From the web: Basilisk is a free and Open Source XUL-based web browser, featuring the well-known Firefox-style interface and operation. It is based on the Goanna layout and rendering engine (a fork of Gecko), and builds on the Unified XUL Platform (UXP), which, in turn, is a fork of the Mozilla code base without Servo or Rust.
Considering Rust and Servo give Firefox it’s speed boost, should you consider a browser without them? Let’s see what Basilisk has to offer…
Basilisk is a browser made by the same people that produce the Palemoon browser. If you have ever used it, you will know how slow, clunky and dated it feels. It also doesn't support plug-ins. Basilisk supports your old plug-ins and is faster than Palemoon. Both browsers are based on the Goanna-engine, a fork of Mozilla’s Gecko engine. However, Goanna runs in a single process. See: http://www.moonchildproductions.info/goanna.shtml
This puts Basilisk in the same space as Waterfox browser. Testing Basilisk and Waterfox, Basilisk is actually faster than Waterfox. Basilisk boasts that it has removed all the Mozilla spying code from their browser, which may be why it is a tad faster than Waterfox. The latest release of Basilisk, however has removed the support for web extensions. There are a lot of reasons given, however the main reason is manpower. It seems that if you upgrade to the latest version, your add-ons will be removed or disabled.
If you need your add-on / cannot do without it - and it is not supported on the new Firefox, we turn to Waterfox or Basilisk. This is not ideal as howtogeek explains here: https://www.howtogeek.com/335712/update-why-you-shouldnt-use-waterfox-pale-moon-or-basilisk/ - However, if Basilisk is going to remove this, it leaves only the proprietary blobs as a reason to use this browser. Nothing in particular stands out as a compelling reason to use it. The Goanna-engine is also used by the K-Melon browser, and there seems to be active development with regular feedback: https://www.basilisk-browser.org/releasenotes.shtml. This at least shows us the developer is taking this product seriously, though a lot of work seems to be going into the Windows version, not Linux. Linux is served by only a tarball download and no binaries as of yet.
In testing this browser, I found it to be unstable with some VPN’s and proxies. The downside to having your browser run in a single process, is that, if one tab crashes, your whole browser crashes. This is to be expected as the developer has stressed that Basilisk should be considered BETA. That said, it is actually a very capable browser overall. I have not tested Basilisk with the TOR network, as I do not have it set up at the moment. They have, at the time of writing this, not published a list of add-ons affected by the removal of web extensions. How it will work or affect users is anyone’s guess.
Those of you who would like to help out or test, now is your chance.
Would you like to tell us something about Basilisk we should know? Send us an email.
Website: https://www.basilisk-browser.org/