When choosing a program to work on the World Wide Web, many are mainly interested in what is currently the most fast browser for Windows 7.

Although there are just a huge number of other criteria for choosing a browser.

To date, you can find and download many "self-written" browsers, that is, those that were developed by novice programmers, and not by teams of professionals.

So, their main drawback is the speed of work.

There is no mention of data security and safety.

In any case, today we will analyze all the main characteristics that will help you choose a program for accessing the Internet, and the main one will be the speed of work.

As for how this very speed will be tested, a very simple method will be chosen, which is to launch the browser or perform other operations on it with a stopwatch.

In particular, the speed will be tested on such operations as launching the browser itself, opening the site site, authorization in the Google mail account, launching the video and installation speed.

Testing will not be done on a new computer.

This choice is due to the fact that we want to achieve maximum objectivity of research.

Yes, such tests usually use "clean" machines, but we all do not have the opportunity to reinstall the operating system every month.

This would make it possible to make a completely “clean” machine out of the order of a used computer.

In general, the conditions will not be easy as close to reality as possible, they will be quite real. Go!

Opera

This browser was released in 1994. Until 2013, he worked on his own engine, then switched to Webkit + V8, which is familiar to many developers, which, by the way, is also used a little in Google Chrome.

It is the fifth most popular web browser in the world according to research by some sites. Users like mobile version called Opera Mini.

The main advantage of this program is its excellent ability to save traffic. This allows many users to pay less for internet.

You can download this browser absolutely free on the official website www.opera.com/ru.

This site has one big "Download Now" button, which allows you to start downloading.

For our tests will be taken the latest on this moment version downloaded from the official site.

Speed ​​tests gave the following results:

• Browser startup time - 3 s;
• Website opening time - 2 s;
• Video start time - 2 s;
• Installation time - 1.3 minutes (from launching the installer program to closing it).

By the way, the design of the installation window for this program is very beautiful, but at the same time minimalistic.

The installation process itself takes very little time.

The user needs to press only one button and nothing else - he does not choose a path, does not read a bunch of license conditions, does not watch presentations and so on.

On the one hand, this is, of course, good, because a simple user does not need all this.

But some will say that this is bad, because "who knows what they write in the license there."

But since we evaluate the speed of work, then in this regard, Opera shows itself perfectly.

Other Advantages and Disadvantages of Opera

In addition to speed when choosing a program for accessing the Internet, it will also be useful to know about the following advantages of Opera:

1. Saving traffic. A proprietary feature of this browser.
2. The presence of Turbo mode, which allows you to work even faster on slow computers and still save traffic.
3. Own express panel with bookmarks. In other browsers, this function must be installed additionally. Yes, there are bookmark bars, but they are not as functional.
4. Hot keys of management. In fact, this browser can be controlled without a mouse.
5. Ease of work. Opera is not loaded with plugins for privacy and other similar functions, so it can work many times faster.

The disadvantages of Opera include the following:

1. On older machines, it may not work at all. On the other hand, nothing of the modern standard set user. And who now uses such old computers?
2. Incorrect work of some scripts. In defense of Opera, we can also say that not all scripts that exist today work on other browsers.
   Complaints about the instability of work - restarts, throws out, and so on. It also occurs not so often - whoever is not lucky will have to restart.

Google Chrome

This browser was released in 2008 - relatively recently.

Its direct ancestor is Safari browser, which then also tried to be adapted for Windows, but these attempts were unsuccessful - it turned out to be too slow, and it often restarted.

Safari was originally designed for Mac computers. Google Chrome runs on its own engine called Chrominium.

Last year, this browser was the first in many polls in Runet.

You can download Google Chrome on the official website - www.google.ru/chrome/browser/desktop/index.html (a very non-standard link that could be shortened).

There is also a single button that needs to be pressed.

By the way, here, on the download site, you can read the license agreement, as well as set Google Chrome as the default browser and check the box for sending work reports to Google.

By the way, many refuse the latter.

To do this, you just need to uncheck the box highlighted in green in Figure 4.

