LinuxProductivity

What are the best Linux web browsers with support for Chrome extensions?

8

Options
Considered

79

User
Recs.

Apr 6, 2019

Last
Updated

Here’s the Deal

8 Options Considered

Best Linux web browsers with support for Chrome extensions	Price	Default Search Engine	Platforms
88 Vivaldi	-	Bing	Windows; macOS; Linux
-- Brave	-	Google	Android; iOS; macOS; Windows; Linux
-- Chrome	-	-	-
-- Slimjet	Free	Google	-
-- Chromium	-	Google	Windows; macOS (Intel only); Linux; Google Chrome OS

Vivaldi

Top Pro

Lots of power-user functionality that's often omitted from other browsers

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

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 for mobile platforms. See More

Evanaellio's Experience

Probably the greatest browser available today, it has many quality of life features seldom found in other browsers. The only downside I can think of is the lack of a mobile version, but it's already in development. See More

Specs

Default Search Engine:Bing

Platforms:Windows; macOS; Linux

Browser Engine:Blink

Top Pro

Allows searching 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

Proprietary

Vivaldi is not open-source, but it's also not closed. Kind of a source-available software. C++ code is under a BSD license and can be downloaded on https://vivaldi.com/source/ And the Web code can be un-minified from the installed files. See More

Top Pro

Can be completely keyboard-driven

All actions required to interact with the browser like navigating webpages and changing settings can be performed using only keyboard, no mouse required. See More

Top Con

Slow performance

Starting up and page loads are way slower than competitive browsers. As the page loads Vivaldi tries to find the color code for the top bar to sync with page, thus making it load pages slower. See More

Top Pro

Compatible with most Chrome extensions

Vivaldi is built on Chromium, so most major Chrome Extensions work just fine. If they don't, the team is very responsive and will look into issues where they can. 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

Tab stacks

Tabs can be grouped under a single tab to easily group similar tabs. See More

Top Con

Extensions miss hotkeys

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

No option to open saved tab stack as... tab stack!

You may save stack, but you can open it as separate tabs. Interesting that when you save session with stacks, you'll be able to open the stacks with inner settings of page tiling (size and zoom) as well. Contradiction worth of shame. See More

Top Pro

Tab tiling

Tabs can be put in a side-by-side or grid view to make comparisons or read and keep track of multiple pages at the same time. The feature can be toggled on Tab Stacks or by selecting the tabs with Ctrl+clicking. See More

Top Con

No touch bar support

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 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

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 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

Allows annotating web pages

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 automatic page translation

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

Top Pro

Add websites as web panels for easy access

You can add sites as panels for easy access them. It allows reading two websites side by side with a simple click on the panel button. Useful for social networks, like WhatsApp, Telegram, Facebook & Twitter. Panels can be hidden when not in use. 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

Non-closable fixed tabs

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

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 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 Pro

Cross-platform

Vivaldi is available on Windows, Linux and OSX. 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

Tab bar position can be changed

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

Rapid development

New snapshots are released weekly. See More

Top Pro

Mouse gestures

Integrated customisable mouse gestures. Allows for navigating the web, switching tabs, closing windows, opening settings and other actions with a flick of the mouse. See More

Top Pro

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

Allows navigating links via arrow keys

Pressing the shift key along with direction keys will allow you to navigate between links in an intuitive way. 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

Tab can be stacked

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

Custom keyboard shortcuts

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

Top Pro

Includes tools for annotating web pages

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

Brave

Add Video or Image

Top Pro

Free/libre software

Released to the community under the Mozilla Public License (MPL), this software respect the FSF's four freedoms, including the freedom to use, modify, and redistribute with or without modification freely. See More

Specs

Default Search Engine:Google

Platforms:Android; iOS; macOS; Windows; Linux

Browser Engine:Blink

Top Pro

Tor is available right in the browser

Top Pro

Planned optional feature for you to get reimbursed for viewing ads

Basic Attention Token; you will be able to opt into a new blockchain-based digital advertising system, giving publishers a better deal and users a share of the ad revenue for their attention. See More

