
Ask HN: What's the best alternative to Chrome, and why? - anarbadalov
I&#x27;m a longtime Chrome user, but the browser is driving me insane. It crashes constantly, and after experiencing issues with my fan, I noticed it was taking up something like 80% CPU. Is there a lightweight browser that&#x27;s as fast and intuitive, and maybe one that doesn&#x27;t spy on me as much?
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ntw1103
Sadly, the options are rather limited. Palemoon
([https://palemoon.org](https://palemoon.org)) is what I use as my primary
browser. I they are better off as far as the privacy/security is concerned,
but certain features, like webRTC are intentionally disabled. DRM video sites
won't work either. For unsupported features, I use Firefox. Privacy is
slightly better than chrome/chromeium I think, if you disable google safe
browsing. The rest of the modern browsers out there are based on chromium, so
it probably won't be much of an improvement. I would highly suggest using
ublock though, Ads now use up a lot of CPU and memory, some even trying to
mine crypto currency with your computer.

Because I'm not happy with the current browser landscape, I've been working on
my own browser, including rendering engine, from scratch, but is isn't ready
for use yet.

~~~
als0
Looking forward to hearing more about it.

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theandrewbailey
It sounds like you're asking for Firefox.

Most other browsers with a similar feature set to Chrome are based on Chromium
(like Chrome itself). If you want lightweight, try a text-mode browser.

~~~
alecmg
adding a vote for Firefox

It is not lightweight by default, loves to use memory and cpu cores (and now
even gpu) when possible. But doesn't use excessive amounts.

I am not a regular user, my Firefox would often have hundreds of tabs open.
But performance is not impacted one bit. Background tabs do not take much
memory or slow browser down until you get to them.

Of course with any browser try to use fewer extensions

~~~
anarbadalov
Firefox it is. Thanks to you both!

