The 9 Best and Worst Linux Web Browsers

Brave

A relatively new browser with open-source credentials and a slick design, Brave offers an ad-free and tracker-free browser experience. Highly compliant with standards, the most interesting aspect of Brave is its focus (with its Browser Attention Token and funding model) on paying sites for content.

With Brave Wallet, you can anonymously tip publishers that are signed up with Brave. You can also offer monthly contributions out of the digital wallet. Brave intends for this kind of behavior to substitute for display-ad revenue for sites that are genuinely popular with readers.

Chrome

The Google Chrome browser works as well on Linux as it does on other platforms. If you're all-in with the Google ecosystem, installing Chrome is a no-brainer. If you like the underlying engine but not the business model, the Chromium open-source project may be an appealing alternative.

However, Chrome is only half-heartedly developed for Linux. Google officially releases two 64-bit binaries in RPM and DEB packages.

Chromium

Chromium is the open-source engine at the heart of browsers like Google Chrome and, soon, Microsoft Edge. However, it's less often used as a daily browser (except by tech-savvy developers) and instead as a platform for future development.

Nothing precludes you from installing Chromium. Some Linux distributions include versions of Chromium in their app repositories. However, Chrome and Chromium do not enjoy feature parity. Google adds extra capabilities into Chrome that it doesn't add to Chromium, including some video-rendering tools.

Firefox

For most Linux power users, Firefox is the browser of choice. It's fast and full-featured, standards-compliant, and welcomes a rich ecosystem of browser extensions and themes. Plus, the sync utility keeps different Firefox installations synchronized, including mobile versions.

If you need a regular daily browser, Firefox is an excellent choice.

Konqueror

Once upon a time, Konqueror was the go-to browser on Linux. However, these days it's not as popular with Linux users. Although it's still available on KDE-based distributions, the browser can't quite keep up.

Nevertheless, it's a decent go-to if you need to check a simple site in an alternative browser or to explore the contents of your file system.

Lynx

In the earliest days of the World Wide Web, the default method of surfing involved a text-based browser. Most people don't use tools like Lynx anymore, but the browser is still actively developed. It's a great resource for people accustomed to working in plain text.

The only caveat is that modern sites tend to render in a goofy fashion. For example, a WordPress site with a sidebar might show all the sidebar content and then show the page or post content. The problem isn't so much with Lynx or its siblings, as it is with evolving site-design standards that promote aesthetics over semantic rigor.

Opera

Opera has found a soft spot with power users. It's full-featured, with an emphasis on connectivity, and has a VPN.

The default left sidebar opens features like personalized news, Facebook Messenger, bookmarks, the Speed Dial, and similar tools. The Flow feature syncs with mobile Opera to promote seamless hand-offs of data between devices.

Opera is a good, stable browser that hasn't found the market share it deserves.

Vivaldi

Vivaldi is like Opera. It's a great browser that doesn't have a large market share, although both enjoy a devoted following of power users.

Vivaldi's claim to fame is its insanely high degree of customization. Things like the toolbar can move around the browser window. Vivaldi supports Chrome extensions, which is a plus, but its major drawback is that it tends to choke on some sites more readily than other browsers.

However, if you fancy a powerful browser with many configuration options, the minor rough edges of Vivaldi are a cheap price to pay for what you get.