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Actually, they are developing a similar product already, it's called reaKtivate. It's not as far ahead as CrossOver, however.

Is any of this proprietary, or has RH managed to stay comeletely OS?

With the sole exception of Netscape (which will disappear later), it's 100% OS.
And Netscape will disappear with the next release - we're already including Konqueror, Mozilla and Galeon as free (and better) alternatives right now.

Also, what RH specific changes are in this gcc?

It's a stabilized fork of a CVS version. See http://www.bero.org/gcc296.html for a further explanation.

Why isn't gcc-3.01 being distributed? Does it have major issues?

It's included as a preview package, but it's not ready for a standard compiler.
It breaks binary compatibility with the compiler used in prior 7.x releases (which is something we don't do in minor releases), and its C++ part is quite broken ATM (try running a version of KDE that was compiled with gcc 3.0.1 and you'll see what I mean - it crashes at startup).

And Opera kicks Konquerer's ass.

I guess you are speaking about rendering speed, right?
Yes, Opera renders simple HTML faster than Konqueror. But it comes at the expense of quality. Opera's DOM/JavaScript is very poor. CSS support is incomplete and somewhat misleading.
Anyway, Opera is very good for *easy* sites, which were designed to run in Netscape 4.75 or even in Netscape 3. You can go to such sites and still get adecuate results.

In contrast, Konq was designed to run on much bigger number of sites, and has excellent CSS2 and adequate DOM support

More info at: www.konqueror.org

KHTML is way less stable than Mozilla, even though Mozilla isn't to 1.0 yet
Bullsh**t. KHTML is very stable. If you are not happy with some third-party JavaScript-based web sites, turn off JavaScript support. As I wrote in another posting, do not mix JS with DHTML. These are different things. Konqueror has the best CSS2 support on the market, so far. Click on link above or here to see how W3C CSS page renders in Konq. Compare than it to MS IE6 or other browsers.

All that and I didn't even get into the speed advantage...

Are you kidding? Konqueror starts in 3 sec. on my computer, while Mozilla needs 20-25 seconds to start!
Besides, Konq opens new window in less than 1 sec., while Mozilla needs 3 sec.(!) to open new window. Minimize/Maximize actions are also pretty slow for Mozilla.

7. There are now good, free web browsers: Konqueror and Mozilla.

It was'nt the case two years ago.

More details:
Features of the HTML rendering component in KDE 2.2
CSS2 support
And what professional people think about Konqueror

More details:
Features of the HTML rendering component in KDE 2.2
CSS2 support
And what professional people think about Konqueror

> Right now no Browser even compares in terms of > speed/power ratio.
> Sure its debateable that Opera is faster, But > Mozilla is more powerful, Its Debateable that > IE is more stable, but Mozilla is faster.
> Right now, in terms of speed and power Mozilla > is the BEST browser you can have.

Man, it seems you were never doing some browser testing. I do it a lot, and Mozilla (while better than MS IE in terms of CSS support) just can't match Konqueror.
Where are anti-aliased fonts in Mozilla?
(almost) one year after introduction in XFree86, AA is still not inMozilla!

Konqueror is the best browser you can have now.

Konqueror is just better than Mozilla. It's faster, uses less memory, and I can browse sites with Konq where Mozilla fails. So, I don't understand what all this buzz about.
Do you need good browser? Go to www.konqueror.org

Some of my favorite browsers can do that, others can't. How frustrating.

Konqueror does exactly that. Disable just window.open(), or disable is for specific sites. You can also enable-disable Java/JavaScript in general on a site-by-site if you like. It also supports accepting cookies only from specified sites. Makes me happy.

When Mozilla does this, I'll be a true GNOME convert. Until such time, it's apt-get install konqueror task-ximian-desktop enlightenment for me.

Popups can be disallowed with some browsers, though I haven't yet seen anything which allows you to filter only window.open (as opposed to all JavaScript) on a site-by-site basis....

Take a look at Konqueror 2.2.1. You can globally deny/accept window.open, or specify a pop up box to set the policy for the site on first encounter.

