Web browsers are one of the most crucial and most frequently used software in our daily life, since their introduction in 1991. They also determine the quality of users’ web browsing experience. There are various web browsers developed by both open-source organizations and tech giants. Web browsers are trying to attract users with the unique features they provide. Let’s take a closer look at web browsers loved by the Linux community.
Table of Contents
Firefox
Firefox is one of the most popular web browsers for all operating systems, including, OS X, Linux, Solaris, Windows, Android. Firefox is an open-source project and released under MPL2.0 License, Mozilla Public License Version 2.0. It is seen as the spiritual successor of Netscape Navigator and uses the Gecko web engine. Firefox allows users to customize their web browsing experience with thousands of plugins created by third parties. Firefox comes pre-installed with many popular Linux distributions.
How to install Firefox on Ubuntu/Linux Mint
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mozillateam/firefox-next sudo apt update sudo apt install firefox
How to install Firefox on Fedora
sudo dnf install snapd sudo ln -s /var/lib/snapd/snap /snap sudo snap install firefox
How to install Firefox on RHEL/CentOS/AlmaLinux
cd /opt sudo wget https://download-installer.cdn.mozilla.net/pub/firefox/releases/72.0/linux-x86_64/en-US/firefox-72.0.tar.bz2 sudo tar xfj firefox-72.0.tar.bz2 /opt/firefox/firefox
Chrome
Chome, developed by tech giant Google, is the most popular web browser. Originally it was launched for Microsoft Windows 2008, then ported to various other operating systems, including, Linux, Mac OS, iOS, and Android. Chrome is a Chromium fork, written mostly in C++ and it uses a Blink browsing engine. Chome is known for its performance, safety, and stability and allows users to add plugins via Google Web Store to customize the browser. Chrome is also the main component of Chrome OS, a Gentoo Linux-based OS designed by Google.
How to install Chrome on Ubuntu/Linux Mint
sudo apt update sudo apt install wget wget https://dl.google.com/linux/direct/google-chrome-stable_current_amd64.deb sudo dpkg -i google-chrome-stable_current_amd64.deb
How to install Chrome on Fedora
sudo dnf install fedora-workstation-repositories sudo dnf config-manager --set-enabled google-chrome sudo dnf install google-chrome-stable -y
How to install Chrome on RHEL/CentOS/AlmaLinux
# cat << EOF > /etc/yum.repos.d/google-chrome.repo [google-chrome] name=google-chrome baseurl=http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/rpm/stable/x86_64 enabled=1 gpgcheck=1 gpgkey=https://dl.google.com/linux/linux_signing_key.pub EOF # yum install google-chrome-stable
Opera
Opera is also a multi-platform, chromium-based web browser, developed by Opera Software. It supports Microsoft Windows, Android, iOS, macOS, and Linux. Opera Software also released Opera Mobile and Opera Mini versions of the browser to suit changing user needs. Opera is one of the oldest web browsers. The first version of Opera Browser was released in 1995. In 2013, Opera decided to switch from the Presto layout engine to Chromium. Opera is also known for its unique features including Workspaces, allowing users to organize tabs in groups and a free VPN service.
How to install Opera on Ubuntu/Linux Mint
sudo add-apt-repository "deb https://deb.opera.com/opera-stable/ stable non-free" sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install opera-stable
How to install Opera on Fedora/RHEL/CentOS/AlmaLinux
$ sudo rpm --import https://rpm.opera.com/rpmrepo.key $ sudo tee /etc/yum.repos.d/opera.repo RPMREPO [opera] name=Opera packages type=rpm-md baseurl=https://rpm.opera.com/rpm gpgcheck=1 gpgkey=https://rpm.opera.com/rpmrepo.key enabled=1 RPMREPO $ sudo yum -y install opera-stable
Chromium
Chromium is a lightweight and fast web browser available for Linux, Windows, OS X, and Android. It is mostly written in C++ and an open-source codebase for many other popular web browsers, including the most popular web browser, Chrome. Chromium is principally developed and maintained by Google. The entirely free and open-source project was initially released in 2008. Chromium has an extremely simple user interface and it is one of the most lightweight web browsers, as intended.
How to install Chromium on Ubuntu/Debian/Linux Mint
sudo add-apt-repository universe sudo apt update sudo apt install chromium-browser
How to install Chromium on Fedora
sudo dnf install chromium
GNOME Web
The free and open-source web browser, GNOME Web was originally a fork of Galeon and it was called Epiphany until 2012. GNOME Web is currently developed by the GNOME project. It was using the Geeko engine until version 2.20, then decided to switch to the WebKitGTK+ engine. It features full integration with GNOME features including GNOME Network Manager, GNOME printer but has no dependency on GNOME components. GNOME Web’s initial release was in 2002, making it almost one of the oldest web browsers.
How to install GNOME Web on Ubuntu
sudo app-get update sudo app-get install epiphany-browser
How to install GNOME Web on Linux
sudo dnf install snapd sudo ln -s /var/lib/snapd/snap /snap sudo snap install epiphany
Midori
Midori, which means “green” in Japanese, is an open-source web browser, initially released in 2007. Midori is available in Linux, Android, Windows, macOS. It is developed in Vala and C and was a part of the Xfce desktop environment’s Goodies component. After its merger with the Astian Foundation in 2019, Midori switched to WebKit2GTK. It is the default browser of Manjaro Linux, elementary OS, SliTaz Linux, Bodhi Linux, Trisqel Mini, SystemRescue CD. Midori’s last stable release was published in July of 2019.
How to install Midori on Ubuntu
sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install midori
How to install Midori on Linux
sudo dnf install snapd sudo ln -s /var/lib/snapd/snap /snap sudo snap install midori
Konqueror
Konqueror is not only a free and open-source web browser but also a file manager that provides web access. It is developed by volunteers and is a core part of the KDE Software Compilation. With its initial release in 1996, it is also very old. Its name includes a reference to its competitors, Navigator and Explorer. But instead of Conqueror, the team decided to name is Konqueror as a tradition that KDE programs begin with the letter K. Konqueror is developed in C++(Qt) and available for Linux and Windows. It is distributed under the GPLv2 license.
How to install Konqueror on Ubuntu/Debian/Linux Mint
sudo app-get update sudo apt install konqueror
How to install Konqueror on Fedora
sudo dnf install konqueror