What is the best alternative to PhantomJS?

Question

Help millions of people make better decisions.

Each month, over 2.8 million people use Slant to find the best products and share their knowledge. Pick the tags you’re passionate about to get a personalized feed and begin contributing your knowledge.

score 9 · Answer 1

CasperJS

Top Pro

Allows screenshots (either the full page or parts of it) if performing UI testing

There are times where you don't want to open up a browser for screencaps, that is where CasperJS comes to use, it can render the page using its own rendering engine and take and save a screenshot for you, all via the commandline See More

Top Con

Not for unit testing but rather UI testing

These are two extremely different concepts. CasperJS should be removed from this list See More

Top Pro

Easy to understand

Top Con

Cannot guarantee 100% accurate Webkit-based browser screenshots

QtWebKit is the rendering engine used by CasperJS. Keep in mind this is NOT the same rendering engine as Chrome; hence, if you want to be 100% sure of the results, you must run a Webkit browser (such as Chrome) yourself. See More

Top Pro

Written in JavaScript

Since all webdevs know JS, the start-up time of learning the framework will be reduced to zero, as your team can be productive from day one. See More

Top Pro

Easily integrates with other applications

Due to the simplicity of the framework, not only other libraries can be built with it, but it can be integrated with any web application as well. See More

Top Pro

Can run javascript code inside pages being tested

Can execute arbitrary javascript or load external JS into the page being tested. This feature is possible due to the presence of a rendering engine, and helps you see the effects of any client side scripting during your tests. See More

See All Experiences

9 1

score 3 · Answer 2

Puppeteer

Top Pro

Actively developed and promoted by Google

Top Con

Not good for Cross Browser Tests

Since it only tests via Chromium, it won't help you test inconsistencies between browsers like Edge or Safari. There are projects to get around this, but they aren't mature. See More

Top Pro

Works great with modern node.js features

Top Pro

Runs a real browser

Unlike the other options here, this is a real browser, just without the GUI parts. This means the quality of the test is much higher, and lets you do things like save to PDF or images. See More

Top Pro

Complete API for Chromium included

Chromium tests depend on the same API that Puppeteer gives you access to, so all the features are included See More

3 0

score 23 · Answer 3

Selenium

Top Pro

Uses an approved WC3 standard - WebDriver

The WebDriver protocol is standardized by the World Wide Web Consortium which makes it easy for third-parties to get involved and contribute to Selenium. WebDriver has been the foundation of many additional automation projects besides core selenium and has become the de-facto standard for UI automation. See More

Top Con

The IDE for recording isn't too powerful

Top Pro

Integrates with any CI tool

Selenium, with its ability to interact with different testing frameworks, like NUnit or xUnit, makes it easy to get Selenium working with practically any Continuous Integration services. See More

Top Con

Issues with locators

Locators that support common attributes like: name, id, XPATH, javascriptDOM, etc. have to be found through firebugs. See More

Top Pro

Cross-browser

Supports many browsers and a solid platform for adding future browsers to selenium (WebDriver) See More

Top Pro

Actively supported

The open source community behind Selenium has a very large & engaged developer base. This ensures a stable support channel for the tool. In addition, various companies also provide support for Selenium. This active and multi-channel support provides a much more lucrative option for developers looking to implement Selenium in their workflow. See More

Top Pro

You can use the same IDE you use for coding to debug

Top Pro

Integrates well with existing testing frameworks

Top Pro

Support for many languages

Selenium supports a variety of languages including Java, Python, PHP, C#, Ruby and JavaScript ensuring that the tool is easily accessible to a wide variety of developers. See More

Top Pro

Cross-platform

Selenium is based on Java and can be run on Windows, Mac, Linux, Unix, etc. See More

Top Pro

Ability to imitate a real user using the application

Testing is analogous to a human being using the web application which is not possible with a solution which runs headless and claims to run faster than Selenium. See More

Top Pro

Use the very minimum amount of code required to run

Selenium tries to inject into the page only the bare minimum of code needed to run the tests. See More

Top Pro

Easy to set preconditions for the tests

See All Experiences

23 3

score 7 · Answer 4

Zombie.js

Top Pro

Runs on Node.js

Zombie is built on node.js, making it very easy to integrate with your project and into your testing toolchain. It only requires JavaScript to run. See More

Top Con

Support has waned

As of August 19, 2016, Zombie hasn't received a commit since January 2016. Issues get comments like "patch welcome". See More

Top Pro

Fully featured api based interaction and assertion

The way the api is built makes it very easy to add to your test framework. See More

Top Con

Stale documentation

Full API documentation has been missing since the start, making it frustrating to use. See More

