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Linux Web Browsers Compared

Rob Valliere writes: "The best Linux Web browsers have dramatically improved in the past few months: they are all stable, standards compliant and loaded with solid feature enhancements and additions. Using Red Hat 7.2 and the KDE desktop, the premier Linux browsers are Galeon 1.0.3, Mozilla 0.9.8 and Opera 6.0 TP3. The best Web downloads and installs were from Opera and Mozilla, which have minimal dependencies. Galeon is a small download but can be difficult to upgrade due to its Mozilla and GNOME dependencies."

412 comments

  1. Huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Someone forgot to mention Konqueror in the summarizing article...

    1. Re:Huh? by mgkimsal2 · · Score: 2

      When it's showing the result of many scripts that have been POSTed to, the source from 'view source' does not match up with what you're seeing on the screen.
      It's a known issue and has been for going on 2 years I think.

    2. Re:Huh? by FooKuff · · Score: 1, Troll

      Not to mention, why would you test Galeon under KDE? It's a Gnome application, for fook's sake. Ever run a Gnome app and a KDE app at the same time? Check out the insane number of services running with a 'ps aux' sometime. For that matter, why test any of the listed browsers under KDE?

    3. Re: Huh? by kiriuja · · Score: 0

      To get the latest version of the Konqueror Web browser, you need to upgrade KDE including qt, kdelibs and kdebase. While this is possible, my personal experience with upgrading Red Hat 7.1's KDE was a disaster. I have read this: "Failure is not an option. It comes bundled with your Microsoft product." Don't you believe it. After downloading 37 rpm files totaling 69 MB, the upgrade destroyed my system!

      Boy, am I glad I'm running Debian! :-)
    4. Re:Huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No they didn't

    5. Re:Huh? by cjpez · · Score: 2

      Hm, interesting. I suppose I've just been lucky then. Ah, well. I still love you, Mozilla!

    6. Re:Huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You think they left it out on purpose?

    7. Re:Huh? by jmccay · · Score: 2

      Oe of the Linux Magazines you can buy in the stores (March 2002) issue has an article that compares the web browsers, and it does include Konqueror. I think it is in the March 2002 Linux Journal--it's got a lot of green on the cover.

      --
      At the next eco-hypocrisy-meeting, count the private jets used to get to the meeting. Should be interesting to see that
    8. Re:Huh? by neuroticia · · Score: 1

      Why not test Galeon under KDE? It runs pretty well under KDE. As for your question "Why test any under KDE", why not? KDE is one of the options, you know?

      Personally, I'd like to see the results of tests of Konqueror, Mozilla, Netscape, Galeon, and Opera running on KDE and running on Gnome. Oh, wait. I can do that myself. ;)

      -Sara

    9. Re:Huh? by M-G · · Score: 2

      Yup. March 2002. The comparison is online here.

    10. Re:Huh? by Annnoying+Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      To be more specific, the problem is that Mozilla does not cache the result of a posted query. When you view the source, it posts the query again. Now if the server has somekind of unique id to a query or timestamp has gone stale, the result does not match the original.

      This really lessens Mozillas usefulness as a test tool for a web project as you are not guaranteed to see the original source. I haven't checked the situatiopn for a while, but I believe the fix is going to be post 1.0.

      --
      sigh
    11. Re:Huh? by asa · · Score: 2

      This really lessens Mozillas usefulness as a test tool for a web project as you are not guaranteed to see the original source.

      And the fact that it's got a JS debugger _with_ JS profiling (ever wonder where your DHTML was spending it's time? Now you can see), it's got a meaningful JS console, it's got the most fully featured DOM inspector (with live DOM analysis) of any free application, it's got the best support for CSS and the DOM of any browser on the planet... None of this matters because you can't conveniently get at original source for some percentage of pages? OK. --Asa

  2. Before anyone else says it..... by nick255 · · Score: 1

    ..what about lynx, w3m, telneting to port 80, etc!

    If you've never tried browsing from a terminal, w3m is very good at the job.

    Still, a good review. Although I think the 256MB of RAM in says is needed for RedHat 7.2 with KDE is abit on an exageration.

    1. Re:Before anyone else says it..... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Links - a text based browser, is definately worth a try. In my openion much better than lynx or w3c.
      http://artax.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~mikulas/lin ks/

    2. Re:Before anyone else says it..... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Informative

      Lynx and links are good for console use. If you want a fast X browser (one that doesn't require 64 MB RAM + 450Mhz+ proc), dillo is quite good. I think it's the fastest graphical browser I've ever used.

      Konq, Moz and friends are getting a little too fat and bloated for my tastes these days...:-(

    3. Re:Before anyone else says it..... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Bloated?

      That's not really fair to Konqueror or Mozilla.

      They're slow, but they are very large projects, and it's hard to make cleanly divided code for a project of their size and still make it fast. You can afford a certain amount of overhead to make development easy. So maybe different modules make redundant checks to ensure that a string is less than a multiple length -- it makes work easier for the maintainers of those modules, so it's worth it.

      For very large projects, there's an argument to use a language other than C/C++. A language like SML, where the compiler has more freedom to go about optimizing code, becomes worthwhile, because there's no reasonable way to expect a human to read over all that code and look for duplicate or unnecessary work.

      Can anyone recommend any books/pages talking about the dynamics of very large software projects and the unusual issues that come up?

    4. Re:Before anyone else says it..... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The classic "The Mythical Man-Month", by Fred Brooks and still valid, IMO.

      There are others, but start with this for now. ;-)

    5. Re:Before anyone else says it..... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But w3m can do inline images now . . . very cool.

  3. What about Konqueror by Starving+Artist · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It rocks, except for a few JavaScript nasties.

    1. Re:What about Konqueror by nick255 · · Score: 5, Informative

      And the version in KDE 3 betas is even better. It's the only Linux browser I know of which displays the ticker at the top of the BBC News website correctly. The others don't even try.

    2. Re:What about Konqueror by filtrs · · Score: 1

      I can live with the JavaScript failures. I don't need no stinking Java in my web pages. Konqueror has been my browser of choice for quite a while (if I can't get away with using lynx).

      --
      My mother always used to tell me: If you can't find anything nice to say, say something bad about Windows.
    3. Re:What about Konqueror by RagManX · · Score: 2, Informative

      Another vote for Konqueror. I can't get any version of Netscape to run stably on a system at work. Version 6 hangs on a few pages I need to access, while Version 4 segfaults on one X display when another instance is started using a different X server to display. We use a browser to view our IDS logs, and multiple users need to have access. Segfaulting on each new unique display instance makes that hard.

      Opera runs fine, but the display is not as good as Konqueror. I still use Lynx, but for what I use the browser at work, I have to have graphical. Looks like Konqueror is it for me.

      RagManX

    4. Re:What about Konqueror by Tet · · Score: 1, Flamebait
      It rocks, except for a few JavaScript nasties.

      No, it's too slow to be usable, and it doesn't render half the pages I try and view correctly. Hell, even Mozilla starts up faster than Konqueror. Opera's the fastest of the lot, but I can't stand the interface, so I stick with Mozilla. Tabbed browsing and decent CSS support really make it a stunning browser these days.

      --
      "The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
    5. Re:What about Konqueror by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It cleary the browser of the future! If all web designers could just stick with the _standards_,, you would never need another browser.

    6. Re:What about Konqueror by cygnus · · Score: 2
      And the version in KDE 3 betas is even better. It's the only Linux browser I know of which displays the ticker at the top of the BBC News website [bbc.co.uk] correctly. The others don't even try.


      is that the browser's fault, or BBC's? it could easily be BBC's...

      --
      Just raise the taxes on crack.
    7. Re:What about Konqueror by Apreche · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Too slow to be usable? What are you tlaking about? Maybe on your machine Mozilla starts up faster than konqueror, but not on mine. Opera is the fastest, but I can't stand the interface either. I think we need some benchmarks here, last I remember mozilla was the slowest browser, um, ever.

      --
      The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
    8. Re:What about Konqueror by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      I don't understand why mozilla and friends get so much more attention to konqueror?! I've been using konqueror for over a year now and since i started using it I will never go back. It's:
      -FASTER
      -highly configurable
      -smaller
      -rarely crashes
      -handles netscape plugins
      -javascript will be fixed in kde3
      -and handles crossover plugins so you can view quicktime videos if you want.

      so WHY isnt' it mentioned in the article above? WTF.

    9. Re:What about Konqueror by RisingSon · · Score: 1
      Yet another vote for konqueror. I like the cookie management, it renders fast, starts up fast (if you don't have to wait for kdeinit), good font control and almost displays as many pages correctly as Mozilla. It makes a much better file manger, too.

      It has been really fun watching Konqueror develop over the last couple of years (since KDE 2.0). I'm excited for 3.0!

    10. Re:What about Konqueror by filtrs · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      OK, so I didn't feel like writing out JavaScript twice. You'll probably notice that I also used horrible grammer in that sentence. It was supposed to be a joke / movie reference. I'm sorry that it annoyed you so much that you felt the need to curse at me. Have some coffee and a fine day.

      --
      My mother always used to tell me: If you can't find anything nice to say, say something bad about Windows.
    11. Re:What about Konqueror by unapersson · · Score: 1

      Are you running KDE? If so that might be why it loads faster for you. If you use a different Window Manager/Desktop Environment it takes a lot longer to load.

      I've tried to like Konqueror, but find it crashes too often for me. Normally within a few minutes of opening. I'll try it again though once KDE3 is stable.

      I can't remember the last time Mozilla crashed, and I tend to keep it open for a long time with lots of tabs open. So if it did I'd be slightly annoyed...

    12. Re:What about Konqueror by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      too slow?! it's speed is one of the best things about it! get off the crack man!

    13. Re:What about Konqueror by ptrourke · · Score: 2

      Last you remember was probably before several months of footprint and startup time work.

      Konqueror is a damned good piece of work, but side by side, current Mozilla builds are better.

    14. Re:What about Konqueror by fferreres · · Score: 1

      Javascript and JAVA are two diferent beasts. Javascript is the only way to have ANY KIND of client side scripting (besides VBS, which....)

      For example, dynamic drop downs (ie: to change a select item options based on a previous choice). IMHO, javascript saved us from VBS spreading wild...

      --
      unfinished: (adj.)
    15. Re:What about Konqueror by FooKuff · · Score: 1

      I, too, like the cookie and javascript control in Konqueror, but the cookie control and javascript control in Galeon are even better. Options to control them are right on the fookin' menus so you don't have to go digging into the preferences dialog to deal with them. Although IIRC, in Konqueror cookies are lots easier to handle than changes in JS policy. Big drawback to Galeon is needing to install the mozilla libraries and Gnome (which I only consider a drawback because I don't use either desktop). One of the main reasons I've switched from using Konqueror is that I could never get it to do FTP correctly through my firewall.

    16. Re:What about Konqueror by quinto2000 · · Score: 1

      umm...it is. If you actually read the article, you would realize that. The Slashdot editor is the one who didn't mention it.

