Guide

Best Web Browser for Raspberry Pi 3 – A Quick Guide

We always get stuck up with hundreds of options available to choose from. Whether it be a car, a gadget, or a tool. Technology confuses the human mind every single day. Well, it goes the same for choosing a Raspberry Pi web browser. What if you have the best of the Raspberry Pi kits, but don’t know which browser is perfect for it? There are tons of free Web browsers available on the internet that are really good to use. But, we literally don’t have an idea which one to go for. It’s tough time making a final decision when all the other software or tools are built with edge-to-edge features.

Don’t worry I won’t let you astray in this dark ocean of software.

Here, I will provide you some of the best browsers for Raspberry Pi starter kit.

If you get the perfect Raspberry Pi web browser, then it will help you to have faster loading time of the web pages and boost in performance. It consumes less CPU usage for doing tasks and offers better productivity & reliability.

So, let’s get to the list.

Best Raspberry Pi Web Browser

1. Kweb

Kweb offers some unique possibilities which you will not find in any other web browser.

  • Kweb comes with the support to the Jpeg encoding and hardware accelerated video.
  • It hardly crashes or freezes on heavy usage.
  • There’s an optional mode of Kiosk is available that enables Kweb to run on a simple desktop environment.
  • It helps to get the faster website loading time.
  • It includes an omxPlayer to watch online videos in a simple GUI program.

Though it comes with the compatibility to JavaScript, HTML5, etc. it lacks in some features like the social-networking plugins and buttons. Till date, Kweb is one of the best lightweight Raspberry Pi web browsers available on the internet.

2. IceWeasel

IceWeasel is the Firefox based Raspbian browser which works on a Raspberry Pi 3. IceWeasel is more stable due to its usage of Gecko website rendering which is very reliable.

  • It works with Debian Linux operating system.
  • The UI of IceWeasel is similar to Firefox with some enhancements in privacy.
  • You can also see online HD videos with the YouTube HTML5 video player.

It might not be the fastest browser available out there, but it’s one of the best and secure web browser which hardly crashes.

3. Web/Epiphany Browser

The Web which was previously known with the name of an Epiphany browser is a Webkit powered tab just like the Google Chrome. It’s a web browser for the GNOME desktop.

  • Epiphany 3.2.4 has now given a new feature of setting your Homepage. You will now get a new Bookmark feature as well.
  • It also has the features like tab windows, private window, HTML5, Javascript, bookmarking, etc.
  • You will get high security and features like Insecure Password Form warning which will help you detect if your password is gobbled up.
  • The Epiphany/Web loads websites like Yahoo, Reddit, and Twitter pretty fast.

I love Epiphany/Web browser because it has the best Video handling capacity compared to other browsers.

4. Midori

Midori is the lightweight free web browser which is selected as the default browser for Raspbian. Also, it has an inbuilt privacy tool, which has certain features like script disabling, third-party cookie blocking. It also has an integrated ad blocker, and cookie manager installed.

  • The launch speed of Midori is on par than Google Chromium.
  • Midori is just a small program of 56,882 lines of code, but it can still do wonders and supports many of the most popular parts of the web.
  • It can open websites like Yahoo, Google, and Twitter pretty quickly and you can also scroll down the pages smoothly. It is reliable and does not freeze or crash a lot.

I love Midori because of its simple User Interface. You get options like the menu bar, title bar, bookmark bar, and also the best part is, you can hide any of these bars to work according to your convenience.

On the down side of Midori, there are some additional plugins like Visual effects and animations in the user interface which can slow it down.

5. NetSurf

NetSurf is another from the list of lightweight plugins which runs on the RISC OS. It was launched twelve years ago.

  • It’s now available for all the Operating Systems like Mac OS X, Windows, and the official Raspberry Pi Raspbian.
  • Almost all the websites will look alike as you see on the Mac but, on the downside, we have to keep in mind that it lacks the support of Javascript.

NetSurf is very fast to use, but again we have to remember it has some basic functionalities missing.

Concluding Thoughts

All the browsers as mentioned above are great to use. Note that all have their own pros and cons and that is what makes them unique from the others.

I hope you learned something new today from this article.

Let me know in the comments section which browser among the above mentioned will you prefer and install on your Raspberry Pi?

Peace.

Jessica Ward

Hey! I am Jessica Ward. I love to write about technology and learn or thinking about latest techno. And my forever ever love technology project is Raspberry Pi. I do and know more or more for Raspberry Pi.

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