Testing the speed of this browser gave the following results:

• Browser startup time - 4 s;
• Website opening time - 5 s;
• Authorization time in the mail Google account– 1 s;
• Video start time - 1 s;
• Installation time - 1.5 min.

When installing here, by the way, some additional content is downloaded, which makes the whole process a little longer.

Otherwise, Google Chrome performs really well, but still a little worse than Opera.

And despite the fact that it is this browser that many authors of such articles call the fastest.

As you can see, tests in real conditions gave a different result.

Advantages and disadvantages of Google Chrome

Also, users who choose a program to access the Internet will be very useful to know about the following benefits of Google Chrome:

1. Security. This is given great attention here. Google Chrome has a huge number additional programs and scripts that protect against all sorts of attacks and viruses. In addition, this browser has own base with these very viruses and malicious sites.
2. Mode "Incognito", which allows you to quietly be on different sites. This means that the site will not leave a cookie or any other information about the stay of a user working in Incognito mode.
3. stability at work. It is very rare to hear about Google Chrome that it restarts or fails. a large number sites.
4. Your "Task Manager", which makes it possible to see how many resources a particular site consumes, as well as a plugin.
5. Normal work with extensions. It is also very rare to hear complaints about this.
6. Voice search control.

The disadvantages include the following:

1. No support for NPAPI plugins since version 42.0. A lot of modern plugins work on this platform. And users are faced with the difficulties of installing them or even with the inability to complete this task.

Otherwise, Google Chrome performs just fine.

As you can see, its speed is not too inferior to Opera, therefore, given all the other advantages, it is not surprising that this particular browser is called the best to date.

Mozilla Firefox

In 2014, in all foreign surveys, this browser took a strong first place. But then the two programs described above took the leading positions from Mozilla Firefox.

Still, what contribution the “cunning fox”, as many users call it, has made to the development of browsers in general deserves respect.

The fact is that Mozilla Firefox became the first browser in the world that had its own database of extensions. It was for him that the first extensions and plugins began to be written.

Not surprisingly, as of 2017, it is Mozilla Firefox that has the largest base of extensions.

In addition, it was in this browser that privacy mode first appeared.

Today, this idea is actively used by Google specialists, including the development of the aforementioned Google Chrome.

The first version of this program was released in 2004 on the Gecko engine. To this day, in terms of the engine, nothing has changed.

But this does not prevent the program from constantly improving and gaining new market positions.

Although, of course, since 2014 Mozilla Firefox has lost a lot of popularity.

It is also most convenient to download this browser on official page- www.mozilla.org/ru/firefox/new/.

By good tradition, the site has one big “Download for free” button.

The site no longer has any license agreements. And in general, loading takes place in automatic mode and this process does not delay anything.

In the installer window, you can use additional settings. The settings window is shown in Figure #6.

As you can see, you can specify in it where the program shortcuts should be installed, the installation path, and whether this browser should be made the main one.

Advice: When installing, be sure to use the window advanced settings, because otherwise, program shortcuts will appear on the taskbar, on the desktop and in the Start menu, which users often do not need! In addition, installation information will be sent to Mozilla, and the browser itself will become the default browser.

To open this very window of additional settings at startup, click the "Settings" button, highlighted in Figure No. 7.

The installation itself also begins with a download. additional files. This, of course, makes this process longer.

Tests of time Mozilla works Firefox gave these results:

• Browser startup time - 5 s;
• Website opening time - 3 s;
• Authorization time in the Google mail account - 1 s;
• Video start time - 2 s;
• Installation time - 1.35 min.

Advantages and disadvantages of Mozilla Firefox

The benefits of Mozilla Firefox are as follows:

1. Reliability at work. There are plugins that can "kill" absolutely all browsers except Mozilla Firefox.
2. Security and privacy on the highest level. This is the only browser of its kind that can block the collection of information about a particular user by sites, including Google. This makes it possible not to see annoying ads that are generated at the request of this user.
3. Version updates happen in the background.
4. In addition, the widest base of plug-ins and extensions mentioned above should also be included here.

