default browser.

To open this very window of additional settings at startup, you should click the “Settings” button highlighted in Figure No. 7.

The installation itself also begins with downloading additional files. This, of course, makes the process longer.

Mozilla Firefox runtime tests yielded the following results:

• Browser launch time – 5 s;
• Website opening time – 3 s;
• Authorization time for a Google email account is 1 s;
• Video start time – 2 s;
• Installation time – 1.35 minutes.

Advantages and disadvantages of Mozilla Firefox

The benefits of Mozilla Firefox are as follows:

1. Reliability in operation. There are plugins that can “kill” absolutely all browsers except Mozilla Firefox.
2. Security and privacy at the highest level. This is the only browser of its kind that can block the collection of information about a particular user by sites, including Google. This makes it possible not to see annoying advertising that is generated based on the requests of this user.
3. Version updates occur in the background.
4. In addition, this also includes the widest base of plugins and extensions mentioned above.

The disadvantages of Mozilla Firefox are:

1. Immunity of some modern scripts.
2. Frequent complaints about slow operation, especially under high loads.

From all this we can conclude that Mozilla Firefox clearly cannot be considered the fastest browser for Windows 7.

Yandex browser

This is the youngest modern browser of those used by several million people. Users first heard about this browser in 2012.

Now, in 2017, Yandex is actively promoting its product using contextual advertising. Here, of course, everything is aimed at working directly with Yandex services.

So, by default, this browser already has mail, a translator, disk, money and everything else that the most popular Russian search engine offers.

By the way, the engine in Yandex Browser is the same Chromium. Many users say that this program has its own quick launch panel, which is called “Tableboard”.

This is considered a feature of Yandex.Browser, but for the average person it is practically the same bookmarks bar that is in Opera.

True, there it is much more functional.

You can host 20 different sites on Tablo.

An interesting feature of this browser is its work with mouse gestures.

This means that there is a certain set of gestures that are formed by certain cursor movements and perform certain functions.

There are also a huge number of extensions and plugins, most of which are taken from the already beloved Google Chrome.

This is due to the fact that these two browsers run on the same Chromium engine.

You can download Yandex Browser on the official website - browser.yandex.ru.

Although, if you visit the website yandex.ru several times, you will definitely see an advertisement for this browser and can follow the link to download it.

This site also has a nice big “Download” button.

The results of testing the speed of this browser gave the following results:

• Browser launch time – 11 s;
• The website opening time is 4 seconds (the first launch, by the way, gave the result in 24 seconds);
• Authorization time for a Google email account is 4 s;
• Video start time – 2 s;
• Installation time – 2.10 min.

During installation, it is also possible to make Yandex.Browser the default browser and make it possible to send data to Yandex specialists.

To do this, you need to check the boxes highlighted in green in Figure 9.

Most users prefer to uncheck these boxes, which is not at all surprising.

As you can see, in terms of speed, Yandex Browser is clearly inferior to Mozilla Firefox.

Advantages and disadvantages of Yandex.Browser

The advantages of Yandex.Browser are as follows:

1. Developers pay great attention to security. So the program automatically checks a particular site for suspicion. It has its own criteria for suspicion (Web of Trust), as well as programs installed by default to block phishing attacks and advertising.
2. Its own system for viewing documents in formats such as .pdf, .doc and others.
3. Your own translator.
4. Turbo mode, like in Opera.

The disadvantages include the following:

1. Imposing Yandex services, which many users do not like. Although, on the other hand, this is exactly what this browser was created for.
   Many people don't like the interface.
2. Difficulty setting up. Many functions that are available in Opera or Mozilla are simply not available here in Yandex Browser.

In general, from all this we can draw a conclusion, which is that Yandex.Browser is far from the fastest and most optimized browser.

Maxthon

Now let's move on to some somewhat exotic browsers that are not as popular as Yandex.Browser, Mozilla Firefox, Opera and Google Chrome.

One of the rather promising browsers in this direction is Maxthon.

Its main feature is the combination of two engines at once - Webkit and Trident. Some parts of the first are used in Yandex Browser, Opera and Google Chrome.

And the second was used to create the very first browser in history. Thanks to this combination, in fact, it was possible to achieve very high speed.

At least, this is what the developers of this program say.

In principle, people write on forums that in some cases it works even faster than the vaunted Google Chrome.

But to check this, there is only one way, which we will use now.