Top Pro

Option to pay supported sites based on view time percentage

Set up automatic micro-donations. Brave will automatically divide a monthly donation among the top sites you visit. And/or, you can decide which sites get what percentage of your donation. It’s called pinning. See More

Top Pro

Option to disable additional privacy concerns

Like fingerprint tracking. See More

Top Pro

Safety and privacy well taken care of

Things like https everywhere and no tracking are standard with Brave. In most other browsers, things like these are optional at best. See More

Top Pro

Built in Adblock

Contains an optional "Allow Brave Acceptable Ads" So you can support the site you truly enjoy. See More

Chrome

Add Video or Image

Top Pro

Can be used to sync data using a Google account

Chrome will sync bookmarks, passwords, history, open tabs and settings for both the browser itself as well as extensions and apps across instances of Chrome both on mobile and desktop. See More

Top Con

Heavily tied to Google's ecosystem

While it's possible to forego logging into Chrome via a Google account, the browser is designed to be used with a Google account in mind. A Google account is required to sync bookmarks, passwords, history, open tabs and settings for both the browser itself as well as extensions and apps across instances of Chrome both on mobile and desktop. See More

Top Pro

Powerful developer console

Allows JavaScript and CSS debugging and code formatting out of the box with support for source maps when viewing minified code. See More

Top Con

Proprietary

Users are unable to view the source code, meaning malicious functionality could be implemented without users having any way to find out or combat it. Moreover, users cannot fork it to create derivative versions, or fix vulnerabilities in the code. See More

Top Pro

Good HTML5 feature support

Chrome scores highly on HTML5 feature support. It commonly shares the top place with Opera. See More

Top Con

RAM usage

The high performance and speed come at a cost of an abnormally large RAM usage when it comes to Chrome. This isn't a problem with machines with lots of RAM (4GB+) but it's very noticeable with computers that have less RAM than that and can slow it down a lot depending on the number of open tabs. See More

Top Pro

Clean layout

Chrome attempts to be as clutter-free as possible. By default the UI displays tabs, address bar, couple of navigation buttons and a button for settings. See More

Top Con

Has become bloated over the years

Top Pro

Highly performant

Chrome is one of the fastest browsers around. It consistently tops browser benchmarks when it comes to speed, consistency and loading times. See More

Top Pro

Same Product from Google

Best integration solution with OS #MadeByGoogle See More

Top Pro

Use websites offline

Top Pro

Very user friendly UI

Top Pro

Syncs with desktop browser

Chrome for Android will sync bookmarks, passwords, history, and open tabs from your desktop. See More

Top Pro

Supports the latest web standards

Chrome for Android supports HTML5, CSS3, and many APIs. See More

Top Pro

Backed by Google

Like Android, Chrome is a Google product, which means the two technologies can be expected to grow together and remain compatible. See More

Top Pro

No competition for chrome on android

Some says firefox, actually firefox is completely numb and buggy. Opera, firefox, uc browser this all are very much slower in front of chrome. O.K one and only faster browser than chrome is Puffin, but this one is very sticky and ugly user inerface. See More

Slimjet

Add Video or Image

Top Pro

Extremely lighweight

Smaller memory footprint and less CPU usage than vanilla Chromium; snappier responsiveness. See More

Top Con

Still using the OS certificates store

Whatever the OS is trusting, it is trusted by Slimjet and all other Chrome based browsers. There is no way to manage certificates independently like in Firefox. See More

howtopam's Experience

For the Techie type persona Flashpeak-Slinjet web browser is the ultimate light weight fully functional browser, containing tools for privacy, ad block, screen shot, screen record video, personalized themes with full compatibility to chrome plugins, and numerous other options. See More

Specs

Default Search Engine:Google

Top Pro

Built-in Adblock

No need to add ABP or uBlock Origin extension. Compatible with lists in AdBlock, ABP, and PeerBlock/PeerGuardian formats. See More

