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There are several decent choices for browsing with your Linux system. I would have to say that the hands down favorite would be Firefox, but is it the best? With Firefox 3 out in the wild and Opera 9.5 out as well there’s going to be a time when you play around with different browsers and figure out what’s best. Let’s see what is out there and talk about what run best for Ubuntu.

Firefox 3

Should be installed by default but just in case:
(Click any of the links to automatically install, thanks to Vadim P. for the tip.)

sudo apt-get install firefox

Want Firefox 2 for any reason?

sudo apt-get install firefox-2

Firefox is an amazing browser. It leads the way and for good reasons; it’s extensible, fast and open source. Firefox has always had a special place in my heart but has recently starting giving me problems. I’m not sure if I am alone in this but Firefox 3 crashes quite often for me. The main culprit seems to be flash but other times there’s no flash in site and it fizzles out on me.

My favorite features:

Smart Location Bar

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve stumbled onto a website only to later forget what it was when I try to return to it. I visit so many sites in any given day that it’s almost impossible to find specific ones in the giant list of sites that I accumulate on a daily basis.

The smart bar is great because I can type in part of the domain that I remember and it will search through the list and show me what’s there. I can usually find what I was looking for in this manner and it saves me a lot of trouble.

The smart part of the name is that over time it adapts to your preferences and will show those links first. This is great because if you use gmail a lot, typing in mail will bring that up first. Letting you get to what you want faster and more efficiently.

Improved Password Manager

In Firefox 2, when you logged into a website, you would be nagged with a popup asking you if you wanted to save or not. A minor annoyance, it was still a bump in the road and I was excited to see a bar pop down and ask me instead. It’s also nice because if you enter the incorrect password you can go back and try again without saving the wrong password.

Smart Bookmarks

Bookmarks are also a snap in Firefox 3. When on a website you like, click the star, click it again to edit where it’s saved, then rename it and add some tags. As you can see you can also remove the bookmark if you change your mind at any given time.

The Bookmarks manager has also been improved. The interface makes organizing, what seems to be a million, bookmarks very easy. Keeping unsorted separate is highly useful. I’m sure a lot of us have far too many bookmarks pilling up unorganized. The tags feature is quite convenient as well. You can tag items and see them in the bookmarks menu, bookmarks toolbar, bookmarks sidebar and in the organizer.

Lifehacker has a great article on their favorite firefox features. Moving on.

Opera 9.5

Download Opera at:

http://www.opera.com/download/linux/

Opera, thanks to not being open source, has little chance of getting ahead on Ubuntu, or any other Linux distro for that matter. None the less Opera is a great browser and works well with Ubuntu. Sometimes I like to switch over to Opera when Firefox is giving me issues. But it just doesn’t seem to fit the mold for me. It’s a great browser but just doesn’t cut it.

Speed and stability.

While Firefox 3 has been given a noticeable upgrade and is quite faster than it’s predecessor, Opera seems to be right up to par with it and seems to run certain sites better than Firefox. One example would be Plurk. On Firefox the Plurk time line seems to drag and updates sluggishly. Opera runs it as smooth as can be. While I can’t seem to get comfortable with Opera it’s speed stability is it’s number one benefit.

Speed dial

Speed dial is a feature uniquely Opera. When you open a tab you are welcomed by a page of nine customizable windows. Keep your favorite blog or website in plain site so that every time you open a tab you have the option of jumping to it rather than type in it’s address. Setting the block is quite nice as well. When you click on the empty space you will be presented with your most visit websites. Start to type and it will show the sites that you visited recently. A nice feature that makes getting to your favorite sites even easier.

BitTorrent

While I don’t prefer Opera’s BitTorrent downloader it is a great feature for those that occasionally download a torrent. The annoying part is getting it not to download torrent files. You have to go into about:config to change it. I’m sure most Linux users use their own torrent program and will find this to be annoying. Either way the built in Opera torrent downloader seems to work well enough.