      --
      Ceci n'est pas un post
    17. Re:What about Konqueror by quinto2000 · · Score: 2, Informative

      and it is mentioned heavily in the article. Why don't you people read?

      --
      Ceci n'est pas un post
    18. Re:What about Konqueror by Zathrus · · Score: 5, Interesting

      In a case where X displays on the majority of browsers, but does not display on browser Y the fault lies with Y, not X.

      This is how the world works. This is how TCP/IP has worked for 20 years (BSD was the standard - if you interfaced properly with BSD, you met the real world standard, since BSD varied from the "official" TCP standard in certain cases).

      For as much whinging as there is about IE, the fact is that it is now the defacto standard for webpage rendering. It's wise to fulfill the official W3C standard. It's smart to then go make sure things work like IE as much as possible (without the random security holes). Where the two contradict each other is the fun part... do you write to the official standard and hope MS fixes things, or do you write to the de facto standard because users don't give a crap about W3C - they just want to see the content.

      And, really, that's what it's about - the content. Being standards compliant means jack if you can't view 20% of the websites out there. I used to run Netscape 1.x-4.x, and then Opera 5.x on Windows. I finally gave up in frustration after too many sites either wouldn't display or hosed Opera. And after much bitching and moaning I started using IE. I'm not happy that I have to use it, but know what? I have to admit that surfing is now easier and more reliable than it was under either NS or Opera. And no, IE doesn't crash constantly anymore. It certainly does so less than either of the aforementioned browsers. Maybe the Linux versions are better about all of this - I don't have a spare box available currently to test with.

      I fully expect this to get modded down for no good reason. Oh well. It's only karma.

    19. Re:What about Konqueror by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      yeah, but can you hack someone's registry with javascript?
      That's why I choose vbs for all my virus writing. Oops, I meant client side scripting.

    20. Re:What about Konqueror by 42forty-two42 · · Score: 0, Flamebait
      The only uses I've seen for JavaScript are:

      • Script kiddie h4x0ring
      • Lack-of-CGI workarounds
      • Flash detection
      • Ads

      So who needs JavaScript, anyway?

    21. Re:What about Konqueror by Pyrosz · · Score: 1

      Just a note: Try Opera 6.x , its rather good and I use it all the time now. I have never had it crash and all the pages I have ever gone to display correctly. I find it faster than IE at displaying pages too.

      --

      An optimist believes we live in the best world possible; a pessimist fears this is true.
    22. Re:What about Konqueror by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      btween opera and netscape, there are few sites i
      can't see inlinux or doze.

      as for IE,
      the sign said don't feed the Beast.

    23. Re:What about Konqueror by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Opera had tabbed brwosing before Moz.
      I have a hunch that a lot of people who say they
      can't stand the interface ( maybe not you) really
      mean they can't be bothered learning a new interface.

      I wouldn't say I can't stand the interface of Moz,
      and Konq.
      I just prefer Opera's.
      Of course, I like MDI, but for a while now you
      can choose SDI or MDI for Opera.

      Choice rocks....
      Micorosoft's World

    24. Re:What about Konqueror by spitzak · · Score: 2
      I have switched to Konqueror as well and am very happy with it.

      I don't know what Galeon does but the cookie management in Konq seems great and does not require use of menus. When a site sends a cookie it pops up a request and you can choose to accept, reject, or ignore the cookie, and you can select to do that for all cookies ever sent again from that site.

      It would be nice if the java/javascript did the same thing. The first time any java/javascript is sent you are popped up a box and asked yes/no and remember whether to do it that way from now on from that site.

      Also for hackers it would be nice if they displayed a glob name of "what sources to reject" that defaulted to site/* but an advanced user could edit to make a more careful selection of what pages to do that cookie preference on.

    25. Re:What about Konqueror by maxpublic · · Score: 1

      I found this a good test of sites I didn't want to see in the first place. If all they offered was some shitty Java-based ad optimized for IE, then that was a site I could do without.

      Especially if all it did was demonstrate just what a piss-poor programmer the whack on the other end was. It's like an advertisement - "our company is too stupid to hire a real programmer, but I'm sure you still want to buy from us...."

      Max

      --
      My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
    26. Re:What about Konqueror by Glytch · · Score: 2

      Flamebait?! Crackhead moderator. Grow a spine and respond to this valid criticsm of javascript, rather than resorting to moderation abuse.

    27. Re:What about Konqueror by Ayende+Rahien · · Score: 2

      Yes, you can do that using Javascript. (Well, JScript, actually, but that is close enough to be nearly meaningless.)
      Hell, you can write ILOVEU in REXX, and it would work just as well as the original, if the pharser was installed.

      --

      --
      Two witches watched two watches.
      Which witch watched which watch?
    28. Re:What about Konqueror by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      i have tried Konq, Mozilla, Netscape, and Opera, and Konqueror is the only browser that does NOT crash under Javascript commands. It sometimes doesnt show the picture, but atleast i dont have to restart the browser everytime. I cant wait for KDE 3.0 to come out!

    29. Re:What about Konqueror by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > Options to control them are right on the fookin' menus so you don't have to go digging into the preferences dialog to deal with them.

      Same thing in Konqueror, just add the option to the toolbar ;), and you don't eve have to use menus.

      Both are damned fine browsers tho. But... I use moz now :)

    30. Re:What about Konqueror by forgoil · · Score: 2

      Great point. It all boils down to having to be practical after all.

      Just an addition though. How do you "fix" your dilemma of doing it like IE or like the standard? A check box;) Check in for "Simulate IE" or "W3C Standard". At least I would think that would be a great thing, keep it on W3C until something important renders wrong, then send a mail to complain to the webmaster, voila ;)

    31. Re:What about Konqueror by anonymous_wombat · · Score: 1

      I am very happy with Konqueror, now that I don't run it anymore.

    32. Re:What about Konqueror by moonbender · · Score: 1

      Dunno, I can't agree with your perception of Opera 5. It's extremely rare that I can't actually view a page because of incompatibilies - and in those rare cases, kicking up IE for once doesn't hurt either. I'm not criticising you at all - I can't follow you, however, maybe due to a different taste in websites.

      --
      Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
    33. Re:What about Konqueror by nathanh · · Score: 2
      I fully expect this to get modded down for no good reason. Oh well. It's only karma.

      I'm getting fricking sick of this. It seems the only time I ever see "I'm gonna get modded down" or "I don't care what the moderators do to me, this needs to be said" taglines they are attached to a +4 or +5 posts. Why bother putting the damn tagline at the end at all? If you don't care about the karma, then don't make mention of the possibility of losing it. That the post gets moderated up proves that the tagline is false anyway.

      Slashdot is being overrun by people who think "slashdot sucks" yet post daily, people who "don't care about karma" and whore it at every opportunity, and (my favourite) the people who proclaim that "slashdot is full of microsoft-bashers" and then proceed to use slashdot as a forum to tell everybody how great microsoft is.

      If you have something to say then say it. Don't add meaningless jabs at "Slashdot mindthink" (a mythical nonsense) to otherwise meaningful posts.

    34. Re:What about Konqueror by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There's a ticker there?

    35. Re:What about Konqueror by JamesOfTheDesert · · Score: 1
      Don't add meaningless jabs at "Slashdot mindthink" (a mythical nonsense) to otherwise meaningful posts.

      You mean don't do what you just did?

      --

      Java is the blue pill
      Choose the red pill
    36. Re:What about Konqueror by nathanh · · Score: 2

      In what way?

    37. Re:What about Konqueror by persist1 · · Score: 1

      Whoo-whee!

      A sibling post mentioned that especially on the Web, there are de facto standards as well as de jure standards.

      ...To which I might add that most browsers aren't able to implement an entire high-level spec... you get most of HTML4, most of CSS1, most of DOM1, and so forth. Nor are the holes necessarily filled up with proprietary extensions.

      Another sibling post mentions that overdesigned crap tends to go hand-in-hand with robust JavaScript/DOM support. This is somewhat true. But it's what folks get paid to build. Deal with it... Money talks, bulls--t walks.

      A third post talks about Opera, and folks, I've gotta news flash for ya - just because you've set it to "identify as MSIE" doesn't mean it can't be detected as Opera, provided you do a positive check for Opera, rather than a positive check for {document.all|MSIE} followed by an if statement:

      if (navigator.userAgent.indexOf("Opera") != -1) {...}

      will in practically all cases detect Opera. To get around that, you have to tweak the UA identifier the browser sends... and if you do, you get what you deserve, because on a cross-platform basis Opera's W3C DOM method support sucks badly. In most cases you probably won't care less, but it is possible to do neat and useful things with W3C DOM properties and methods. For one, accessing the W3C DOM makes it a lot easier to build usable Web application UI's. And Opera doesn't support the published standard worth a damn. Unfortunately. [At least that's not the case with CSS.]

      --
      ...When in doubt, think for yourself.
    38. Re:What about Konqueror by King+of+the+World · · Score: 0

      Mozilla is quite probably the slowest to load. Once loaded it is the fastet at rendering pages. In my tests it's more than twice as fast as any other.

    39. Re:What about Konqueror by igriv · · Score: 1

      I have never succeeded in getting international fonts to work on Opera, surprising for an offshore browser. Maybe it's just me, though... Stability has been less than sterling, too...

    40. Re:What about Konqueror by FyRE666 · · Score: 1

      It always seems to get forgotten (maybe because it's not a Gnome app), and it's a kick-ass browser! I write DHTML apps as part of my work and although it's not quite there, Konq can almost run standards compliant dynamic HTML apps as well as Moz, and probably faster! I have windowing systems, drop menus and tons of other widgets working for Konq, but little things let it down (like not returning the correct offsetLeft/offsetTop properties for relatively positioned elements for instance) but once fixed, I doubt I'll use Moz at all!

      Konq's and Mozillas problems are website authors only worrying about the 85% using 1 browser (IE), and not caring if it breaks anything else - hell most website authors only care about 1 browser on 1 platform (Windows)! Many sites look and (if they work at all) work badly on OS9/OS-X even with IE!!

      As I say, I write quite a lot of DHTML, and a lot of people use my APIs, so I'm really hoping to put full support in for Konq in its next invocation so it gets the recognition it deserves!

    41. Re:What about Konqueror by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's got to be the most sour-grapes attitude I've ever heard. That's like saying a club is probably crap when you get kicked out by the bouncer.

      Whether or not a page overuses JavaScript has nothing to do with the quality of the content. Plus, there are shortcomings of HTML/CSS which are most easily solved with a few lines of JavaScript (eg, having a DIV stretch to fill the rest of a page, with a fixed pixel section below it).

      Unfortunately, it seems to be an oh-too-common line on slashdot, and I fear it delays Mozilla etc adopting the "standard" that matters in the real world.

      As the previous post said, IE _is_the_standard_. I know it's a bit of an anecdotal statistic, but 90-95% of visitors to site's we've made use IE. For us, that's much more important than any publication of the W3C.

      I dislike the dominance of MS in this as much as anybody, but the best way to stop it being true is, ironically, to accept it, and comply with it, so that alternatives can gain market share.

