Hi,
On 28/04/2017 14:18, Jyri Hovila [iki.fi] wrote:
which is properly coded, very stable and secure, but (when it comes to a "normal" user or even an experienced sysadmin) utterly useless when it comes to doing the stuff everyone does these days -- browsing the net. Yes, I know many of you are browsing the net with OpenBSD. So am I. Just to make sure everyone understands what I mean: it is not that it would be impossible, it is just insanely irritating and slow.
I am an avid NetBSD and OpenBSD user and the two system perform similar regarding browsers. The first reason of crash is memory limits,: so be sure to raise them. If you use those "hungry" sites you cite, the most common problem is killing of the browser because of memory. The delay you notice is then given by the dump.
Personally I do not notice any "slowdown" on OpenBSD when using a comparable NetBSD system or even Linux or FreeBSD system. Actually, except where video, plugins or other similar things are involved, the system works very well. I will say more: on BSDs the machine remains quite usable even if the browser slows down, while e.g. on Windows not. I use gecko engines mostly: SeaMonkey and Firefox and compare on all platforms. I stay away from Chrome/Chromium stuff for various reasons. I haven't tested Midori well on BSD, but on Linux and Windows it isn't that better than Firefox: slow opening and starting, even if then pages perform decently
The issue is that the browsers themselves are very much Windows and x86/amd64 oriented, with a little eye on Mac and Linux. Other architectures work worse. PPC is rotting, ARM is not that different.
I use Salesforce.com all day long professionally (which has very intensive pages) and notice I can use it very well on my OpenBSD or NetBSD laptop, even gaining some speed compared to a Windows machine! What is slower is that the whole "video" is a bit slower surely due to worse drivers, but e.g. SeaMonkey itself works quite well.
Keep an eye with top on your browser memory usage and the limits you se. Riccardo