Widgets

Opera widgets are nice little add ons, like free floating Firefox extensions, that add depth to Opera. I personally like the “touch the sky” widget that allows me to see the weather in a flash. I tried a Twitter widget and it failed to work correctly so the widget is only as good as it’s programmer. Not as extensive as Firefox extension but still a great feature.

Epiphany and Galeon

Epiphany

sudo apt-get install epiphany-browser

sudo apt-get install galeon

Epiphany and Galeon are extremely fast internet browsers for Linux built on Mozilla’s gecko engine. On the surface both of these browsers don’t match up to either Firefox or Opera but the beauty of these browsers is their simplicity and stability on Linux. If you’re just looking to visit your favorite websites with absolutely no bloat either of this browsers are best for you.

Just the internet

You get the bare minimum with these two browsers. You’re not looking at something as fancy as Opera or something as extensive as Firefox but you get stable browsers that allow you to do what an internet browser is for, browse the internet.

All of the necessary features are included, Manage bookmarks, save passwords, use tabs or surf full screen. While not a large amount, Epiphany also has a selection of extensions you can install. You can install the package from the terminal:

sudo apt-get install epiphany-extensions

You can see a list of the extension by going here.

The main difference between Galeon and epiphany seems to be that Epiphany is more customizable. If you want to personalize your browser, pick Epiphany. For a simple, just ‘let me browse’ experience, you’re best of with Galeon. Either way, you have two great browsers that fit best into gnome and get the job done without the nonsense.

Conclusion

The best browser for Linux, in my opinion, would be Epiphany. Epiphany is a no nonsense browser that fits perfectly into Ubuntu’s gnome desktop and allows you to do what it does best, surf the web. We can get into an argument about features, expendable and speed but when it comes to the browser best for the Linux desktop I have to say Epiphany is the winner.

I personally use Firefox and feel that it is a great choice. I also have to say that I have had a lot of issues with Firefox. Having all the extensions is great but down the road they seem to cause too much trouble in the terms of stability. You could always avoid installing extension but then you also might as well use Epiphany.

Thoughts?

If you are a blogger sometimes it’s nice to have an all-in-one application to blog from. While Wordpress is more than adequate, with Windows Live Writer being available for Windows, a lot of us are left wanting something similar. While I assure you that at this moment there are no programs that matches up, there are several options that get the job done.

Drivel - Homepage.

Install - You can either download it here or simply type sudo apt-get install drivel into your terminal.

First we have Drivel. Drivel is a very simple to use blogging client that can post to LiveJournal, Blogger, MovableType, Advogato, and Atom journals (systems based off these are also supported, including WordPress and Drupal). Drivel isn’t a feature heavy application but it does the job. If you are looking for a program that fits the Gnome desktop very well and is good enough to write your stories then you will like Drivel a lot.

Features.

I like how simple and compact Drivel is. I used to use Windows Live Writer on Windows and it was a very nice program but very cluttered. Drivel has most of the features that you would want in a compact form. You have a form for your subject and content, the typical menu and then at the bottom you can access advanced options (well just one which is categories). Going to preferences from the the menu you can activate some more features. If you’re wondering how to spell check you can turn the option on here and once you do misspelled words they will be underlined with a red line. You can also activate spelling under the view menu. I also like the fact that in the file menu you can see some recent posts and edit them at will. Finally, going to the format menu you can insert links or images, change text formatting and insert lists or an indent.

Drivel is definitely a great choice for a blogging client if you are looking to escape web based blogging and don’t want the bloat. You won’t be amazed by a million buttons but with all the basic necessities you won’t be left wishing for much more. Drivel fits perfectly into your Gnome desktop and will surely satisfy the average blogger. Nothing fancy, just a great solid program that does exactly what it was created for.

Screenshots (click to open).

Blogtk - Homepage.

Install - You can either download it here or simply type sudo apt-get install blogtk into your terminal.

As the site describe:

“BloGTK is a weblog client that allows you to post to your weblog from Linux without the need for a separate browser window. BloGTK allows you to connect with many weblog systems such as Blogger, Movable Type, WordPress, and more. BloGTK is written using Python and PyGTK, and is designed to be fast and simple to use.”