The disadvantages of Mozilla Firefox are:

1. Immunity of some modern scripts.
2. Frequent complaints about slow work especially at high loads.

From all this, we can conclude that Mozilla Firefox clearly cannot be considered the fastest browser for Windows 7.

Yandex browser

This is the youngest modern browser among those used by several million people. Users first heard about this browser in 2012.

Now, in 2017, Yandex is actively promoting its product with the help of contextual advertising. Here, of course, everything is aimed at working directly with Yandex services.

So in this browser by default there is already mail, a translator, a disk, money and everything else that only the most popular Russian search engine offers.

By the way, the engine in Yandex.Browser is the same Chromium. Many users say that this program has its own panel quick start, which is called "Scoreboard" here.

This is considered a feature of Yandex.Browser, but for a simple layman, this is practically the same bookmarks bar that is in the same Opera.

True, there it is much more functional.

You can host 20 different sites on Tablo.

An interesting feature of this browser is the work with mouse gestures.

This means that there is a certain set of gestures that are formed by certain cursor movements and perform certain functions.

There are also a huge number of extensions and plugins, most of which are taken from the already beloved Google Chrome.

This is due to the fact that these two browsers run on the same Chromium engine.

You can download Yandex.Browser on the official website - browser.yandex.ru.

Although, if you visit the site yandex.ru several times, you will definitely see an advertisement for this browser and you can follow the link to download it.

This site also has a great big "Download" button.

The results of testing the speed of this browser gave the following results:

• Browser startup time - 11 s;
• Website opening time - 4 s (the first launch, by the way, gave a result of 24 seconds);
• Authorization time in the Google mail account - 4 s;
• Video start time - 2 s;
• Installation time - 2.10 min.

During installation, it is also possible to make Yandex.Browser the default browser and make it possible to send data to Yandex specialists.

To do this, check the box marked in green in Figure 9.

Most users prefer to uncheck these boxes, which is not at all surprising.

As you can see, in terms of speed, Yandex.Browser clearly loses to the same Mozilla Firefox.

Advantages and disadvantages of Yandex.Browser

The advantages of Yandex.Browser are as follows:

1. Developers pay great attention to security. So the program automatically checks a particular site for suspicion. It has its own criteria for suspiciousness (Web of Trust), as well as programs installed by default to block phishing attacks and ads.
2. Own system for viewing documents in such formats as .pdf, .doc and others.
3. Your translator.
4. Turbo mode, like in Opera.

The disadvantages include the following:

1. The imposition of Yandex services, which many users do not like. Although, on the other hand, this browser was created precisely for this.
   A lot of people don't like the interface.
2. Difficulties in setting. Many functions that are in the same Opera or Mozilla are simply not here in Yandex.Browser.

In general, from all this we can conclude that Yandex.Browser is far from the fastest and most optimized browser.

On duty, I have to maintain several computers of a very respectable age in working order. In terms of hardware, this is not difficult - fortunately, cars released 10 years ago are often assembled (soldered) better than modern consumer goods. But in terms of software, the task is more difficult. The biggest headache for me is antiviruses and browsers. Both those and others are very eager to random access memory, which, alas, is in short supply (for the last 1.5 years, the budget for updating computers at school has been tending to zero, and a small upgrade can only be done in the event of a complete failure of the old iron). Meanwhile, it is highly desirable to update both the antivirus and the browser periodically. We will talk about choosing an antivirus some other time, but today I will try to find the fastest browser for older computers.

For starters, a little background. Until recently, I installed the old Opera 12 on all old computers. But, alas, one fine day, this once wonderful browser began to crookedly display a vital site - an electronic magazine. Well, I had to say goodbye to the old Opera and look for alternatives.

First of all, of course, I checked how fresh Opera behaves on old machines. Alas, as expected, Opera 30 (at the time of my experiment this version was up-to-date) behaved like a typical Chromium browser: it ate a lot of memory, causing the computer to swap a lot (with an IDE disk, heh ...). Things were a little better with other typical chromo-clones (Yandex Browser, Chrome itself). Fresh Firefox 40 behaves relatively decently, but it has obvious problems with rendering the interface (slows down) and memory consumption is still quite high (especially when opening 2-3 tabs). Well, since the browsers known to everyone do not cope with the task, let's try different exotics.

