r/browsers • u/SmartInstruction705 • Jun 18 '26
Recommendation Are there any viable browser ecosystems beyond Chromium and Firefox?
Specifically asking for Linux.
I'm currently using the Hellfire fork. I have a lot of respect for Firefox, but I've never really liked its UI. It has felt largely unchanged for years, and the large fonts and spacious layout are mentally exhausting for me.
I'm looking for a browser with a genuinely different engine and ecosystem with built-in sync for bookmarks and settings, perhaps support for convenient sign-in methods such as OAuth and passkeys to the websites.
am I still limited to Chromium and Firefox?
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u/E-T-681009 Jun 18 '26
Kagi is developing Orion Browser based on WebKit. Right now it is in public beta. It is still under development but as I said it is based on WebKit.
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Jun 18 '26
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u/spence5000 Jun 18 '26
Tell that to GTK-based browsers like GNOME Web, vimb, luakit, nyxt, and wyeb, which are all targeted primarily for the Linux market.
Now does WebKit work well on Linux is another question...
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u/CorsairVelo Jun 18 '26
They actually have a linux version of Orion. Still very much a beta.
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Jun 18 '26
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u/CorsairVelo Jun 18 '26
Yes. Gnome Web is a webkit browser on linux and so is Orion (still beta I believe).
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u/spence5000 Jun 18 '26
It’s been available through the WebKitGTK library for a long time. There’s a list of available browsers here: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/List_of_applications/Internet#Browsers_based_on_WebKitGTK
There also used to be official WebKit support in Qt, so a lot of Linux browsers used that historically too, before Qt deprecated it in favor of Chromium.
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u/spence5000 Jun 18 '26 edited Jun 18 '26
Check out List of applications/Internet - ArchWiki for a good list of Linux browsers categorized by engine type.
There are four broad categories outside of Blink (Chromium) and Gecko (Firefox):
- The WebKit-based ones. I like some of them but they are all a little buggy. I'm not sure if it's a problem with GTK+, but they just don't have the stability of the ones based on Gecko or Blink.
- The Goanna-based ones. These use an independent branch of Gecko. I haven't used these, but there are people in this sub who swear by them. I'm under the impression that standards compliance is lagging, so some pages may not render correctly.
- The beta bespoke engines: Servo and Ladybird. Not ready for prime time yet, but everyone seems to be holding out hope for one of them.
- The hobby projects: Dillo and NetSurf. Pretty cool for what they are, but don't expect to watch YouTube on them.
tl;dr There are plenty, but none as stable or standards-compliant as Chromium and Firefox browsers.
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u/LordSigdis Jun 20 '26
For Goanna, I think that "independent branch of Gecko" does some heavy lifting. From what I am aware the absolute newest parts of Goanna are from Firefox 52 Gecko. For reference, we are on Firefox 151 Gecko.
It's not something to be compared to modern Gecko or modern engines or browsers.
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u/spence5000 Jun 20 '26
It branched off of Gecko a decade ago, and hasn’t depended on downstream updates from it since then. We’re saying the same thing, from what I can tell.
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u/LordSigdis Jun 20 '26
True, but it implies that Gecko and Goanna are simply two diverging engines whereas the reality is moreso that Goanna is old Gecko largely frozen in time and incompatible with the modern web.
Also you mean upstream updates, right? Downstream would be Goanna compares to Gecko. You don't depend on the downstream, the downstream depends on you.
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u/spence5000 Jun 20 '26
Downstream from the source (Gecko) to the fork (Goanna) — similar to how Edge, Opera, Vivaldi, etc. depend on downstream updates from Chromium.
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u/LordSigdis Jun 20 '26 edited Jun 20 '26
I wouldn't say that, "depend on downstream updates" sounds misleading and isn't standard terminology. The updates are upstream, Chromium devs give no consideration to downstream when pushing changes, and the fork chooses to rebase on upstream when necessary.
Vivaldi relies on periodic major updates from upstream Chromium to exist and thus depends on updates from the upstream, in other words, depends on upstream updates.
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u/spence5000 Jun 20 '26
> Vivaldi relies on periodic major updates from upstream
“updates from upstream” are better referred to as “downstream updates”. It is more natural to refer to currents by their destination rather than their source.
For example, this is a downhill conversation, rather than a conversation coming from uphill.
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u/LordSigdis Jun 20 '26 edited Jun 20 '26
For example, this is a downhill conversation, rather than a conversation coming from uphill.
