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Galeon At A Glance
gatha wrote to us about Galeon, how it actually works and some of its feature set. I've been playing with Galeon now and again - but I've still found that except for a small issue with handling preformatted text, Konqueror has taken over as my web browser of choice.
Maybe you're looking for K-Meleon, which call itself "the Windows answer to galeon"?
To which section? I tried adding it to the [HTML] section just now but that doesn't seem to change things. Thanks, that sounds good though.
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I don't understand why people keep saying that the other browsers on Linux are still not "quite ready to take over for Netscape 4.77".
I dumped NS4.7 as my primary browser months ago, and mainly use a combination of Mozilla and Konqueror. I can get to anything on the Web I want. Moz and Konq are both great, and have a somewhat different set of bugs. If a site is unusable on one I go to the other and it generally works great. In general I find Moz to be a bit more stable than Konq, but I like Konq's speed better.
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This is my only bitch about galeon (I have it as my primary browser, and have since I could use cookies and https with it). Because of the way that the gtkmozembed widget is embedded it has to start up the rendering engine of mozilla first (if you look at the output of a galeon start up it's quite similar to that of mozilla), which is quite hefty. However, the browser is quite snappy. Of course, a k7-1G + 256mb ram helps as well :)
Hopefully someday the embedded widget will become lighter weight and easier to integrate into things (not that chris blizzard hasn't done an awsome job already of course!).
First of all, I don't think this is (or it shouldn't be) a Konq vs Galeon vs Mozilla bashing session. The article was just about galeon :)
:)
:) I just want to browse the web! Adding all the protocol support is cool for a desktop environment (what konq does in file browser mode) but as far as a browser, it's bloat IMHO.
..... :)
However, as a galeon user I feel the need to respond to a couple of points:
While Konq itself is small, it brings with it all of KDE. If you are not in the KDE environment, it seems to take a lot longer than 2 seconds to start up (IIRC) because of all the K* services that it has to run to get itself bootstrapped.
I'm not sure how galeon deals with this (as it probably does a bit of the same in looking for/starting up gnome* services like oafd, etc. However, I don't think it's as bad. Granted, I'm not really up on that whole thing... it works and I use it
Having all the floppy://, audiocd:// etc etc is great, however, all I want is a web browser! Opening up pdfs maybe (as they are common on the web these days), but other than that I don't care to open up word docs (having kword and it's libraries installed significantly bloats the Konq install size I think
Now that all said, the cruft that is needed to run konq in the KDE and QT libs is equalled in the gtk/gnome libs that galeon requires. Of course, one is designed for gnome, and one is designed for kde, and they work better in their respective environments so
Guess it goes back to the "which tool is better for the job" philosophy eh?
However, I am glad that there are browsers like Konqueror and Galeon out there. Why? Choice! We're getting some pretty kick-ass projects out of some very dedicated individuals, and they're making it harder for people to choose which one to use based on merits. They're ALL good! :) I commend everyone working on thes projects for giving back so much of their time, and giving us choices in the browser market. You developers deserve more thanks than you or your projects get in this kind of forum.
Kudos to you!
While I love galeon and am starting to dread having to use anything else, it's not exactly light-weight on the resources:
/opt/galeon/bin/galeon-bin
user 10158 0.0 11.6 45596 29820 pts/0 S Jun25 0:13
Still, it renders so fast and is so stable these days (and RAM is so cheap) that the memory usage seems like a small price to pay for such an excellent piece of software.
Now, I just need Ximian to release their new stuff for Solaris 7 so I can get a working mozilla install at work and get rid of Netscape...
It is GPL It is GPL It is GPL It is GPL It is GPL It is GPL It is GPL It is GPL It is GPL It is GPL It is GPL It is GPL It is GPL It is GPL It is GPL It is GPL It is GPL ....
Understood?
And even the QT_Embedded version is you guessed it GPL. Like Linux. Like many cool things you like. It is free software and open source, comprende?
The only thing that is not free software or open ource is the MS Windows version (even though you can since today use it for free for hobby projects). But who cares about Windows?
--
Moritz
Given that _both_ Mozilla and Galeon are beta/alpha software, I don't see where the problem with this is.