  4. My question is this - by G-funk · · Score: 3, Insightful

    What's the best Open Source browser that doesn't have mozilla dependencies? Konqueror? Or something I'm not aware of? I'd like something that can handle most html3 (nothing too crazy mind you) to embed to handle simple display stuff.

    --
    Send lawyers, guns, and money!
    1. Re:My question is this - by pridefinger · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I was going to suggest Opera, but the fact that you specified Open Source cuts it out of the picture. If you are embedding it for commercial use, Konqueror is probably your best bet as far as licensing. Having worked at an embedded linux company that went with Opera, despite it's proprietary nature, I'm quite biased to it (it's what I use everywhere, everyday, so when I get the funds for a Zaurus, I'll be right at home).

      Anyway, Konqueror is next IMHO.

      -Pride

    2. Re:My question is this - by grahams · · Score: 1

      What's the best Open Source browser that doesn't have mozilla dependencies?

      lynx. =)

    3. Re:My question is this - by ajs · · Score: 2

      Best open source browser with no Mozilla dependencies? Well, Mozilla, of course! You can always install Mozilla, even if you don't have Mozilla installed already.

      Seriously, I've used most of the browsers out there, and the smoothest experience I've had continues to be Mozilla. It used to be that there were always one or two "gee, that's annoying" bugs for every release. But, since 0.9.6 or so, I've been a happy camper.

      Galeon tries to do a lot cool stuff, but falls down on reliability. I'm hoping their next generation comes on strong, gets stable and takes over my desktop, but for now....

      Konqueror is fine if you only run KDE, but loading the KDE and GNOME libraries really hurts, even on a beefy machine. That said, Evolution virtual mailboxes are even better than VM's (an EMACS-based mail reader), so I cannot possibly switch to KDE exclusively.

      Netscape 6.x is a nicely packaged installation of Mozilla (the best I've seen), but adds in too much junk and too many promotional tie-ins.

      Netscape 4.x was ok in it's day, but the Web is a different world now, and it's just not usable anymore.

      Lynx is my fallback, of course. Good, solid browser with just enough features to get me some google results ;-)

    4. Re:My question is this - by starseeker · · Score: 4, Informative

      You might take a look at Dillo (http://dillo.sf.net) - it is small, fast, doesn't depend on mozilla, and generally makes a good fast browser. It is under development, but even so for what you describe it should work fine.

      --
      "I object to doing things that computers can do." -- Olin Shivers, lispers.org
    5. Re:My question is this - by anpe · · Score: 2

      If what you're searching is an OS HTML rendering engine, you should have a look at TkHtml. Altough it's written as a Tk widget, it shouldn't be too difficult to port it to another language since its written in C.

    6. Re:My question is this - by mirko · · Score: 1
      Netscape 4.x was ok in it's day, but the Web is a different world now, and it's just not usable anymore.

      What do you think I am answering you with ?

      Maybe some people prefer looking for contents rather than for the latest bells and whistles ?

      Frankly, my ns4.78 is the best at what it's doing under linux : it plays flash, java, javascript...

      Definitely a good choice.
      I just replaced its mail funcitonalities with Sylpheed
      --
      Trolling using another account since 2005.
    7. Re:My question is this - by fferreres · · Score: 1

      It has some, though not in the code. I think the developer worked at Netscape and when they started Mozilla from scratch he disagreed, quit, and made Lynx for fun :p

      (or, it doesn't have soft dependecies, but though was interesting)

      --
      unfinished: (adj.)
    8. Re:My question is this - by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm using dillo right now. Dillo is the best slashot browser, IMHO. It doesn't waste screen space (I often have tons of threads open), and it's very fast.

      Luckily, Slashdot doesn't use Flash...:-)

    9. Re:My question is this - by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, try it with XHTML compliant code & watch it shit the bed.

      It would be great if it had any idea what to do with standards-compliant code - but it doesn't.

    10. Re:My question is this - by gowen · · Score: 1
      Dillo is the best slashot browser, IMHO.
      Only if you
      a) want to be an anonymous coward,
      b) use the patched version that groks cookies...
      --
      Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
    11. Re:My question is this - by mirko · · Score: 1

      Why would I ?
      Do you think I visit site because they are coded in WTFML ?
      Nope, I visit what Google fetches to me :-)

      --
      Trolling using another account since 2005.
    12. Re:My question is this - by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And if Google fetches you a page written to modern W3C standards, NS 4.x is going to give you a bunch of unreadable gibberish. Why not get really masochistic & surf with NS 1.1?

      Face it, it's dead Jim ;-)

    13. Re:My question is this - by mirko · · Score: 1

      OK, just give me the URL of such a page, I'll tell you how far I can read it, and if there are some simpler equivalent somewhere, okay ? :-)

      --
      Trolling using another account since 2005.
    14. Re:My question is this - by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I was going to suggest Opera, but the fact that you specified Open Source cuts it out of the picture.

      And rightly so. Proprietary? pah! It was good in it's day, but so were flares =)

    15. Re:My question is this - by neuroticia · · Score: 2

      1- Mozilla has no mozilla dependencies? Odd. I thought you had to have mozilla installed in order to run it. ;)

      2- Don't know what your description of a "beefy" machine is, but my Duron 900-off the shelf-Compaq with 300 odd megs of RAM is able to run Konqueror in gnome and Galeon in KDE without any problems or noticeable performance decrease. (This is KDE/Gnome with a theme applied, a .jpg file or four as the background, and multiple other applications running at the time.)

      3-Agreed on the issue of NS6. It's the only browser that has successfully locked/crashed/hung my computer on multiple occasions no matter the OS I'm running it in.

      4- Lynx is fun, but impractical to use too much due to the insanity of contemporary website designers.

      -Sara

    16. Re:My question is this - by Glytch · · Score: 2

      Oh my god. I just tried Dillo, and it's beautiful. A shame about the lack of cookies. That's the only thing stopping me from using it regularly.

    17. Re:My question is this - by grahams · · Score: 1

      Lynx actually existed before the World Wide Web, but it's HTML support was added to it WAY before Mozilla went open-source (and before the "starting from scratch" you refer to.

    18. Re:My question is this - by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Most pages are not W3C compliant, they are IE or NS compliant. This is why browsers like Opera, Konqueror , and NS 4.7.x work so much better than moz/ns 6.x/

    19. Re:My question is this - by rodolfo.borges · · Score: 1

      so you like "lynx".
      have you ever tried "links"?
      it's a much improved lynx.
      it supports frames, colors, multiple downloads, etc.

    20. Re:My question is this - by wampus · · Score: 1

      Galeon tries to do a lot cool stuff, but falls down on reliability. I'm hoping their next generation comes on strong, gets stable and takes over my desktop, but for now..
      Amen! I use it exclusivly, but it seems to have a memory leak as it falls down after about two hours of use (less if I am playing with my neopets.) Luckily, the crash recovery works great.

      As for vanilla Mozilla, I use Evolution and Pan... they do what I need faster and with a (somewhat) consistant interface, plus I like some of the extras Galeon provides too much to give up.

  5. Let's hope.. by IamTheRealMike · · Score: 5, Insightful

    that now all the major Linux/Cross platform web browsers, and even IE 6 are paying attention to the W3C standards that we will all one day be choosing our browser based on what we like, rather than what web developers like

    1. Re:Let's hope.. by urmensch · · Score: 1

      it's not that web developers like a certain browser, they were forced to follow the money. if they had any respect for standards then they at least degraded gracefully... i know we did this for netscape and i was personally always nagging production peeps to look at their work through mozilla on my linux machine.

    2. Re:Let's hope.. by BurritoWarrior · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Except this is exactly the point of Microsoft's .net initiative. To make the internet (or what most people think is the internet - www) not be HTTP based anymore, but to rely on proprietary extensions/applets/applications built around the .net framework.

      In their eyes 90% of the web will require IE in order for the "web services" to work. And they will leverage things like MS Office to get the ball rolling. No longer will new features be added directly to office, but will be available on the web - provided the user has Windows and is using IE...

      Mod this as flamebait if you want, but that certainly seems to me to be the direction they are heading. Heck, MS execs are even talking about how http's days are coming to an end...

    3. Re:Let's hope.. by fferreres · · Score: 1

      How about:

      "we will all one day be choosing our browser based on what" the W3C like, not what users like.

      Imho it's best to have choice and shades. The "one and only" web broswer you want is ok, but what if the W3C screws?

      Also, the problem is not the W3C more than the rendering engines themselves: do Explorer and Mozilla and "[insert favorite]" look the same? That the W3C can't enfoce, and that's what we want. And that's what Bill (or whoever has the most browser market at any point) doesn't want...

      --
      unfinished: (adj.)
    4. Re:Let's hope.. by Pope+Slackman · · Score: 2

      proprietary extensions/applets/applications built around the .net framework.

      Isn't the .net framework an ECMA standard now?
      Isn't someone working on a free implementation of that standard?
      Are you calling it proprietary just because it comes from billy boy?

      No longer will new features be added directly to office, but will be available on the web - provided the user has Windows and is using IE...

      That sounds to me like it would primarily affect office users, not web surfers, and considering office's main platform is windows, so what if they use windows/ie for web-based updates/upgrades?

      Heck, MS execs are even talking about how http's days are coming to an end...

      You got a link to back that up?

      I'm not necessarily defending microsoft[1], just questioning the statements you present as fact.

      C-X C-S
      [1] Although I don't think they're any more evil than any other money-grubbing corporation.
      Media conglomerates and trade groups, now those scare me - they have hundreds of times more governmental influence than billy and friends will ever have.

    5. Re:Let's hope.. by 4of12 · · Score: 2

      I'll second and third that motion.

      I switched from Netscape 4.7x on Solaris to Mozilla 0.9.[i>6] on Linux a while back.

      I love the superior rendering speed, the nice interface, and the fact that it doesn't crash .

      But the RPITA is all the web servers on the corporate internal network that have JavaScript that uses less than latest W3C DOM specification.

      I'm hoping that there will be more convergence and less divergence between browsers as time moves forward, that if the many IE6 browsers work, then Mozilla will also work for that web site.

      --
      "Provided by the management for your protection."
    6. Re:Let's hope.. by gol64738 · · Score: 1

      WTF, i cannot believe that MSIE chokes on a simple transparent .png file. the .png format kicks ass all over .gif formats (alpha channel, etc), AND is an open standard while .gif is not (the compression scheme, LZH, is owned by Unisys).

      users want alpha transparency, which allows one to do nifty effects like drop-shadows and anti-aliasing against any background, but the poor suckers stuck using MSIE are still locked in the dark ages of GIF-style binary transparency. (and it's implemented in such a way that any palette index that isn't completely opaque is treated as completely transparent--depending on your image, say goodbye to most of it! To make up for that, MSIE doesn't support 32-bit RGBA transparency at all. what a pile of fucking shit.)

      of course, mozilla displays .png files in all their fantastic splendor. that's because mozilla is 100% world wide web consortium compliant, while MSIE is only about 65% compliant.

      i've been doing some speed tests lately, with and without cache. mozilla, using the same hardware, now renders pages faster than MSIE 5.x or 6.x.

      so, the only thing that makes MSIE better than mozilla is, well, MSIE can render non-compliant web pages better.

      it is a fine day, to see that the world can make a product that shines brighter than the richest company in the world. hahaha, i laugh at you microsoft.

