How to Install and Then Use NetSurf as a Web Browser for the User-Centric Web, Not 'GAFAMNet'

Dr. Roy Schestowitz

2021-06-23 15:55:46 UTC
Modified: 2021-06-23 15:57:45 UTC

Video download link

Summary: Today we take a quick look at what it's like to actually install NetSurf (some distros, like some Xfce-based ones, are bundled with it); we then take it for a spin

Some months ago I began using NetSurf more and more. I fell in love. Suddenly the memory footprint of the Web browser just fell (decreased very sharply, almost tenfold), sites that I really needed still worked mostly fine, and NetSurf rarely bothered me with updates, crashes, and all sorts of other nuisance.

"So many operating systems are supported."Today, months later, I decided to do a quick and informal review, knowing that most people never even heard about NetSurf. It's grossly underrated.

As it turns out, installing it isn't as simple as one might hope. I ended up surprised by the need to get Flatpak files (here it is in Flathub). Nevertheless, eventually NetSurf installed OK:

flatpak install flathub org.netsurf_browser.NetSurf
Looking for matches…
Required runtime for org.netsurf_browser.NetSurf/x86_64/stable (runtime/org.freedesktop.Platform/x86_64/19.08) found in remote flathub
Do you want to install it? [Y/n]: Y





org.netsurf_browser.NetSurf permissions:
    ipc       network               fallback-x11      wayland
    x11       file access [1]





    [1] xdg-download





        ID                                   Arch   Branch Remote  Download
 1. [Ã¢Åâ] org.freedesktop.Platform             x86_64 19.08  flathub 189.0 MB / 238.5 MB
 2. [Ã¢Åâ] org.freedesktop.Platform.GL.default  x86_64 19.08  flathub  89.1 MB / 89.1 MB
 3. [Ã¢Åâ] org.freedesktop.Platform.Locale      x86_64 19.08  flathub  16.7 kB / 318.3 MB
 4. [Ã¢Åâ] org.freedesktop.Platform.VAAPI.Intel x86_64 19.08  flathub   8.7 MB / 8.7 MB
 5. [Ã¢Åâ] org.netsurf_browser.NetSurf          x86_64 stable flathub   2.3 MB / 2.3 MB





Installation complete.

One can then run:

flatpak run org.netsurf_browser.NetSurf

And off we go, I carried on recording after that:

Video download link

Details about download of the software can be found here. So many operating systems are supported. ⬆

Recent Techrights' Posts

Lookout, It's Outlook: Outlook is all about the sharing!
Updated A Month Ago: Richard Stallman on Software Patents as Obstacles to Software Development: very recent update
Is BlueMail a Client of ZDNet Now?: Let's examine what BlueMail does to promote itself
OpenBSD Says That Even on Linux, Wayland Still Has a Number of Rough Edges (But IBM Wants to Make X Extinct): IBM tries to impose unready software on users
The 'Smart' Attack on Power Grid Neutrality (or the Wet Dream of Tiered Pricing for Power, Essentially Punishing Poorer Households for Exercising Freedom Like Richer Households): The dishonest marketing people tell us the age of disservice and discrimination is all about "smart" and "Hey Hi" (AI) as in algorithms akin to traffic-shaping in the context of network neutrality
Links 29/11/2023: VMware Layoffs and Too Many Microsofters Going Inside Google: Links for the day
Just What LINUX.COM Needed After Over a Month of Inactivity: SPAM SPAM SPAM (Linux Brand as a Spamfarm): It's not even about Linux
Microsoft “Discriminated Based on Sexuality”: Relevant, as they love lecturing us on "diversity" and "inclusion"...
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, November 28, 2023: IRC logs for Tuesday, November 28, 2023
Media Cannot Tell the Difference Between Microsoft and Iran: a platform with back doors
Links 28/11/2023: New Zealand's Big Tobacco Pivot and Google Mass-Deleting Accounts: Links for the day
Justice is Still the Main Goal: The skulduggery seems to implicate not only Microsoft
[Teaser] Next Week's Part in the Series About Anti-Free Software Militants: an effort to 'cancel' us and spy on us
Over at Tux Machines...: GNU/Linux news
Permacomputing: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Professor Eben Moglen on How Social Control Media Metabolises Humans and Constraints Freedom of Thought: Nothing of value would be lost if all these data-harvesting giants (profiling people) vanished overnight
IRC Proceedings: Monday, November 27, 2023: IRC logs for Monday, November 27, 2023
When Microsoft Blocks Your Access to Free Software: "Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches." [Chicago Sun-Times]
Techrights Statement on 'Cancel Culture' Going Out of Control: relates to a discussion we had in IRC last night
Stuff People Write About Linux: revisionist pieces
Links 28/11/2023: Rosy Crow 1.4.3 and Google Drive Data Loss: Links for the day
Links 27/11/2023: Australian Wants Tech Companies Under Grip: Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...: GNU/Linux news
Links 27/11/2023: Underwater Data Centres and Gemini, BSD Style!: Links for the day
[Meme] Leaning Towards the Big Corporate CoC: Or leaning to "the green" (money)
Software Freedom Conservancy Inc in 2022: Almost Half a Million Bucks for Three People Who Attack Richard Stallman and Defame Linus Torvalds: Follow the money
[Meme] Identity Theft and Forgery: Coming soon...
Microsoft Has Less Than 1,000 Mail (MX) Servers Left, It's Virtually Dead in That Area (0.19% of the Market): Exim at 254,000 servers, Postfix at 150,774, Microsoft down to 824
The Web is Dying, Sites Must Evolve or Die Too: Nowadays when things become "Web-based" it sometimes means more hostile and less open than before
Still Growing, Still Getting Faster: Articles got considerably longer too (on average)
In India, the One Percent is Microsoft and Mozilla: India is where a lot of software innovations and development happen, so this kind of matters a lot
Feeding False Information Using Sockpuppet Accounts and Imposters: online militants try every trick in the book, even illegal stuff
What News Industry???: Marketing, spam, and chatbots
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, November 26, 2023: IRC logs for Sunday, November 26, 2023
The Software Freedom Law Center's Eben Moglen Explains That We Already Had Free Software Almost Everywhere Before (Half a Century Ago): how code was shared in the 1970s and 80s