Arora web browser review
Pros:
Lightweight web browser that works on just about any platform and on slow hardware
Cons:
It doesn’t have that many features yet. It’s still in the early stages of development
Arora is a simple and lightweight cross-platform web browser based on the WebKit web browser engine, which has a small memory footprint. It can do some things that the more sophisticated web browsers can do. WebKit is also the name of the Mac OS X system framework version of the engine that’s used by Safari, Dashboard, Mail and many other OS X applications. WebKit is a browser engine which was originally forked from KHTML and is now developed further by Apple, Nokia, Adobe, Trolltech and others. There is also co-operation going on between KHTML and WebKit, but only to a certain extent. The WebKit developers value real-world web compatibility, standards compliance, stability, performance, security, portability, usability and relative ease of understanding. It is also an essential part of their project that they can modify the code – also referred to as hackability. WebKit uses BSD- style and LGPL licences in order to make sure that the source code will remain freely available. As of Qt 4.4, WebKit is part of Qt and therefore every Qt application can take advantage of WebKit. Qt is produced by Trolltech, which is owned by Nokia. Qt is part of every KDE application, but KDE applications have been using KHTML for quite some time. The demonstration browser of Qt 4.4 was shipped with the release to show what the engine can actually do. The WebKit code used is directly developed in the WebKit trunk. The Arora browser is under heavy development, which means that you can’t really compare it with other browsers such as Firefox, SeaMonkey or Internet Explorer. However, the GNU/Linux version that was tested for this review (v0.10.1) was extremely stable and very usable: no problems for someone who just wants to use a web browser. You could possibly compare it with similar open source browsers like Galeon, Epiphany or Midori. Flash plug-ins were added into Arora recently – more or less essential for browsing any web page. The browser has a very fast startup and integration with desktop environments. There is a smart location bar along with session management. The privacy mode may or may not be useful for the user. A nice feature is the flexible search engine management. Like most browsers, there is a download manager. The built-in Web Inspector tools are helpful for web developers and the browser is available in 30 languages. If you want to have a go at hacking on some code in a web browser, this project might be for you. Have a look at the Arora wiki on the Arora website and click on the link about contributing to the project. You can also go to #arora on irc.freenode.org and join in with everyone there.
Verdict: 4/5
Since it is still under heavy development, the Arora web browser is lacking in features, although it does at least now have built-in Flash plug-ins. It’s a decent lightweight browser that integrates well with desktop environments, while the Web Inspector tools are useful for web developers.
Richard Ibbotson
This article originally appeared in issue 82 of Linux User & Developer magazine.
Thank you for a very informative article. This browser seems worthy of at least keeping tabs on.
I use a netbook extensively and am finding that Opera is delivering the best overall performance for me right now compared to the other major browsers. It’s incredibly fast on start up, displays pages quickly, minimizes/maximizes quickly, manages memory exceptionally well and doesn’t stall (hard drive thrashes) on me as often as Firefox, IE or Chrome.
The major downside is the lack of adblocking. I had been on Firefox for the last couple of years and have essentially been surfing in an Ad-Free environment with AdBlocker and well as managing site scripts via NoScript during this time. I had literally been in a time warp as to how bad the ads have gotten in the Internet.
Ads don’t just effect the amount of data downloaded but the speed of the page displays since multiple connections are being made to ad server sites all of which operate at different speeds.
It would be a boon to have a browser developed that addresses these speed concerns internally related to Ads and Scripts – as well as dealing with the security and privacy issues related to these spyware-type issues. Dealing with Ads and 3rd-party scripts is a great way to speed up web-surfing right off the bat. At the very least – it would stand out from the crowd.
I must say that I’ve been testing web browsers this week on Ubuntu 10.04 and Arora is simple and fast. It now has AdBlock built in, like Epiphany, another underrated browser. I tried Midori and it is promising, but too many crashes. Arora has not crashed on me at all and renders all webpages better than many others. It is my new back-up browser to the Chromium web browser (not to be confused with Chrome). It is in the Ubuntu Software Centre and updates are supported by Ubuntu. The only complaint I have is no homepage button. Other than that, at its current stage, it is very stable and faster than Firefox, Chrome, and Opera. Now that Ephiphany uses Webkit, it is really good as well.
@Pax:
Not to get off subject but Opera does have an adlblock ability. The problem is you have to load the page first, then go back and block the bad stuff after the fact. Once the page is loaded right click anywhere on the page as long as it is not a link or an ad, then select something to effect of “Block Content”, and then go up and down the page clicking what you want to block. When you have blocked all the content that you don’t want, you just click on the “Done” button at the top. I do think that Opera WILL remember what you blocked, and block it every time it encounters that same content on other pages.
I agree with Marie, the only real problem I see with Arora is the lack of a Home button next to the navigational buttons. For a lightweight browser, I really like it. It sure beats Midori.
What's your opinion?