Part 1. Looking for a fast browser in the Chromium camp

I was pleasantly surprised in terms of speed. Being a superstructure over Internet Explorer, it works very fast and does not eat up too much memory. But, alas, all this happiness is available only on Windows 7, and the weakest machines I have run Windows XP. No, under Windows XP the mentioned SlimBrowser works fine, but the IE8 engine, alas, is hopelessly outdated and differs little in rendering quality from the same Opera 12-.

Next, I decided to try out "unusual" variations on the Chromium theme. There were three candidates. The first one is . It is positioned by developers as a lightweight and fast browser. In general, this statement is true - for a chromo-clone, Midori is really quite light and fast. But, unfortunately, on computers with 1 gigabyte of RAM (and even more so with 512 megabytes), it is not easy enough.
The second candidate is Chinese. The younger brother of the well-known Maxthon was born about a year ago. In fact, it is a Chromium cut to the limit. It works really quite fast, but it still consumes a lot of memory. I would advise it rather as an addition to the main browser on normal machines (when you need to quickly read something without waiting for the main browser to load, Nitro loads almost instantly). But for older computers, this browser is not suitable.

Finally, the last Chrome in my experiment is an OpenSource project . The developer positions it as a successor to the good old Opera, but on a modern engine (guess which one?). True, from a technical point of view, this browser is built a little differently - it does not create a separate process for each sneeze. This feature allows Otter (namely, the name of the browser is translated from English) to save memory quite well. In terms of speed and functionality, Otter is also pretty good. But, alas, it is still very raw and not stable enough for everyday use. And the interface, to be honest, leaves much to be desired ... In addition, Otter is essentially a theater of one actor (in the sense of a developer) and, alas, there is almost no hope for a speedy bringing the project to a digestible state.

Otter Browser. In the bowels of the tundra Otter in spats ...

Part 2. Looking for a fast browser in the Gecko camp

Well, since the Chrome community cannot please in terms of speed, let's try to turn to the second opposing side and look at browsers based on the Gecko engine. This engine is no less popular among developers, although with its own specifics. If Chromium (and Blink) is used to build browsers mainly by various commercial companies (Otter is a rare exception), then Gecko is more popular with the OpenSource community. Unfortunately, this community, for the most part, is busy changing the basic functionality of Firefox, as a result of which clones of Ognelis (or Firepanda - as you like) with different sets of functions are born. Against this background, there are several projects that make optimized builds for certain platforms. Among them, only two focus forces on increasing speed Firefox works. The first project is . Within its framework, builds are made that work (according to the assurances of the developers) 25% faster than the original FF. Until recently, the PaleMoon project even had a separate assembly optimized for Windows XP, but due to the termination of official support for this OS, its release was curtailed. However, until now there is a separate build for weak machines on Atom-based, which can be used on any old computers.
In terms of speed, PaleMoon was very pleased - the subjective speed of launching the browser and loading pages on a computer with 1 GB of RAM is even higher than when working with Opera 12 (although it eats a little more memory). The interface, by the way, is drawn noticeably faster than that of the ancestor in the face of FF (affects sawn Australis). True, to enhance the convenience of the “lunar” browser, you will have to finish a little (in particular, and enable it in the settings). In general, the impressions of this browser are the most pleasant. Among other things, PaleMoon supports extensions from FireFox, which means that it will be quite simple to expand its functionality.

Finally, the last contender for the title of "the fastest browser for old computers" is the . This project, which appeared at the dawn of the popularity of Firefox, was dormant for many years and only recently began to revive. In essence, this is a very distant relative of Firefox, which took only the Gecko engine from its ancestor. Due to the distance of kinship, K-Meleon does not support extensions from the original Firefox and does not inherit all of its problems (speed, in particular). As a result, we have a very smart and quite functional browser. In terms of speed, today K-Meleon is the leader. Only the clumsy interface and overloading with not all the necessary functions prevent it from being unambiguously recommended for use.

