Slashdot Mirror
Kmeleon - Windows Gecko Browser
Chasuk writes "Slashdot users who are also Windows users might be interested in visiting this site, where they can download Kmeleon, which is described on that site thusly:
"K-Meleon is the Windows answer to Galeon. Thus, K-Meleon is a lite Web browser based on gecko (the mozilla rendering engine). It's fast, it has a light interface, and it is fully standards-compliant. To make it simple, K-Meleon could be considered as the unbloated Mozilla version for Windows.""
I just downloaded and installed K-Meleon, just to try it out.
The fact that the whole download and installation process took about four minutes was the first thing that impressed me.
After browsing a few pages with it, it doesn't make me say "Wow, that's fast!" It does, however, make me say, "Wow, my hard drive isn't thrashing at all!" (Interestingly, that has been my experience with Linux as well.)
I appreciate their attempt to follow Windows standards, but I don't think they needed to clone the IE interface that closely. It's a little creepy.
I am ambivalent about the Mozilla widgets. (I should note that this is also my first experience with Mozilla, period.) Since most of the widgets only appear within web pages, the fact that they don't follow the user interface conventions might actually be a good thing (since the "web page" paradigm should be separate from the "dialog box" paradigm.) However, scroll bars are not part of the page, so there's no excuse for not using standard Windows scroll bars. (Unfortunately, from what I know of Mozilla's internals, that's probably hard to fix.)
The scroll bars are the only part that I really can't deal with. If they fix them, I would seriously consider using K-Meleon (instead of IE) for web browsing.
MSK
if the main feature of netcaptor is having several sites open in different "tabs", you could probably code that up as an XUL skin.
The shareholder is always right.
>I private Jerry Goldsmith's CDs with a clear conscious, now that I can pay him.
You are aware that you're actually not buying the music, you're tipping the artist, right? It's a small distinction to rational people, but it'll get the lawyers in a huff... To claim your tip gives you the right to the music will probably get them to sue fairtunes.com..
If they think fairtunes.com is selling music, or telling people that they are, even with a 'wink wink, nudge nudge' kind of thing, they'll haul them into court so fast and break them.
Keep tipping the artist, but stop claiming that it has anything to do with purchasing the song.
(And, don't you mean 'pirate', not 'private'?)
Yes, let's not discuss technical issues or figure if something is useful or not, let's get bogged down on licenses.
I for one, am getting tired of how complicated this is getting. If these license issues generate so many discussions with lots of confused developers, then maybe these licenses are too complicated for developers. Either simplify and clairify these damned things once and for all, or make "license/copyright law" a part of the CS curriculum.
I'm starting to miss language war discussions, coding style holy wars, etc. License non-sense is just so uninteresting.
- sigs are for wimps.
That doesn't happen with K-Meleon, so sometimes I click and think that it didn't get my click because it's so quiet, when it's really just waiting on the network.
This is so great...
I wonder if the Mozilla people are taking note of the vocal (at least on slashdot) outcry for a SMALL, STANDARDS COMPLIANT, SIMPLE, and FAST browser?
I don't know who wants bundled applications, every feature you can think of, and huge executible size, but appearently someone does, cause that is what they are delivering.
At least there are projects out now to fix this, and since Mozilla is open source, it IS possible to strip it down when it reaches final form.
(disclaimer: I've used every mozilla release since R4, unless you are testing with a quad-xeon, don't flame me telling me it's fast and not bloated)
Finkployd
Until it has these I'm stuck using other browsers.
For example:
It is faster than NS 4.7, but about the same as NS 6.0 PR2 ( though it has a much smaller footprint ).
I'll definitely be keeping my eye on this program, it has a lot of promise.- --------------------
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Segmentation Fault ( core dumped )
Overall, I wouldn't recommend you to use Galeon if you don't use Gnome.
I agree. I just wish that there was a non-GNOME Mozilla based browser.
So many worthwhile projects, so little time..
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$ cd mozilla-src
$ echo "ac_add_options --disable-mailnews" >> ~/.mozconfig
$ make -f client.mk
Your point is taken, but mozilla can be built without its mail and news.