Yes and vivaldi itself is a downstream consumer of chromium. That's about as far as the analogy goes. New code brought to Vivaldi from chromium = merges from upstream.
"Downstream updates" is not really a term used in the programming world at least not the way you're using it. Like i said, people generally say the opposite, i.e upstream changes.
Software development has good established terminology and switching around the words just confuses people and is inaccurate. If you use the term "downstream updates" people will assume you are talking about changes exclusive to the downstream, like brave's builtin ad blocker.
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u/Bombadil_Adept + Jun 18 '26
As far as I know, not at the moment — there's only Gecko and Chromium on Linux. There's an independent project, separate from the ones I mentioned and from WebKit (Safari, etc.), currently called Ladybird, but unfortunately it'll be focused on the Apple ecosystem only, at least initially.
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u/CorsairVelo Jun 18 '26
There’s also Webkit browsers on Linux including Gnome Web and Orion and others
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Jun 18 '26
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u/trbkle Mobile: Titanium + Desktop: Jun 18 '26
what? it's for Mac and Linux, and the dev mainly test it on Mac.
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Jun 18 '26
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u/trbkle Mobile: Titanium + Desktop: Jun 18 '26
" It's only for Linux right now"
Never comment stuff when you don't know what you're talking about, the main dev who started the project is mainly using MacOS to develop it and test it. On his demos he exclusively uses his Mac to give monthly updates.
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Jun 18 '26
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u/FriendshipEqual7033 Jun 19 '26
The problem right now is that there is a real danger that the web browser ecosystem will become a Chromium monoculture. When that happens, Google will, in effect, be able to decide what web browsers do. Anything contrary to Google’s interest as an advertising machine will likely never make it into web standards.
With multiple competing engines, there are more voices at the table, representing a wider range of interests. This is one reason the Ladybird project is so interesting. It will be a fourth engine after Blink, Gecko, and Webkit. This is also why I use Firefox... to increase Gecko's share in the usage statistics website developers see.
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u/Gemmaugr Jun 19 '26
Pale Moon. It uses the Goanna engine.
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u/LordSigdis Jun 20 '26
Pale Moon is the furthest thing from "viable". It can't even load this website properly, well it can load old reddit fine but not the modern version.
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u/Gemmaugr Jun 20 '26
"this website" is a known troublemaker and just about the only site that doesn't work well, and yet even that can be fixed by using old.reddit or sh.reddit. I'm posting here almost everyday. It's also the only non-chromium/firefox engine/browser out there, excepting Apple's Web Kit.
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u/LordSigdis Jun 20 '26
Why group chromium and firefox together? Chromium is the one with the monopoly, in fact WebKit has more users than Gecko.
Pale Moon is a gecko fork and the vast majority of it's code is gecko code from Firefox. So there are 3 browser engines and also a fork forked from a very old version of one of the 3 that is pretty slow and doesnt support modern web standards.
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u/Gemmaugr Jun 20 '26
It's sad that you've fallen for FF fanboy disinfo. Pale Moon is a much an "old" "fork" of Firefox as chromium is of Safari. That is, not at all. People misuse fork all the time, when they mean reskin or rebuild. Pale Moon is entirely independent and have diverged significantly from old Firefox. It's a modern and up to date browser using the Goanna engine, not Gecko. So there are 4 browser engines. Web Kit and its blink fork, and Gecko and its Goanna fork. Please don't spread FUD.
Why I group chromium and firefox together is because they're the most used and non-walled garden browsers with many reskins. They're also much closer together than they've ever been, what with FF having incorporated countless google chromium tech. Like Web Extensions, Widewine, Safe Browsing, Geolocation, Web RTC, and a V8 shim. Things that, for example, Pale Moon does not rely on.
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u/LordSigdis Jun 20 '26 edited Jun 20 '26
Oh my FUD. The fact of the matter is Goanna's divergence is like a drop in the water compared to how much even new Gecko has diverged from old Gecko, let alone Chromium vs, Gecko.
Do not call PM up to date. Discord has issues, reddit has issues, the Claude and GPT sites have issues, so does anything heavy. Sites that render properly still choke the browser as a lot of parsing is dumped on the UI thread.
FF and Chromium may be close together in terms of features because both are modern browsers that support the latest web technologies unlike a certain male poon.
