By Peter Dodwell, March 2018
Slimjet is a fast, smart and powerful alternative web browser built on top of the Chromium open-source project (on which Google Chrome is also based).
It adds extra options to Chromium to make it more flexible and customisable. It also integrates additional features into Chromium so that users can get more done in less time without relying on external plugins.
Almost all of the features in Chromium have been kept in Slimjet to ensure compatibility. Most plugins and extensions designed for Chrome should work just fine in Slimjet. You can install any extension and theme from Chrome web store directly onto Slimjet. One feature that I like is the ability for links in Slimjet to automatically open in a new tab.
The only caveat that I’ve found is that Slimjet doesn’t always play videos that are embedded in web sites. That’s because Slimjet doesn’t pay the exorbitant licensing fees that are demanded to use proprietary codecs. That doesn’t bother me at all, because Youtube videos
will play.
Site isolation
The most important feature adopted from Chrome is site isolation. Site isolation is an experimental security feature that offers additional protection against some types of malicious attacks from compromised web sites. It makes it harder for them to access or steal information from your accounts on other web sites.
Web sites typically can’t access each other’s data, thanks to code that enforces the Same Origin Policy. Occasionally, security bugs are found in this code and malicious web sites may try to bypass these rules to attack other web sites. The Chrome team aims to fix such bugs as quickly as possible.
Google’s site isolation feature improves security for the users of the Chrome browser, and other browsers based on it. When you enable site isolation, content for each open website in the Chrome browser is always rendered in a dedicated process, isolated from other sites. This creates an additional security boundary between websites. It appears to be one of the best defences against the Spectre vulnerability, and other hazards from infected web sites such as bitcoin miners.
Configuring site isolation for all websites gives you the strongest security. However, it will increase memory usage by approximately 10–20%. To enable Site Isolation in Slimjet, copy the following URL in the URL address bar: – slimjet://flas//eelble-site-per-process
A control window will open with the option to enable Strict site isolation. Left click on that button to enable it. Now you're done. Restart your web browser and site isolation is working.
Additional features
Built in Ad Blocker
To enable the ad blocker in Slimjet, select "Ad Blocker->Enable Ad Blocker" from the main menu. The same option is also available within the "ad blocker" section of the settings page at slimjet://settings .
Ad Blocker Options
To configure ad blocker options, select "Ad Blocker->Ad Blocker Options" from the main menu and you will see an options dialog. Select one more filter lists based on your needs. If you visit English sites only, select "English sites".
Otherwise, select "English sites" plus any other language you are reading during your surfing. If you are concerned about being tracked by the advertising companies, select the "Privacy Protection List". You can also add any third-party filter subscriptions by specifying its title and URL at the bottom of the options dialog.
QuickFill form filler
QuickFill vs. default password manager
The QuickFill form filler in Slimjet is designed to replace the default password manager available in Chromium. Compared with the default password manager, QuickFill is more convenient and intelligent. The default password manager saves only the login information including user name and password.
QuickFill saves all the data in a given web form. QuickFill also saves the web page url together with the form data so that you can complete the sequence of opening web page, filling login information and submitting the form in a single step automatically.
QuickFill is enabled by default in lieu of the default password manager. However, if you wish to use the default password manager instead, turn off the option "Use QuickFill form filler instead of default password manager" in the section "Password and forms" of the settings page.
Tracking prevention
Slimjet has included a list of tracking prevention options to stop the Internet companies and advertising businesses from tracking your browsing activities. However, it's mostly up to the website owner to decide whether they would respect this request.
Send a "Do Not Track" request with your browsing traffic Send a "Do Not Track" http header with your browsing traffic. As the largest advertiser on Internet, Google DOES NOT respect this request. Despite being a very popular option among most browsers, it's the least effective one.
To access the tracking prevention options, select "Settings" from the main menu to open the settings page.
Click the "Show advanced settings" link at the bottom to show the advanced settings. Then scroll down to the "Tracking prevention options" subsection under the "Privacy" section.
Youtube video downloader
When you visit a video page on the YouTube website, you will see a "Download Video" image button on the left bottom corner of the playing video. If you just want to download the video file, select the resolution and format from the list box on the left side and click the "Download Video" button on the right side to download the video on the current page. If you wish to download the video file and also extract the mp3 audio file from the video file, check the option "Extract mp3 audio file from video file" first and then click the "Download Video" button.
The extracted audio won't be directly accessible from the download shelf in this case. You can locate the audio file under the same folder as the video file using Windows Explorer.
Photo salon enhancement and framing
The Photo-Salon in Slimjet lets you frame your photos and add other enhancement effects before uploading them to the server. If automatic photo shrinking feature is enabled on this domain, they will be shrunk to the preset resolution as well.
How to enter photo salon?
To enter the photo salon, just click the option "Process Photo" in the open file dialog where you choose the files to be uploaded. After that, click OK to close the open file dialog and the Photo-Salon will pop up.
Automatic Photo Shrinking
Slimjet can automatically shrink photos to a reasonable resolution enough for web sharing purpose to dramatically cut down the time required to upload the photos to photo sharing web sites. The default target resolution for shrinking is 1M pixels. Usually no more than 2M pixels are needed since every few monitors have resolution more than that.
To configure options about automatic photo shrinking, go to the section "Photo processing" in the setting pages. The option "Automatically shrink photo files to make upload faster" is enabled by default. Click the button "Photo shrinking settings" to set the target resolution on a per-domain basis.
Built-in weather forecast
Slimjet provides a built-in weather forecast feature so that you can view your local weather condition directly in the browser without opening any website.
Use the arrow adjacent to the tool bar buttons to access the option to customise the tool bar (labeled “More tool bar buttons” when you hover your mouse arrow on it). This will open a list of additional buttons on the left side of the dual pane. Just drag the weather button to the right side to install it. All you have to do then is to set up your location information. After that, you will see your local weather condition and current temperature directly on the button.
NB! I haven’t covered in this tutorial any of the regular features to be found in Chrome. If you need help with any of them, you can get more information from Chrome’s on line help service.
Disclaimer: This is an amateur volunteer run service. Human error can provide incorrect information, and equipment malfunction can produce false readings. Do not rely on, or take action upon information presented on this web site, without further research. Views expressed in the pages or images on the SCCC Inc., site maybe the personal opinions of the relevant writers, and are not necessarily representative of those of SCCC Inc.