The Maxthon speed test readings look like this:

• Browser launch time – 0.7 s;
• Authorization time for a Google email account is 0.6 s;
• Video start time – 0.8 s;
• Installation time – 1.17 minutes.

As you can see, Maxthon really shows phenomenal results! But speed is not the only advantage of this browser.

Advantages and disadvantages of Maxthon

The advantages of the Maxthon browser are:

1. Working with cloud storage - all personal settings, records and authorization data are saved not on the hard drive, but in the cloud. This prevents the user from losing it all.
2. The browser requires few resources to operate.
3. It is possible to remove ads without additional plugins.
4. A huge number of extensions.
5. It has its own security system, which, judging by the reviews, works quite well.
6. Notepad for notes.
7. Night browsing mode, which optimizes those pages that have a dark background, too many ads, or other nuances that make reading information inconvenient.

In general, we can say that Maxthon is a very, very multifunctional thing.

On the side there is a toolbar on which the same notepad, a download manager, a tool for working with RSS, as well as several Yandex services are located.

Its only disadvantage is that it also promotes these same Yandex services. But Yandex.Browser is still very far from Maxthon!

So every user should definitely try using Maxthon in their work.

K-Meleon

According to the developers, this is another very fast browser that leaves no chance for the now well-known and popular Google Chrome.

It is also known that it is developed under the Gecko engine, which, as mentioned above, was used to create Mozilla Firefox.

With all this, the official K-Meleon website has the source code of this program and anyone can take it for their needs, as well as to improve an existing browser.

Of course, each such improvement undergoes multi-level control by project managers - not every proposed “improvement” ends up in the new version of the product.

And you can download K-Meleon on the official website of this program - kmeleonbrowser.org/download.php.

Moreover, there you can download the installation file, or you can take the “portable version”, that is, a version that does not require installation.

The second option is much more convenient. It is often used by those who do not want to spend time on installation.

Actually, this is a huge advantage of this product - installation takes exactly 0 seconds, since there is no installation at all.

But we will use the installation version. To download it, you need to click on the “Download installer” sign next to the latest version of this browser.

In Figure 12 this is highlighted with a red line.

Accordingly, the inscription “Download portable version” next to it (in Figure No. 12, underlined with a green line) is responsible for downloading a version that does not require installation.

Speed ​​tests of the installation version gave the following results:

• Browser launch time – 0.3 s;
• Website opening time – 1 s;
• Authorization time for a Google email account is 0.7 s;
• Video start time – 0.5 s;
• Installation time – 0.38 min.

By the way, when downloading, the user will be taken to an auxiliary download page, which is shown in Figure 13. There you will have to wait another 5 seconds.

This, albeit not by much, still slows down the process of downloading and, accordingly, installing the program.

Although, K-Meleon is still the leader in operating speed among all the browsers discussed in this article.

Advantages and disadvantages of K-Meleon

The advantages of K-Meleon are:

1. Everything is done in a minimalist style. The browser has a minimum of functions and additions, which makes it extremely light and, accordingly, fast.
   Works great even on weak computers.
2. You can disable loading ads using your own means. The same applies to images, as well as JavaScript elements, which is especially important on weak computers.
3. You can also block pop-up windows using browser resources only.

As for the shortcomings, these could only be some bugs and glitches, but they can be eliminated very quickly if you report them to the developers. By the way, this can also be done on the official website.

Of course, I would like K-Meleon to have more functions, but all this is in the future. The K-Meleon program interface looks as shown in Figure 14. IN

The top panel (highlighted in the figure) has buttons related to images, Java and other website elements that can be simply disabled.

Results

There are a few other browsers worth mentioning that also deserve attention.

Yes, they are not nearly as famous as even K-Meleon, but they are still popular.

Among them is SRWare Iron, which is very similar to Google Chrome in terms of its hidden features. In addition, it also has a Chrominium engine.

Although the developers claim that they have created their own SRWare Iron, experts point out that it is almost the same Chrominium, but with some minor changes.

The browser has its own ad blocking program, it does not send any data to developers, and in general it seems ideal for those who want to find a good alternative to Chrome and have no desire to cooperate with Google.

Its speed is almost the same as standard Chrome. Therefore, you should choose it only if the user does not want to give his data to Google.

Also, when choosing a high-speed browser, you should pay attention to SlimJet. This is another creation created on the Chrominium engine.

