Epiphany
A little while ago I decided to try out Epiphany instead of Firefox as my main browser.
It’s excellent. It’s a proper Gnome application, which Firefox isn’t — it just fits in to my desktop because it has a proper Gnome interface, and I really like that. It starts up and runs way faster than Firefox does; it doesn’t crash like Firefox does; it does everything. Huge applause for the Epiphany team, I say. Install the epiphany-browser package on Ubuntu to get it. It uses the same rendering engine as Firefox, so the whole web still works perfectly.
I’ve heard a fair few people bitch about not having access to Firefox extensions, but, frankly, it turns out that I don’t actually need any of them. Epiphany actually comes with a load of extensions (install epiphany-extensions on Ubuntu to get them) and there are third-party extensions too if you like. I’ve changed my opinion on this; I did think that it was bad that extensions need to be written in C or Python rather than XUL/JavaScript, but hey.
Of course, the one big missing thing for me, when I have my web hacker hat on, is Firebug, which is the greatest web development tool that’s ever existed. Wish that existed.
Epiphany is also the default browser in the next release of Gobuntu, which is what I run, so I’d have been migrating to it anyway — it’s jolly pleasing to note that it’s actually better, too.
I’ve been using Epiphany instead of Firefox ever since 5.10. It really is a great browser, good usability, much more so than Firefox and about as good as Opera (although in different ways).
There’s two annoyances that I see in daily use, both related to the fact that it uses Mozilla’s Gecko engine:
- If you hover over a horizontal scrollbar and use the scrollwheel, most Gtk+ apps will scroll horizontally. Epiphany will not.
- Its memory usage grows unboundedly. Slower than Firefox, but I still have t restart it a couple times a week to free up memory.
49 minutes later
I suppose it should surprise me when people make statements about Epiphany being superior to Firefox in places where they’re using exactly the same code (crashing on web pages, browsing performance etc), but it doesn’t. The Galeon placebo has existed for years and years, after all.
Firefox trunk is considerably more native-feeling than the 2.0 release, by the way. I know Ubuntu packages trunk builds (with branding off) just now; I think the package is called firefox3.
- Chris
79 minutes later
One MAJOR drawback: Tabs! Ancient bug reports exist: #110540
2 hours later
I agree with this. Personally i find the Epiphany extensions to be of better quality than those for Firefox.
It’s sad that distributions and the Online Desktop-movement etc. seems to favor Firefox over Gnome’s default web browser.
2 hours later
Chris: I suspect that the acceleration in browsing (which I’ve measured, by the way, just to prove to myself that I wasn’t making it up) and the stability are both down to Firefox extensions that I had installed but didn’t really need, rather than issues with the core browser. Startup speed is also significantly improved, and I suspect that is a core browser issue.
Perhaps there is better native stuff in Fx 3.
4 hours later
Stating the obvious:
You can have both firefox and Epiphany running at the same time. Use Epiphany for all your normal web browsing and use firefox for debugging websites. That way you don’t need to go without firebug, and still get the nicer browser experience for everything else.
I know it’s a radical concept but it might just work.
6 hours later
Paul: which is precisely what I’m doing :)
6 hours later
The first thing I do in firefox when I install it:
about:config
set typeaheadfind true
set linksOnly true
Epiphany doesn’t support this and after getting used to that feature you just can’t live without it.
Cheers…..
6 hours later
Trond: I love that feature, and there’s an epiphany extension for it, but it searches everything, not just links. As a SeaMonkey user I try Epiphany from time to time but it’s just lacking the polish as a browser for the hard-core web surfer. Things like the location bar not being focused in a new tab, poor history UI (only slight better than Firefox 2’s), not supporing the back and forward buttons on my mouse and so on.
7 hours later
Trond Andersen: You don’t have to live without it.
I have just made a fork of my “Automatic Find As You Type” extension that does the same thing, but only with links. (I only had to change one instance of “False” to “True”.)
You can find it at:
http://www.sstuhr.dk/epiphany-extensions/#ext-autofindlinksasyoutype
10 hours later
Epiphany is great!!! I never used Firefox, allways I tried it, but I can’t leave Epiphany!
11 hours later
I use sometimes Firefox for webdeveloping when I use epiphany for normal web browsing.
1. I am not log into ’admin’ account on my pages so I see like them as any user see them
2. Fx has firebug
PS.
The Gecko is one of the engines epiphany supports but it is not the only one. I am waiting for Webkit ;)
28 hours later
I love Epiphany! My favorite feature: Speed.
3 days later
Yeah, I was using Epiphany part-time for a couple of days as Firefox was crashing on Wikipedia due to a dodgy Monaco font (no idea why Epiphany wasn’t crashing…) and was pleasantly surprised, it actually works out pretty well.
I’m back on Firefox for now, mainly because I’m more used to it and because I didn’t want to go to the hassle of installing Flash and Flashblock on Epiphany, but I’m more open to switching at some point in the future than I used to be.
5 days later