We Used Midori Browser And This Is What We Found About It

A few weeks ago we wrote a blog post on Zen browser. This time we used another Firefox-based web browser called Midori Browser. Midori Browser's USP (Unique Selling Point) is its memory usage. It is mostly mentioned in circles where you want a web browser that can work on old, under-powered machines. Is it so? After one week of using it we got to see its negatives and positives.

First the positives:

• It's installation is smooth. No hiccups at all. And if you are afraid of leaving registry keys everywhere on your machine you can use its portable ZIP archive version.
• The browser's UI is sleek. Its splash page grabs a random photo from Unsplash everytime you open it. The window pane and buttons look polished but not as good as those of Firefox.
• Speed-wise it is slightly better than Firefox but not as fast as Google Chrome.
• Since it is based on Firefox you can install any Firefox extension/addon to it and it will work.
• It has way better Online Privacy guards than even Firefox protecting you as you browse the internet. By default, it uses Astia's own secure DNS service while browsing.
• If you are looking at moving away from Google products. Midori Browser has links to its developer's cloud offers like Calendar, Notes and a VPN.
• Midori Browser's memory usage is usually controlled by the user.js file that comes with it. By default, it uses the "Better Performance" mode which is roughly equivalent to the memory usage we see while using Firefox. But if you want maximum efficiency you can select it in its settings page. This setting aggressively sets the lowest RAM usage while browsing.
• Midori Browser has mobile app versions. 

 The negatives:

• The desktop version of the browser defaults to using Astia's GO search engine which is extremely slow.
• Some Firefox Extensions can fail to work on the browser like the Facebook Container.
• While it has a good UI, its look-and-feel seems not to be at par to that of Firefox or Zen Browser.
• The browser seems to be a front for Astia's cloud products. For some, this can be turnoff if they just want a basic browser for their usage.
• The browser's auto-update feature seems a little broken. Even after repeated restarts the browser would still fail to resolve the auto-update.

Midori is a beautiful browser that can brighten your day from the random Unsplash photos it downloads. It's memory usage can be set to the lowest level making it ideal for Core i3, Core 2 Duos and Pentiums still running. And if you want to browse behind a secure DNS service then Midori browser is the answer.