(old)Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

https://minbrowser.github.io/min/

Hello,

has anyone tried Min before? I just installed the i386 deb file & it seems to be quite fast.

Seemed to work ok, after I installed gconf and mozilla-nss from ppm. My CPU was stuck at top frequency a lot but that might have been just a coincidence. I thought it was webkit/blink based, but mozilla-nss means it's gecko based? After installing it all my windows have a new minimize button though... I guess "min" icon overwrote some other "min" icon somewhere - heh.

Having things named as "min" may cause issues.
The package has /usr/share/pixmaps/min.png
Some Puppies may already have a file of that name at that location.
It is part of the JWM button style selector I think.
I renamed to "minbrowser.png" and made the corresponding change to the .desktop file.
That seems to remove any icon conflicts.
The browser looks like it may be chromium based but heavily modified, not sure.
It is working OK in my Wheezy remaster anyway.
Didn't need any extra packages.
Have only done a few brief tests though.

Looks interesting....
Is chromium / electron based (similar to new Skype For Linux...)
Runs on LxPupSc with no additions or changes
Runs as root with no problem
Opened BBC iPlayer and Youtube with no problems
Sound works without pulseaudio
Does not need GTK+3 and has both 32-bit and 64-bit versions
About the same size as Seamonkey - bit bigger than Palemoon but smaller than both Firefox and Chromium.....

An interface that will take some getting used to....

Looks interesting....
Is chromium / electron based (similar to new Skype For Linux...)
Runs on LxPupSc with no additions or changes
Runs as root with no problem
Opened BBC iPlayer and Youtube with no problems
Sound works without pulseaudio
Does not need GTK+3 and has both 32-bit and 64-bit versions
About the same size as Seamonkey - bit bigger than Palemoon but smaller than both Firefox and Chromium.....

An interface that will take some getting used to....

An apt description. I am posting from this browser now.

Does it HTML5 compliant?
Does it plays HTML5 video and audio?

So I tried it in RU Xerus64 and it worked very well but then....

Where are the forward, back and reload navigation buttons. Really? What was the developer thinking here???

This would easily overtake the overrated Palemoon as a good light browser if it had just a little nicer user interface....

Just wondering since this is Chrome/Electron how well the browser passes the Client-Side Test.
This will check SSL capabilities.

BTW: the direct-download installs, so not for me... can't store it to remove other browser.

Regards
8Geee

mistfire wrote:Does it HTML5 compliant?
Does it plays HTML5 video and audio?

8Geee wrote:Just wondering since this is Chrome/Electron how well the browser passes the Client-Side Test.

Test results:

https://my.pcloud.com/publink/show?code ... cl3fQNN7E7

Releases page:
https://github.com/minbrowser/min/releases/

Does not work in an older pup. I tried it in the most up to date version of Lucid 5287. Did not open. Tried from a terminal and complained about a couple of things. Tried looking for missing dependencies. There were none! Back to the terminal and tried to use the output to look for what was missing in ppm.
No luck with this so I think thats far as I can go for now. Probably too big for my hardware anyway.

Ken.

keniv wrote:Does not work in an older pup. I tried it in the most up to date version of Lucid 5287. Did not open. Tried from a terminal and complained about a couple of things. Tried looking for missing dependencies. There were none! Back to the terminal and tried to use the output to look for what was missing in ppm.
No luck with this so I think thats far as I can go for now. Probably too big for my hardware anyway.

As I expected, it doesn't work on Wary either. (Outdated glibc, etc. - which is likely your problem, too. Don't try to update these libraries, you would break your system.)

I tested it in a virtual machine with Tahrpup 6.0.6, together with 2 other browsers - the pre-installed Palemoon 27, and Seamonkey 2.33.1. I had to increase the VM's memory from my usual 512MB to 1GB to be able to use any of these browsers without having them crash on start-up.

Performance-wise, I couldn't see much difference, and the memory usage is similar, too. (~400-450MB idle, without displaying a web page. Seamonkey seems to be slightly heavier than the others.) With a ~160MB program folder, Min is about twice as big as Palemoon and Seamonkey (both ~85MB).

The user interface is... meh.
It's very clumsy. The tab title bar doubles as address bar, which means you can't see or enter any URL unless you click on it. I found the tabs hard to distinguish from each other. On the second picture below you can see which sites I visited because I couldn't figure out how to clear the browsing history. (Wait, I think I found it: Menu > Developer > Inspect Browser > Application. How very intuitive...) There is no status bar either; to see where a link goes, you have to right-click it. And as slavvo67 said, there are no navigation buttons - or anything else really, besides the tab bar. When I went to wikipedia.org, Min claimed that the site's HTTPS was valid (Menu > Developer > Inspect page > Security), but clicking on "view certificate" did nothing.