Engineering and the Ultimate
Someone needs to take Gecko, remove XUL, remove Mozilla and add a decent, smart API (just like Netscape's plugin API, which is, what, 5 functions?) and release that browser only app. Galeon and Skipstone are nice strips of Mozilla, but they still require a lot of Moz parts unfortunately.
Actually, Galeon uses very little Mozilla. It only uses the rendering engine and http/https stuff. It handles its own bookmarks, it uses an external handler to handle downloads. It uses very, very little Mozilla.
Also, if you don't like XPCom (which very few people do), you could just use it as a GTK widget. Yes, Mozilla compiles down to just a regular GTK widget. Then, you don't have to mess with XPCom _at all_.
Gecko is doing a great job. It is still the best rendering engine available. Why don't you trust the Mozilla people? The reason they have so many bug reports is that they count everything a bug that even remotely looks incorrect. Most applications that track bugs that well, (1) take a long time to finish, and (2) have a very large bug database. I imagine if Konqueror classified everything as a bug that Mozilla does, it would have a large bug database, too. I've seen the list of non-standards-compliance tests that Konqueror fails. In Mozilla, each failure would be listed as at least one bug.
Now, I actually like Konqueror, and use it on occasion. But please, Mozilla is aiming high. Don't trash them because their aims are higher than yours.
Engineering and the Ultimate
Most definitely. With a terrible framework underneath. Gecko is no longer the "fits on one disk and you're happy" jewel.
I investigated it for a kiosk system and I was not happy. After untarring Mozilla (400+ MB!) and having everything set up I wanted to set up a remote app to control Gecko through XPCOM.
About 14 ns*.h includes, 30 lines of code and hours looking for documentation which was all outdated, I gave up because I couldn'y even register with XPCOM yet. Even the developerWorks tutorials at IBM.com didn't help. :-(
It took me one include file, a few lines of code and about fifteen minutes of searching on the web before I had an application talking to Konqueror.
Someone needs to take Gecko, remove XUL, remove Mozilla and add a decent, smart API (just like Netscape's plugin API, which is, what, 5 functions?) and release that browser only app. Galeon and Skipstone are nice strips of Mozilla, but they still require a lot of Moz parts unfortunately.
Pity Mozilla.org is _seriously_ undermaned (they are complete & utterly bogged down in bugs).
This will be circular, but I now know why: the entrance level of Mozilla coding is too high. Too much code, too little documentation.
Before hitting that -1, Flamebait: yes, I will admit I am a KDE developer and I am biased. But I develop KDE as a hobby and had to make an unbiased decision at work and concluded that while Gecko is a beauty in concept, the Mozilla layer surrounding it destroyed a lot.
Please, someone. Fork Gecko and make it what it was supposed to be. As long as Gecko is maintained by the Mozilla guys, I habe more trust in khtml.
He's just a troll. But, he makes some valid points. I've just decided to use the KDE libs for an app I'm writing because the Gnome ones are in such a bad state. Hardly anything seems to be stable, and what there is is pretty poor in comparision to KDE/QT. Also, the documentation for KDE and QT is complete, whereas the docs for Gnome are unfinished. Not even GTK 1.2 has a fully documented API, and thats been around for ages.
The trouble with Gnome is it wants to run before it can walk. Nothing ever seems to get finished. Libraries are half-writtten and then dropped in favour of something new.
It's a shame, because I think Gnome could be really good.
Tabbed Browsing rocks. I don't know how to live without this now. Nor more multiple windows for me. I just middle click links and they start in a new tab. All annoying popups go there too, where I can ignore them.
Celebrate the finer things in life
You too, eh? Mozilla and Galeon seem to work ok. I prefer Konq myself, though, as it is much faster...again, one thing in mind: browsing the Web on KDE on *NIX. Mozilla was written for much more than that.
My journal has hot
A bit offtopic, but... /. has a story about some browser they *always* write that they use Konqueror! Yes, it is a great browser and yes, we should know about alternatives, but c'mon.. We know already!
Every time
So everytime you mention MS and/or Windows, you will go "Yeah, but I use Linux. It is great!" ??
If you use _insert-web-browser-name_, post it in a comment, and get modded down!