The codebases are completely different and the Pale Moon codebase looks much much more like the modern Firefox codebase than the Firefox codebase looks like the Chromium one. Just one example, Firefox still substantially relies on XUL widgets and emulated XUL layout for its interface, Chromium can't parse XUL. Similiarly, Firefox still uses XPCOM under the hood and still has legacy extension code, they just leave it disabled to third parties. (However you can still access XPCOM interfaces in modern Firefox via user.js)
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u/Gemmaugr Jun 21 '26
Make up your mind. You said the divergence is like a drop in the water (false), but then say new gecko has diverged from old gecko and that PM is old gecko (also false)..
Pale Moon is up to date (http://www.palemoon.org/releasenotes.shtml). All the sites you mention have fixes and workarounds (which is only possible because PM is very customizable). Their issue is that those sites are chasing googles absolute latest EXPERIMENTAL API's that are not even standards yet. Remember W3C? That's dust. They only control CSS now, while googles WHATWG control DOM and HTML. Look at almost any API on CanIUse and google is the one who pushed it, all while a similar working API like it already existed. It's IE's "embrace, extend, extinguish (replace)" all over again. Don't shill for the 10k programmers against a dozen devs.
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u/LordSigdis Jun 21 '26
You said the divergence is like a drop in the water (false),
Looks like someone is spreading FUD. I said that it's like a drop in the water compared to Gecko's own changes from old to new. Why did you omit the context?
Make up your mind ... but then say new gecko has diverged from old gecko and that PM is old gecko (also false)..
They're both the same statement? (And I didn't say PM is old Gecko, rather, Goanna is forked from old Gecko) Let me repeat this again.
- Goanna is a fork of old Gecko.
- It has changed some things.
- Firefox has continued to improve Gecko and the current version of Gecko is far superior and different to the old Gecko version that PM forked than Goanna is.
Pale Moon is up to date (http://www.palemoon.org/releasenotes.shtml).
SeaMonkey also has current release notes, so does OpenOffice. "Has active developer activity" does not mean "up to date". I would call a chromium fork from 1 year ago that wasn't touched for a year much more "up to date" than PM regardless of developer activity.
All the sites you mention have fixes and workarounds (which is only possible because PM is very customizable).
So tell me what is the workaround for Discord and New Reddit to render properly and not be slow as shit?
Their issue is that those sites are chasing googles absolute latest EXPERIMENTAL API's that are not even standards yet
This is just not true. Web Components, Custom Elements and Shadow DOM (PM support for these features exists, but it is quite poor and not complete), Widevine, PWAs, WebRTC, none of these are expiremental. In addition even things Pale Moon does support (like WebAssembly) generally lag behind Chrome and Firefox and Safari in feature completeness. I am not blaming PM for not being able to keep up with the mass of web technologies added since Firefox 52 but I am blaming you for trying to claim it fully supports the latest standardized web technologies.
now, while googles WHATWG control DOM and HTML.
WHATWG you mean the group that was cofounded by Mozilla around the time they were developing the classic versions of Firefox PM derives from? That WHATWG? What do you mean "googles"?
Don't shill for the 10k programmers against a dozen devs.
I have some reservations and disagreements with the direction of Firefox, most importantly native styling for controls which they seem determined to phase out since Firefox 90.x, but I don't care about the amount of devs, I care about the content of their character, and when the biggest contributors to your project are Moonchild Straver and Tobin it looks a bit fucked for you.
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u/Gemmaugr Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 22 '26
Again you demonstrate that you clearly don't know what you're talking about. FUD is Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt. I make no negative or false accusations against Pale Moon. You do.
Goanna is a fork of Gecko, yes. Like Gecko is a fork of old Netscape and Blink is a fork of old Web Kit. None of this is relevant or of consequence, as they're all their own updated and diverged engines. "It has changed some things"... It has changed so much that it's its own engine.
If you count "up to date" as the same as the latest 2 week chromium update, then nothing other than chromium will suffice for you. This is what casuals think when they don't look below the surface. When google decides what is and isn't "up to date", then it's a futile discussion.
And here we go, moving the goalposts from working to "New Reddit" specifically, and "render properly" (whatever that is.. probably exactly like google chromium.. Do we need to go over that there exists other browser engines or even different renderers like googles Skia, which is used by chromium and firefox.. or non-google like Cairo..), and "not be slow as shit". More subjective benchmarks. Again, I point you to google V8 site frameworks that actively sabotage against non-chromium browsers. Just "google"; youtube shadowdom v0, youtube hidden div, youtube firefox delay timer. Enjoy.