Top Pro

Claims to be "Insanely Fast"

It's a lot faster than fully fletched browsers and a lot lighter. Partly because it really only focuses on headless loading of pages along with their JavaScript (not taking really care of rendering or more visual resources). See More

Top Con

Fails to load many sites

As its JavaScript and DOM engine are mostly "just good enough" and because by design it'll report all errors and stop there, many complex sites will not load properly through Zombie.js. See More

Top Con

No screen-shot

As it doesn't render the page, you cannot get a screenshot to for testing or reporting test failures. See More

See All Experiences

7 2

score 13 · Answer 5

NW.js (w/xvfb)

Top Pro

Node integration

The integration of Node with the DOM in NW.js opens up a number of new options in how your headless testing workflow can be facilitated. The distinct separation of JavaScript contexts, the introduction of a separate node context, and the ability to cross communicate, offers a lot of power and flexibility. See More

Top Con

xvfb Requirement (for now)

Headless is on the NW.js roadmap, but for now xvfb is necessary to get going. The community has done the work and you can find the details here. See More

Top Pro

NaCl support/integration

Access to the Native Client offers up more options in implementing your testing workflow. See More

13 0

score 42 · Answer 6

Browsersync

Top Pro

Works concurrently across multiple devices

It is not constrained to a single device, it works across desktop and mobile devices at the same time. It will update code changes, synchronize scroll positions and form inputs automatically across all browsers and devices. See More

Top Con

Setting up in Windows can be a little tricky

Sometimes when setting up BrowserSync in Windows some errors will pop up. Most of the time this is because npm throws errors when trying to compile BrowserSync and some of the dependencies need Visual C++ runtime libraries. This is easily solvable by installing Visual Studio. Once it's installed, there should not be any more problems. See More

Top Pro

Synchronized form field input

When filling out a form in one browser, same information will be repeated in other browsers. See More

Top Pro

Works with basically every desktop and mobile browser

Browser-Sync has been tested to work with desktop (Chrome, Firefox, IE 7-10, Safari, Opera) and mobile (Android, iOS, Windows Phone, Opera Mobile, Firefox Mobile) browsers. See More

Top Pro

Cross-platform

Works on Windows, Linux and OS X. See More

Top Pro

CSS injection

Once the monitored .css file is saved, changes are implemented without a refresh. See More

Top Pro

Free and open source

Licensed under MIT. See More

Top Pro

Remembers scroll position

Remembers scroll position and synchronize it across all browsers so you don't have to move to the appropriate part of the page after each reload. See More

Top Pro

Works as a standalone npm package or as a Grunt plugin

To install as a standalone npm package npm install -g browser-sync To install as a grunt-plugin npm install grunt-browser-sync See More

Top Pro

Synchronized navigation

When navigating in one browser, other browsers will automatically follow to the same place. See More

Top Pro

Doesn't require a browser plugin

BrowserSync does not require a browser plugin to be installed. This is because it serves the files directly itself, and uses a script which opens a socket between the browser and the server. See More

Top Pro

Works with older versions of IE

Browser-Sync works with all supported IE versions - IE7 and up. See More

See All Experiences

42 4

score 11 · Answer 7

Ghost Browser

Top Con

No essential tools for web development

Top Pro

Log into any website with multiple accounts in one window

Top Con

Doesn't support linux

Supports only windows and mac See More

Top Pro

Projects function removes the need to log in

With the new release (as of Dec 6th 2016), you can save a group of "Sessions" with logins stored to a Project, which you can launch with the click of a button. "Projects" eliminates the need to spend time setting up your workflow every day, so you can get right to work. See More

Top Con

Closed source

Top Pro

Save a set of isolated cookie jars into a project

Top Pro

Color coding for session organization

Different sessions are distinguishable by color for easier organization. You can also rename sessions to fit your needs. See More

Top Pro

Group your cookie jars

Top Pro

Developer tools for each session

The developer tools work just like Chrome, except that you can separate dev tools by session. See More

Top Pro

Assign a different proxy to each tab for international sites

See All Experiences

11 2

score 38 · Answer 8

Firefox Developer Edition

Top Pro

Ready for work right out-of-the-box

Top Con

May be unstable

Since it is a release channel between beta and Nightly, it may be unstable. See More

Top Pro

Can be launched alongside Firefox (release version)

Some might find that useless, but that's very practical to dedicate a browser to development. See More

Top Pro

Fast

It's Firefox. It's fast. See More

38 9

score 450 · Answer 9

Vivaldi

Top Pro

Tabs can be stacked

Tabs can be grouped under a single tab to easily keep track of all open webpages. See More