You can get Nimda about seven different ways and 6 of them have nothing to do with running a web server. Just browsing an infected site, something beyond your control, with IE 5.5 sp1 or less was enough.

This is true, of course. This worm spreads in a number of ways, all of which exploit security flaws in Microsoft software:

• It can directly attack your computer if you are running Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS)
  • Consider using Apache instead
• It can attack as a mail attachment if you are using Microsoft Outlook as a mail client
  • Consider using Pegasus instead
  • Consider using Netscape 6 instead
  • Consider using KMail (on UNIX/Linux) instead.
• It can attack as an executable attachment to a Web page if you browse with Microsoft Internet Explorer
  • Consider using Opera instead.
  • Consider using Mozilla instead.
  • Consider using Netscape 6 instead.
  • Consider using Konqueror (on UNIX/Linux) instead.

Notice a pattern there? Yes, that's right. If you don't run Microsoft, you can't get Nimda. Or Code Red, or Code Red II, or SirCam, or Melissa, or...

This isn't about being a Linux bigot. You can't get Nimda on MacOS. You can't get it on Solaris. You can't get in on OS/400, or AIX, or an Amiga, or on *BSD. This isn't a matter of Linux being good. Linux is just ordinary, like any other half-competent operating system.

This is a matter of Microsoft being incompetent. Hopelessly, culpably, irredeemably incompetent.

Like most of us I've been forced to use a ton of different O/S's at jobs (all investment banks) over the years. The one thing I could never tolerate was unreliability since I HAD to be sure that my trading model / spreadsheet was running when I needed it. As a result the best OS combination for me was Solaris on one box and OS/2 on another (until it was taken away by those bastards in IT) and replaced with the worst OS I have ever used Windows NT 3.51. OS/2 was great because it was super stable and allowed me to hack around as I wished. I didn't need a command line but I did need a good spreadsheet and and groupware (Notes) that I could configure to do what I wanted (I wasn't a programmer, just a tech aware trader). Solaris was great for massive derivative apps and market data but CDE stank as a desktop and I still don't understand how Sun could have not offered something better. The problem with Solaris was that the BOFH admins had locked everything down and we users could touch nothing.

Around that time I installed my first home copy of SuSE 6.2 and spent hours of utter torment trying to get X configured etc.. etc.. Horrible though it might have seemed I loved it suddenly I was in control (however chaotic and dangerous that control was). However I knew that the Sysadmins would never allow me to use it at work. "Freedom of choice for users = more work for Sysadmins" and they, like most people are lazy and want a quiet life. More importantly you need to be weird to want to work high-up in IT support for BIGCO. Success is measured by the size of your budget / empire / office / car not by installing low cost / no cost OSes. These guys want to spend trillions with Sun / MS otherwise how do they justify their big budgets and offices?

A couple of years ago I took a lifestyle choice and quit the megabucks slavery of Wall Street and set up my own software co. I learnt 80% of what I know about technology from wrestling with Linux and I use it now because I feel more free doing it. In the end it was a choice linked to what I wanted in life for myself and others. I now take my son to school before logging in to WindowMaker and clicking on the Konqueror appicon to read /. I got myself I life and I got Linux (and I'm a lot happier for it.......!)

``Palm is going to be bringing out a new operating system ... the belief is they'll have it done by the end of next year,'' he said. ``But it's hard to ship those things on time. It could take years, and Palm doesn't have years.''

Ok, so the trend is overpowerful PDAs to replace your desktop? If you want to use a PDA with desktop-like applications, why not use a Linux PDA with Qt Palmtop Environment? It's GPL and you can download it from the site. "Just add Linux and stir" it says on the page. Use Konq Embedded while you're at it, which is also complete. No vaporware here! Of course, you need a capable PDA to run these on. Hehe, are those available? :) Maybe iPAQ?

Oh and...

``The thing that impressed me the most is that it's a full Outlook client,'' he said, meaning the computer can have receive e-mail without relying on a desktop or laptop computer."

Golly gee. You could've received email with other PDAs for years too, like the Psions. Too bad they never got the recognition they deserve here in the states. At least with the built-in keyboard you could actually compose meaningful replies. Now that's power.

