Curl :p
Lynx
I think Dillo might work fine too.
Not a modern browser though, as it hasn’t been updated for HTML5.
It’s a tough question because it’s not just the browser consuming resources (though that does matter a lot with this little memory), it’s also that modern websites assume they’ll have enough RAM available to get comfortable on your machine. This can be really frustrating if your ingrained browsing habits include leaving lots of tabs open all the time, you hit the cap quick. Even one medium-weight webapp will feel crowded. A lot of the web is just not built for those specs anymore.
I wonder if it would help to make a low-memory optimization for browsers that aggressively pages low-change portions of the page to disk. probably wouldn’t help for webapp-y interactive stuff but it could make, for example, having a shitload of wikipedia pages open in separate tabs more performant.
Too bad l suppose 😕😕😕
It’s one of the harder parts of life on a server farm. Every once in a while, you realize that one of your machines is… getting on in years. It happens slowly, but then something will make you notice, and when you notice, you also notice that it’s been that way for a while. It just usually hits all at once.
I like to put these machines on a nice wire shelf, with plenty of room to flash their lights and vent if they need to, with nice, conditioned, uninterrupted power and plenty of network access (not too much). I like to give them something easy but engaging to work on, and just let them do their thing until they feel it’s their time.
It’s a little sad, but every computer will eventually flip its final flop. When the time comes, I help all the other machines come to terms with the loss, set up support networks with the remaining machines so everyone has someone to talk to, and perform the ritual of final deracking. The removal and preservation of the connective material. The bagging and labeling of device-specific accoutrements. The shoving of the dead machine into a Sterilite tomb, from which it will rise as part of the dreadful techno-Frankensteinian horror that I am obviously fated to build because there is no. other. reason. to do this.
Just part of life.
yep.
Well, it’s actually a 12 year old laptop, probably can’t be used for browsing in 2026 l suppose !!
Realistically, I don’t think there’s much online browsing you can do with 2GB of RAM. The websites themselves will be as much of a bottleneck as the browser.
OK, I’ll throw my 2ct in the ring:
2GB RAM should be enough to run any browser with a few tabs churning shitty js. But nothing more than that.
But you forgot to mention the CPU, the most important thing for what you’re asking. And looking at the rest, esp. the GPU, this is likely a consumer laptop from 2012.
So, with a low-end CPU of that time, most commenters are right.
Anyhow it’s not really a question of which browser, more of what content you want to see on it. Definitely not Youtube and social media.
But maybe don’t throw the machine away and use it for other things. That’s the power of Linux, not that it can magically triple your hardware.
On those specs? Well, you could try Librewolf and ungoogled-chromium, but I imagine they’ll be a tad sluggish.
NetSurf, Dillo, and Links2 are more suited to low-power machines, but they don’t support HTML5. Also, NetSurf’s JavaScript implementation is fairly old, and the other two don’t support JS at all. Furthermore, Links2 doesn’t support CSS (by design).
I suppose many of the modern day websites won’t work on such browsers ??
Are there browsers directly from the command line ?? I’m going to use MX fluxbox as the OS.
You could try Chawan. That’s quite good.
You also have the usual selection of Links2 (text mode), Lynx, and w3m; but most modern websites will not work very well (if at all).
Command line browsers do exist but are usually worse than the others mentioned in terms of site support.
Seamonkey with uBlock Origin Legacy.
Seamonkey
Haven’t seen that one mentioned in a while. I used to use this ages ago, when some distros still had it in their repos, but evtl. gave up. Gotta hand it to them, they’re hanging on.
For the uninitiated: it’s basically a combo of older Firefox & Thunderbird versions in one app. Oh, and does it still feature the WYSIWYG HTML Composer?
