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Readers' Choice Awards

Readers' Choice Award

Best Linux Distribution

This year we're breaking up our Readers' Choice Awards by category, so check back weekly for a new poll on the site. We started things off with Best Linux Distribution, and nearly 10,000 readers voted. The winner was Debian by a landslide, with many commenting "As for servers, Debian is still the best" or similar. (Note that the contenders were nominated by readers via Twitter.)

One to watch that is rising in the polls is Manjaro, which is independently based on the Arch Linux. Manjaro is a favorite for Linux newcomers and is known for its user-friendliness and accessibility.

  1. Debian: 33%
  2. openSUSE: 12%
  3. Fedora: 11%
  4. Arch Linux and Ubuntu (tie): 9% each
  5. Linux Mint: 7%
  6. Manjaro Linux: 4%
  7. Slackware and "Other" (tie): 3% each
  8. CentOS, Gentoo and Solus (tie): 2% each
  9. Alpine Linux, Antergos, elementary OS (tie): 1% each

Best Web Browser

When the Firefox team released Quantum in November 2017, they boasted it was "over twice as fast as Firefox from 6 months ago", and Linux Journal readers generally agreed, going as far as to name it their favorite web browser. A direct response to Google Chrome, Firefox Quantum also boasts decreased RAM usage and a more streamlined user interface.

One commenter, CDN2017, got very specific and voted for "Firefox (with my favourite extensions: uBlock Origin, Privacy Badger, NoScript, and Firefox multi-account containers)."

Who to watch for? Vivaldi. Founded by ex-Opera chief Jon von Tetzchner, Vivaldi is aimed at power users and is loaded with extra features, such as tab stacking, quick commands, note taking, mouse gestures and side-by-side browsing.

  1. Firefox: 57%
  2. Chrome: 17%
  3. Chromium: 7%
  4. Vivaldi: 6%
  5. Opera: 4%
  6. Brave: 3%
  7. qutebrowser: 2%
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