Top Con

Not available on your Phone/Tablet

Vivaldi is currently only available for desktop operating systems (Windows, Linux, Mac). Though the developers have already said that they plan to release it. See More

Top Pro

Compatible with most Chrome extensions

Since Vivaldi is built on Chromium, the same base as Chrome (among other browsers) is built on, it was possible for Vivaldi developers to allow Chrome extensions to run in their browser. See More

Top Con

Telemetry

According to its privacy policy, Vivaldi sends an approximate location, randomized ID, version, cpu architecture, screen resolution and time since last message every 24 hours. See More

Top Pro

Built for power users

Vivaldi includes lots of niche functionality such as the ability to move tabs to any side of the screen, turn images on and off, or render pages with monospace fonts. See More

Top Con

Same security-holes as Chrome

Vivaldi uses the same browser engine as Chrome, meaning it has the same security-holes as Chrome. Chrome is a big target for hackers (being the most popular browser in the world), and a webpage that will hack Chrome will also hack Vivaldi. See More

Top Pro

Full of customizable keyboard shortcuts (can be completely keyboard-driven)

It's possible to change and add keyboard shortcuts for basically all commands. It also has single key shortcuts to execute actions with one click. See More

Top Con

No automatic page translation

Unlike Chrome, it doesn't automatically translate pages that are not in your language. See More

Top Pro

Ability to search through settings, history, open tabs, bookmarks in one place

A feature called Quick Commands (accessed via Ctrl + Q) allows quickly getting to settings, history, open tabs, bookmarks with incremental search. See More

Top Con

Can't protect pinned tabs from changing to another URL

Clicking on a page link, then another, easy to wind up far from the original pinned tab site. There is no chrome addon or native vivaldi function to stop this. See More

Top Pro

Cross-platform

Vivaldi is available on Windows, Linux and OSX. See More

Top Con

Comes with many Ads

After installation the first thing you have to do is to remove all the default bookmarks and quickdial links which is really annoying. There is more minor stuff like the default search provider or your start page things that could be easily managed with a wizard at the first startup. See More

Top Pro

The UI can be customized with ease

Since Vivaldi uses JavaScript, React, Node.js, Browserify and multiple npm packages to build the browser, it can be customized with ease by anyone who knows HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. See More

Top Con

No touch bar support

Top Pro

Web Panels

Web Panels allow for easy access to any site from the side panel. They are useful for reading two websites side by side or for chatting (i.e. Facebook) and surfing at the same time. Panels can be hidden when not in use. See More

Top Con

Extensions miss hotkeys

You can set your shortcuts at vivaldi://extensions, but they do not work. See More

Top Pro

Notes

A notes panel allows leaving notes on webpages and can include screenshots for reference and have tags and organized in folders to help manage them. See More

Top Con

No silent background updates

Unlike most modern browsers, Vivaldi doesn't have the option to update silently in the background. It gives you a dialog box when an update comes out. Worse, the box doesn't warn you that not updating the browser could lead to security risks. That could be pretty bad for your average joe, who doesn't know computers that well. See More

Top Pro

Mouse gestures

Integrated mouse gestures. Fully configurable as of Vivaldi 1.2 (snapshot available now). Allows for navigating the web, switching tabs, closing windows, opening settings etc. with a flick of the mouse. See More

Top Con

Proprietary

While Vivaldi is currently available gratis (without monetary charge), it is currently not fully libre (meaning that it does not allow users to view the source code used to create, to modify that code, or to redistribute modifications) and is therefore neither free nor open-source software. The C++ source code however is open-source under a BSD license and can be downloaded and browsed from here. The UI code though is not open-source, but it's easily readable as it's HTML, CSS & JS. Modifications can be shared as their forum even has a dedicated section. See More

Top Pro

Analytical history

View graphically the most visited pages on a monthly, weekly, or daily basis. See More

Top Con

No built-in proxy

Unlike Opera (but like most browsers), Vivaldi doesn't have a proxy service out of the box. You'll need an extension or an external program, to use Vivaldi with a proxy server. See More

Top Pro

Reader mode

Vivaldi has a built-in reader mode so you can remove all the clutter in news pages and read only the content, you can also customise the reader mode, like font size, style and colours. See More

Top Pro

Tab behaviour can be customised

The order you toggle, open, close or clone tabs can be modified to match a workflow that best works for you. For example you can choose tabs to toggle in recent order so you can go back and forth between the last most useful tabs without needing to change their position on the tab bar. See More

Top Pro

Custom search engines

You can add as many search engines as you like. For example you can set up one for YouTube, one for Wikipedia, or whatever you want: you need only the URL of the search and it can be used from the URL bar (by prefixing it's nickname, yt for YouTube for example). See More