Features.

Blogtk is another rather simple to use blogging client for Linux. Blogtk is a little more like a word processor than Drivel is. When you first open the program you will be presented with a window where you can enter your log in information. There are also two other tabs where you can change certain settings. Here you can set any necessary proxy settings and in the other tab you can set how many old posts that it will retrieve. There are a couple other miscellaneous options under other. Blogtk is also capable of several other posting settings that Drivel does not offer. Formatting options are in clear view above the entry area. All the typical options are there (bold, italic) as well as spell check and even an option to insert a table. Along side the typical entries are tabs that allow you to insert an extended entry and another tab let’s you preview the post.

Blogtk is another decent option that has all that Drivel does and adds some nice features without feeling bloated. Not only can you do the typical posting and spell checking you can also preview your post and have custom tags. Blogtk is very compact and allows you to get your writing done and any feature that you would need is available to you. Drivel is great if you must have one of the most compact programs available and blogtk is a great option that has a few extra features for those that will use them.

Screeshots (click to open).

Gnome Blog Entry Poster - Homepage.

Install - You can either download it here or simply type sudo apt-get install gnome-blog into your terminal.

Gnome Blog is a very basic blogging client. While Drivel is very basic, Gnome Blog is even simpler than that. It does the very basic and can do what you need if you don’t want any of those extra features. It will allow you to post a entry, check it’s spelling, insert a link and make font bold or italic. That’s it. There’s not much to the software and may not be for everyone.

Screenshots (you know the deal).

Other Options.

While this article was meant to review blogging specific clients here are a few options that you might like to look into.

Wordpress Backend.

Yeah, I’m listing the good old default Wordpress editor as an option. While it’s not a standalone program on your computer it is a perfectly adequate way to blog. You can’t go wrong with it, it is after all made just for Wordpress. You will find all the necessities and then some. You can expect the new features to be implemented right into the editor because, again, it is made just for Wordpress. Inserting images is a snap. The toolbar has anything you could wish for. Spell check, categories, post status, timestamp, excerpt, trackbacks; you won’t be dissatisfied with these options! So maybe you don’t need software after all! I mean, this is is what I blog with everyday and it works just fine.

Screenshot (if you blog with Wordpress this is useless!)

Flock - Website.

Flock is a great little program. After all it is built from Firefox with Web 2.0 in mind so how could it go wrong? Flock has features that allow you upload images to flick or photobucket and also has a built in blogging client. Flock has a great feed reader which would allow you to collect news and post it all in one place. Flock has all the standard features that you need and at least one that the others (other than Wordpress and the next program I review) lack; the ability to edit the source code. This is huge for me and I’m sure if you like inputting your own HTML it is very important as well. Flock has a feature that when you set up your blog it automatically detects the necessary settings. All you have to do is insert your user name and password and you’re good to go. If you are looking to do it all in one place; read, write and post then Flock is a great option for you.

Screenshot.

ScribeFire (plugin for Firefox).

Website - Download.

Firefox. If you are using Linux and don’t know what Firefox is I want to meet you so I can see the only person in the world that uses Linux and lives in a cave. Ok, bad joke aside this is a great plugin. Scribefire is a lot like the blogging client built into Flock. Some features that set it apart are the publishing options that allow you to add Technorati tags and bookmark it to del.icio.us, use tags and also keep notes. Just like with Flock you can view the source and preview the post. Another interesting feature is the Page Tools. Page tools is not for editing your posts. You can use it to lookup any given link through Technorati to check if it is being linked to. Nothing crazy but a neat little addon none-the-less. So, if you’re looking to blog from firefox this a great option for any blogger.

Screenshot.

While there are no programs available that could be considered a complete knockout, there are several options that get the job done. If you are looking for a word processor that also blogs you will be dismayed to discover that there are none as of yet. But if you are looking to blog from Linux there are several choices to help you spread the word. I’m sure within time there will be that one program that takes the cake. At this moment I like Blogtk and ScribeFire but see nothing wrong with the default Wordpress editor.

Did I miss something? Please let me know!