Who cares? Really, Konqueror is a much better product.

"Microsoft also includes Microsoft Internet Explorer 6, the latest version of the world's favorite Internet browser. "
Didnt I hear something about a small redmond based company crushing netscape and other browser alternitives with anti-competitive monopolistic practices? Oh yeah, that was Microsoft with Internet Explorer.

"Microsoft Internet Explorer complies with such Internet standards as CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), XHTML (eXtensible HyperText Markup Language), XML (eXtensible Markup Language), and P3P (Platform for Privacy Preferences). " Huh? MS is widely known for changeing standerds so they don't work in other browsers. I like konqueror, as it has no problems with any sites that dont use extensive flash/java or other nasty bandwidth intensive stuff. Only works for KDE tho, you might not like it.

"Is Microsoft Windows XP worth $200? "No. Every review I saw of it said it sucked. I've used other versions of windows. They sucked too. What am i really paying for with that $200? a few years more hassle with Worms, Viruses, bugs, bsod's and the like? or am I paying for an intigrated MP3 player with optional cup holder? what if i like my old one? can i still use that?

"Will Linux users steal it so that they can play games and DVDs? "
Don't know. I know I wont. I'm just fine with my stolen copy of 98 for that.

"That is why Product Activation will help Microsoft recoup all of its piracy losses. "
ooh, MS lost money to the evil p1r4t3s! ooh! I'm shaking in my little pants! MS makes BILLIONS a year. That's for an overpriced, buggy, insecure joke of an OS. That's pretty damned good if you ask me. Oh, and Product Activation is easily hacked too, or so I've read.

QNX on iPAQ looks sweet...

But I don't see anything that the Qt Palmtop Environment doesn't do already, and with similar style and panache.

Not to mention that QPE has a web-browser available FAR in advance of anything on any other handheld platform - Konqueror/embedded which has the full KHTML rendering engine that normal desktop Konqueror has, but with a UI optimized for a handheld's screen.

Of course, I shouldn't have to mention that both QPE and Konq/e are fully-fledged GPL'ed projects, which I'm pretty sure QNX isn't, last time I looked...

• Opera
• Konqueror
• Mozilla
• Galeon
• Skipstone
• Netscape

The article did not review a number of browsers. Here are a some more that you may want to try:

• Arena
• Amaya
• Chimera
• MMM
• Emacs/W3
• Lynx (text based)
• Links (text based)
• Debris (text based)
• w3m (text based)
• Libwww (text/line based)
• HowJava
• Express
• Armadillo (was Gzilla)
• Mnemonic
• Kde (file manager with builtin browser)
• mMosaic
• QtMozilla
• QWeb
• Mosaic
• Arachne
• Beest
• Beonex
• BrowseX
• Grail
• Dillo
• NetRaider

And how the disclaimers: The list above by no means complete. The browers above were listed in j-random order. Some browsers are in early alpha stage, some in Beta and others are in full release. Some of the browsers may suck, some are OK and some are good. Your mileage may vary. Sorry If I left out your favorite browser. IE was left off the list for obvious reasons. Good while supply lasts or until Bill Gates takes over. I'm not a member of the FCIA. Void where cast as (void).

For all practical purposes, it can be considered complete.

Having written a Netscape plug-in, and an ActiveX control for the same purpose, it's my opinion that the ActiveX road is more fully-featured, and allows you to do certain key things that the Netscape API doesn't. (One critical feature is the ability to do alpha blending with the document in the background; there's no way to access this data from the Netscape API).

It remains to be seen if Microsoft keeps this block out of Netscape-style plugins, but it may actually be a good thing in the end (provided Microsoft doesn't bar others from supporting ActiveX plugins).

--
Chris

Java+SSL requires that you install JSSE. It has nothing to do with KSSL. Please read the FAQ on www.konqueror.org

can't seem to find that feature in IE or Netscape

Well of course not. After all, the article did say modern browsers. I'm sure they're probably refering to mozilla or Konqueror since we all know that IE universally sucks and Netscape is dead.


