# testing otter-browser



## toorski (Oct 8, 2019)

```
% uname -nr
fbsds-12 12.0-RELEASE-p10
```
`pkg install otter-browser`
`otter-browser-1.0.01_3         Browser based on Qt 5`

Interesting, slim env, fast and seems to work OK (video, sound and blocker) and it also matches my existing qt5 desktop framework. Now, it's my default web browser.


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## fernandel (Oct 11, 2019)

toorski said:


> ```
> % uname -nr
> fbsds-12 12.0-RELEASE-p10
> ```
> ...


Looks much better but doesn't support extensions/addons still.


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## grahamperrin@ (Jun 19, 2021)

Alain De Vos said:


> Otter-browser can't play youtube videos. …





bsduck said:


> … I find Otter's performance surprisingly poor compared to Firefox and Falkon. I tried switching the backend to QtWebEngine (default is QtWebKit) but then it becomes very buggy and crashes.



Playback seemed OK for me with the same video that I tested with Web at <https://forums.FreeBSD.org/threads/8877/post-518126> (second shot, with the comment there for Alain): 





_View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYMnjmsbguU_


I didn't test full screen. 

Compared with Firefox 89, Otter Browser might have been a little slow to 'settle into' smooth playback, however I was playing the content almost immediately after starting the application (maybe this had a detrimental effect).

FreeBSD 14.0-CURRENT, otter-browser-1.0.02.


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## bsduck (Jul 2, 2021)

The video above (and YouTube in general) is ok with Otter on my setup too (13.0-RELEASE). It also takes some time before playback is finally smooth, while Firefox and Falkon get it smooth from the beginning.

But some other videos don't work, for example on https://www.rts.ch/info/economie/12...-systeme-de-taxation-des-multinationales.html

Enabling *about:config -> QtWebKitBackend -> EnableMediaSource* makes it work but only for a few seconds, then it freezes.

Browsers using WebKitGTK such as Luakit or Epiphany fail at the same place, but they work if multimedia/gstreamer1-plugins-hls is installed (and don't need MediaSource to be enabled), with the drawback of using much more CPU power than normal. Otter seems not to care about that plugin.


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## grahamperrin@ (Jul 2, 2021)

You might already know, the video plays with the Blink backend.



bsduck said:


> … Enabling *about:config -> QtWebKitBackend -> EnableMediaSource* makes it work but only for a few seconds, then it freezes.
> 
> … if multimedia/gstreamer1-plugins-hls is installed



After installing the plugins and attempting to play the video, I changed and saved the preference, the application stopped responding.


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## bsduck (Jul 2, 2021)

Yes, it plays for me too, unfortunately Otter with Blink backend is completely broken on my setup, it freezes all of the time, sometimes right after loading a page, sometimes after a little scrolling. But that's not a surprise, given it's labelled experimental.


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