    7. Re:Let's hope.. by BurritoWarrior · · Score: 2

      Heck, MS execs are even talking about how http's days are coming to an end...

      You got a link to back that up?


      Try here

      What qualifies as a standard is highly debatable. The cli and description of C# have been passed by ECMA, for whatever that is worth, but that is a far cry from say, TCP/IP which is fully open and can be implemented on any platform.

      As for mono, there are other people working on office file formats so that they can be created/read/used on other platforms....that hardly makes them interoperable or cross-platform.

      If you think .net is MS's plan to be the good guy and support "open standards" so that developers can develop on whatever platform they want and users can use whatever platform they like...well, I sugges you take a long look at their history. Either that or give me a call so we can negotiate a price for this nice bridge in Brooklyn i have. :-)

    8. Re:Let's hope.. by Boulder+Geek · · Score: 2
      Isn't the .net framework an ECMA standard now? Isn't someone working on a free implementation [go-mono.org] of that standard? Are you calling it proprietary just because it comes from billy boy?

      It is proprietary. The C# language and CLR are indeed both ECMA standards, but so is Javascript, and look how "standard" that is.

      More importantly, many of the run-time libraries used by CLR are not ECMA standards, and will not be made available to the development community except as MSFT products. We can safely assume that many web-based products built on .NET will depend on these libraries, and thus be portable to any platform that MSFT wishes to support. Take a guess as to how many platforms that will be.

      MSFT doesn't seem to object to the server side of .NET running on platforms other than Windows. After all, even they must realize that Windows doesn't cut it for Enterprise level servers, so they still need to play in that world until such time as they can eliminate Solaris and AIX. But I seriously doubt that they will ever give up control of the client short of the entire management team at MSFT being replaced by Pods.

      --
      A well-crafted lie appears unquestionable - Dama Mahaleo
    9. Re:Let's hope.. by Pope+Slackman · · Score: 2

      Try here

      That title is a bit misleading.
      If you read the article, it says that HTTP is not optimal for anything more than relatively simple web services - in other words, complex applications with operations that take more than a few minutes to execute shouldn't use HTTP as their RPC protocol.
      Sounds reasonable to me, provided the new protocol is standardized in a way similar to the other net standards, e.g. RFCs, and all that.[1]

      The cli and description of C# have been passed by ECMA, for whatever that is worth,

      Prolly not much, but more than the (AFAIK) lack of open, published standards for Java, which I see as being .net's direct competitor.

      As for mono, there are other people working on office file formats so that they can be created/read/used on other platforms....that hardly makes them interoperable or cross-platform.

      I see a huge difference here.[2]
      People writing office import/export filters have to reverse engineer the mostly-undocumented format.
      There is no detailed, published spec of the office formats.

      If you think .net is MS's plan to be the good guy and support "open standards" so that developers can develop on whatever platform they want and users can use whatever platform they like...well, I sugges you take a long look at their history.

      Of course they aren't, but you can say that about any company, really.
      Everyone is trying to make a buck[3], usually at the expense of someone else.
      "Business ethics" is an oxymoron.

      C-X C-S
      [1] Hell, even the MS guy (not an exec, BTW) said "if one vendor does it on their own, it will simply not be worth the trouble."
      [2] I'd say it's an apples to oranges comparison, but someone recently proved scientifically that apples and oranges were basically the same. :)
      [3] Netscape certainly ignored/made up their share of "standards" back in the pre-mozilla days, that's for sure.

    10. Re:Let's hope.. by millwood · · Score: 1
      "Business ethics" is an oxymoron.

      No it's not. It is possible to conduct business in an ethical manner. A statement like this is offensive to the millions of businessmen out there (which includes me) who do have ethics.

      --

      "Hello, World", 17 errors, 31 warnings
  6. The most important choices are missing by Krapangor · · Score: 2, Funny
    • lynx
    • netcat with less
    • vi
    • emacs
    • ed
    • telnet
    Graphics is just for banner ads.
    --
    Owner of a Mensa membership card.
    1. Re:The most important choices are missing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ... and text for weenie obituaries.

    2. Re:The most important choices are missing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You forgot about links, wget, and writing a program in assembler that just interfaces with the kernel of your favourite OS to open a socket to a specified IP, entered only in network-byte-order, and dump the web page to a file that you can use your favourite text editor or pager with.

    3. Re:The most important choices are missing by diablochicken · · Score: 1

      And comic strips. Isn't there room for art in your text-based world?

    4. Re:The most important choices are missing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wow! You are HARDCORE!

      None of those sissy graphics for you!

      Myself, I browse the web on a Commodore 64 using a 300 baud modem, so I AM BETTER THAN YOU.

    5. Re:The most important choices are missing by Brian+Knotts · · Score: 1

      Don't forget XEmacs. Yes! You even get graphics! And it works, sort of!

    6. Re:The most important choices are missing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, well I use Morse code & smoke signals.
      Text is for pussies.

    7. Re:The most important choices are missing by Flossymike · · Score: 1

      Out of interest, how do you browse with vi?

      I have used vi a bit and am familiar with the different modes.

      Cheers

    8. Re:The most important choices are missing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm assuming he means vim - vi does not have browsing capabilities.

      I say assuming because I didn't know vim did either.

    9. Re:The most important choices are missing by 42forty-two42 · · Score: 1

      What about using a hex editor to send raw packets, and displaying incoming ones using the HDD led?

    10. Re:The most important choices are missing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, well I use Morse code & smoke signals.

      A good telescope pointed at the stars is all you need, man. Everything on the net is white noise, the only things of any real interest happened a million years ago in galaxy, far, far away.

    11. Re:The most important choices are missing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > Graphics is just for banner ads.

      It'd be nice if more website designers agreed with you; I can't count the number of sites I've visited that were unusable unless graphics were loaded - no alternate text, no alternate links, it was use their graphic links or nothing. #*($&&*@#()#. Most of the time I choose to leave.

  7. Just displaying right is a big plus. by nesneros · · Score: 3, Informative

    Having been (in the last year) through Konqueror, Galleon, Netscape (4.whatever), and Mozilla on a Mandrake box, I've found that Mozilla's the only one that consistantly displays pages correctly. The other 3 I found would often screw up font sizes and leave side bars unreadable.

    --
    Some men spend their entire lives trying to kill themselves for having been born. --Ross MacDonald
    1. Re:Just displaying right is a big plus. by i0nic · · Score: 1

      I can agree with that. Konqueror tends to display pages large and clunky, even when you try to adjust the view formatting. Netscape just has way too many (stalled) problems for me. Galeon is a pain to upgrade, much like this article noted. All that's left is Mozilla, that renders everything very nicely. The only thing I had to configure for Mozilla, like Konqueror, was the Java support.

    2. Re:Just displaying right is a big plus. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Weird, Galeon is based on moz, it uses the same rendering engine (Gecko), so anything moz displays right, galeon also displays right (AFAIK). Galeon is "just" another UI around the Gecko rendering engine

    3. Re:Just displaying right is a big plus. by fferreres · · Score: 1

      Mozilla can't dasplay better than Galeon though, a it uses the mozilla rendering engine (geckos).

      --
      unfinished: (adj.)
    4. Re:Just displaying right is a big plus. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Funny...I found that konqueror was the only browser that displayed the pages correctly....konqueror and opera, but i did not want to buy opera

    5. Re:Just displaying right is a big plus. by fferreres · · Score: 1

      Galeon is renders like Mozilla IMHO (and in reallity). Uses Gecko. Maybe you where using an old Mozilla engine when you tried it.

      I have a tip though. Copy your Windows TT fonts so that they work under X. Then specify to use those as default fonts for serif (Times New Roman) and Arial (sans serif) and Courier New (fixed width).

      You actually have like 99,9% IE like browsing now :)

      --
      unfinished: (adj.)
    6. Re:Just displaying right is a big plus. by Simon+Brooke · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Having been (in the last year) through Konqueror, Galleon, Netscape (4.whatever), and Mozilla on a Mandrake box, I've found that Mozilla's the only one that consistantly displays pages correctly. The other 3 I found would often screw up font sizes and leave side bars unreadable.

      Yes, but, seriously, how many of those pages were valid, standards conformant code? For a long time Konqueror was the only browser which displayed all the features of my home page (which is valid code) correctly. Now Mozilla has caught up, and I believe (though I haven't checked myself) later IE6's can display it too. But while Konqi has some deficiencies in its ECMAScript, it's HTML/CSS rendering are highly standards-conformant

      It's not the Konqi team's fault if 90% of the commercial 'Web designers' out there are blithering incompetents who could not write valid code to save their lives.

      --
      I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
    7. Re:Just displaying right is a big plus. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's not a good idea to tell the user that their perceptions are wrong.

      It doesn't really matter *whose* fault it is that things do not display properly on web page X with browser Y. What matters is that it doesn't work, but it's fine with browser Z.

      The user has no control over the code on the web page, but they do have control over which browser they use. Telling them the web page is wrong doesn't help any.

    8. Re:Just displaying right is a big plus. by Simon+Brooke · · Score: 2
      It doesn't really matter *whose* fault it is that things do not display properly on web page X with browser Y. What matters is that it doesn't work, but it's fine with browser Z.

      I have to disagree with you. It matters critically whose fault it is. For example, Microsoft Front Page generates invalid HTML which IE just happens to be able to render; similarly, Office 2000 generates invalid XML which IE just happens to be able to parse, If the Mozilla or Konqi team alter their browser to cope with Microsoft's deliberate mistakes, Microsoft will just start making different deliberate mistakes. It's really important that we put the blame where it belongs - which is chiefly with unprofessional and incompetent 'Web designers' who don't care about the quality of the code they produce provided it works with their Microsoft browser.

      We cannot defeat monopolies if we play their games.

      --
      I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
    9. Re:Just displaying right is a big plus. by JoeBuck · · Score: 2

      The mantra of the Internet (often explicitly stated by IETF people) has always been to be conservative (that is, strictly standard-conformant) in what you send, and be liberal (that is, try to tolerate deviations and do the right thing) in what you accept. By this principle if a standards-incorrect practice is widespread on the net, a decent, high-quality application has to deal with it (be liberal in what you accept), but professional web designers and tools that produce HTML should produce strictly conformant HTML (be conservative in what you send). The Konqueror team is not doing as good a job as its competition in living up to the first part of this principle, and if it can't catch up people are going to just stop using it. It won't suffice to point out that other people are writing incorrect HTML. After all, Slashdot's HTML is highly non-standard and CmdrTaco doesn't care. IE took off by putting in a lot of work to be bug-compatible with Netscape.

      Similarly, would you use a C or C++ compiler that always aborts when seeing the first minor syntax error? Such a compiler would greatly slow you down, because you'd only be able to find one error at a time.