--BEGIN SIG BLOCK--
I'd rather be trolling for goatse.cx.

New version. There has been a long time since the last release of AtheOS but finally V0.3.5 is ready for release. There is several reasons for the long delay like the fact that I have been rather busy at work lately and that we have had a great summer here in Oslo so AtheOS have not always been at the top of my priority list. Also quite a lot of work have gone into this release and quite a lot of new features and improvements have been made.

Many of the changes are additions and modifications to the various API's and toolkits but also a few user-visible aspects are improved in this release. Many bugs are fixed in the text editor and list-view widgets. The scrollbar have got a totally new look and a few new features like "paging" (jump one page when clicking beside the knob) and small arrow buttons that can be used to move the know.

Some crash-bugs have been fixed and the general robustness of the application server has been improved. Also several kernel crash-bugs have been fixed so the general stability of AtheOS have improved quite a bit. The uptime on my heavily stressed developer machine is 34 days when I write this (the time since the last HW upgrade).

This version also have two new keymaps (German and Sweedish) and support for a wide range of nVidia graphics adaptors.

The main focus for V0.3.5 however has been on the KHTML based web browser. I have ported the HTML parser/renderer used in the Konqueror web browser (KHTML) to AtheOS. KHTML is a very capabel HTML parser and renderer that support both CSS and javascript and so does the AtheOS web browser. Finally a high-quality web browser for AtheOS! The browser is part of the 0.3.5 base install and the 0.3.4->0.3.5 upgrade archive. Take a look at the changes list for a more detailed list of changes since V0.3.4.

--

Probably thinking of Qt Palmtop with Konqueror

DATELINE JULY 9, 2001

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Konqueror Embraces ActiveX, Plays Shockwave Movies

July 9, 2001 (The INTERNET). Nikolas Zimmermann and Malte Starostik today announced the availability of reaktivate for Konqueror, KDE's web browser. Reaktivate enables Konqueror to embed ActiveX controls, such as the popular Shockwave movies, for which no native Linux/Unix solution exists. Reaktivate relies on the WINE libraries to load and run ActiveX controls.

With this addition, Konqueror now enables KDE users to take optimal advantage of sophisticated websites that make use of Microsoft Internet Explorer plugins, Netscape Communicator plugins for Linux and Java applets, as well as KDE plugins designed using KDE's KParts technology.

According to Malte, the reason he and Nikolas implemented reaktivate is rather simple: it broadens the spectrum of web sites accessible to Konqueror, and it was possible.

Successes and Limitations

Theoretically, Reaktivate can eventually be used to embed any ActiveX control into Konqueror. Currently, however, not all ActiveX controls are compatible with reaktivate. In particular, the Microsoft Windows Media Player cannot be installed using reaktivate (though it is not known if a player which is already installed will work with reaktivate). Thus it is likely there exist other ActiveX controls which will not yet work with reaktivate. Work is ongoing to increase compatability with other ActiveX controls, including the Apple QuickTime plugin.

So far, however, reaktivate has been successfully tested with the following ActiveX controls:

Note on Security

Install ActiveX controls only from sites that you trust. Microsoft's ActiveX technology has often been criticized for weak security. Those controls are dynamic libraries that are executed exactly like any other piece of code installed on the user's system. This means they have full access to the file system, the system registry etc. As a means to establish the users' trust in the controls a web site wishes to install, every ActiveX control is cryptographically signed and carries a certificate issued by an authority known to the web browser (like VeriSign). A control that has no signature or no certificate or if they are invalid will not be installed.

With reaktivate the situation is similar: the installed controls can call every WinAPI function provided by the WINE libraries and therefore have access to WINE's registry and all files visible to the WINE installation. The current implementation of reaktivate will ask the user for confirmation to install a new control, but it will not check the embedded certificate and signature. This is due to technical reasons as well as limited time. Therefore we strongly advise to install controls only from sites that you trust. To save your files from malicious controls, you might also consider using this feature only from a seperate user account that has no access to your main user's files. Reaktivate will not run from the root account.