I guess K-Meleon has answered a few issues that I've had with Mozilla/Gecko.
The whole XUL/XML flexible interface is a great idea for us geeks, but my question has always been "What about non-geeks?" I mean. If I'm some newbie to the internet/computer thing and I download NS6 whatever and I'm running on a Mac is the program going to look like the rest of my Mac apps, is it going to conform to the GUI and conventions that's already provided by my OS or am I going to have to go hunting for some scheme or theme that will force it to conform. What if I'm running Kaleidoscope or I'm on MS and running Windowblinds will the themeing cover the browser or not.
Plus normal everyday users (that 90% of the population) is not going to give a flying f*** about what the liscensing states whether it's GPL'd, BSD'd, MPL'd, or BSOD'd. They want a browser that's ready to use out of the box and will work with the sites that they visit on a daily basis.
Right now I'm using IE 5.1, no major complaints except for a few issues where it doesn't cover the standards. I write sites based on the standards not based on what the browser can do, I might limit what standards I use to conform to what standards the browser permits but I never to use proprietary tags unless called on to do so. In my company when we looked line by line at what browser was most standards compliant it was IE and it's still IE. Unfortunately at the rate that Mozilla (although it's gaining momentum lately) is going IE will still be the most standards compliant browser when Mozilla ships as a final product.
One of the other issues I have with NS/Mozilla is the ability/ease-of-use in integrating other compenents into the set. For example: any user can go into internet settings in IE and choose which e-mail/newsreader/editor/etc. that they prefer to use which means I can mix and match apps based on my needs and whims. The interface is fairly simple and actions are easy to walk someone through. Unfortunately in Navigator you have to actually modify the file associations to get this functionality reproduced and then the functionality isn't represented on the toolbar or in the menuing, you can still only choose Messenger/Composer/etc. As far as I can tell the interface is similar in Mozilla. So yet again IE wins on ease-of-use. And as for stability, reliability, and speed (for me) IE wins. I use both Win98SE and NT4 and haven't had any problems with crashes for about the past year. In fact the only apps I've had crash on me lately were Netscape and Silverstream
*nix programmer - shoots self in foot... blames microsoft.
MS programmer - shoots self in foot... blames poor 3rd party video driver.
"Do not be swept up in the momentum of mediocrity." - anon
Mozilla without the mail/news/etc...
Sometimes (almost always) you just want a browser, and not all that other stuff... though it does use the IE bookmarking system (never really did like that - it always moved them around on me).
Even if it isn't all that full-featured at this point, it may be an important stepping stone.
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"It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
What do you think we did with Galeon? Exactly that.
And yeah, I'm aware of that exception that allows linking to parts of the OS.
It could also be considered a browser to replace IE, since IE doesn't have mail or news built-in either.
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Does it support SSL? AFAIK, SSL in Mozilla is supported through the Netscape-Sun Alliance developed PSM system right now. Is it used here too or?
This reminds me of the energy and the hope embodied in the original QT release. When a bunch of Ozis added strong encryption in 24 hours and 5 Norwegians ( 3 Troll, 2 KDE ) ported it to QT in a couple of days ( fast 2 meg binary that crashed as much as Mozilla did 8 months ago ). Back then it looked like a 6 month project.
We have come a long way with people calling the project dead and others resigning because it just wasn't working out. Now it looks like there is a light at the end of the tonel. Mozilla will be done eventually. Maybe in as little as 3 months.
Now with at least 3 mostly standards compliant browsers, two of which support the same plugins ( Mozilla and Konquorer ) there is a chance to take back the web and marginalize proprietary interfaces.
I like choice. I want to use 3 or 4 different browsers depending on mood, lighting and How I will use the site. However I want them to agree on what "HTML" stands for. I want XML and other buzzwords to be accurately supported. I want the freedom to use what I like.
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
If you look closer to the author email, it shows christophe@nullsoft.com.