Top Pro

Built-in page capture

Vivaldi can grab a picture of the whole webpage or part of it and saves it automatically inside a note or as a file in your disk. See More

Top Pro

Manage bookmarks very well

Vivaldi has an excellent bookmarks system. Bookmarks can be easily accessible via Speed Dial, side-bar, bookmarks bar, quick commands. No more messy bookmarks bar is needed and location bar suggestion is improved thus! See More

Top Pro

Cross browser extensions with Opera and Chrome, Firefox web-ext's too

All Vivaldi, Opera and Chrome users can get extensions from all extension/addon sites, especially from Opera Addons and Chrome Store. See More

Top Pro

Non-closable fixed tabs

A setting lets you prevent closing fixed tabs so you don't close anything important by accident. See More

Top Pro

Synchronisation

Everything can be synced with a Vivaldi account. Though there's still no mobile version you can sync between computers and OSes. See More

Top Pro

Allows navigating to the next page without searching for the link

A feature called fast forward puts a dedicated button before the address bar that is designed to help you navigate to the next page of a multi-page article, forum thread or search results without having to hunt for the link. See More

Top Pro

Tab bar position can be changed

Users can change tab bar position to top, bottom left or right See More

Top Pro

WebRTC IP leaking can be disabled

A built-in setting called "Broadcast IP" will stop the IP leaking with WebRTC when disabled. See More

Top Pro

VPN is available by extension- also routing through Tor network

VPN and Tor encryption is possible through extensions. Tor is a free choice if one doesn't want to subscribe to a VPN service. See More

Top Pro

Faster than Firefox and Safari

Top Pro

Faster than Firefox or Chrome

Top Pro

Dark theme out of the box

Top Pro

Usable fullscreen mode with address bar when needed

In comparison, on Chrome you will not see the address bar, only on ChromeOS when your mouse is on the top of the screen. See More

Top Pro

Updates via dialog box

Unlike most modern browsers (but like most browsers of yesteryear), Vivaldi gives you a dialog box when an new version comes out; it doesn't just update silently in the background. The dialog box tells you about the changes that have been made, and lets you chose when you want to update. See More

Top Pro

Pioneer of browser features

Presto Opera (Vivaldi's predecessor) is the reason we have a number of common browser features, including tabs and speed dial. See More

Top Pro

Customizable UI

Vivaldi can change the colors across the browser and has the option to change the color automatically depending on the page. Also, page loading animations are available in the address bar. See More

Top Pro

Side panel and status bar

Specs

Default Search Engine:Bing

Browser Engine:Blink

See All Experiences

450 103

score 162 · Answer 10

Chromium

Top Pro

Completely open source

Unlike Google Chrome, Chromium is completely open source. See More

Top Con

High RAM usage

Just like Chrome, Chromium also eats a lot of RAM, which can be a problem for machines with smaller RAM. See More

Top Pro

Supports all of Google Chrome features

As Chrome is based on Chromium they overlap in supported features. Chromium syncs between devices, automatically updates, has great built-in developer tools, installs extensions without a restart, includes a combined text bar for entering URLs and searching and has excellent HTML5 compatibility just like Chrome. See More

Top Con

Lacks privacy options

Top Pro

Cross-platform

Chrome and Chromium are available on almost every device nowadays See More

Top Con

Lacks support for certain common media formats

As Chromium avoids bundling any proprietary software, media that requires proprietary codecs or formats such as AAC, H.264, MP3 and Flash will not play by default on Chromium. See More

Top Pro

Access to Chrome's extensions

Chromium can access the Chrome Web Store and all the extensions hosted there can be installed and used on Chromium. See More

Top Con

Misses some proprietary multimedia codecs

Unlike chrome, Chromium misses proprietary multimedia codecs per default. There might be some ways over ffmpeg and co but it is still a gray zone. Also by enabling, it also removes one of the core features of Chromium of being open source software See More

Top Pro

Sandboxing

Every tab and plugin runs in its own subprocess so they will never affect the whole browser ,however that consumes more memory than other browsers See More

Top Con

Not possible to disable WebRTC

Top Pro

Backed by Google

Chromium was first released as a large portion of Chrome's source code as an open source project by Google in september 2008. The idea was to encourage developers to review the underlying code and to contribute in making Chrome cross platform and port it to Mac and Linux as well. Nowadays Chromium is a large project with a huge community that's standing behind it but still Google continues to take an extremely active role in Chromium development. This ensures the longevity and constant development and improvement of the browser. See More