      Given this, it is the Konqi team's fault if it can't do a decent job of rendering web pages that deviate from the standard. Cry all you want about incompetent Web designers, but someone who purports to provide a Web browser must deal with the web as it is.

      Consider that Slashdot itself does not follow the standards (try to validate a Slashdot page). Would you use a broswer that can't

    10. Re:Just displaying right is a big plus. by truesaer · · Score: 2

      Well, just a note here....if a web browser doesn't display 90% of the web pages out there, I'm unlikely to use it. Just FYI.

    11. Re:Just displaying right is a big plus. by ihatelisp · · Score: 1

      Konqueror was the only browser which displayed all the features of my home page

      Maybe that's because you're coding your web page using features that Konqueror supports well?

      I admit that I write HTML using Mozilla as the primary testing browser. Everything is valid, but when I opened it up in Konqueror... boy, what a mess. I checked and re-checked my HTML and CSS, and even re-write parts of it trying to get it to look right in Konqueror, but I simply come to the conclusion that Konqueror couldn't handle the some of the advanced techniques (e.g. layers and layers of fixed positioned elements) properly. Needless to say, other browsers that don't support fixed positioning wouldn't work right either.

      My point is, if your design only works in a certain browser, most likely you're catering to the capability of that certain browser (which I'm also guilty of). This is true even if you're writing valid HTML; every browser is built differently, and some does better job at certain things than others.

    12. Re:Just displaying right is a big plus. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Have to agree. I dont understand the fuss over Konq at all; it may be more conformant than Netscape 4 but considerably less conformant than Mozilla or MSIE. This is not my opinion. Konqueror has less support for the gamut of css1, css2 and standard scripting/dhtml features than almost any browser out there. It's not worth using.

    13. Re:Just displaying right is a big plus. by Mike+Greaves · · Score: 2

      > Similarly, would you use a C or C++ compiler that
      > always aborts when seeing the first minor syntax
      > error? Such a compiler would greatly slow you
      > down, because you'd only be able to find one
      > error at a time.

      This is a terrible example. I expect C/C++ compilers to be highly intolerant of incorrect or non-standard-compliant code; and generate verbose warnings and errors on encountering it. I somewhat agree with you, when it comes to something like a web browser; but a compiler should *always* be conservative; otherwise poor software reliability will be right around the corner...

      (reading and posting from Konqueror, the world's niftiest web browser. ;-)

      --
      -- Mike Greaves
    14. Re:Just displaying right is a big plus. by Simon+Brooke · · Score: 2
      Maybe that's because you're coding your web page using features that Konqueror supports well?

      In a sense, clearly I am; but I didn't set out to. I'm not a member of the Konqi team, and I use many different browsers (currently have twelve on this machine, and use Konqi, Mozilla, Dillo, Opera and Lynx regularly). The point I was making is just that the Konqi team have been ahead of everyone else in their CSS2 implementation.

      --
      I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
    15. Re:Just displaying right is a big plus. by Simon+Brooke · · Score: 2
      I dont understand the fuss over Konq at all; it may be more conformant than Netscape 4 but considerably less conformant than Mozilla or MSIE. This is not my opinion. Konqueror has less support for the gamut of css1, css2

      For heaven's sake, haven't you been reading? Konqi has been ahead of both Mozilla and IE on it's CSS2 rendering for about 18 months; Mozilla and IE are only now catching up. Don't believe me? Look at my home page. Note where the navigation panel is. Note what happens when you scroll. Konqi's got it right since version 2.0. Opera got it right in version 6, a year later. Mozilla got it right in 0.9.6, eighteen months later. Microsoft IE has got it right in the last six months - early versions of IE 6 get it wrong. That's simple, demonstrable fact.

      --
      I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
    16. Re:Just displaying right is a big plus. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      >> It doesn't really matter *whose* fault it is that things do not display properly on web page X with browser Y. What matters is that it doesn't work, but it's fine with browser Z.
      > I have to disagree with you. It matters critically whose fault it is. ...

      I think the "doesn't matter" was being stated as from the point of view of John Q Public, who neither knows nor cares about web standards, they only know they can or can't view the pages with the already-installed browser.

      > We cannot defeat monopolies if we play their games.

      Unfortunately, 90+% of the browser using population plays without knowing or caring.

    17. Re:Just displaying right is a big plus. by ihatelisp · · Score: 1

      The point I was making is just that the Konqi team have been ahead of everyone else in their CSS2 implementation

      Don't let it get over your head. Just because Konqueror works well for your particular design, it doesn't mean its CSS2 implementation as a whole is superior to Mozilla and IE.

      In fact, I can't see where Netscape 6.2 has trouble. It appears exactly the same way as Konqueror. Konqueror sometimes have trouble with the hovering effect over the the nav panel, though. Scrolling is slow in Netscape 6, but at least it supports alpha blending (not just transparency!) of PNG images.

      Now, try creating a transparent border around an image with CSS. Konqueror will draw a black border instead. Can I claim Mozilla is far ahead of the Konqueror team based on this alone? I'm sure you'll disagree.

    18. Re:Just displaying right is a big plus. by asa · · Score: 2

      Konqi has been ahead of both Mozilla and IE on it's CSS2 rendering for about 18 months;

      I don't know where you get your information but it's clearly wrong. Feel free to state that Konqueror gets you're particular subset of CSS on one particular page you set up but that's a darned small sample from which you make such sweeping statements about CSS support.

      http://www.bath.ac.uk/%7Epy8ieh/cgi/listresults. pl ?ID=ETS seems to suggest otherwise and looks to be a little more thorough than your homepage.

      --Asa

  8. To sound cool... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'll say, "What about lynx? telnet? curl?"

  9. Opera ads became intrusive by GSV+NegotiableEthics · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Opera used to be my favorite browser, but I switched from that to Mozilla at around Christmas, simply because of one ad campaign that involved an animated gif of human head that waggled from left to right. It was so intrusive that I took to covering the ad area with a gnome-terminal, and looked around for another browser. I told the Opera people about my problems.

    Using X on a small laptop via a fairly powerful firewall machine, I eventually realised that I could run Mozilla on the firewall and put the display on the laptop. Although Mozilla is a rather bigger browser than Opera, it actually runs better in that mode than when I ran Opera on the laptop.

    1. Re:Opera ads became intrusive by maxpublic · · Score: 1

      You could also spend the measly $39 bucks to buy Opera. No more ad worries.

      Max

      --
      My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
    2. Re:Opera ads became intrusive by nafmo · · Score: 2, Informative
      Thank you for helping to put me out of my job (I'm an Opera Software employee). If you have a problem with the ads, 39 USD will get rid of them (15 if you are a student). If you can't live with ads, and can't afford to pay, I'd recommend you use one of the open source browsers instead.

      If you find any intrusive ads, please contact the Opera staff directly (contact details on website) or post in the opera.pr-marketing group (available on news.opera.no, as well as several other servers).

    3. Re:Opera ads became intrusive by andrewski · · Score: 1

      do a google search for:
      opera serial linux
      and voila! no more ads!

    4. Re:Opera ads became intrusive by Blain · · Score: 1

      What I wish advertisers would understand is that there's smart advertising and stupid advertising, and attention isn't all that you want to get from someone.

      Animated banners, though "eye-catching" are also headache inducing. I would never buy anything from anybody because of one, and would almost as certainly avoid their product because of them. Same thing as spam, and all of the other places I'm finding advertising getting wedged into. If it's annoying, that's going to reflect on the product negatively, and make me less apt to buy it than I was just not knowing about it (if I didn't). Personally, I think there'd be a lot more room for advertising of the "I never knew there was such a thing" type (which is more likely to be effective with me) if the bezillionth different version of "my product is better than that one because I'm cooler" type (which is wasted on me) would across the board cut their budgets in half. I mean, it's not like anyone in the planet hasn't heard of Coca-cola, so how much name id do they need?

      Feel free to pass this along to your advertisers who want to use those sorts of things if you wish.

      Other than that (and a few other small issues) I'm relatively pleased with your browser. I like it a lot, and I'm planning to get the pay version probably next quarter.

    5. Re:Opera ads became intrusive by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      For $29 the ad goes away. For free, the ad stays.

  10. galeon difficult to install? by 303 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    apt-get install galeon :)

    1. Re:galeon difficult to install? by Chainsaw · · Score: 1, Offtopic
      chainsaw@hellport:~$ apt-get install galeon
      bash: apt-get: command not found
      chainsaw@hellport:~$

      Nope, that doesn't work.

      --
      War is one of the most horrible things a human can be exposed to. And one of the worlds largest industries.
    2. Re:galeon difficult to install? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Howbout,
      cd /usr/ports/www/galeon && make install. Sowcow!!!
      By the way, what are dependencies?

    3. Re:galeon difficult to install? by blakestah · · Score: 2

      apt-get install galeon :)

      Debian rules for installing a new package.

      He additionally missed
      "Mouse cursor on image. Right click. Block all images from ad.soubleclick.net ?"

      Galeon's ability to customize completely acceptance of cookies and images from IP addresses is incredibly useful. With mozilla you cannot get there by right-clicking on the image (yet, I suspect). With konqueror you cannot either. You have to conditionally block images, and allow the ones you want. With galeon, any image site can be blocked with a single right click.

      You can also config so that pop-up windows automatically go to new tabs in the background.

      What an improvement in browsing !

    4. Re:galeon difficult to install? by mbrubeck · · Score: 2
      Galeon's ability to customize completely acceptance of cookies and images from IP addresses is incredibly useful. With mozilla you cannot get there by right-clicking on the image (yet, I suspect).

      That's not true. I'm using Mozilla 0.9.8 right now, and I've been using this feature via the "Block images from this server" context-menu item since 0.9.6, I believe. Anyway, I do agree with the parent post that this is a great feature in both Mozilla and Galeon.

    5. Re:galeon difficult to install? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0


      % apt-get install galeon :)
      bash: syntax error near unexpected token `:)'

    6. Re:galeon difficult to install? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I've installed apt-get for rpm and just intalled galeon on RedHat 7.2 using this method.

      And it works. Perfectly.
      Not sure if I like it more than Konqueror, but it can be done.

      Search around for the apt-get for rpm program. Sure beats having to install Debian over a working and configured Linux install that you don't want to backup.

  11. No problems with Galeon by igiveup · · Score: 2, Insightful

    You do have to have Gnome and Mozilla installed, but I have not had any extra problems installing Galeon once those two are installed. I would like to see the Gecko rendering engine avaible as an individual library (if it already is, then forgive my ignorance).

    --
    --- igiveup ---
  12. If you ask me.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    the best web browser is still Internet Explorer.
    once Konqueror's js probs are fixed, it'll be almost as good
    mozilla is also very nice but heavy (less so in windows than in linux?)
    opera is featureful, but slow in rendering, but has a faster user interface than mozilla.

  13. Using mozilla by mansoft · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It's curious to see how netscape 4.x isn't even included in that group. Some years ago it was the only browser we could use to decently surf the web.

