Best Open Source Web Browsers
Firefox
Firefox is the best alternative to Google’s Chome. Firefox is a completely free and open source browser from the Mozilla foundation. It is available for Windows, Linux, and Mac desktops. Android and IOS platforms also have support for the Firefox browser. Written in C++, JavaScript, HTML, C, and Rust, Firefox was initially created in 2002 but was launched in 2004. It gave tough competition to Internet Explorer at that time by hitting 60 million downloads within 9 months. Currently, Firefox has the second largest market share and many operating systems like Debian, Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Manjaro Linux, Firefox OS use it as their default browser. So if you are using, the chances are that Firefox is already on your system.
Chromium
The base for many popular browsers today, Chromium is a joint venture between Google and many other FOSS enthusiasts. Many modern desktop and smartphone browsers including Chrome, Opera, Vivaldi, Opera Neon, etc. are based on the Chromium Web browser. It is written in C, C++, Java, JavaScript, and Python. The project launched in 2008 along with Chrome which soon became the most famous browser in the world. Chromium is often confused to have more features than Chrome, but it actually doesn’t contain most of the proprietary and licensed Media Codes that Chrome uses. So if you want a popular and open source Linux web browser, Chromium is a way to go.
Midori
Midori is a lightweight open-source browser that uses the GTK interface for its user interface. It is famous for consuming low resources and is hence comes with many lightweight systems including WattOS, Bodhi Linux, and SliTaz. Midori is a part of the XFCE desktop environment and comes as a default browser in Elementary OS. The browser is extremely fast and has very less number of plugins available for it. It is available for Windows and Linux.
Brave
Brave Browser is a browser based on Chromium and its blink engine. Developed by Brendan Eich(Creator of Javascript), the browser focuses on blocking trackers and intrusive advertisements. Brave has been written using C, JavaScript, C++ and it is available for Linux, Windows, macOS, Android, iOS. Even though the browser announcement came in early 2017, the stable releases only appeared a few months back.
Pale Moon
Pale Moon is an open source web browser that focuses on customizability. It has been forked from Mozilla Firefox but has major distinctions with respect to add-ons and UI. Official releases are available for Windows and Linux and an unofficial build is also available for Mac. Pale Moon had its first release in 2009. It has been written in C/C++, CSS, JavaScript, XUL.
Waterfox
Waterfox, true to its name is based on Firefox and is made especially for 64-bit Operating Systems. Waterfox came out in 2011 and is active since then. Waterfox has continued to support XUL and XPCOM add-on capability that Firefox had removed in version 57. This web browser is available for Windows, macOS, Linux, Android and has been downloaded over 6 MIllion times.
QupZilla
QupZilla created by David Rosca is an open source web browser that uses the Qt WebEngine. The browser is known for giving a very native look and feel. Written in C++ the browser is available for Linux, FreeBSD, Mac, Haiku and Microsoft Windows. QupZilla offers features like screenshots, Integration of history, web feeds and bookmarks in one place and offers a speed dial like opera. It is lightweight and consumes fewer resources than most major web browsers.
SeaMonkey
SeaMonkey is a continuation of the classic Mozilla application suite. The Sea Monkey project falls under Mozilla however, the SeaMonkey Council is the community that governs it. Written in C++, XUL, XBL, and JavaScript, it uses Gecko and is available for Windows, Linux, and Mac. Along with a browser, The SeaMonkey suite has its own email client, news client and it also has an HTML editor. So these were my picks for the best open source web browsers. If I missed any of your favorites, do let me know in the comment section below.