Source code for reaktivate is freely available under a Free, Open Source license from the kdenonbeta module in KDE's CVS repository and its mirrors. See the KDE website for information about how to get a module from CVS. You only need the toplevel, admin and reaktivate directories from kdenonbeta. Before compiling, get the latest CVS version of WINE (a snapshot will likely not be new enough). Next, apply all patches from reaktivate/patches-for-wine/ against the WINE sources and build/install WINE. Finally, you can build and install reaktivate.

Disclaimer: reaktivate is not in any manner sponsored or endorsed by, affiliated with, or otherwise related to, Microsoft Corporation.

Thanks to Andreas "Dre" Pour and Navindra Umanee for assisting in drafting this release.

DATELINE JULY 9, 2001

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Konqueror Embraces ActiveX, Plays Shockwave Movies

July 9, 2001 (The INTERNET). Nikolas Zimmermann and Malte Starostik today announced the availability of reaktivate for Konqueror, KDE's web browser. Reaktivate enables Konqueror to embed ActiveX controls, such as the popular Shockwave movies, for which no native Linux/Unix solution exists. Reaktivate relies on the WINE libraries to load and run ActiveX controls.

With this addition, Konqueror now enables KDE users to take optimal advantage of sophisticated websites that make use of Microsoft Internet Explorer plugins, Netscape Communicator plugins for Linux and Java applets, as well as KDE plugins designed using KDE's KParts technology.

According to Malte, the reason he and Nikolas implemented reaktivate is rather simple: it broadens the spectrum of web sites accessible to Konqueror, and it was possible.

Successes and Limitations

Theoretically, Reaktivate can eventually be used to embed any ActiveX control into Konqueror. Currently, however, not all ActiveX controls are compatible with reaktivate. In particular, the Microsoft Windows Media Player cannot be installed using reaktivate (though it is not known if a player which is already installed will work with reaktivate). Thus it is likely there exist other ActiveX controls which will not yet work with reaktivate. Work is ongoing to increase compatability with other ActiveX controls, including the Apple QuickTime plugin.

So far, however, reaktivate has been successfully tested with the following ActiveX controls:

Note on Security

Install ActiveX controls only from sites that you trust. Microsoft's ActiveX technology has often been criticized for weak security. Those controls are dynamic libraries that are executed exactly like any other piece of code installed on the user's system. This means they have full access to the file system, the system registry etc. As a means to establish the users' trust in the controls a web site wishes to install, every ActiveX control is cryptographically signed and carries a certificate issued by an authority known to the web browser (like VeriSign). A control that has no signature or no certificate or if they are invalid will not be installed.

With reaktivate the situation is similar: the installed controls can call every WinAPI function provided by the WINE libraries and therefore have access to WINE's registry and all files visible to the WINE installation. The current implementation of reaktivate will ask the user for confirmation to install a new control, but it will not check the embedded certificate and signature. This is due to technical reasons as well as limited time. Therefore we strongly advise to install controls only from sites that you trust. To save your files from malicious controls, you might also consider using this feature only from a seperate user account that has no access to your main user's files. Reaktivate will not run from the root account.

Source code for reaktivate is freely available under a Free, Open Source license from the kdenonbeta module in KDE's CVS repository and its mirrors. See the KDE website for information about how to get a module from CVS. You only need the toplevel, admin and reaktivate directories from kdenonbeta. Before compiling, get the latest CVS version of WINE (a snapshot will likely not be new enough). Next, apply all patches from reaktivate/patches-for-wine/ against the WINE sources and build/install WINE. Finally, you can build and install reaktivate.

Disclaimer: reaktivate is not in any manner sponsored or endorsed by, affiliated with, or otherwise related to, Microsoft Corporation.

Thanks to Andreas "Dre" Pour and Navindra Umanee for assisting in drafting this release.

Konqueror is the KDE web browser/file manager.

Well, if you're going for the standard Konqueror install, then you need the 'kdelibs' and 'kdebase' package. You don't have to install everything in 'kdebase', but it's easier :). If you want something smaller, look for 'Konqueror embedded', which doesn't need KDE or X.