K-Meleon 74. The fastest browser…

As a conclusion. Based on the results of multi-day testing (including real users) I personally opted for PaleMoon (more precisely, its assembly for Atom). In conditions of severe lack of RAM, it works noticeably faster than all other browsers. On computers with 512 megabytes of RAM, K-Meleon showed the best results in terms of memory consumption, but users almost in 100% of cases complain about its inconvenient interface (read: unusual appearance and non-standard arrangement of controls). In theory, all this can be solved by fine-tuning the interface (fortunately, K-Meleon provides such an opportunity), but in practice, the difference in speed with PaleMoon is not so great. The final decision, however, is yours.

Updated March 18, 2016
I tested a couple more programs that claim to be the "fastest browser for an old computer." My impressions are in .

Updated February 19, 2019
It turns out that enthusiasts keep making PaleMoon builds that work on older computers. Here, in particular, (you need to download the file mypal-28.3.1.win32.installer.exe).

Greetings, friends. A couple of days ago, a friend of mine asked me for advice: what browser best to put on old pc? The question drove me to a dead end, I somehow never thought about such things. And since a friend is still waiting for advice from me, I decided to delve into this topic and form my own answer.

Browser or web browser - application software to view web pages, the content of web documents, computer files and their directories; web application management; as well as for other tasks.

Let's start with the most common browsers. The fact is that Google Chrome, Opera And Mozilla Firefox refused to support Windows XP And Vista. I.e, latest versions these browsers on outdated laptops and PCs cannot even be installed. And even if it works out, old PCs will not have enough RAM for the normal operation of these browsers. Option using older versions - not the best solution. Web standards do not stand still, which means that using older versions of browsers we will see a distorted display of modern websites. And we won't even see individual elements Internet pages.

However, there is still a choice. Today I will tell you about four modern browsers, which will work great on old PCs and laptops, successfully coping with all standard tasks.

K-meleon

K-Meleon has been around for over a decade. This Mozilla browser, which includes the Gecko engine from Firefox. Design user interface The browser is very similar to that of regular Firefox. Like Firefox, K-Meleon has extensive options for customizing the toolbar, menus, and hotkeys.

While you won't be able to add Firefox extensions to K-Meleon, the browser still has a lot of handy plugins.

K-Meleon is also the fastest browser that can run even on Windows 95, not to mention XP, Vista and other operating systems.

Of the minuses: K-Meleon is very rarely updated. The latest stable version of the browser at the time of writing this article is 75.1, released in 2015. There is a Russian-language localization.

Download K-Meleon from the official site. Pay attention to the title “Latest Stable Release” - choose one of the versions: Download installer, which requires installation, or portable, which does not require installation.

Midori

The creators of Midori designed the browser as an alternative to more "bloated" software products. While other browsers are growing in size all the time, Midori remains minimalistic - the browser "weighs" only 37.7 megabytes. And since older PCs usually do not have a capacious hard drive, this factor can be key when choosing a browser.

Despite its small size, Midori works great with all the latest web technologies, including HTML 5 and CSS 3.

Midori was developed on top of the webkit engine, which puts it in the same family as Chrome. The browser does not have a repository of extensions, but there are several settings available in it, with which you can customize Midori to your needs.

Midori has both an installation version and a portable version that can be used without installation on a PC, for example, from a USB flash drive or CD / DVD disk.

Download Midori from the official site. Choose one of the versions: installer, which requires installation, or portable, which does not require installation.

Pale Moon

Pale Moon - This browser is a fork from the Firefox source code. Basically, it's a stripped-down version of Firefox that runs on Windows XP and Vista. Pale Moon only needs 256 megabytes free memory and it's optimized for modern processors. This browser uses system resources efficiently, which allows it to work on old PCs and laptops with enviable speed.

Pale Moon has a very similar look to the old ones versions of Firefox interface design. Many of the extensions that are available for Firefox will also be compatible with Pale Moon. In addition, this browser has its own exclusive add-ons. The browser also allows you to customize many settings for tabs, page content, etc., just like in Firefox.