Going to winamp 3 team page, it appears that this guy is actually working for the Nullsoft team. Which is owned by AOL. Which owns Netscape. Which owns Gecko.
hmm... Although, i can say that with releases such as Gnutella and now K-Meleon, Nullsoft rocks.
(Here I go again, replying to an old post which noone will ever read...)
Um, it worked fine for me. Still does.
main(O){10<putchar(4^--O?77-(15&5128 >>4*O):10)&&main(2+O);}
A long time ago when Mozilla was in the initial stages, there was a utility that let you replace the Internet Explorer engine with Mozilla's engine. Does anyone know where I can find this? I just love NetCaptor as a browser, but it only uses the Internet Explorer engine... If I had the time, I'd code one based on Mozilla just like it, but I don't...
You should never take life too seriously - You'll never get out of it alive.
Currently on my machine here at work, I have Internet Explorer 5.5, Mozilla M17, Netscape 4.74, and now K-meleon. K-meleon seems a bit rough around the edges (for the same reasons Mozilla does) but it doesn't crash constantly.
All four of these browsers appear to get along just fine.
For more information, click here.
Conflicting with the MPL is bad enough, but there is also the question as to how the GPL can be applied to the Microsoft stuff in it. Looks like lots of MFC code, and MS artwork was obviously used for the buttons.
** Sig-a-licious **
"Unfortunately, by refusing to 'suffer' through a few improperly-rendered sites a day, you are contributing to the client stats on every web server that suggest to developers that IE is the only browser they really need to support."
So, you're saying that I should another browser and "suffer through a few improperly-rendered sites" just because IE has too much of a presence on the web? Pardon me if I sound inflammatory, but it's not my fault that other browsers may not display pages correctly. I don't use software based on principle, I use software based on if it gets the job done or not. And IE gets the job done for me. I used to be a Netscape user, until I got fed up with Netscape's bloatiness (does such a word exist?) and tendency to crash. Then I jumped to IE. Why? Because it works. Pages render nicely for me, and that's what matters.
If you don't like the fact that IE has a bigger web presence than other browsers out there, then (as the open source credo seems to say), go do something about it.
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The real Raunchola isn't cool enough to have any imposters
Imagine, if you will, that suddenly, the postal service decided that you could only read and write your mail with a custom, USPS-approved, compact letter-machine. The output it produced would be scrambled to the point of being impossible to decipher, and any attempt to decode it would be a federal crime. However, business and legal documents had to be transferred by that means to be considered "official." That is dramatically similar to the situation we are beginning to face with EULAs, the DMCA prohibitions on reverse-engineering, and the growing segment of Internet users who think it's nothing more than the Web and email. I, for one, would very much like to have at least a few options, and do not wish to support Microsoft in their attempt to "own" the Internet in any way I can avoid.
Indirectly, I'm correct. Windows is the only OS IE runs on (I know there is a Sun port, but you call that running?) and if IE is the best browser for /., then indirectly, Windows is the best OS for /.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
First of all, its Mozilla news, which regularly gets posted here.
Second of all, a very large number of posters here are primarily Windows users and are interested in this kind of thing.
Combine the two, and you get news worth posting.
What I'd be really interested in seeing is the actual OS stats on visitors here. I've heard from several people that when a site gets slashdotted, a majority of the hits are IE on Windows, I wonder if the actual stats are the same.
Although I guess the question is what is Slashdot? Is it a Linux news page, a Linux zealots home, or is there room for the occasional open source windows browser too?
I'm afraid I don't have an answer for that one, as I'm not the guy who posts news.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
I'm glad that you have no problem with doing your part to solidify and permanently establish Microsoft's supreme decision-making authority for every user of the Internet. Personally, I am trying to do something about it -- by arguing with you, by running the latest Mozilla builds, by trying to push friends and coworkers into avoiding IE, and at least into avoiding sites that only work with IE.
Oh god, somebody shoot me. You know, it's people like you which cause people like me to think that /. should be renamed LinuxDot: New for Linux weenies. Seriously though, the developmet of Galeon was posted, so why not this? Just because it isn't for Linux, it doesn't "deserve" to be on /.? Maybe /. should stop posting articles about all sattilites that don't run Linux. Given the fact that Linux (and OSS in general) are about creating a more friendly software environment where people help each other out...
