Webbrowsers for Windows - Overview 2020

[knoelli]

This thread is intended to give a short overview of current web browsers for windows.

Mainline browsers

Google chrome - https://www.google.com/chrome/
Engine: Blink, Price: free, Updates: regularly
Notes: most commonly used browser, best website compatibility, many extensions, many functions send your data to google services

Mozilla Firefox - https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/
Engine: Quantum, Price: free, Updates: regularly
Notes: the most successful number 2 after Chrome, many extensions

Microsoft Edge (new version) - https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/edge
Engine: Blink, Price: free, Updates: regularly
Notes: quite new development, now based on chromium with some additional features


Common alternative browsers

Opera - https://www.opera.com/
Engine: Blink, Price: free, Updates: regularly
Notes: based on chromium with many additional features like speeddial, integrated VPN, etc.

Vivaldi - https://www.vivaldi.com/
Engine: Blink, Price: free, Updates: regularly
Notes: from the makers of the old Opera browser, highly customizable and many additional features like speeddial and integrated adblocker


Niche product alternatives

SeaMonkey - http://www.seamonkey-project.org/
Engine: Gecko, Price: free, Updates: slow
Notes: Complete internet application suite like the old Netscape, based on the Gecko engine from Firefox

Waterfox - https://www.waterfox.net/
Engine: Gecko, Price: free, Updates: slow
Notes: Based on the classic Firefox (ESR) with a focus on privacy (i.e. disabling sending of telemetry data)

Pale Moon - https://www.palemoon.org/
Engine: Goanna, Price: free, Updates: slow
Notes: Goanna is based on the classic Firefox Gecko engine

Otter browser - https://otter-browser.org/
Engine: Qt/Blink, Price: free, Updates: slow
Notes: Otter aims to recreate the user interface of the old Opera browser

Maxthon browser - https://www.maxthon.com/
Engine: Trident/WebKit, Price: free, Updates: slow
Notes: Dual engine browser with a focus on privacy

Torch browser - https://torchbrowser.com/
Engine: Blink, Price: free, Updates: slow
Notes: Based on Chromium with an integrated BitTorrent-client and media grabber

Avant browser - http://avantbrowser.com/
Engine: Trident/Gecko, Price: free, Updates: slow
Notes: The browser is available in two editions, one is using the Trident engine, the other is using Gecko

Yandex browser - https://browser.yandex.com/
Engine: Blink, Price: free, Updates: regularly
Notes: Focuses on privacy and a minimalistic user interface


Legacy browsers

Microsoft Edge (old version) - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/deploye...s-old-edge
Engine: EdgeHTML, Price: free (integrated in Windows 10), Updates: probably not

Internet Explorer - https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help...-downloads
Engine: Trident, Price: free, Updates: no

Opera (old version) - https://ftp.opera.com/pub/opera/win/1218/int/
Engine: Presto, Price: free, Updates: no

[vietnamrum]

Brave browser - brave.com
speed, security and privacy by blocking trackers

I am currently sorting an old netbook that has 1 gig of ram and an atom processor.
Its basically unusable with Google Chrome.
It works reasonably well with palemoon.
Its been running well using Brave.
Brave is my primary browser on windows computers and my smartphones.

Brave browser is based on the Chromium web browser and its Blink engine

Some features:-
adblocker
Brave lets you use Tor right in a tab
block browser Fingerprinting
block scripts
Upgrade connections to HTTPS
Social media blocking

It runs really well on a low spec computer.

versions:-
Brave
Brave Beta
Brave Nightly
Brave portable
Windows 64-bit, Windows 32-bit, macOS and Linux.

portable brave 32 and 64 bit:-  https://sourceforge.net/projects/thumbap...20browser/

64bit
https://sourceforge.net/projects/thumbap...e/download

32bit
https://sourceforge.net/projects/thumbap...e/download

brave portable at Github:-
https://github.com/portapps/brave-portable/releases

[Mike]

Thanks for your share vietnamrum of the Brave browser. I decided to give it a try and like it very much. It does run much faster than Chrome or Microsoft Edge on my laptop.  

[dinosaur07]

Thanks for your share vietnamrum of the Brave browser. I decided to give it a try and like it very much. It does run much faster than Chrome or Microsoft Edge on my laptop.  

Same here. I have it on my smartphone too.