The Portable Freeware Collection Forums

[Moderator note: this is the primary Otter browser program thread. View database entry]

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Hello, im new to this forum but I like it. Can someone please help me out, I fond this browser its called Otter Browser, its based on Opera 12.

I really want to find out if its portabe before opening it, can someone please check ?
direct download link: http://garr.dl.sourceforge.net/project/ ... -win32.zip
or if you dont know can u please tell me what is in your opinion the best portable browser, and trust me Ive tried them all, and all of them SUCK
my favourite browser (dont laugh) is Internet Explorer

de3v0ol wrote:I fond this browser its called Otter Browser, its based on Opera 12.

Otter is not based off Opera 12. It's inspired by Opera 12 and is written in Qt and powered by Webkit (and soon to be, Blink).

de3v0ol wrote:Please tell me what is in your opinion the best portable browser, and trust me Ive tried them all, and all of them SUCK my favourite browser (dont laugh) is Internet Explorer

I use Firefox. It's infinitely customizable and has the most diverse addons of any browser. Some people do not like the new user interface of Firefox 29 and are using Firefox alternatives like Pale Moon.

If I had to use a Webkit / Blink browser, Chromium is okay. Even the newer builds of Opera are getting better. If you want to try a lightweight Webkit alternative, try Qupzilla.

If you like IE, but might also want to use a Webkit browser, try Maxthon. Maxthon allows you to toggle between either the Webkit or Trident engines (Trident is what IE uses).

Hope that helps.

Looks interesting and I like the license but several drawbacks:

From the Ghacks article

The Otter browser project aims to provide web users who like the classic Opera interface and functionality with an alternative.

A first -- very early -- alpha release has been released by its author in 2014.

The version is at 0.4.01, suggesting it's still in alpha. I wouldn't use any browser at that stage unless you're directly helping out the dev team. As to the portability, Qt-based browsers usually require some sort of portabilizing function to clean up or turn off registry writes.

I would alternatively recommend Firefox, but more importantly I would recommend using anything but Internet Explorer for a long list of reasons, the most recent of which is the huge security hole. Beyond that: not cross-platform (Windows only), not up to standard, not open, doesn't support nearly the number of privacy and ad blocker tools. It's also far and away the least portable. I could go on.

I use SeaMonkey. It has a built-in email client with feed support. The developers don't believe in making the UI as minimalistic as possible.

Negatively, the SeaMonkey UI is outright ancient (even the "browser logo" button, last seen in Netscape or so, is still enabled by default), and not many extensions are available.

SYSTEM wrote:I use SeaMonkey. It has a built-in email client with feed support. The developers don't believe in making the UI as minimalistic as possible.

Negatively, the SeaMonkey UI is outright ancient (even the "browser logo" button, last seen in Netscape or so, is still enabled by default), and not many extensions are available.

For sure, I tested out Seamonkey awhile back and couldn't get behind the UI. It's not as customizable as Firefox.

I just use Firefox and Thunderbird as separate apps. They work better together than Seamonkey IMO.

Update - Otter now has a native portable mode:
https://github.com/OtterBrowser/otter-b ... er/INSTALL

To create a portable version, create a file named "arguments.txt" with this line:
--portable

Place this file in a directory containing the main Otter executable file (the file starting with "otter-browser").

I haven't tested for steathiness yet.

I downloaded the latest weekly build and uncompressed filesize is 106MB.

An interesting Linux only Web browser project discovered through Otter: Fifth...

Fifth is a Linux-exclusive browser that carries the best features from Opera, as well as a few unique features that are likely to please Linux power users. It's based on a custom Webkit port to FLTK and comes licensed under the GPLv3.

Fifth's 'Propaganda' page has some interesting figures about "RAM use and startup times of Fifth 0.1 and some less-heard-of competitors".

Fifth latest release: sourceforge.net/projects/fifth-browser/files/v0.3/...

EDIT: development stopped back in 2016 -- see http://fifth-browser.sourceforge.net/changelog.html.

Both Otter and Fifth are open source with a GPL v3 license, which is nice to see:

https://github.com/OtterBrowser/otter-b ... er/COPYING
https://github.com/clbr/fifth/blob/master/COPYING

Spurred by the latest version of QupZilla, I decided to try Otter again. The latest beta is quite usable as a secondary browser.

Uncompressed filesize is 80MB. Boot up memory usage is only 12MB RAM (!), which pretty much makes this the lightest out of all browsers including K-Meleon. But, memory slowly rises as you start to surf.

I might submit this to TPFC sooner rather than later.

Both methods of making Otter portable (otter-browser.exe --portable & arguments.txt) worked fine in my tests.

@freakazoid
If you add Otter to the database you can count on my vote. Otter is offered in two flavours- WebKit-based & Blink-based, I hope that the WebKit-powered one won't be dumped- I am afraid of the browser monoculture (Chrome/Blink) that is coming.

Is there a better way to convert HTML bookmarks files to XBEL bookmarks files than this online tool?

Edit
I think that Otter needs and deserves better visibility (it has been listed or reviewed at just several sites) and here we could help a bit. Otter is mostly one man project and this is a mammoth task.

Otter at version 0.9.12 Beta 12, downloads, history and planned features.

I added Otter to the database.

smaragdus wrote:Otter at version 0.9.12 Beta 12, downloads, history and planned features.

I added Otter to the database.

Cool, thanks for adding. I made some minor edits to the description, with the exception of taking out the planned-features bit. If possible I'd like to stick to just what the program does and not what it will hopefully do in the future.

I mentioned planned features because Otter is a spiritual successor of Opera (the real Opera, the Presto-engine Opera) and the developers try to re-create most of the features that the real Opera once offered. If Opera hadn't betrayed its loyal users most probably both Otter and Vivaldi would have never come into existence. For me the real Opera version 11 was the best browser ever and unfortunately neither Otter, nor Vivaldi, nor any other attempt to re-create the old Opera will come even close because features might be successfully re-created but the Presto engine cannot be re-created- in my opinion it was the best browser engine ever. The only hope is that after Opera Presto source code leaked Opera developers will officially release the source code but this is very unlikely to happen.

Edit
@moderatirs
I think that the thread title can be shortened just to "Otter Browser".

smaragdus wrote:I mentioned planned features because Otter is a spiritual successor of Opera (the real Opera, the Presto-engine Opera) and the developers try to re-create most of the features that the real Opera once offered.

Understandable. I've just seen some rather ambitious software road-maps and cool ideas that are not often achieved. Not that I'm unhappy Otter is making the effort, just that it's going to be especially hard to recreate the magic of the original Opera.

smaragdus wrote:I think that the thread title can be shortened just to "Otter Browser".

All set.

v9.9.91 is out.
https://sourceforge.net/projects/otter- ... weekly180/

I definitely would like to see this project succeed, but I'll wait until an official release comes out rather than these "weekly" files which seem like beta-stage programs.