Top Con

Simple, dull, bare-boned

Top Con

No official builds

There are no official builds available so you have to rely on a third party distributor See More

Top Con

Doesn't read cookies properly

... and for this reason it only remembers the user logins only in the session. Once the browser is restarted for whatever reason, it forgets everything and the user has to login again everywhere which can become annoying very quickly. See More

Specs

Price:FOSS

Default Search Engine:Google

Built-in VPN:no

See All Experiences

162 47

score 216 · Answer 11

Opera

Top Pro

Built-In Adblocker

The built-In adblocker is faster than any extension. It's possible to add your own filter lists. However, the adblocker isn't enabled by default. See More

Top Con

WebKit/Blink is not customisable or lightweight

Opera is built on WebKit/Blink, which means it shares cons of Chromium: high RAM usage (Not lightweight), lack of customizability. See More

Top Pro

Video pop-out feature

You can pop-out any video and it will stay on top while you are surfing on other tabs. See More

Top Con

Owned by a Chinese consortium

Who certainly need to conform with Chinese government requirements to let them infiltrate everything you do online. See More

Top Pro

Compatible with Chrome extensions

Since Opera is built on WebKit, the same engine Chrome (among other browsers) is built on, it was possible for Opera developers to allow Chrome extensions to run in their browser. See More

Top Con

Cannot select tabs

Unlike in Chrome and Vivaldi, one cannot select multiple tabs to move to another/new window. See More

Top Pro

VPN onboard

Free and fast VPN onboard, includes Germany, Canada, USA, Netherlands, Singapore. See More

Top Con

Extension icons not directly moveable

Top Pro

Strong HTML5 feature support

Opera scores highly on HTML5 feature support. See More

Top Con

Fewer extensions

Top Pro

Opera Turbo

Opera has a functionality called Turbo which increases browsers speed and reduces data consumption considerably by compressing the data that's found in a web page. See More

Top Con

Buggy

Some buggy or confusing behavior with the bookmarks bar and moving tabs, and entire windows turning black after a while. See More

Top Pro

You can install extensions on the sidebar

Unlike other browsers, you can install add-ons such as tabs, bookmarks, history, sessions, notes, and extension manager in the sidebar. So you have the flexibility to use it for your purpose. See More

Top Con

Uneditable default search providers

It can not delete or replace already built-in search services such as Yahoo, Google, DuckDuckGo, and Wikipedia. See More

Top Pro

Battery saving mode

Top Con

Proprietary

While Opera is currently available gratis (without monetary charge), it is currently not libre (meaning that it does not allow users to view the source code used to create, to modify that code, or to redistribute modifications) and is therefor neither free nor open-source software. See More

Top Pro

Customizable

Opera is full of user controlled settings. Everything can be imported and exported even RSS feeds. It can be skinned in a variety of different themes or it can be extended through the use of a large number of plugins available. See More

Top Con

Basically a Chrome clone

The latest versions of Opera are basically Chrome clones, so they really don't add anything new. See More

Top Pro

Opera Sync

Opera Sync allows you to synchronize your bookmarks, passwords, and more from any computer, phone, or tablet. See More

Top Con

No address bar in fullscreen mode

Unlike in Vivaldi. See More

Top Pro

Speed Dial

Opera's Speed Dial (new tab page) has the ability to hold as many websites as you want, and you can customize it almost however you want. You can also organize the websites on the Speed Dial into folders. See More

Top Con

Same security-holes as Chrome

Opera uses the same browser engine as Chrome, meaning it has the same security-holes as Chrome. Chrome is a big target for hackers (being the most popular browser in the world), and a webpage that will hack Chrome will also hack Opera. See More

Top Pro

For Opera 2017 & 2018 gonna be time of new

Opera got Reborn UI as the first implementation from Opera Neon concept browser. Snap -feature is next. Opera constantly improves its basic functionality - unlike Chrome. See More

Top Con

No reader view

Top Pro

Partly open source

Source code available on GitHub. See More

Top Con

No menu bar

Top Pro

Portable

You can save the Opera's setup files on a USB hard drive and run its portable version anywhere. See More

Top Pro

Opera can have extensions from Opera Addons & Chrome Store websites

Opera supports cross-browser extensions. Opera Addons site keeps quality up compared to Chrome Store. Full of useful extensions, Opera also supports extra APIs like Speed Dial API, Extension Sidebar API and Stash API meaning wider variety of extension possibilities than in Chrome. See More

Top Pro

Blazingly fast

Scores top on Basemark. See More

Top Pro

Touch bar support

Top Pro

Fast video loading

Opera loads videos faster, making it useful for slow internet connections. See More

