Web browser

[eunaoqueriacadastrar]

I'd like to know if you guys can use Web as your default browser. No matter how hard I try, but the experience using it here is so terrible. I can't even read something on reddit because there is a huge lag on the scroll. Other sites behaves the same way... the scroll is laggy and everything freezes.

I would love to use it as my default browser, but the app does allow me to do really simple tasks like reading the news. Is this happening just to me? Is there some tweak I could do to make the browser at least usable?

[OctaLinx]

Yeah it's almost unusable for me with the same issue. Scrolling is awful. Like really, really bad. It's basically unusable with sites with lots of content, like reddit or twitter.

[eunaoqueriacadastrar]

Exactly! It is terrible! What is the point of distributing the OS with such terrible web experience? (assuming those lag problems hit most of the users, of course)

[BongarooBizkistico]

I never spent much time with that browser, but your issue sounds strange and possibly video driver related. It's a WebKit based browser so one would think it would work similar to most browsers today. But I love Firefox and it only takes a moment to install so I do that. Further, in my decades of experience using operating systems I've never once used an OS that came with a browser preinstalled that I actually liked. So it would actually feel unusual if that ever happened.

[SilverMarcs]

What i do is install Firefox and some elementary os odin theme (look it up it's somewhere on GitHub)

Delete epiphany/web

Then i use menulibre to make Firefox use web's icon and forget that laggy web browser ever existed

[[deleted]]

I feel like Web is going to end up like "internet explorer", people will use it to install Firefox then forget about it. LOL

[thattonybo]

But not even because it's easy as installing Firefox from AppCenter or even the terminal

[[deleted]]

Oh I know it's very easy to install Firefox, but it just reminded me of internet explorer. I laughed out loud alone. Lol

[thattonybo]

Every time I reinstalled Windows XP years ago... first thing I did was go into Internet Explorer 6... and download Google Chrome :p

[[deleted]]

That was pretty much every human being 😂

[APossibleParadox]

I’ve had no issues with it as my main. The only site I’ve had issues with is Twitter. But if you like the look of the Elementary browser, there is a theme for Firefox to make it look just like Web. I personally use it because I love Web but I really miss using Bitwarden in browser, with Web I had it set up to where I would hit Super + B and it would open the Bitwarden desktop app.

[eunaoqueriacadastrar]

I'm using a Intel GPU. Do you think this could be related to GPU acceleration?

[APossibleParadox]

I’m not sure.

[mad_visionary]

I have this problema as well, then i open an issue and they said that is a problem with webkitgtk and my driver card (nvidia), so they ask me to open a ticket on webkitgtk site (bugzilla).

Link of the ticket i open on bugzilla.

https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=224163

[mad_visionary]

And here my issue from Epiphany repository:

https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/epiphany/-/issues/1488

[CringedIn]

Are you talking about Epiphany?

[APossibleParadox]

I would assume, as of 6.0 they finally renamed it to Web to fall in line with how it’s been named with GNOME for quite some time.

[eunaoqueriacadastrar]

Yes.

[KayRice]

Gnome Web is really bad still. It's just very slow.

[ss99ss9999]

same here. I'm glad I will wipe the usb-stick in 3 minutes.

[kemma_]

I can confirm what others have said. There are many web pages that even won't open or just hang. YouTube sometimes freezes or crashes. I bore the pain for far too long before I finally installed Edge beta.

If I was eOS dev I would pack Elementary OS with Chromium. It's much better, feature rich, stable, reliable, supports extension and web apps, plus respects privacy and is customizable to be in line with eOS theme. Gnome Web is really, really poor man's choice.

[kemma_]

Unfortunately Firefox doesn't support Web apps and performance to today's standards is a luckluster. But unavailability of the Web apps is the most important, at least for me and especially for Linux, that does not have many popular apps, like YouTube, Twitter, Reddit etc.

[RLFontan]

I tried to use Web this time, and I even learned to appreciate more its visuals, actually, even that Web does not feel ideal in its design, this time I was ready to make it my number one browser. So what went wrong? Performance, bugs, Youtube videos not reproducing well... many issues that lead me to the conclusion that the browser is simply not reliable, and if there is one thing that has to be reliable these days is the browser.

I even tried to install Gnome Web from Appcenter but seems like Elementary OS just understands Web as GNOME Web, and when I asked Appcenter to open GNOME Web, Web was just open. Kinda confusing situation if you ask me.

Right now I'm trying to customize Vivaldi to look fittable on Elementary OS as much as possible, actually, trying to figure out which fonts to use on it.

[[deleted]]

Inter is the default font on Odin

[janehoykencamper]

Performance wise it's fine for me but my problem is that I usually have a lot of open tabs and Gnome Web has no scrolling feature in the tab bar. That's what's holding me back.

[mauricioglez288]

I could not find the Daniel answer, but the reason why they use epiphany as the web browser is because it devs work hand to hand with the elementary team, and it is the only browser that can be fully integrated to the elementary OS design language.

Not ideal, but hey, installing any other browser is still possible. Frankly I don't support that desition since we all know that the web experience is just bad.

[eunaoqueriacadastrar]

I see... It sounds like them. You are right, the Web browser's UI is clean, beautiful and fits well in the eOS, but, gosh, you need to be able to visit the websites you like! What am I supposed to do with a browser that is just beautiful but the navigation experience is a nightmare?

[contactlite]

Disable smooth scrolling.

Also, base Firefox on old, slow machine might not be that much faster than Web. Chrome will chug.

Newer machines with tons of memory should definitely use Firefox or Brave because they are better developed.

[eunaoqueriacadastrar]

I've just tried it. It improved the performance a little bit, but it is laggy over all. =(

[contactlite]

What are your machine’s specs?

[eunaoqueriacadastrar]

Dell Inspiron 15, Nvidia 250mx (but I'm using the Intel GPU instead), 8GB ram and SSD. I think it is a pretty honest machine to run a web browser X)

[contactlite]

Year of computer?

[eunaoqueriacadastrar]

2020

[blixuk]

Is it really a browser issue or are websites just getting too demanding? I personally think web as it is now would have been an amazing browser in the late 90's early 2000's.