Features include a built-in photo editor, an image compression program, and a password manager.

It also has its own program to protect against attacks and viruses.

At the same time, SlimJet accepts all extensions that work in Google Chrome.

If we return to the main speed parameter for us today, then SlimJet is not much faster than Google Chrome. Although, there is still an advantage of a few fractions of seconds.

You can download SlimJet on the official website of this program - www.slimjet.com/ru/. There is also one big “Download Now” button.

By the way, it’s worth saying that SlimJet’s website is made much more original than those of other browsers.

Summarizing all of the above, we can say that the fastest browser today is K-Meleon, a not so well-known, but very effective browser that has very wide functionality.

Therefore, if you are looking for the fastest browser for yourself, choose K-Meleon.

You can clearly see the download and installation process in the video below.

When working with equipment, you want it to promptly carry out the instructions given by the user. But not everything and not always goes like clockwork. Thus, equipment that does not have significant operational capabilities does not meet this requirement. Such inconveniences are especially felt on inexpensive PCs and laptops. And within the framework of the article, we will look at which simple browser to choose for a weak computer and what are the features of its use.

Problem

To fully understand what we need, we need to have an idea of ​​what we are dealing with. In our case, it is necessary not only to use a lightweight browser for a weak computer, but also to configure it for optimal performance. Because even the most advanced software may not function at its best due to inept user actions. Moreover, optimization applies not only to the operation of the computer, but also to the display of the site.

What I want to say about popular browsers

And more specifically about Opera, Mozilla and Google Chrome. You can often hear complaints about them that these versions have become much heavier for equipment. This is not entirely true. If we open any browser of any such complainant, we will almost always be able to see that there is a lot of “body kit” installed there, which makes it so heavy. Therefore, it is first necessary to understand it in order to be able to talk about the speed of action. A browser for weak computers, Opera, will receive special attention. It has a special “Turbo” mode, with which, without additional settings and fiddling with hardware, you can optimize work and get improved performance on the Internet. Separately, it is worth mentioning about Google Chrome. It is not known what kind of computers the developers have, but they probably have 32 GB of RAM. Therefore, this browser often suffers from the fact that it begins to frantically “eat up” RAM. To avoid this, it is recommended not to leave tabs open for a long time and to restart them.

Customizing popular models

Let's look at this using Mozilla as an example. First of all, you need to make sure that all plugins are disabled. Of course, they allow you to conveniently navigate the Internet and get acquainted with multimedia content, but along with these operations the machine loads. But our goal is a lightweight browser for a weak computer. An exception can be made only for one category of plugins - those that are engaged in “cutting” heavy (usually advertising) elements from pages. This is an example where they will only help save operational power. Also, as an alternative possible solution, you can consider installing outdated versions. Let's take Mozilla version 2 or Opera version 9 - and we have a browser for weak computers. They are both quite functional and at the same time low-cost in terms of the use of system resources. But let's return to setting up the program.

The ideal browser for weak computers can be obtained by sacrificing some of the features. So, you can disable the loading of various videos, pictures and other optional elements - thanks to this you can get a machine that can perform the working functions of searching for information. But this all applies to ordinary Windows user operating systems. If you are looking for a lightweight browser for weak computers on which one of the versions of Linux is installed, then we suggest paying attention to Midori. It is easy to use and interacts correctly with various sites.

Paying attention to unpopular browsers

But what's popular doesn't appeal to everyone. Which browser should you choose for a weak computer if you want to try something new? There is a wide selection of different programs that are written in the open source Chromium engine. It should be noted that the merits of these browsers are that they take up little space and are quickly processed. But the other side of the coin is that they do not always have a user-friendly interface (although most are similar to Google Chrome) and errors often occur that make their comfortable use problematic. So, a little-used browser for weak computers:

1. Browsar Winstyle.
2. Comodo Dragon.

There is no consensus about them, but, nevertheless, if you are satisfied with their functionality, then you can safely use it.

Conclusion

In general, any computer with at least 256 MB of RAM can easily work with the modern segment of the Internet. Of course, in this case it will be necessary to carefully approach the programs that are installed on it, forget about autoloading various clients of social networks or other sites, but the end result will be pleasing - the browser will, albeit a little slowly, but confidently load any page of an arbitrary site. It is necessary to mention here that working with heavy flash player elements or 3D models will be unavailable (or very incorrect), but ordinary text documents will work without problems.