Top Con

Still utilizing Google ware

HumbleKingu's Experience

Quick and low memory usage See More

Top Pro

Advanced privacy and security features

Advanced do-not-track functions, separation from Google servers, like chromium. See More

Top Con

Still based upon Chromium/Chrome

Can yield to bloat if clogged with too many plugins and apps from the webstore. See More

Top Pro

Good compatiblility

Runs more apps and extensions than Vivaldi or Opera, and like those two browsers, runs on Windows, Linux, and (technically - DMG installers are still in beta) OS X. See More

Top Pro

Still compatible with Google's ChromeSync functionality

Sign in to back up your extensions and settings, just like always. See More

Top Pro

Verbose resource management

Allows for unloading tabs after a certain tab number threshold has been reached. See More

Top Pro

Cross-platform, with zipped portable application available for windows

You can still bring it with you on a flash drive, even when you're not on Linux. See More

Top Pro

Built-in download manager

Multi-threaded streaming download manager with resume functionality. Interrupted downloads will resume when the program is launched again; number of threads and download location customizable on a per-download basis. Actually downloads Linux ISO's from most popular distributions faster than deluge, utorrent, transmission, etc. See More

Top Pro

Allows for no tracking

Has advanced settings to reduce web presence footprint. See More

Top Pro

Integrated shopping and share-to-social-media function

Button is linked to cookies, so doesn't work if signed out (for security/privacy), and also doesn't include any additional tracking like a browser extension would (Facebook, Amazon, etc.) See More

Top Pro

Built in Youtube/html5/flash downloader

Allows for downloading both video and extracted mp3 audio, a la Youtube2mp3. See More

Top Pro

Built-in adblock

Supports adding lists in ublock, adblock, adblockplus, and peerblock/peerguardian text formats. See More

Top Pro

Cross-platform, with zipped portable application available for Windows

You can still bring it with you on a flash drive, even when you're not on Linux. See More

Top Pro

Screen recording tools built in

Top Pro

Built-in Youtube/html5/flash downloader

Allows for downloading both video and extracted mp3 audio, a la Youtube2mp3. See More

Chromium

Add Video or Image

Top Pro

Completely open source

Unlike Google Chrome that uses Chromium as it's base, Chromium is completely open source. 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

Specs

Default Search Engine:Google

Platforms:Windows; macOS (Intel only); Linux; Google Chrome OS

Built-in VPN:no

Top Pro

Actively supported 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

Does not provide complete independence of Google services

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

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

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

Sandbox depends on the distribution

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

Testing depends on distribution

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

Code may be modified by distributions

Top Pro

Cross-platform

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

Top Con

Can't auto-update

Top Pro

Included as default in many distributions

Chromium is included as the default browser for many Linux distributions, and for those that isn't it's available through official repositories for easy downloading. See More

Top Pro

Clean layout

Opera

Add Video or Image

Top Pro

Lots of builtin features that need to be installed as plugins in other browsers

Opera has a lot of builtin features by default which are found only as plugins in other browsers. Some of these features include: email, BitTorrent, RSS and IRC clients. See More

Top Con

Just a Chromium clone

The beauty that was opera on desktop ceased after version 12, now being a windows-only, chromium clone with a focus on not being different or unique in any way. Opera 12 is still available, but should be considered obsolete as it doesn't support standard web security measures anymore. See More

Specs

Default Search Engine:Google

Default Adblocker:Adblocker

Built-in VPN:Opera's own free VPN

Top Pro

Strong HTML5 feature support

Opera scores highly on HTML5 feature support. It usually shares the top place with Google's Chrome. See More

Top Pro

Can increase speed by compressing data found on web pages

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 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 Pro

Free, unlimited, integrated VPN

A free virtual private network VPN is right integrated into the browser, keeping your browsing private. See More

Top Pro

Adblocker built in

Adblocker helps sites to load a little faster as lesser items are loaded (e.g. ads). See More

Top Pro

Highly customizable

Opera is full of user controlled settings. Everything can be imported and exported even RSS feeds or emails. 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 Pro

Chromium based

Iridium

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