Browser engine question
- Thread starter malonn
- Start date
chromium is just one of many browsers for Linux, is it the best, is it better than others,? Choosing your browser is like choosing your distribution, you try a few and pick one you like, personally I don't rate it, but there are many who do.
He's asking specifically about the engine. Most browsers use the Chromium engine, a.k.a. Blink.
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The best way is to:
Check it out for yourself, install it, test it and see if it's what you fancy.
Running it should give you enough evidence to determine if what you've been told is the best browser or not.
Missed that.. But my thesis is still relevant, try many choose one,
I guess my question is a bit misunderstood. I'm not interested (yet) in trying any Chromium-based browser other than what I have (Brave). I was sort of asking a lower level question: is it objectively superior to all other engines currently available? Is the person who told me this full of it (...or himself, perhaps) by suggesting there is a metric (or metrics) to measure objective superiority in an engine. One metric would be rendering speed. If that covers all measures then cool. Say you guys?
Someone who is good at producing web based code will use a number of browsers to test their code. At least the most often used. No one would want to alienate part of their user base because they chose a different browser.
I'm thinking that in order to find out if in fact it is objectively superior to all other engines currently available or not, one would have to find out all of the libraries that are used and built into the browser itself. Libraries are engines that perform functionality. Modules/drivers also play an important role in performance of a application/program. A package maintainer that writes code in build scripts and the like would know all of this.
According to Google, Chrome is faster.
The only way your going to be able to determine if the one that told you this is, in fact true, is to find out the facts.
By looking up what you don't know or don't understand..... you'll gain knowledge that you can use for your future to answer questions.
According to Google, Chrome is faster.
The only way your going to be able to determine if the one that told you this is, in fact true, is to find out the facts.
By looking up what you don't know or don't understand..... you'll gain knowledge that you can use for your future to answer questions.
Cool. I was confused into thinking that "Chromium" was an engine, not a browser. "Blink", then, is Google's so-called "open-source" engine (doubt their corporate and government friends and masters allow all lines of release-to-market code to be audited by the public at large).
CaffeineAddict
Well-Known Member
Chromium based browsers are usually faster than non-Chromium browsers, at least google chrome (not true for MS Edge).
However I don't prefer them for obvious reasons regardless of speed. (I'm trading speed for privacy)
Speed however depends on search engine too.
This is based on my experience using various browsers so far.
As others have those benches are also largely based on the underlying code of a page and how it was written -- eg engine-specific optimizations -- and finally browser optimizations, as pointed out above in the case of Edge which is slow AF., etc. so that's a poor measurement. Most accurately you'd bench rendering SVGs, AA'd fonts, and both compressed and uncompress raster images, and finally up-/down-scaling and filtering (NN vs 2xSAI, etc. -- if applicable, IDK what engines use). Benches would have to all be local content, obviously.
But render speed is definitely not the be-all and end-all. There's compatibility, too. It's no good having a lightning browser engine that can't render SVGs properly or isn't up to date with HTML 5.
That all said, I'm with @CaffeineAddict on this: "Best" is a pretty relative term. For example, an engine could (IDK if any do use this method) protect against canvas-based fingerprinting by randomizing the presented canvas size and start coordinates, then internally up-scale it (using magnitudes that did not break layout or provide too specific of a range).
So for the casual user, that'd be a nuisance, but for me, that'd be points. Bonus if it would include special APIs to set various render methods and even throttle speed to make it harder for an adversary fingerprinter.
Thus, I'd base "best" on how much privacy it could offer before the browser tweaks come into play. Most casual users would be like, "IDGAF, I just want it to work OOTB." So "best" for them would be speed + accuracy + features... which is fine and totes the perogative.
But render speed is definitely not the be-all and end-all. There's compatibility, too. It's no good having a lightning browser engine that can't render SVGs properly or isn't up to date with HTML 5.
That all said, I'm with @CaffeineAddict on this: "Best" is a pretty relative term. For example, an engine could (IDK if any do use this method) protect against canvas-based fingerprinting by randomizing the presented canvas size and start coordinates, then internally up-scale it (using magnitudes that did not break layout or provide too specific of a range).
So for the casual user, that'd be a nuisance, but for me, that'd be points. Bonus if it would include special APIs to set various render methods and even throttle speed to make it harder for an adversary fingerprinter.
Thus, I'd base "best" on how much privacy it could offer before the browser tweaks come into play. Most casual users would be like, "IDGAF, I just want it to work OOTB." So "best" for them would be speed + accuracy + features... which is fine and totes the perogative.
I agree too, guys. The only metric I could really squeeze to call a browser engine "objectively superior" was speed. I can pretty much guarantee that nobody on the surface of this planet wants abysmally slow page loads. Having said that, speed will not be an issue with the 4 top dogs (aren't most of them based on Chromium?). I guess someone could find some half-baked browser on GitHub or something. 
Next, you build on top of the engine, and, IMO, the debate falls apart. Settings: loaded to the gills like KDE your cup of tea? Interface?
More important to me as well is privacy (I'm checking out ol' arkenfox in favor of LibreWolf). AFAIK, (and I'm digging into Mozilla) Firefox is your top dogs choice for privacy (I'm all ears if any vet has any input to the contrary). But, frickin' Google got their talons in them...
Next, you build on top of the engine, and, IMO, the debate falls apart. Settings: loaded to the gills like KDE your cup of tea? Interface?
More important to me as well is privacy (I'm checking out ol' arkenfox in favor of LibreWolf). AFAIK, (and I'm digging into Mozilla) Firefox is your top dogs choice for privacy (I'm all ears if any vet has any input to the contrary). But, frickin' Google got their talons in them...
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