-- Vidar
If they had, they'd have missed a lot of functionality that needed links into the rendering engine to properly work. Now, Gecko, the main engine, is so flexible it can do anything Mozilla throws at it, as well as just about anything else anyone would want in a browser.
Is Mozilla too big? Ok, grab Galleon, which comes with a full-featured Gecko rendering engine, thanks to the over-large Mozilla.
Maybe you don't agree with the specific subset of features that Mozilla had, but because they have a ton, it'll be easier for specialty browsers in the future to have the exact set of features that you want.
Or, if you want an embeddable HTML rendering engine for anything.. Want to do nicely formatted manuals for your application in a platform independent way? Use Gecko to render them, it runs (and produces consistent output) on more platforms than your program will...
That's not all. It has mouse support. You can click links (hehheh) and the right-click menu works as you would expect.
The mouse won't work in all terminals, though. I've used it in Eterm and the KDE 2 Konsole, which has a full-screen mode, too.
I haven't tried it in the GNOME console but I couldn't use my mouse in mc under it, so I doubt it.
Judging on my log files for my site, I noticed that obviously the majority was Microsoft, followed by Netscape, then Mozilla Gecko, followed by Konqueror. I've tried Konqueror a while back and it was ok, I dreaded having to download KDE entirely though since I couldn't find konqueror as a standalone, and if I'm not mistaken it doesn't come as a standalone. (who knows I stay away from KDE2)
The browser wars really make little sense to me, for one I can view everything just fine in Netscape under FreeBSD, except Java/Javascripts blow, however when neccessary I fire up Mozilla to quash all problems. My problem with Mozilla is, it's rather (dare I say) bloated, and takes up a lot of resources, hence I guess to each their own.
Opera was cool a ways back, and I haven't tried it in some time, but I've heard, and seen posted there are click me spam ads all over the place. Lynx is great for visiting this site, but all in all I stick with good old faithful Netscape, who always loads my bitches' every curve just fine.
Want Root?
I'll give you this...KDE, WindowMaker, Afterstep, and even XFce are smoother and more stable for the most part, than Gnome has been for me. I run WindowMaker and XFce primarily, because I like the fact that they don't look like windoze.
;)
Given the choice, I'd rather use the Gnome Panel than KDE...because although it might have to mount in a corner, it can be made to sit only in the corner. KDE's main toolbar/taskbar/panel always takes up the entire edge you place it on. If they could make it sit in a corner, then perhaps I'd look at it.
I came to linux because I don't like windows - how it looks, how it works (or doesn't). Why would I want a GUI that still looks like it?
http://www.xfce.org/
Small, fast, lightweight desktop environment
Get yours now
there are doorways I haven't opened, and windows I've yet to look through. Going forward may not be the answer..
And I'll try and learn to write ; )
You didn't read my whole post, I talked about the theming support in KDE. I think it's a pretty lame attempt at theming, GTK does a hell of a much better job.
But, just IMO. To each his own. I like having choices, choices are good.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
That's not what I said. My point was that one was a copy, and one was an original design.
I suppose all the Gnome developers, and all the Gnome users are all just silly people then? They made a GRAPHICAL USER INTERFACE look nicer than the competition's, how silly of them.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
I was responding to a Troll who was saying that the Gnome guys should throw in the towel, and I was saying that I don't like KDE so I'd prefer to continue having a choice. That's all. I even said that my opinions about KDE were just that, opinions. I wasn't implying that KDE sucked or should be tossed, far from it.
Plus, just because I don't like KDE doesn't mean that I don't like any KDE apps. Of course I'd prefer that they were Gnome apps, but again, just IMO ; )
Seriously, what I would love to see is better integration of Gnome / KDE menus. I'd really like KDE apps that I install to install a launcher in my Gnome menus and vice versa. Loki is doing this with all their games now. The only apps that'd I'd like kept separate as far as menus go are the default utilities and such that come with each desktop.
Also, just look how the competition between KDE and Gnome is driving them to work harder, I think it's great.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
No, Galeon displays everything beautifully for me. I'm using Galeon 0.11 with Mozilla 0.9.1 on Debian Sid (unstable).