Konqueror does 3 out of 4 of these features. You can choose to accept or reject cookies for none, some or all domains. Same goes for JavaScript and java too.

There's no built in filter for images though. If you wanted that you would have to use an external proxy like Muffin.

Don't suppose this helps much on Windows or MacOS however, unless they've got KDE running on those already.

1. First of all, the fact that Smart Tags can be toggled by the user does nothing to help me since most users will never toggle them or even look for the setting. If they're on by default, they'll stay on. If they're off by default, they'll stay off. I doubt that Microsoft really will leave a new feature disabled from the start, it doesn't seem like them.
2. Secondly, I'm not sure of how many users would download COM objects, but then again, I've never actually tried to find out what an average user thinks of the "Run Content By XXX" security box. (Also keep in mind that it costs a fair chunk of change to sign an ActiveX control.) I also have to wonder how many users will either personally disable downloading ActiveX controls or have their "smarter computer friend" do it for them thanks to the various security flaws in the ActiveX model.
3. Embedded XML in my webpage. Lovely, that'll really make the W3C HTML Validator happy. So I suppose now my choice is "write correct HTML" or "write for Smart Tags" - of course, customizing Smart Tags isn't something I'm likely to do manually anyway. (Especially since I'm not planning on "upgrading" to XP any time soon.) Plus I have to wonder how third party browsers will handle embedded XML...
4. Smart Tags are controlled by Microsoft - and whichever OEM sold the computer. What, you really think that your average user is going to go out of their way to download new Smart Tags? Unless it's transparent, they'll be stuck with the defaults.
5. DLLs? DLLs?!? You have to be kidding me. Smart Tags are actually full blooded computer code!?! Oh, I just can't wait for the first "Smart Tag" virus to come out. Unless the download isn't transparent (see above). (And don't forget, MS has a pretty poor record of implementing security checks properly - I really have to hope that all the OEMs are smart enough to preconfigure boxes so that new users are running as normal Users. Can you imagine a host of newbies running as Administrator? *Shudder* - Wait - how do we explain to them that they can't install WinAMP anymore? *Shudder*)
6. What the hell do the default set do exactly, then? From what I saw, Smart Tags creates a little menu of options for each instance of some word that they find (or is it more complicated than that? Really don't have the time or inclanation to find out). Still sounds like MS will be controlling web content... even if I can develop my own Smart Tags I highly doubt that I can effectively get users to download them...

--

Why does it matter that KHTML doesn't render CSS1 correctly? Because on the
Konqueror website it claims to render CSS1 perfectly apart from 3 attributes. It's not being unfair or nasty to point out that this claim is currently wrong. I'm currently submitting all the links he noticed to the
KDE bugs database

Konqueror and KHTML are a perfect advertisment for the open source development model. As you say, it works almost perfectly in 'the real world'... which is why we have to look at these marginal cases of 'features no-one uses' to find problems :). Imagine what the KDE people could have done with 10% of the money that's been thrown at Mozilla these last three years... (mind you, more money can sometimes be a hindrance - look at the Nautilus fiasco).

Konqueror provides almost exactly such a facility, allowing you to disable the Javascript window.open() method whilst otherwise retaining full Javascript functionality. Say bye-bye to annoying popup-windows... for good!

As I remember, such a feature was proposed for Mozilla some time ago too, but the idea was rejected by the Netscape engineers building Mozilla's Javascript support on the basis that it was a poor idea commercially. Indeed, Netscape's own homepage frequently uses window popups.

I think from this and other examples (not least Konqueror's other advanced Java, Javascript and cookie management) one could make a strong case that non-commercially-developed Free Software is superior from a user's point of view, as the user dictates to the software what to do rather than a commercial organisation dictating what the software should do. The conflicts of interest that plague other software just aren't there.

I find it remarkable that such a wonderful yet tiny and easily-implemented feature can be missing from every other major browser. Ask yourself why this is.