    I've been using mozilla since the M1x releases, and it has certainly improved its capabilities and stability. However I still find the interface too heavy. Perhaps galeon does it better, though.

    What I still miss in mozilla (now using 0.9.8) is acceptable support for java and flash. When both plugins are installed they give me so many problems that I end up by uninstalling them.

    --

    Engage!

    1. Re:Using mozilla by Spankophile · · Score: 4, Funny

      It's curious to see how netscape 4.x isn't even included [...]

      Oh how the mighty have fallen.

    2. Re:Using mozilla by Dante'sPrayer · · Score: 1

      Using Mozilla. 0.9.8. No problems at all with plugins.

      But I'm using the flash plugin from the Debian package (netscape-base-477). Download the package from packages.debian.org, unpack it on a temporal directory and copy libflashplayer.so to your mozilla plugins directory.

      I have Java installed from autoinstall, not from the JDK. On Moz0.9.6 or something it gave lots of trouble; works fine now.

    3. Re:Using mozilla by Penrod+Pooch · · Score: 1
      What I still miss in mozilla (now using 0.9.8) is acceptable support for java and flash. When both plugins are installed they give me so many problems that I end up by uninstalling them.


      That's just gods way of telling you that flash and java are utter wank. No stupid, impossible to find your way around navigation flash crap and no smack the monkey ads. What the hell are you complaining about?

    4. Re:Using mozilla by fferreres · · Score: 1

      Perhaps galeon does it better, though.

      It's really powerfull yet unbloated. Everything is in the right place, the options you can change are meaningfull and everything works as expected.

      It really got me by surprise. It's so much better even than Explorer. (i switched to full-time Linux about 8 months ago)

      --
      unfinished: (adj.)
    5. Re:Using mozilla by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Netscape 4.x ALWAYS sucked. Netscape 3.x was good stuff though (at the time).

    6. Re:Using mozilla by terkozer · · Score: 1

      Also copy ShockwaveFlash.class to the mozilla plugins directory. I'm running Moz 0.9.7 with both plugins working fine.

  14. it's SUPPOSED to be intrusive by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    They want you to buy it, after all.
    They have to make money somehow!
    You cheap bastard.

    1. Re:it's SUPPOSED to be intrusive by GSV+NegotiableEthics · · Score: 0, Troll
      You cheap bastard.

      I'm not cheap, I'm a free software advocate trying to wear the Opera people down.

      GD&R

    2. Re:it's SUPPOSED to be intrusive by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm not a shoplifter, I'm a free stuff advocate trying to wear stores down!

    3. Re:it's SUPPOSED to be intrusive by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What does this have to do with anything, iddiot? How can you steal something that is free? Are you some programmer who is frustrated because you can't give your crap away, much less sell it, and these free and better products destroy your ego? Get over it. They are here to stay...and any amount of bitching will not change that fact.

      I am not against people making money. I am against the people who think it is a good idea to minimize effort and maximize profit, at the expense of users. Those are the cheap bastards, though their prices are way overboard of what the product is actually worth.

      What's this, you say? It is their product, and they have the right to sell their crap for however much they want in a free market? Correct, my friend. Just as Linus has the right to give the product away for free. So, unless you are going for the hypocrite of the year award (Good luck buddy, because there are some astute devotees in line for that), shut the hell up!

      Using Linux and it's browsers, and all of free software have nothing to do with theft. Unless you go into a friggin' WalMart and take a Mandrake box off the shelf, which a company distributed, packaged, and produced for profit, you are not stealing. What other free things would you like assholes to ask insane prices for?

  15. Real men don't use no stinkin' browsers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Real hackers use telnet, the safest and most compatible browser since the invention of the web.

  16. I'll go with Opera by Uttles · · Score: 4, Informative

    I'm using it on both a Windoze and Linux platform and I have to say that it is extremely fast, just like the slogan says. The program just feels lightweight the way it pops right up and "loads" all your pages instantly (ok so they're not always refreshed, but hey). Anyway, be sure to install the java lib with it under windows or you may have some problems there (at least I do sometimes) but under linux it doesn't seem to matter.

    --

    ~ now you know
    1. Re:I'll go with Opera by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Be prepared for Opera to just disappear (crash) sometimes.

      Also, sometimes when downloading, it will lock up.

      It is fast though. Fast to load and fast to use. I hate that tab completion doesn't work in the URL line though. That alone is enough to not make me use it (although the crashing for no reason doesn't help).

      The somewhat portly Mozilla seems to be the best at this point.

    2. Re:I'll go with Opera by DrSpin · · Score: 2, Interesting
      I am using Opera 6.0 on FreeBSD and its very good. Shame the mail facility doesnt work though - I could get most of the family to switch to *BSD from Windows if it did!

      I like "open in background" and the "mouse gestures".

      I'd register if it was Native FreeBSD, but its actually the Linux one in compatibilty mode.

    3. Re:I'll go with Opera by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I often consider buying opera, but then it crashes (sometimes even on a simple static page) or mishandles javascript and I have to wonder why anyone would buy it.

      So for now I'm fine with the ads and I keep reporting recurring bugs to them.

    4. Re:I'll go with Opera by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Opera is cool but it still doesn't have a standards compliant DOM.

      They are working on it though. And it certainly is fast as hell.

      I just hate anything that requires me to sniff for user agent & write different code for different browsers. We should have gotten past that crap years ago...

    5. Re:I'll go with Opera by aardvarkjoe · · Score: 2
      I often consider buying opera, but then it crashes (sometimes even on a simple static page) or mishandles javascript and I have to wonder why anyone would buy it.


      I agree with this. As soon as opera becomes relatively crash-proof (IOW not crashing a couple times per hour) -- they'll have my money. As it is, though, it's definately worth using ... when it crashes, with its legendary speed it only takes 5 seconds or so to start again. Annoying, but no big deal.

      --

      How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
  17. Galeon and Opera being my favs by xtremex · · Score: 2

    I'm using Mozilla now, but I love the sheer speed of both Opera and Galeon. I'm using Mdk 8.1 on this machine, and upgrading galeon is something I fear. Last time it took me about an hour to fix png.h errors. I had to go BACK certain lib versions and go back a libpng version. I have my system set up PERFECTLY. So I dont want to upgrade Galeon. I'm afraid If I upgrade Mozilla, it'll break galeon too!

    --
    If you're not a Liberal in your 20's, then you have no heart.If you're still a Liberal in your 30's you have no brain.
    1. Re:Galeon and Opera being my favs by 303 · · Score: 1

      apt-get update; apt-get upgrade

      yes, i have apt-get on the brain ;)

    2. Re:Galeon and Opera being my favs by xiaix · · Score: 1

      or emerge update --world
      (Though I am not sure if Galeon has been done yet)

      --

      Have you read the Moderator Guidelines yet?

    3. Re:Galeon and Opera being my favs by xtremex · · Score: 2

      Alas, I know the joys of Debian...I have a debian box, but my Mandrake box is the more powerful box and is the box I use on a daily basis :(

      --
      If you're not a Liberal in your 20's, then you have no heart.If you're still a Liberal in your 30's you have no brain.
  18. KDE by asv108 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So basically this guy had a grudge against Konqueror because he had trouble upgrading KDE. I wouldn't call this a very objective or informative review. The other weakness he cites with Konqueror is lack of features, but most people don't even use the latest "bells and whistles" offered with a new browser build. Usually those "Features" turn out to be annoyances like sidebars.

    1. Re:KDE by 31eq · · Score: 1

      If upgrading Konqueror means upgrading KDE, and upgrading KDE is difficult, that's fair comment to me.

    2. Re:KDE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's highly irresponsible.
      Konqueror is one of the main browsers in the Linux
      world.

      A browser review has to cover
      Netscape
      Mozilla
      Konqueror
      Opera

      Then it should touch on
      Galeon
      skipstone
      Dillo

    3. Re:KDE by sultanoslack · · Score: 2, Insightful
      He's a Redhat user and that's all that really needs to be said. He's very correct that upgrading KDE is difficult on Redhat . Redhat (except for Bero) really doesn't care about KDE at all and tends to have horrible, horrible packages available. Redhat 7.2 came with KDE 2.2.1 and a half!!! It wasn't a released version! They took the code from CVS and packaged it without labeling it as "non-stable". Then when the stable versions do finally come out, Redhat doesn't get around to packaging them (again, not Bero's fault since that's not his job) until they've been out for a month. And even then they often aren't released for the last stable release of Redhat. When RH 7.1 was their latest release (I had to use Redhat at work.) they only released KDE updates for 7.2 beta! That's crazy!

      So, I finally switched from Redhat to SuSE about a year and a half ago and haven't looked back. Upgrading in SuSE involves running YaST2 and choosing to upgrade KDE. Or alternatively downloading a handful of RPMs and installing them in 10 minutes.

      And I also think this guy didn't give Konq a fair trial. He used the most up to date, including betas of everything else, but used Konq from a few months ago even though there is a later stable release and two new beta versions. Why is this a story? Are we supposed to give him points for trying to write a good review?

    4. Re:KDE by Arandir · · Score: 2

      He was trying to use KDE and Konqueror on Redhat. That should be explanation enough for his difficulties. Redhat doesn't like KDE, never did, and probably never will.

      I can update KDE with complete ease under FreeBSD. I'm sure my Debian friends will attest to its ease on their system as well. Even when I used package-manager-less Slackware, upgrading KDE was a simple as grabbing the new packages and installing them all.

      --
      A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
    5. Re:KDE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No kidding... Konqueror should be at the top of the list. Netscape/Mozilla suck - massively.

      Konqueror is the best browser I've ever used under X - as if it's not in this 'objective' review, Konqueror is a major contender - it's obvious.

  19. Konqueror is not a MUA/newsreader/HTML editor! by tomRakewell · · Score: 4, Informative

    Since Mozilla 0.9.8 seems to keep crashing (0.9.6 seemed to me to be the peak of stability for the browser), I've been using Konqueror a lot more.

    It does make me miss good Mozilla things, like tabbed browsing. I've also run into a number of pages that Konqueror does not handle all that well, but I'm not sure if its due to standards violations in those pages or in Konqueror.

    I might be missing it, but I also can't find a way to do a text zoom in Konqueror!

    Konqueror seems to be as fast as Opera at rendering pages (but no in-gui ads!). And, for the paranoid, it handles cookie requests as well as... Lynx!

    And Konqueror doesn't have a ton of dependencies like Galeon or skipstone... (it just depends on the whole of KDE!)

    Best of all, Konqueror is *just* a web browser, which is something all the other browser projects should come to terms with. I am never going to use Mozilla's mail client, their news reader, or their HTML editor. In fact, the inclusion of these items tends to slow me down when I accidentally invoke them.

    Wouldn't these massive browser projects benefit greatly by focusing on only *one thing*, like making a nice, fast, stable, standards-compliant browser? Isn't that hard enough?

    Lately, when I build Mozilla, I choose not to build those components, which speeds up the build process nicely!