The preferences page offers these options:
- block ads/trackers/scripts/images
- change the browser's appearance to "dark mode", which doesn't seem to do anything
- swipe navigation (is that for mobile things?)
- select a search engine

... That's about it.

This is a browser with quite a few development/profiling features, but barely any end-user functionality. It doesn't look like a finished product yet.

mistfire wrote:Does it HTML5 compliant?
Does it plays HTML5 video and audio?

Yes, it does. Youtube works, and I also tested some HTML5 game.

I think that I'm changing my mind on this one. Interface is a bit different but it's quick. Perhaps this is the Palemoon replacement.

I think that I'm changing my mind on this one. Interface is a bit different but it's quick. Perhaps this is the Palemoon replacement.

Morning, all.

Thought I'd give this one a spin, and, er.....yes, I agree. The interface will take some 'getting used to..!

However, it is fast. Definitely. No means I can see for importing bookmarks; or setting a 'home' page. Seems you need to type your URLs in afresh, every time. It's got promise, though.

Even more interestingly, I've got Radiotunes playing in it.....yet according to Adobe's 'Flash Checker' page, it couldn't load the plug-in! Very odd... Can't quite figure that one out.

I've run up a 64-bit SFS for anyone who'd like to try this out without permanently installing it. It's a 'generic' package; my experience over the last year or so has been that Electron-based apps will run in all Pups, as long as the glibc's new enough.

It's available here:-

http://www.mediafire.com/file/cz73wsvsw ... -amd64.sfs

Have fun!


Mike.

Thanks to Minbrowser developer and Mike. Thanks BarryK for Quirky8.2

Yes. it is fast, especially running in latest Quirky8.2. It's also small in size as compared with other Chromium derivatives.

Hope there be better user interface as comment by you all above.

Just my 2 cents on Min:

I used it during my final year uni project .. Even from a web dev point of view it behaves almost exactly the same as Chrome - it includes the same Dev Tools and seems to be pretty much the same rendering engine (meaning same browser features - HTML5, CSS3, File API, JS ES5, Canvas, etc) ..

Performance is very good.

The UI is not great, but can be gotten used to.

Overall, it is a good, smaller alternative to Chrome (if you can put up with the strange UI).

Hi, sc0ttman.

P'raps you can fill in some of the 'gaps' for the rest of us!

Did you ever figure out how you 'bookmark' anything? And, er, is there any way at all to step backwards & forwards through pages? Everything seems to work through the 'List' page (kinda like a 'History' page?)

Basic stuff like that, y'know?


Mike.

The CTRL key is the modifier, so ctrl + left or right arrow will take you through pages.
ctrl + TAB amazingly enough takes you to the next tab.
ctrl + d saves a bookmark, but I still don't know how to find it afterwards.
Hitting ALT brings up the menu toolbar, so click on help to get to the shortcuts page (or look at Edit > Preferences).

Hi, Keef.

Thanks for the info, old son. I'll have another look at Min, now!

I'm going to put together a 32-bit SFS for this. I think it's worth persevering with.

Cheers.


Mike.

Hi again, all.

32-bit SFS package now available. Link as below:-

http://www.mediafire.com/file/3g7zmsxb8 ... 0-i386.sfs

@Keef:-

It appears that whatever you bookmark, appears in the 'Task List' that shows up when you hit the 'hamburger' Menu symbol, at the the far right end of the Tabs bar. I've bookmarked a few of my regular sites, and it seems this is where they go to. So, I'm guessing the list could grow to quite sizeable proportions after a while.....

Still haven't discovered a way to import bookmarks. It's early days yet, though; this may well get added to a later release. We shall see.

Posting this from Min in Slacko 560. Give it a try.

Edit:- Curiouser & curiouser. Seems that what shows in the 'Task List' is whatever tabs you happen to have open at the point when you click on the hamburger. Click on 'New Task' at the bottom, and you can create another list of whatever tabs are open when you click on it. A wee bit awkward initially, but it's got definite possiblities! You can go to whichever 'Task' set of tabs you want simply by clicking on any URL within that Task.

So; it would appear that you can set up your 'bookmarks' in groups of similar sites. Nifty. And, er; I don't think you need to use 'Ctrl + d', either. Whatever is open when you click on 'New Task' simply gets added to as you open further sites. Boy, this is gonna take some getting used to.....

And Min does remember these Task 'groups' of tabs between one session and the next. Not yet sure as I'd trust it for banking, mind you ..!!

Very definitely worth persevering with, though.


Mike.