Given that Galeon is just using Mozilla's rendering engine, I'm not sure how it could be introducing rendering problems of its own (other than, say, ROT13'ing all the HTML before letting Gecko see it).
Until very recently I hated KDE like the plague - and then we installed RH 7.1 here, along with the KDE pack. I fell in love with the system! GNOME has a lot of very *good* features, and *good* applications, but KDE is so much more mature. Konquerer is great for browsing - the cookie warning, while a little thing, is still important to me.
/. comment page in the 'blink of an eye.'
But I haven't given up on GNOME yet. Galeon works very well for the important stuff - it'll load a
(And Hemos, I think we all know Konquerer is your favorite!)
I don't understand why people keep saying that the other browsers on Linux are still not "quite ready to take over for Netscape 4.77". Moz and Konq are both great, and have a somewhat different set of bugs. If a site is unusable on one I go to the other and it generally works great.
Because those freaks expect a single piece of software to accomplish a single task. They don't want to have to try one and switch when they encounter a bug, then back when they encounter another.
Realistically, I'm not satisfied with any of the browsers available for Linux. At the moment, I'm using Mozilla. This latest version is the first to seem fairly stable to me (meaning it crashes infrequently, not that it doesn't crash). But no matter what everyone says, it still is slow. When I click the back button in IE, I see the previous page at my previous location within the page. On Mozilla, I see it load the top of the previous page, pop in some of the images (seems like really small images don't cache or something, not quite sure) and reflow to fit them, then move to the previous location. All sorts of stuff that just makes it go slower and feel even slower.
Someone will reply about how the latest nightly build is better. It's inevitable; it always happens when talking about Mozilla. It's not fucking true. CVS versions of anything are not known for stability. Developers break things between releases. It's expected. If they didn't, the software wouldn't improve.
I often see comments like "I don't care if mozilla / netscape dies because we have Konqueror now" or "Mozilla is bloatware / gecko /galeon sucks" on /. or irc.
And I admit that the way Konqueror renders HTML pages is really impressive for such a small project (I read somewhere that there's only one full time konq developper).
It seems almost to good to be truth: one small team of KDE developper made a browser that is on par with that of a huge organization with many developpers like Netscape / AOL / Mozilla community?
It seems to good to be truth!
So I always wondered whether the Konqueror team has not re-used some code from Mozilla / Gecko.
If not, then congrats to the KDE guys. Too bad there have been duplicate efforts to develop these 2 terrific web browsers
If they did reuse some code (I'm not 100% sure that the mozilla licence permits that though), then I hope that Konqueror fans will stop bashing mozilla and galeon.
!
^_^
Konqueror is great, and web pages look terrific with anti aliasing is turned on. Galeon / moz can't do it as far as I know (may be with GTK 2?)
However Konqueror has a number of issues, and I find myself using mozilla more than konqueror although I use KDE as my desktop environment
- First Konqui can't display several charsets on a page. So, for example the bottom of the page on www.debian.org (where you have the lists of available language for the page written in the native languagem like "ú-{OEê for japanese etc.) does not display correctly. Mozilla and even Netscape 4.7 have absolutely nop problem with this. This issue is fixed with qt 3.0, and new releases of KDE (after 2.2) may switch to qt3, hence clearing this bug.
- Some pages do not display correctly (they're 10 times too wide with many blank spaces for example), even when faking the user agent to that of moz or netscape (with which the page works) (but this is very rare, most pages display correctly).
- IIRC Konqueror does not have separate options for http and https proxies
- And I also have that very annoying bug with AA turneed on: if a web page does not specify to use a given font, then konqueror uses the first font in the list. In my case, it's a fantasy font, which makes reading pages like http://lists.debian.org a real nightmare. There's a default font option in my KDE 2.2 post alpha 2 build, but it doesn't seem to work.
!
^_^
My only wish: that there was a Windows port of Galeon i could use at work on my NT box (nudge,nudge).
thelocust[dot]org
"A new version of Mozilla has been posted on their site, but I only use Konqueror."
"Here's a site with some great info on Galeon, which doesn't happen to be Konqueror, the world's greatest web browser."
"John Carmack has been interviewed on Blue's News. John's neighbour owns an Apple iMac. Apple is run by Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs once used Netscape which isn't Konqueror!"