    1. Re:Konqueror is not a MUA/newsreader/HTML editor! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      >>Best of all, Konqueror is *just* a web browser

      not the last time i checked

      from www.konqueror.org:
      -----------------------
      Konqu eror is the file manager for the K Desktop Environment. It supports basic file management on local UNIX filesystems, from simple cut/copy and paste operations to advanced remote and local network file browsing.

      Konqueror is the canvas for all the latest KDE technology, from KIO slaves (which provide mechanisms for file access) to component embedding via the KParts object interface, and it's one of the most customizable applications available.

      Konqueror is an Open Source web browser with HTML4.0 compliance, supporting Java applets, JavaScript, CSS1 and (partially) CSS2, as well as Netscape plugins (for example, Flash or RealVideo plugins).

      Konqueror is a universal viewing application, capable of embedding read-only viewing components in itself to view documents without ever launching another application.
      -----------------------
      it's quite a bit more than a web browser

      >>Wouldn't these massive browser projects benefit greatly by focusing on only *one thing*, like making a nice, fast, stable, standards-compliant browser?

      that's exactly what galeon strives for. it only uses the rendering engine of mozilla, and is "nice, fast, stable, [and] standards-compliant"

      finally, if you dont want to use mozilla's mail or news clients, dont install them. like you said, you can either choose not to build them, or don't install them. not sure about debian, but i know that the redhat rpms that are supplied break it down into mozilla, mozilla-mail, etc.

    2. Re:Konqueror is not a MUA/newsreader/HTML editor! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      i find mozilla .9.8 stable as a rock. but then i run debian sid and don't 'attempt' to build my own.

      konqueror is shit at dhtml and javascript rendering it pretty useless really. tell me you're whoring.

    3. Re:Konqueror is not a MUA/newsreader/HTML editor! by fferreres · · Score: 3, Informative

      Ok, i use Galeon, so i will just comment my personal view...

      Since Mozilla 0.9.8 seems to keep crashing

      It's not crashing here (not once), i am using 0.9.7 though (0.9.6 had a bug with javascript and couldn't play yahoo chess :))

      I've also run into a number of pages that Konqueror does not handle all that well...

      That's the single most important problem with Konqueror imho. If i develop with Konqueror i will not know if it looks fine under Windows, so they wouldn't let me use Linux...(at work at least)

      ...but I'm not sure if its due to standards violations in those pages or in Konqueror.

      If things show well on IE, they will not fix the problem. That's a problem. The broser should try it's best to display non conforming HTML as other browers do (not Konquerors fault, but...).

      It does make me miss good Mozilla things, like tabbed browsing.

      Galeon has tabbed browsing before Mozilla (and i find it better than Mozillas built-in). Opera first implemented t.b. though.

      I might be missing it, but I also can't find a way to do a text zoom in Konqueror! Galeon has it...

      Konqueror, for the paranoid, it handles cookie requests as well as... Lynx!

      Cookies management in Galeon is the best i've seen so far. It really has and advanced and flexible cookies database.

      Best of all, Konqueror is *just* a web browser

      Same here :)

      --
      unfinished: (adj.)
    4. Re:Konqueror is not a MUA/newsreader/HTML editor! by Peaker · · Score: 2

      it's quite a bit more than a web browser

      Which of those features would you not qualify as 'browsing'?
      A web browser does not typically mean its useful only for web, but also for local files, that with KIOSlaves may be actual directories, HTTP files, or many other file sources.

      that's exactly what galeon strives for. it only uses the rendering engine of mozilla, and is "nice, fast, stable, [and] standards-compliant"

      Galeon may only be a web browser, but so is Konqueror, except due to the powerful KDE technology Konqueror is based on, Konqueror is more powerful.

    5. Re:Konqueror is not a MUA/newsreader/HTML editor! by swillden · · Score: 4, Interesting

      And, for the paranoid, it handles cookie requests as well as... Lynx!

      Actually, I think Konqueror is the best browser available for cookie handling. One major feature it has that all of the others (I've seen) lack is the ability to look at the cookie before deciding to accept/reject it. In particular I like to look at the expiration date, because cookies that don't last long don't bother me much.

      Looking at those expiration dates inspired me to hack my copy of Konqueror so that I can configure it to automatically accept any cookies of short duration (i.e. expiration not specified or specified to be within one day) on a per-site basis.

      The other thing I want to change but haven't gotten round to, is to give myself the option of rejecting cookies based on the origin server instead of the stated cookie domain.

      You might this this is a lot of bother, but I find that with a few such options in place I can both minimize the number of cookies that are tracking me and avoid having to deal with a lot of "Accept this cookie?" dialog boxes popping up all the time. The "accept short cookies" option was a huge win in achieving a nice balance.

      Oh, and yes I'm going to submit my patches, but they're pretty rough right now -- not something that any maintainer would accept.

      --
      Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
    6. Re:Konqueror is not a MUA/newsreader/HTML editor! by GauteL · · Score: 2

      If you do not want mozilla-mail or editors, just don't install them. It is that easy. All distributions AFAIK split them up into several packages.
      Besides. Konqueror is a file-manager as well as a browser, so it is certainly not "just a web browser".
      Personally I don't mind the integration, but facts are always nice.

    7. Re:Konqueror is not a MUA/newsreader/HTML editor! by killmenow · · Score: 2
      Konqueror seems to be as fast as Opera at rendering pages (but no in-gui ads!)
      Well, I use Opera and I don't have any in-gui ads. I actually *gasp* paid for it. It's worth it.
      Best of all, Konqueror is *just* a web browser, which is something all the other browser projects should come to terms with.
      Well, when WWW browsers started out, they were intended to be a universal client to access http, ftp, gopher, and wais servers. Some even included pop and smtp clients as well as nntp clients.

      While some (you presumably included) may consider a browser hanging onto the client ability for these protocols a burden, I consider it a useful feature. I like that my browser can still access gopher especially.
    8. Re:Konqueror is not a MUA/newsreader/HTML editor! by scrytch · · Score: 2

      Best of all, Konqueror is *just* a web browser

      Then why am I able to use it to copy, rename, move, and delete files on my local system? Konquerer knows damn little about web browsing -- that's KHTML's job, which is simply embedded as a component in konquerer. Konquerer is a component-based generic browser, not just a web browser. It's what MS tried to do with its explorer integration, and actually didn't pull off -- the problem with IE on windows is that it's not integrated enough. If it were seamlessly integrated, it wouldn't rearrange menus ("hey, View:Folder Options just got moved to Tools:Internet Options!"), it would let me drag and drop multiple files from ftp onto the desktop, and developers would be able to write shell extensions that worked on URL's instead of targeting a completely different API. Now that XP has the Win2k kernel, and thus reparse points, maybe this will start to happen... Doubt it, they're still foisting drive letters on us even though they've outlived their usefulness.

      Back to the point, if you think konquerer is "just a web browser" when you're using it as such, then it's accomplished its goal of fooling you into believing that ;)

      --
      I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
    9. Re:Konqueror is not a MUA/newsreader/HTML editor! by 13Echo · · Score: 1

      I also paid for Windows and Linux versions of Opera. It's amazing that people want everything to be free these days... They won't even pay for good software.

      Paying for Opera helps to improve it- I have seen it get better and better over the past few years- a result of the customers supporting the cause.

    10. Re:Konqueror is not a MUA/newsreader/HTML editor! by mr3038 · · Score: 2
      o that I can configure it to automatically accept any cookies of short duration (i.e. expiration not specified or specified to be within one day) on a per-site basis.

      I personally prefer more Mozilla's way of doing it. You can limit maximum duration of cookie to whatever you want. My current setting for maximum cookie life is 14 days. There's no reason to block cookies just because the happen to define overly long life. In addition to that you could totally block cookies from some ad hosts.

      --
      _________________________
      Spelling and grammar mistakes left as an exercise for the reader.
    11. Re:Konqueror is not a MUA/newsreader/HTML editor! by AntiTuX · · Score: 2

      do this
      Edit::Preferences::Privacy & Security::Cookies::Warn Me Before Storing A Cookie

      It'll set paranoia on, just like Lynx.

    12. Re:Konqueror is not a MUA/newsreader/HTML editor! by questionlp · · Score: 1
      it would let me drag and drop multiple files from ftp onto the desktop
      If the "Enable folder view for FTP sites" option is enabled, then you should be able to select multiple files and drag-and-drop from the browser to the desktop under Windows 2000/XP. It's definitely not the best FTP client for Windows, but I use it if I'm too lazy to open up WS_FTP Pro :)
    13. Re:Konqueror is not a MUA/newsreader/HTML editor! by Shiny+Metal+S. · · Score: 2
      It does make me miss good Mozilla things, like tabbed browsing. I've also run into a number of pages that Konqueror does not handle all that well, but I'm not sure if its due to standards violations in those pages or in Konqueror.

      In situation like this, use the W3C HTML Validation Service. You can use this URI:

      http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=URI
      where URI is the URI of the page to validate. (well, duh..)

      I usually get tons of errors while validating most of pages, except for my own sites because I always use my web design rules so they have 0 errors and 0 warnings. But validate /. and you'll see that they haven't heard about my rules. ;)

      I sometimes send emails to webmasters with link to their website validation results, asking they to fix their errors when I can't use their websites. If you view any website which your Konqueror can't render, check out what HTML Validator says about it, and when you find any errors, send the link http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=URI to webmaster of this website, telling them that you can't access their broken website. That way they won't answer you that your browser is bad, because they website is broken in the first place. You can suggest them to use HTML TIDY to clean up the web pages.

      There's also a W3C CSS Validation Service, but errors in styles are usually less anoying than errors in HTML itself.

      Complaining to incompetent webmasters usually doesn't work, but it can help a lot when many people do that. It's the only way to change the current situation.

      --

      ~shiny
      WILL HACK FOR $$$

  20. emphasis! by VAXGeek · · Score: 0, Redundant

    This article sure does use a lot of bold words. I'm glad the author was very enthuastic in this article about browsers, but is this level of boldness really prudent? You be the judge!

    --
    this sig limit is too small to put anything good h
  21. Push them to the limit! by ihatelisp · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Come on, the test only briefly mentioned about testing with graphics, CSS, and Javascript. Any modern browser can handle that so easily, it's not even worth testing.

    When car magzines do a car review, they floor the gas pedal to get the fastest 0-60mph time. They cut corners much faster than street driving speed to test the suspension and handling characteristics of the car. What I don't understand is, why does this browser review treat these browsers like babies? Throw in some DOM2/3, CSS2/3, bidi text, DHTML, and XHTML! Let the best engineered browser shine, instead of fixating on those performance numbers!

    1. Re:Push them to the limit! by iangoldby · · Score: 2, Informative

      Edge.

      That sorts the men from the boys - CSS-wise anyway.

    2. Re:Push them to the limit! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Any modern *heavyweight* browser.

      What if you like the more lightweight ones? Not everyone has a 1Ghz machine with half a gig of RAM.

    3. Re:Push them to the limit! by oever · · Score: 1

      and of course SVG and MathML

      Mozilla has both of these in a special build. In 0.9.9 MathML will be enabled by default.