A lot of nerds DO use Windows you know. I for one, would much rather use NT than Linux. It's not a religious thing, I just like NT better. And when Linux with GNOME takes up less memory than NT4, please call me up so I can faint at how they squeezed that fat thing into 18MB of RAM. Geez...
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
I think I'll stay with Kmeleon for one reason and one reason only: FADING MENUS. Now I can have all the slow UI touches of Windows 2000 today!
(View > Preferences... > Menu to set. And they don't have the cool fade-out effect like in Windows 2000 -- yet.)
For more information, click here.
Mea culpa: I normally use IE5.5
After downloading Kmeleon, here's what I found that needs work:
- it stole my "Links" bar! In IE5.5, I customized this bar, but when Kmeleon is loaded, it replaces the Links bar with it's own links. (The Links bar is stored in windows\favorites\Links)
- it actually uses MFC. In fact, it crashed with a page fault in mfc42.dll.
- no https
- No Smallest,small,medium,large,largest font selection.
- Cookies?
Overall, it looks nice, and it runs pretty fast. If it wasn't for the non-customizable links bar, and if Cookies were fully implemented, I'd use it instead of IE5.5
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Wow! More wilful stupidity!
Just because you want it now does not mean Mozilla is late. I am not the only person who is prepared wait for something good.
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"Where, where is the town? Now, it's nothing but flowers!"
Common misconception that is.
Funny how when I click that mail button, it opens *Eudora*.
I don't have Outlook or Outlook Express installed, there is this really neat option at install time to turn OE off, and same thing with Outlook when you install Office.
Gee, there's some massive integration for you, they're entirely seperate programs!
See, now Netscape mail is integrated, I can't choose to not install it during the Communicator installation. No matter what, its there. Outlook Express I can quite easily get rid of, and tell IE to use Eudora, or Agent, or The Bat, or whatever other mail program happens to interest me today.
Apparently both you and the moderators haven't actually gone and looked yet.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
Oh, I'm not standing on the sidelines, I've washed my hands of the whole business and use BeOS instead.
/. because I'm interested in the stuff they post. Your comment sounds awefully like "we don't need any non-linux weenies here, go to MS's site." /. has no need to become a totally Linux/OSS oriented site. People have said before that yes, /. is pro Linux because the creators are pro-linux. There is nothing wrong with that. However /. is STILL news for nerds. Whether or not you'll use it, this release is important. Not only because it is relevant to Mozilla (that's secondary) but because it has an impact on the market. If this thing is up to snuff, it makes for some competition to IE. (God knows that Netscape 6 by itself won't be able to compete) Similarly, /. SHOULD cover relases of Office. Not so much because people will use it, but because it effects the market. Same thing for DirectX, COM, and other Windows technologies. Also, nobody complained when the news of the (then propriatry) V2_OS was posted. Nobody complained about the Inferno posting. Nobody complained about the FreeQNX posting, etc. None of these have anything to do with Linux or OSS, but all of these are interesting to nerds. I just think you've got a problem with MS and want /. to censor for you. You don't understand why more Linux-ites don't adopt the stance taken by Linus. He was quoted as saying "I don't think that MS is hell and Bill Gates is Saten." He even said that he would take a job at MS if they had a job cool enough. (This is taken from an interview in boot magazine.) All in all, a very reasonable stance.
I think you're talking about two groups of people here. One group is afraid to jump on the bandwagon and support "the cause." And the other group (me) simply uses NT because they like it better and could care less about "the cause." Although I am interested in Linux, and admire the OSS community for "shutting up and showing the code," from my point of view (as a very media/3D oriented person) NT is simply a better OS. However, I inhabit
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
BTW> I think Windows is actually the best OS from which to browse /. Under NetPositive, things like the password section glitch up, under Navigator everything looks ugly, and is slow, under Mozilla, things are unstable, etc. Under IE, everything looks perfect!