Please understand that Konqueror wouldn't get me so steamed up if they would take a rest from trumpeting their standards (non-)compliance. On their own web site they boldly claim CSS1 compliance "except for 3 properties", a claim which is strictly false. In only fifteen minutes of testing, I was able to find numerous CSS1 bugs in Konqueror 2.1.1. Their claim to support "about 60%" of CSS2 is even more bizarre: released versions of Konqueror barely scratch the surface of CSS2 compliance, especially with regard to table layouts, backgrounds, horizontal and vertical formatting, and floats. Konqueror developers should give the rhetoric a rest and honestly assess the quality of their product.

Most online banking requires https support for java. This is not included in the standard java distributions for free browsers.
You need JSSE classes which you can download from here, information about getting them to with konqueror is here although personally I found you just need to pub the classes in your javahome/lib/ext/ directory and all works fine.

There's KIllustrator (photo-editing), Konqueror and Mozilla (web browsing, HTML editing etc), and again a good many others.

Oh, and anti-aliased fonts are very very nice, but that's just a bonus of a superior toolkit...

Interestingly, it redirects Konqueror 2.1 to 'badbrowser.psp'; but if you configure Konqueror to pretend to be Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.5; Windows NT 4.0) it renders just fine. I'm seeing this more and more frequently with commercial sites - if they don't recognise the browser, they don't make any attempt to render a page for it. I think this is professional incompetence, frankly.

Get Konqueror It rocks!

You should really check this baby out.

It seems to me that Konqueror hits 2,3,4,5,6,13,15,16(SMB) and 18, of the Nautilus wish list. Mind you that this is without commercial backing (and with a clear conscience now that Qt has been GPL'd).

Maybe eazel could write an IO slave for Konqueror that can access the eazel services, that could increase thier potential revenues, no?

* Security in *nix sucks

I'm hoping that you mean Linux security, since this isn't true at all for many other UNIX OSes. For Linux, I think the security is good enough for what it is, when it is used right. The problem is that many applications and servers don't use it right. POSIX.1e-style capabilities (see Linux-privs - POSIX.1e Capabilities for Linux, http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/linux-privs/) are probably the answer. A more legitimate qualm with the *nix model is that it is coarse-grained. I think at least a handful of UNIX OS's have responded with support for Access Control Lists, which provide more fine-grained file access (see Extended Attributes and Access Control Lists for Linux, http://acl.bestbits.at).

* X Windows sucks

The X Window System catches a lot of criticism, some of it well-deserved. Most of it, however, is purely inane. It works very well, all things considered. Most of the technological deficiencies (i.e., mainly rendering technology) are resolved with modern extensions. Naturally, there are better ways to do it. We could have a much better architecture. But that's all hindsight. What we're looking at is not a transition that would be based on advantages, but on disadvantages. Until the limitations of the X Window System outstrip the convenience of using what's already there and well-supported, we have X. But Xfree86 is good enough for now. There might be alternatives in the future (Berlin, http://www.berlin-consortium.org/).

* the xterm gui-cli interface sucks

I'm stumped. You determine that you need the CLI for some task while you're in the GUI. What better interface can you get than actually getting the CLI in the GUI? (Which is what Xterm does for you.)

* all the shells suck ...

They seem to have everything I need and want, and more. Filename completion (with cycling through potential matches), redirection (especially with file descriptors, as in bash), good line editing, conditions and looping, scripting, ... Maybe I'm thinking inside the box, but I can't think of anything that I've needed to do that hasn't been made easy (if not trivial) by some shell.

* file system in *nix sucks

Well, it's not as if every UNIX uses the same file system. I don't understand this claim, really. Are you arguing against heirarchical file systems or against the file systems themselves?

* netscape in *nix sucks

It performs very well for me, as do Mozilla (http://www.mozilla.org) and Konqueror (Konqueuror). There's a lot of hype around Opera (Opera), but I've never tried it. There are particular deficiencies in each of these, of course, but most of them perform the task of web browsing well enough. Not to forget, of course, Lynx (Lynx).

Anyway, there are legitimate issues. Standardized package management on Linux would be nice, ACLs/Capabilities would be nice... And I'm always up for a new Window Manager or Desktop Environment. I use Sawfish/GNOME (Sawfish, http://sawmill.sourceforge.net/; GNOME, http://www.gnome.org/). But, eh, keep complaining: anything that gets me new toys to play with can't be too bad.