Specs

Default Search Engine:Google

Built-in VPN:Opera's own free VPN

Default Adblocker:Adblocker

See All Experiences

216 67

score 610 · Answer 12

Mozilla Firefox

Top Pro

Strong HTML5 feature support

Firefox scores strongly on HTML5 feature support. See More

Top Con

GTK Themes styles the HTML forms

If you're in Linux and you use a dark GTK theme that uses white text and come to a webpage that forces black text on html-forms buttons you will get black buttons with unreadable black text. See More

Top Pro

Free, open source and community driven

Firefox is available as a free download. All Mozilla software is licensed under the Mozilla Public License. Instructions on how to obtain the source code can be found here. See More

Top Con

When you search in a website (Ctrl + F) there are no marks appearing in the right scrollbar

All Chromium based browsers have this feature. See More

Top Pro

Syncs between devices

Firefox Sync is an optional feature in Firefox that allows syncing bookmarks, passwords, and add-ons between devices. See More

Top Con

Installs Addons with updates

Mozilla is installing/integrating addons with every update like the Mr. Robot promotion - it also has integrated Pocket that spams you every time you open the browser or a new tab with partners of Pocket. See More

Top Pro

Strong developer tool

The built-in developer tools have been merged with the popular FireBug extension since FF57 See More

Top Con

Uses GTK on Linux/BSD

This makes the integration on non-GTK Desktop Environments very hard. See More

Top Pro

Reader View

Reader View in Firefox allows users to read an article without any distractions by removing ads, unrelated elements and other distractive objects (similar to Microsoft Edge's Reading Mode and Safari's reader mode). See More

Top Con

Some built-in advertising

with their new "pocket" feature, they offer advertisements built-in. See More

Top Pro

Awesome customizability

Top Con

Google obsession

Lately, Firefox has been partnering with Google, leading to some privacy concerns. See More

Top Pro

Good font rasterizing

Font rasterizing on Windows is much better than in competitors. Even smaller text is clear and contrast. See More

Top Con

Lack of keyboard shortcuts customization

Keyboard shortcuts can not be changed in a user-friendly way. It is also difficult to manipulate addons with hotkeys. See More

Top Pro

Uses less resources

Firefox 57 (Quantum) and newer uses less resources than ever. It is proven with benchmark done by AppleInsider. See More

Top Con

It's a memory hog even though Mozilla claims it is not

Mozilla claims it's using 30% less RAM than Chrome but in real life tests it uses much more. See More

Top Pro

High performance

The Firefox Quantum update (FF57) greatly increases the render speed and general performance of the browser, by taking better advantage of the user's hardware. See More

Top Con

Can't scroll tabs with mouse wheel

It's pretty basic but you can't switch between tabs back and forth using your mouse wheel. Any add-ons supporting this have been deprecated since FF57. See More

Top Pro

Tagging bookmarks

Firefox is one of the few browsers that you can tag your bookmarks. You can view a list of tags and can search your bookmarks in the address bar with tags. See More

Top Con

No status bar

There's no status bar. Granted, there is a status tool-tip. But what if you want an actual toolbar, you're out of luck. See More

Top Pro

Automatically updated

Firefox is automatically updated on the platforms where it makes sense. See More

Top Con

Poor performance on SSD even without extensions

On a fast SSD such as Corsair Force LE series this browser still performs as if it were installed on a regular hard drive disk, meaning it takes long time to start, even without any extensions. On that matter Google Chrome is light years ahead of Firefox. This applies only for Firefox versions below 60! See More

Top Pro

Ethical and pragmatic company mission

The Mozilla Manifesto outlines the company's mission and principles. Paraphrasing, they want the Internet to be a free and open resource, and to enable individuals to get the best use of that resource. They do this by creating open source software to which anyone may contribute, so long as such contributions fit with their principles (both ethical and technical). See More

Top Con

Devtools for WebExtensions are buggy

Top Pro

Fast bookmark management

In order to add an open page to the bookmark bar, the tab can be dragged down and is added immediately. See More

Top Con

Doesn't care for its original guidelines/goals

Mozilla originally aimed to be the "good guys" with user choice and privacy in mind. Their current leadership cannot be trusted to hold those goals in high regard: 1) Added Pocket - a privacy data sensitive plugin, made it mandatory 2) Tried to sneak in advertisement as "drive-by hack", backpedaled unconvincingly once users complained: https://www.cnet.com/news/mozilla-backpedals-after-mr-robot-firefox-misstep/ 3) Tried to randomly inject a small percentage of Firefox downloads in Germany with a data collecting plugin (Cliqz) that tech-savy Germans consider adware (no opt-out question asked) : https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1406647 See More