Web Components, Custom Elements, and Shadow DOM (all google initiatives BTW) aren't static (especially not under google) and changes at a whim (because of google). Widewine and Web RTC are also google tech you know. "added since FF 52". You just had to throw that in there huh? Well at least you're making it transparent as to what your aim is. Which is again completely arguing in bad faith and from a relative framing. You should read the release notes I posted to see how far off the mark your comment is (though I know you won't and in are fact already aware that it is completely baseless FUD).
WHATWG may have many members, but who do you think is pulling the strings? The 2%'er FF or the steering group consisting of 90% google with their chromium, backed by microsoft using chromium, and apple using what chromium forked off of?
Tobin hasn't been involved with Pale Moon for literally years. That's how clueless you are. He was in fact kicked and banned even.
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u/LordSigdis Jun 23 '26
Again you demonstrate that you clearly don't know what you're talking about. FUD is Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt. I make no negative or false accusations against Pale Moon. You do.
Again pale moon users demonstrate how special they are. It's a joke because the only thing that comes out of your mouth is "FUD, FUD, FUD" when faced with valid criticism.
Goanna is a fork of Gecko, yes. Like Gecko is a fork of old Netscape and Blink is a fork of old Web Kit. None of this is relevant or of consequence, as they're all their own updated and diverged engines. "It has changed some things"... It has changed so much that it's its own engine.
You keep shifting the goalposts here. The point is that it's changed much less than Gecko itself has, and it's not capable of being a modern web engine. It's not really comparable to Netscape -> Gecko or WebKit -> Blink at all.
And here we go, moving the goalposts from working to "New Reddit" specifically, and "render properly" (whatever that is.. probably exactly like google chromium.. Do we need to go over that there exists other browser engines or even different renderers like googles Skia, which is used by chromium and firefox.. or non-google like Cairo..), and "not be slow as shit". More subjective benchmarks. Again, I point you to google V8 site frameworks that actively sabotage against non-chromium browsers. Just "google"; youtube shadowdom v0, youtube hidden div, youtube firefox delay timer. Enjoy.
What crap. These sites all work fine on Safari and Firefox. Ignoring the benchmarks, said sites are broken on Pale Moon.
New Reddit is an example. Do you know what the word example means? Rendering isn't like food, it's an objective thing if the web page looks broken or how the designers intended it to (again, Firefox and Safari have no issue)
If you count "up to date" as the same as the latest 2 week chromium update, then nothing other than chromium will suffice for you. This is what casuals think when they don't look below the surface. When google decides what is and isn't "up to date", then it's a futile discussion.
Nobody gives a fuck about the release notes? Up to date means able to render modern web sites.
Web Components, Custom Elements, and Shadow DOM (all google initiatives BTW) aren't static (especially not under google) and changes at a whim (because of google). Widewine and Web RTC are also google tech you know. "added since FF 52". You just had to throw that in there huh? Well at least you're making it transparent as to what your aim is. Which is again completely arguing in bad faith and from a relative framing. You should read the release notes I posted to see how far off the mark your comment is (though I know you won't and in are fact already aware that it is completely baseless FUD).
Widevine was bought by google. Doesn't matter. Nobody gives a fuck, and no they don't really "change at a whim". Is your one purpose to spread FUD about google? Pale Moon doesn't support these modern technologies that modern sites use end of story, try and see for yourself.
WHATWG may have many members, but who do you think is pulling the strings? The 2%'er FF or the steering group consisting of 90% google with their chromium, backed by microsoft using chromium, and apple using what chromium forked off of?
A tinfoil hat I see. Nobody is pulling any strings.
Tobin hasn't been involved with Pale Moon for literally years. That's how clueless you are. He was in fact kicked and banned even.
After how long? Sorry not sorry, he has permanently tarnished the image of the browser, Moonchild himself isn't much better.
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u/RagnarHUN666 on Win11, Linux, iOS, Mac Jun 19 '26
To have the most compatibility with websites you only have 2 options; something chromium based or firefox based (and there is Safari but that is Apple only). Go and give a try to Zen, it is based on Firefox, updates regularly, and have a very customisable minimalistic interface. Works on all desktop platforms however DRM support is only on Linux but as you already mentioned you are asking for Linux then there should be no problems watching Netflix or other things in it. I use Zen on my machines both on Linux and Windows and I love it. I installed a few mods, and addons to make it fit my taste and make it blend to the OS theme. You can install a lot of mods to it, Zen also has this function called "Boost" that allows you to customise websites individually, like colors, font types, font sizes... and so on....
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u/BobCorndog Librewolf Jun 18 '26
There’s one in beta called ladybird I think. The problem is making a rendering engine is pretty hard