Try Konqueror. It was fairly flaky in KDE 2.0, but has become remarkably mature, speedy and stable as of KDE 2.1. It renders output that is very close to that of Internet Explorer, and has a lot of cool features to boot. I have had good luck using it to approximate what sites are going to look like in IE. NS 4.7, which has served me well over the years, is now hopelessly obsolete.

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KDE2 is a great piece of work. I've been using the 2.1 betas and I couldn't be happier now that 2.1 final is out. It is so vastly different from the old KDE1. In fact, it's almost a complete rewrite.

KDE has many merits, and probably the reason for its success has much to do with the use of Qt. Talk about toolkit wars you want, but the KDE team chose Qt even when it wasn't GPL. The decision was clearly based on technical capability. Just visit Trolltech's site to see a small list of big companies that have invested in Qt. And the toolkit is fully cross-platform. There is clearly no toolkit of comparison.

The KDE libs take the good design of Qt and extend it, bringing us the KParts component system and DCOP. Why not use CORBA? Because the KDE guys didn't think it was the right tool for the job. One really cool part about their DCOP system is it can be controlled from the shell, thus making the whole system fully scriptable. It is all of this well designed framework that allowed the KDE team to bring about so many applications in such a short amount of time.

Konqueror is the most obvious of these first class apps. It is the browser everybody has been waiting for. You want IE on Linux? Here it is, just without the junk. It even has a checkbox to disable javascript window.open(). It's fast, and will manage your files like a pro as well. Also, completely transparent FTP access (IE only does partial), embeddable xterm, image/html thumbnail previews. My goodness does this program rock. I say this as an experienced Unix user, not just as a Windows convert.

And this is just one application. KDE comes with so many other good programs as well, like KNode (News reader) and KMail (lightweight email program). Dare I mention KOffice?

Does GNOME have any comparable programs? Star Office? Mozilla? Abiword? Those are not even GNOME programs, although they can be "GNOME-ified" (Galeon, Open Office). There is Nautilis, but that is an outside project as well. If we want to talk about outside projects, I could bring up [TheKompany], but there is no need. The core KDE team does enough work themselves to warrant this posting.

There's no reason GNOME can't catch up, but at this point KDE is obviously ahead of GNOME, but that's a given since KDE started first anyway. Some may argue that KDE is behind Windows. Even if that is true, the rate at which the KDE team moves will answer to that quickly. In a recent LinuxPlanet review of KDE2.1 Beta, the author states that the difference between KDE 2.0 and 2.1 is comparable to the difference between Windows 95 and 98. Three years squished into three months? It will be amazing to see where the KDE project is a year from now.

Go KDE!

-Justin

you can embed a terminal emulator in konqueror that automatically changes directories when you change directories in the file manager.

By the way, here's a screenshot of Konqueror rendering Arabic, Hebrew and Yiddish.

Use Konqueror. Full support for right-to-left languages, including Hebrew. Plus it is the best browser for Linux anyway. A (somewhat old) screenshot.

I agree that Konqueror is the next best browser, second to IE. That fact that Konqueror is free and free makes it better than IE in the end.

I know you don't need to run KDE to use Konqueror, but let Konqueror be evidence of KDE's success.
KDE Konqueror

I really like Konqueror. I think it is much faster than Mozilla, and when it works it works really well. Unfortunately Konqueror is not yet as stable as Mozilla---Konqueror seems to blow up about 3 times more frequently than Mozilla, and it doesn't work with Datek.

BTW, I use Gnome as my desktop and Konqueror as my browser.

Uhh. Have you looked at Konqueror by KDE? It includes 'networking enhancements' and 'groovy' document handling via component programs and 'impressive' customization. Check out the links in the above page and please explain how 'Eazel does it better'? Only reading about Eazel, it does not appear that it does more than Konqueror. Except that Konqueror has been shipping for 3 months and Eazel is still in development.

"Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life."