Top Pro

Lower memory fingerprint than competitors

Firefox used to be a trailer in memory usage, but as of 2017 it's less hungry for memory than competitors like Edge, Chrome, Safari and Opera. See More

Top Pro

Text-to-speech (with adjustable speed) without add-ons

Firefox Reader Mode includes Narrate, a feature that adds text-to-speech functionality to the browser. See More

Top Pro

Easy screenshots without extensions

Within the browser itself, you can easily take screenshots and save them to your computer. See More

Top Pro

Android version allows installation of addons

Unlike other browsers, Mozilla uses almost the same codebase as with the desktop version so extensions work as-is without code modifications - something other browsers cannot do due to their breaking and sometimes unrelated code branches to the mainline desktop branch. See More

Top Pro

Screenshots tool

Powerful screenshots tool built right into the browser. See More

Top Pro

Integration with Pocket

Firefox comes with built-in Pocket integration that can allow users to quickly save the article for a read it later function to easily find any articles saved in Pocket from various sources and devices. See More

Top Pro

Dark theme

Specs

Price:Free

JavaScript Engine:SpiderMonkey

CSS Engine:Quantum Stylo (Based on the Servo Project) (Formerly Gecko)

Supported ECMAScript Version:6 (Firefox 60)

See All Experiences

610 180

score 359 · Answer 13

Google Chrome

Top Pro

Syncs between devices

By logging into Chrome using a Google account it's possible to sync history, extensions, passwords, bookmarks and other settings between devices. This makes it great for anyone working with multiple devices as it allows experiencing consistent context when in the browser. See More

Top Con

Huge memory hog

Each tab and extension in the browser uses significant chunks of RAM, giving the browser poor performance on machines without enough RAM to supply. See More

Top Pro

Excellent HTML 5 feature support

As of February 2015, Chrome scores highest of all browsers for HTML5 compatibility. See More

Top Con

Online tracking by default

Chrome allows opting out of tracking by going to Settings > Advanced > Privacy and un-checking any unwanted services. Alternatively Chromium can be used to get a similar browser experience without Google's services on top of it. See More

Top Pro

Installs extensions without requiring a restart

Top Con

Bad for battery life

Drains battery life on both Windows laptops and Macs much quicker than the alternatives. It can shave hours off the battery life of any non Chromebook laptop. See More

Top Pro

Great built-in developer tools

Chrome comes with built-in developer tools, making testing and enhancing web pages simpler for those of us involved in working with such technologies. As well as being beneficial to developers, this also has some benefit to non-technical users; in that by making testing simpler for developers those developers are more likely to use Chrome for their tests, and can spend more time making improvements over investigating underlying causes of issues. See More

Top Con

Increasingly slow

When Chrome first came out, it was known for being lightweight and very speedy. Over the years, more and more features have been added to Chrome. Because of this, crashes, errors, and general laggy-ness has increased noticeably. See More

Top Pro

Good performance

According to TopTen Reviews, Chrome is currently one of the best performing browsers for initial (cold) startup, average startup, and navigation times. Works very well with the uBlock Origin adblocker. See More

Top Con

Proprietary

Google Chrome is proprietary software, meaning that it is not open source. See More

Top Pro

Plenty of extensions

There are far more available on this browser than any other, and that may matter for some. See More

Top Con

No mobile extensions

Chrome on Android and iOS does not support extensions. See More

Top Pro

Automatically updates

Chrome updates in the background ensuring you're always on the latest version. This makes it much more likely that sites will work on your browser, since (almost) all Chrome users will be running exactly the same version. See More

Top Con

Blurred fonts on Windows

Fonts on Windows are blurred, that is especially noticeable in light fonts on dark background. Small italic text is hard to read. See More

Top Pro

Simple user interface

For example, the address bar is also the search bar. Google calls it Omnibox. See More

Top Con

Hard/impossible to transfer passwords to a different machine without uploading them to Google

Top Pro

Backed and supported by Google

Whilst Chrome is based on the open source browser Chromium), Google reviews this code and build on top of it. This means it takes (and contributes to) a number of the benefits of the open source model whilst having the resources, support and investment of a major company. See More

Top Con

Does not hardware accelerate HTML5 video correctly

Chrome is unable to hardware accelerate HTML5 video correctly which makes playing 4k video on laptops a poor experience filled with lag. Though there is a workaround for YouTube in that a plugin can be installed to force Flash playback instead of HTML5, which plays smoothly and has no HW acceleration issues. There's another plugin (h264ify) that will force to use the h.264 codec video if available instead of the VP9 one which is the resource hog. See More