Update articles from 12/21/2018. As one of the readers of my blog correctly noted, after a recent update, the Pale Moon browser has become more demanding on computer resources. Now the system requirements are:
- Windows 7/8/10/Server 2008 R2 or more late version;
- 1 GB of RAM;
— at least 200 MB of free disk space.

Download Pale Moon from the official site. Hover over the “Download” menu, then “Pale Moon” and select one of the available browser versions.

Maxthon 5

The fourth and last browser I want to show you today is Maxthon 5. This is a promising software that continues to develop actively. System requirements browsers are very modest: a 1 GHz processor, 512 megabytes of RAM and 64 megabytes of hard disk space.

A browser is a piece of software that is essential in every computer. You can choose and download a browser for Windows 7, 8, 10 for free on our website.

We have collected the most popular latest Russian browser versions of 2018.

Why is it needed? Firstly, it is designed to work on the Internet (and this is necessary everywhere these days). It opens web pages and all kinds of web documents. Secondly, the browser also comes to the rescue in managing the machine, making it easy to view computer files and their directories. Regarding the management of web applications - also to the browser.

To date, browsers for Windows - a truly great variety. You can download the best browsers for Windows from our website. And they differ not only in the shortcut that you see on the desktop (although it’s a sin to complain here, the developers tried to make each one individual and not like the others). all sorts of additional functions, built-in extensions that give the user all the new features and make life easier on the network. One gets the feeling that developers from different companies are just competing with each other. And, perhaps, somewhere it is. The competition among browsers is serious, so you have to puzzle over how to stand out so that users choose your product. You can download several browsers and try them out, leaving the most convenient for you.

Nevertheless, if we discard all the additional "goodies", the browsers look very similar. Even despite the fact that they were created using different engines. This is due to international standards that all developers follow. They do this not out of hopelessness (no one twists their arms and does not force them to work ONLY like that). However, uniform requirements make it possible to ensure that all information will be displayed correctly in the browser, and the user will not want to put the mixer in his eyes when he sees the open page.

Browsers are distributed for free, they don’t take up much space, they don’t conflict with each other (unless everyone wants to be the “Default Browser” without fail). So it is not uncommon for several such programs to be installed on one computer at once, according to the principle “each is good in something of his own.” This option is also convenient when several users work on the same machine at once - each has its own browser, and there are no problems with saving tabs, bookmarks and passwords.

So you can start downloading from our site right now as many browsers as you need, and those that you like. If it suddenly turns out that you made a mistake, and the browser of your dreams is not hidden behind the “beautiful label”, you can always replace it with another one.

Browser for weak computers

I have a computer with only 1 megabyte of memory in it, and when I work on the Internet I get scared. I even disabled Adblock and other nonsense that eats up memory making the system even more unusable for normal surfing.

Quite a long time ago I worked in IE6

Then I found a cool GreenBrowser shell for it - it was really cool in terms of speed

Tears on Firefox and sobbed, tk. it was wild brakes, but I wanted to keep up with progress

Struggled for a long time and moved to Chrome browser- it was a miracle! Unrealistically cool and fast browser was

But over time, he began to fall, slow down and it became impossible to live

Tried Yandex browser but the one out of the box is terrible

Not so long ago I upgraded to Firefox 26 and was amazed that it works amazingly fast

Since then, I can say stayed on Firefox

Still, 2 browsers work faster than Firefox:

PoleMoon Browser (it's like Firefox but cropped and eats much less memory)

K-Meleon - Whole books can be written about this browser. It's developed using the same Gecko engine as Firefox, it's complex, it has its own language and it supports some extensions from Firefox, but this browser is a Winner!!!

K-Meleon is the fastest, most suitable browser for the weakest computers today and supports modern technologies.

And yes .. you say, but what about Opera 12?

Or others?

Yes, Opera 12 is wonderful and many people still use it. But he ungodly lags behind progress.

Modern Opera out of the box is also fast, but not at all faster than K-meleon =)))

Vivaldi browser is terribly slow, they should be ashamed.

IE - I don't use it anymore. there is no hope for them, all the infection that is in the world is embedded in them.

I have never seen Spartan, so .. now you know who the king is!