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
I think that perhaps our underinformed friend was referring to the fact that there is nowhere to place the proxy settings and therefore it is utterly useless to him.
While this is not exactly a 'standard compliant' required feature, it is a feature that I would expect in any modern browser -- even a trimmed down one like this is.
While the mozilla project does support projects, this is NOT the mozilla project; it is only using the Gecko rendering engine that was made by the Mozilla team for use in, among other things, the Mozilla project.
Rami
--
rJames.org - illustration
The real question is, do the sites you visit support the standards in their encoding, or do they use IE-specific techniques without regard for other browsers.
With the huge market-share IE enjoys it has two sets of standards it can support:
In my development I aim for the De Jure standards. Unfortunately, Mozilla isn't truly compliant to these standards yet. I'm not developing content sites, but web applications. Mozilla seems fine on the major entertainment sites -- which is great -- but it doesn't support simple interface manipulation as it should, so I cannot include it in my list of approved browsers, yet.
I'll keep looking, though. I just can't move away from IE until Mozilla is Ready.
Once Mozilla is ready, then my entire application development environment will be MS-Free. Until then, I'm tied to Windows and IE. ("Don't cry for me, Ars Techninca...")
Now hiring experienced client- & server-side developers
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
... must go better together than most folks want to admit. This site is seriously Slashdotted at the moment.
Unfortunately, by refusing to "suffer" through a few improperly-rendered sites a day, you are contributing to the client stats on every web server that suggest to developers that IE is the only browser they reallyneed to support. That impression is what keeps every site out there looking perfect in IE 4/5/5.5, and god-awful in most every other browser.
This is a response to Galeon?
Saying it is "also" light and unbloated?
Too bad Galeon requires me to install all of GNOME as well. Not exactly unbloated if you don't use GNOME, is it? It even requires you to use the GNOME control panel to set such things as your mailer, and to have GNOME programs beyond the base GNOME libs, such as GTM (Gnome Transfer Manager, for downloads).
I'm sorry, but Galeon doesn't quite cut it for me. Too bad there aren't many binding for embedding Mozilla yet, only the gtk bindings. Of course, you could just use the embedding interface interface of Mozilla itself and build your own wrapper. Judging by gtkmozembed, it'd only take around 70kbyes of code.
You'd also, of course, have to understand the very confusing embedding docs, and while the gtkmozembed code might help a bit, it's very Gtk specific.
Perhaps someone will start developing some other bindings so that you don't need to implement 5 different objects to interface with the embedding objects. Oh, and create the associated IDL files, whatever those are, I haven't figured them out yet.
One of Mozilla's major claims to fame is its embeddability. Too bad it's not very embeddable yet.
Wow, I went just a bit off my train of thought.. well. Galeon requires GNOME, K-Meleon requires Windows.. I guess that evens it out a bit. I'd really like to see a Gtk-only Mozilla-based webbrowser, though; no GNOME, no KDE, just Gtk, Mozilla code, Linux, and X.
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I understand why Galeon was put under GPL, it was to keep the same licence as other Gnome components and at the time Mozilla weren't talking about dual licensing. Now that they want to dual licence Mozilla under MPL and GPL wouldn't it help both projects if they dual licenced k meleon and at the moment it's probably illegal to distribute the GPL and MPL components together (read the post by a Galeon developer). I think whenever possible licence compatibility should be maintained and in this case should be dual GPL/MPL.
;) or the GNU Public Licence)
(and it's the GNU General Public Licence (not the GNU private licence
BTW I'm not spelling licence wrong it's one of the words that differ in the UK.
This isn't insightful, it's stupid. The phrase "standards-compliant" refers to W3C standards, such as XML and CSS.
By the way, Mozilla *does* support proxies.
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"Where, where is the town? Now, it's nothing but flowers!"
Seriously, it's evil. It's a total betrayal of the browser by stealing away control the user should have and giving it to the web developer (when things like advertising put them at cross purposes). We shouldn't legitimize its use by including it "web standards", and any site that uses it shouldn't be called a real website, just another net-downloadable program.