Top Pro

Huge variety of extensions available

Top Con

Basic

Unlike Opera and Vivaldi which are more stable and has more features, Chrome is pretty basic. See More

Top Pro

Multiple account login

You can have multiple Chromes with different accounts logged at the same time. And it is really easy to manage different accounts. See More

Top Con

Big target for hackers

Chrome is the most popular browser in the world. That makes it the most targeted browser in the world by hackers. See More

Top Pro

Customizable by user

Each of the managed users can have their own configuration (themes, extensions, ...) See More

Top Con

Bad quality control on extensions

Some just plain don't work while a few actually break the browser. See More

Top Pro

Sandboxed Tabs

Every tab runs as their own process, so if one crashes or becomes unresponsive, the whole browser isn't affected. See More

Top Con

No menu bar (except on Mac)

There's no no menu bar, except on Mac OS. See More

Top Pro

Works great with many extensions

Unlike Firefox, Google Chrome can keep its fast performance regardless of how many extensions are installed. With more than 10 extensions Firefox gets slower and slower in a geometric progression rate. Google Chrome doesn't care how many extensions the user has installed - 3 or 133 it still performs great. See More

Top Con

Gives too much weight to Google on the future of the Web

Top Pro

Uses Blink

It uses the blink rendering engine which has removed many legacy khtml/webkit code to be much lighter and faster. See More

Top Pro

Multimedia Plugins and Codecs included

Google Chrome comes with its own flashplayer and the most common multimedia codecs so you don't have to worry that they are outdated nor do you need to install them as a third party package. See More

Specs

Default Search Engine:Google

Browser Engine:Blink

JavaScript Engine:V8

See All Experiences

359 138

score 109 · Answer 14

Safari

Top Pro

Works elegantly in OSX

The rendering of the pages and the browser compatibility with OSX works smoothly, when compared to other browsers. Also you get very high battery life with Safari, when compared to Chrome. See More

Top Con

OSX only

Apple dropped Windows support after Safari 5. See More

Top Pro

Extremely fast

Top Con

Proprietary

While Safari er is currently available gratis (without monetary charge) on Mac OS X, it is currently not libre (meaning that it does not allow users to view the source code used to create, to modify that code, or to redistribute modifications) and is therefore neither free nor open-source software. See More

Top Pro

Sleek design

– No distraction stuff like favicons in tabs, all that borders, bevels and embosses in panels like in other browsers, no ugly shaped tabs. – Neat adress bar. – Good looking start “show all tabs” screen. See More

Top Con

Poor support for new web technologies

Safari usually takes its time when it comes to adopting new and useful web technologies meaning that the user gets an inferior experience compared to other modern browsers. See More

Top Pro

iCloud syncing

Tabs, passwords, bookmarks and, history all sync across devices. See More

Specs

Default Search Engine:Google

See All Experiences

109 58

score 9 · Answer 15

Ghostlab

Top Pro

Can be used without additional software on any browser

Doesn't need any additional software or browser extensions to be installed on any device. If every device is pointed to the IP address that it provides it will automatically reload that page on every file change. See More

Top Con

No Linux version

Ghostlab is available only for Windows and Mac, there is no Linux version. At least for the time being. See More

Top Pro

Testing page preset with a lot of useful information

Ghostlab offers a testing page which when opened displays a lot of useful information. Such as, but not limited to: viewport width and height, user agent string, pixel ratio etc... See More

Top Con

Not free

Ghostlab is proprietary and not free. It costs $49. Though there is a free 7-days trial. See More

Top Pro

Synchronizes scrolls, clicks, reloads and form input across all connected clients

Every time the page is reloaded on a device, it's automatically reloaded on every other device connected. It also registers scrolls, form inputs and clicks across different devices and automatically synchronizes them to each connected device. See More

Top Pro

Cross-browser and cross-device live reloading

Ghostlab offers developers the opportunity to test their site in multiple browsers and devices at the same time. Once the Ghostlab server is deployed, it offers an IP address running on port 8080 which automatically reloads on every file change. See More

Top Pro

Easy setup

Setting up GhostLab is very easy, by simply dragging a URL or a local folder it creates automatically a new site entry and is ready to work. It can then be named or choose the specified file extensions that need to be watched. See More

Top Pro

Remote inspection of code on different devices.

Ghostlab utilizes weinre, an open-source remote debugger to remotely inspect the code on different devices. By double clicking the device name that needs to be inspected, and clicking the 'Debug' button, Ghostlab opens a Chrome inspector which can inspect any item in the page of the device and manipulate the CSS and HTML. See More

See All Experiences

9 13