Please, please cut it out Hemos. We don't care how horny Konqueror makes you, it doesn't have to be mentioned in every single post.
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Maybe, if you have a dual 1.6 GHz P4. Otherwise, Mozilla is horrendously S-L-O-W-E-R! Their user interface (in contrast with the rendering engine, which runs nicely) is a disgusting bloatware. You click on _File, go to lunch, come back and MAYBE the drop-down menu already showed up.
But let me tell you, if they get it to run faster they have a killer. Either them or Galeon + Evolution, provided the latter offer all features I'm used to in Netscape Messenger, and is stable (haven't tested Evolution in a while, actually).
You might be wondering why I didn't mention Konqueror. I use only GNOME because I fell in love with the easy upgradability brought by Red Carpet. (will update my distro too!) Until the KDE folks come out with something similar, or a KDE channel for Red Carpet, I'll stay with GNOME.
Look to see if a package named kdebindings-kmozilla (IIRC, the name might be slightly different) is installed... if so, remove it. You might actually be using mozilla inside of Konqueror instead of Konqueror's KHTML engine. While it's a neat tech demo, it sucks for actual use.
Ok... who copied who? I went to the netcaptor link you gave and I was surprised to see this --> "This screenshot demonstrates NetCaptor's patent-pending browser tab interface."
you can see this right at http://www.netcaptor.com/tour.php
Patent? I believe this patent nonesense is going way too far. Besides, didn't Galeon have this first ?
If you young kids repected your elders, then you would have kept with the Unix philosophy of using small dedicated tools for specific tasks. Read email? You'd use mail. Browse web? Use Lynx. Look at images? Use xv. Use talk for an instant messager
Nowadays you need fancy schmancy browsers that do everything. Galeon is a step back in the right direction. Although I don't agree that bookmarks should be part of a browser (I used to have to remember the IP addresses in my head), galeon provides an efficient specific web browsing experience. Maybe all you programmers could take some notes from the guy who gave us Galeon!
-vax computer, vi, lynx. 'nuf said
holly wars between ourselves is everything we don't need.
Flame them all with balls of holly,
fa la la la la, la la la la.
Prove the Windows users' folly,
fa la la la la, la la la la.
If you use GNOME or KDE,
--saintfa la la la la, la la la la,
You are sure more e-lite than me,
fa la la la la, la la la la.
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Many people -windows and linux users- refuse to use netscape, mozilla, or galeon because it is not as nice as IE or konq. I try my very best to use it for exactly that reason. For the IE users I tell them that if they don't use mozilla/galeon then there will never be an answer to microsofts monopoly. Many don't agree with the use-inferior-opensource-software(not that galeon is inferior at this point)-just so that it will get better, but i hold to it. If people stop downloading mozilla then AOL has less of a reason to include it in their browser suite. so, sure - use konq but remember that it is only a linux browser, and (likely) always will be. if you want to support opensource then at least download mozilla and watch AOLinux come around and shoot linux into the 20+ million users hands that are MS zombies now. tomorrow they could be Linux zombies!
What comes first, finding a teacher or becoming a student?
actually they did reuse code from mozilla: :-))
konqueror has two rendering engine from which u can choose:
-kmozilla well, it's gecko
-khtml, which is QT/KDE development, from scratch, and which is really great indeed
in fact only one thing remain really weak in konqueror: javascript. but i've seen that KDE 2.2 should fix that.
anyway, a reason why konqueror (well u're talking about khtml in fact) is such a great thing compared to mozilla, is that it's only a browser, and it doesn't try to reinvent the wheel for each task. it relies deeply on KDE for many things such as rendering images and so on. and they didn't try to make an abstraction bloatware based on GTK/MFC/whatsoever, in order to have it run under every platform on earth...
Konqueror is great, and web pages look terrific with anti aliasing is turned on. Galeon / moz can't do it as far as I know (may be with GTK 2?)
./configure) then Mozilla can do AA fonts.
... I think we will have a very good browser when M1.0 will be out.