Standards are only a good thing when they standardize on good behavior.
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Despite rumors to the contrary, I am not a turnip.
No.
In fact, using the Gnome libraries has greatly decreased development time. Galeon has and probably always will be (unless someone wants to make a Gtk+ only version) a Gnome web browser.
Let's make it so it can run games and office-type apps in it!
What time is it/will be over there? Check with my iPhone app!
"I'm saying that pages render correctly only in IE precisely because no one will write pages that work in anything else."
You're right, because IE is the majority browser on the web. And that's because people use it. Go ahead and villify IE users as people who want to help "establish Microsoft's supreme decision-making authority." "Broken" or not, people use IE, for whatever conspiracy theory you can think of. And others don't use IE, for whatever reason. Like the saying goes, "different strokes for different folks." But being one of those horrible IE users you villify, allow me to unofficially apologize, on behalf of all the IE users out there, for using IE. I'm sorry that not everybody uses software based on principle, as you seem to do.
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The real Raunchola isn't cool enough to have any imposters
Although there doesn't appear to be a place to setup proxies through the GUI, just go to the directory it's installed in, defaults\pref\all.js and edit the all.js file directly, putting in your proxy info as needed. Shutdown the browser and bring it back up, I'm writing this using KMeleon going through a corporate proxy right now.
If need be, you might want to open up a functional prefs.js from a working Netscape program for comparison.
This program is definitely still Beta, but it's showing a LOT of promise!
Never ask a geek why, just nod your head and slowly back away. -Rob Malda
This thing is so FAST! It's much faster than IE or Netscape (any versions) on my system. It's still got a few little things, but I'm betting those are from the renderer and not K-Meleon.
/. in 1 second already?
Why don't we have a web-browser than can render
Well, I've got to try Galeon on my home system now.
THANK YOU!
-- IANAEG - I am not an elder god.
Standards are not the be-all and end-all of web compatibility.
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Despite rumors to the contrary, I am not a turnip.
No offense, but the name makes it sound like it's written for KDE. Perhaps a name that sounds more like it came from M$ is in order (no offense, just thought I could get some interesting suggestions).
(Heh, sorry M$, this joke had to be made).
Sinking Ship?
Eh...
....
I like it (I am using it right now to write this message). The interface is definetly nicer then the one from netscape 6.0..... But either Gecko still has some bugs or they are still working on it here... On userfriendly the page got "stuck" for a bit before it finished loading....
And as much as I hate to admit it, but I like the IE interface better then the netscape 6.0 interface, or is this just me?
Michael
If you want to e-mail me, use my PGP Key.
Following the comments here, why in the heck would you want to remove IE? Particularly since this new KMeleon browser requires IE libraries for it's front end. Have you seen the screensh ots yet?
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
Comming from a corporate enviorment where they block most usefull services through the firewall, a lite browser is just the thing. I hate installing a software package and getting a million diferent "features" that I don't use, and just clutters up the landscape.
Dirty Pirate Hooker
In fact Gecko has been available as an ActiveX control for nearly two years now and quite a few products from HTML/CSS editors to skinnable browsers such as Neoplanet already use it.
Well, I feel sorry for the guy who developed this. As a Galeon developer I realize the pain he's about to endure.
:)).
Well, besides the fact that he calls the "GPL" the "GNU private license", he has licensed it under that while at the same time distributing included MPLed Mozilla files. I'm still not a license expert, but this seems like bigtime violation to me (even more than we did with Galeon
More to come later when I re-check my facts.
Ummmm, K-Meleon people? Person is more like it. Christophe Thibault was bored last Sunday and threw K-Meleon together in one day. The source code is available and people are encouraged add their favorite features.
// TODO: fix sig
On my Linux box (PIII 450), it's now about as fast (maybe a tiny bit slower) than Netscape Navigator on average pages, and way way faster on certain complicated ones.
But if you check the context of my post, I was actually talking about startup time, which is six-seven seconds. Communicator takes about half that. And, there's more debug code at the startup than there will be normally -- it's an area where I think we can expect more than 30%-40%.
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