... I've been told by KDE developpers they're fixing this)
If you recompile Mozilla with Xlib or QT backend instead of GTK backend (see
The AA fonts will be in Mozilla 1.0 even with GTK+-1.2.x - you can have AA fonts in GTK apps but you must use Xrender explicitely. (look at http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/) and search "anti alias" strings.
JFYI - Opera (http://www.opera.com/) can use AA fonts too, when being run under KDE with AA turned on.
Mozilla 0.9.x is getting better everyday, it's getting faster also
(personally, I like Konq. but the thing with preformatted text, square chars withou line breaks annoys me (I often use bugzilla etc.)
Gee, thanks for the informative constructive criticism there! "Slightly off!" I'll file a bug report right now!
Seriously, what kind of complaint is that? Tell us what it is you don't like!
The theming support QT is awful.Just compare all the GTK/GNOME themes to KDE themes, there is not comparison at all. [...] GTK is the most beautiful widget set I have ever seen. It has it's own unique look and feel.
GTK has been around for longer, therefore there is a much wider selection of themes, therefore it is more likely there will be ones you like. QT's theming support is actually superior to GTK, it's faster. Plus, KDE comes with a GTK theme importer - KDE can import the GTK "unique" default look. Imported GTK themes run faster under QT/KDE than GTK! I haven't had much luck importing themes other than the default GTK look, however some work has been done on the theme importer since I last looked at it. I think it's fully functional now (in CVS).
main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
good man.
Every once in a while I like to masturbate a new word into my vocabulary, even if I don't know what it means.
just wait. do you know why IE has such power and maketshare? because AOL uses it. therefore if you want hte 27+ million users of AOL to see your page correctly, then you whrite everything for IE first then mabey Netscape. when Mozilla is ready, and Netscape incorperates it into it's browser(i.e., plasters a "N" in the top right corner) .NET will come topling down.
AOL will be ready to feed Netscape to its costomers and IE will all of a sudden loose its maketshare and
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
I have found another GTK+ browser named Skipstone also based on Gecko.
How not had a chance to use it yet.
I know KDE is almost a direct copy of windows, but Gnome is too. Gnome doesn't do that as much but it still is a copy of Windows.
Both KDE and Gnome have alot of GUI problems. Is there any mailing-lists, newsgroups to discuss GUI issues for there desktops?
But Mozilla really wanted to be something very different: it wanted to be its own platform, an entire environment programmable in XML, JavaScript, and XUL. It doesn't look like people are flocking to it for that purpose. So, Mozilla really lost everything: it could have kept Microsoft from taking over the browser market, but because it wanted to be so much more, it is so late that it won't even accomplish that.
The only alternative to .NET I see is Java, perhaps incorporating Gecko as an HTML rendering component. Java is a full-featured language with an excellent, moderately popular toolkit, lots of widely used APIs, and the JVM runs a wide variety of other languages.
I think you can give the Mozilla developers a little more credit. These people are experienced programmers that have not only done an HTML rendering engine before, but they are also familiar with rich text rendering in a number of toolkits. They don't need to implement a mail reader to know what kinds of hooks a mail reader needs.
After using Galeon for a couple of days, I think that it's an excellent browser. It doesn't start up lots of oddball support programs, it just browses the web. It also seems more reliable and render more accurately than Konqueror. So, I can finally switch back to a more lightweight desktop.
I think that if the Mozilla team had concentrated on bringing out this kind of browser, just the browser, they could have been done much earlier and captured so much more market share.
What's special and so good about Galeon? It's not faster or more feature-laden than Opera, and nothing can beat Lynx or Links when it comes to speed and size.
The thing is that it's modular! It's just a frontend to Mozilla and GTM. I can use these programs by themselves, if I want to. One could even make a "K"aleon, just to stop all those KDE freaks from bitchin.
Every program should have a small, definied area where it works perfect - that's the whole UNIX paradigm!
I've been using Opera for more than half a year and was greatly impressed how Galeon is going! It even crashes much less. But that's the downside of modularity - you have to rely upon other programs doing their thing well.
Maybe Galeon should always restart with a dialog saying "Sorry I crashed, but it was Mozilla's fault!"
-- sigs are like parking spaces - all the good ones are occupied
With konqueror I cannot visit my favorite nudie site, it give me a password error everytime. It only happens with konqueror. This is not a joke