      Konqueror will have SVG support in version 3. It's in Qt 3 too!

      These two technologies will finally make it possible to publish scientific articles in an easily browsable, open standard.

      --
      DNA is the ultimate spaghetti code.
    4. Re:Push them to the limit! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      *Modern* browsers are meant to run on *modern* hardware, which easily surpass 1GHz. If you want a light weight browser for your struggliing hardware, check out 1995 where there are plenty. :-)

    5. Re:Push them to the limit! by gmkeegan · · Score: 1

      Exactly! And it doesn't even have to be cutting edge, exotic things. One of my rulers for measuring how close linux browsers are to being ready for prime time is "can they play the Yahoo games?" (these are mostly if not entirely java games.) So far the answer is "Yes, for a little while until they lock up". Which, while not ideal, is a long ways from "Nope, it just crashes the whole browser immediately."

      Ain't we a pair, Raggedy Man

    6. Re:Push them to the limit! by pointwood · · Score: 4, Interesting

      That is not something you just do - that takes a lot of work I believe. However, here is a pretty good overview of the browsers support for the W3C recommendations: http://www.xs4all.nl/~ppk/js/index.html?/~ppk/js/b rowsers.html.

    7. Re:Push them to the limit! by Otter · · Score: 2
      When car magzines do a car review, they floor the gas pedal to get the fastest 0-60mph time. They cut corners much faster than street driving speed to test the suspension and handling characteristics of the car. What I don't understand is, why does this browser review treat these browsers like babies?

      Well, car enthusiast magazines do that, but when I read reviews I'm more interested in issues that relate to my real-world driving: comfort, reliability, performance under normal conditions.

      Same thing for browsers -- I'm always reading how this or that browser doesn't work on half the sites the complainer visits. For the sites I read, Konqueror, Galeon and Mac IE all render fine. I'm more interested in how well browsers support the use that I actually make of them, not whether I can use them on some crazy-ass JavaScript site. Online banking is the hardest task I give my browser.

      Both types of review have their place.

    8. Re:Push them to the limit! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Thats's a mighty hep site.
      Thanks for the link man!

    9. Re:Push them to the limit! by Glytch · · Score: 2

      Interesting site. Everything on it works fine in Galeon, btw. :)

    10. Re:Push them to the limit! by persist1 · · Score: 1
      To which I might add, those who are interested in learning more about CSS and its Real World applications can subscribe to a list that Eric moderates (and actively participates in). The subscribe URL is:

      http://two.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/css-discu ss [Preview tells me that the HREF is kosher]

      I can say with immense confidence that a Linux/BSD/etc. consituency would be enthusiastically welcomed (since the current composition is overwhelmingly right-brained), provided the strict-constructionist flames are kept to a minimum, and spewed on a foundation of merit.

      --
      ...When in doubt, think for yourself.
  22. Konqueror by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Now it's clear - slashdot is anti-Konqueror site. But why?

  23. How about Kmeleon? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How about Kmeleon?

  24. Galeon is hard to install/upgrade? by swillden · · Score: 1, Redundant

    Not if you have a decent package management system...

    shawn@shawnst21:~$ su
    Password:
    shawnst21:/home/shawn# apt-get install galeon
    Reading Package Lists... Done
    Building Dependency Tree... Done
    The following NEW packages will be installed:
    galeon
    0 packages upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
    Need to get 1902kB of archives. After unpacking 5751kB will be used.
    Get:1 http://non-us.debian.org sid/non-US/main galeon 1.0.3-0.4 [1902kB]
    Fetched 1902kB in 29s (64.6kB/s)
    Preconfiguring packages ...
    Selecting previously deselected package galeon.
    (Reading database ... 90725 files and directories currently installed.)
    Unpacking galeon (from .../galeon_1.0.3-0.4_i386.deb) ...
    Setting up galeon (1.0.3-0.4) ...

    --
    Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
    1. Re:Galeon is hard to install/upgrade? by fferreres · · Score: 1

      I found this post interesting (even though it may be redundant). I am not into Devian, so i have never seen it in action.

      Seems pretty cool though, considering i use Slackware or it's acronim "Selfware" :(

      I really like Slack, but i sometimes miss package management (ie: when i am short on time, or just want to try an app). www.linuxpackages.com is the only thing that saves my day (sometimes).

      Last time i installed Galeon it was a pain in the ass. If i use the binnary pakage i need to install the binary Mozilla. But those binaries are in different locations than the original Slack binaries. So it doesn't work out of the box and it will take you some time to figure it.

      --
      unfinished: (adj.)
    2. Re:Galeon is hard to install/upgrade? by swillden · · Score: 4, Interesting
      You really ought to consider giving Debian a try. I like to build stuff myself on a regular basis, too, but there's also an awful lot of stuff I just want to get installed with minimum hassle.

      The galeon example here wasn't a great one, either, because I (apparently) already had all of the prerequisites installed. What's really cool is bringing up a really basic box that has practically nothing installed on it, and typing "apt-get install kde" (or whatever other large, complex system) and watching it get and install all of X, KDE, etc.

      It's even nice when you want to configure/build yourself. Just "apt-get source galeon" instead and it'll download and unpack the source tree. You then have the option of configure-make-make install or you can look in the debian directory, tweak all of the config params and use "dpkg-buildpackage" to build your own customized installable package that meshes seamlessly with the system. And if there's no debian package available for an app, it's pretty trivial to add your own debian directory to the source tree and build and install a package so that, again, it fits into the system.

      Oh, and don't let all of the "but Debian stable is *ancient*" naysayers discourage you. Just run "testing" or "unstable" and you'll have all of the latest. And don't let the description fool you, "unstable" is very solid. I run "stable" on servers (actually, I'm running "testing" on my servers right now; they're not mission-critical and 3.0 is really close) and "unstable" on my desktops, although when 3.0 is released, I may switch to "testing" on the desktops (i.e. stick with Sid).

      --
      Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
    3. Re:Galeon is hard to install/upgrade? by swillden · · Score: 1

      Care to elaborate?

      --
      Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
    4. Re:Galeon is hard to install/upgrade? by fferreres · · Score: 1

      I may give it a try soon. Is Woody coming along soon?

      My fear about devian is about doing everything in a non-clear fashion (having stuff at odd dirs, special config stuff, etc.).

      --
      unfinished: (adj.)
    5. Re:Galeon is hard to install/upgrade? by swillden · · Score: 1
      Woody is supposed to be released sometime soon. I don't pay much attention. For desktops, I recommend Sid.

      As far as non-clear, well, Debian puts things in reasonably good places, but the lack of clarity comes not so much from unusual placement as the fact that you didn't put it there yourself. The way I see it, that's an unavoidable tradeoff -- if you want to know where everything is, you have to put it there. No matter how logical packagers try to be, their choices will sometimes be different from yours. OTOH, it's easy to find out where stuff got put ("dpkg -L galeon") and you can always customize the package if something really annoys you.

      --
      Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
    6. Re:Galeon is hard to install/upgrade? by tordia · · Score: 1
      Sorry to nitpick, but if you want to "stick with sid", you won't be switching to testing. Sid is always unstable.

      From the debian FAQ: "unstable is a permanent symbolic link to sid, as sid is always the unstable distribution".

      I don't know what testing will be named after woody comes out, but I know it's not going to be sid.

      To avoid all this craziness, I just stick to testing, that way I don't have to worry about release names.

      --

      Frogs are primitive animals - so the occasional extra toe is not that unusual. But this is very unusual.

    7. Re:Galeon is hard to install/upgrade? by fferreres · · Score: 1

      customize the package if something really annoys you

      How do you do it, while keeping the packages unbroken? (i mean, if you install something not via a package, the system does not know it's there. That's what i though at least)

      --
      unfinished: (adj.)
    8. Re:Galeon is hard to install/upgrade? by swillden · · Score: 1

      Right you are. Thanks for correcting me. I was under the mistaken impression that when woody was released, the names would all slide and slinky would become the new unstable (but it will become the new testing).

      --
      Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
    9. Re:Galeon is hard to install/upgrade? by swillden · · Score: 2

      You edit the configuration file that tells dpkg where to install things, then use the command "dpkg-buildpackage" to construct your own .deb package file. Then you install that. It sounds more complicated than it is.

      --
      Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
  25. png/alpha full support by Dante'sPrayer · · Score: 4, Informative

    I found the hability of displaying images with a transparent background and smooth borders a big plus. Right now, the only browsers I know of fully supporting the alpha channel on .png images are Mozilla and Opera 6; Konqueror trims the borders of the image. I don't know if Galeon support png/alpha channel, but given that it uses the Mozilla renderer (Gecko) it maybe does.

    That is the biggest grip that I have about Konqueror; some effects on my home page display somewhat broken.

  26. Internationalization, anyone? by ThinkingGuy · · Score: 5, Informative

    I surf a lot of pages in Japanese. While I've found Netscape sufficient for viewing Japanese (and other double-byte character set) language pages, I've often had trouble getting things like web forms to work (this is on the Linux version).
    One of my biggest disappointments with Opera (which I last tried out about a year ago) was its lack of support for far eastern languages. I hear this has been resolved in newer versions.
    BeOS's NetPositive actually worked the best for me as far as displaying and inputting Japanese.

    Anyway, it would be nice if more of these "browser comparison" articles included internationalization (i18n) along with "speed," "standards compliance," "ease of installation", etc. as one of the features tested.

    1. Re:Internationalization, anyone? by marick · · Score: 1

      I write web software applications for a living, and the company I work for has incorporated i18n support. Japanese is one of our supported languages.

      I've done plenty of testing of this, and IMO, the Japanese support (and yes, even in text input fields) is fine in the latest Mozilla, Galeon, and Netscape 6.2. Why does anybody still use Netscape 4.X anyway?

    2. Re:Internationalization, anyone? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      One of the big improvements in
      Opera 6.0 beta1 just came out a few days ago.
      the opera 6.0 tp3 mentioned in this story's headline is now the older version.

      One of the big improvements was the use of unicode1

      I have seen a few posts from Opera users who say
      that this fixes what was their only reservation
      with Opera.

    3. Re:Internationalization, anyone? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      "One of my biggest disappointments
      with Opera (which I last tried out
      about a year ago) was its lack of
      support for far eastern languages.
      I hear this has been resolved in
      newer versions."

      It has.

      Opera 6.0 beta1 just came out a few days ago.
      the Opera 6.0 tp3 mentioned in the review is
      last most recent version.

      One of the big improvements
      _is_ the use of unicode1 to support
      Asian languages. (also E.european)

      I have seen quite a few posts from Opera
      users who say that this fixes their one reservation with Opera.

    4. Re:Internationalization, anyone? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      While internationalization is nice on Mozilla (I use Windows ver., 0.9.8), I also like to zoom the text. The problem with Mozilla on text zooming on CSS'ed text or international text on web pages is that it doesn't enlargen the line height appropriately, hence rendering lines the overlap with each other.

  27. Table rendering performance by Admiral+Llama · · Score: 5, Interesting

    One area where IE simply trashes Netscape and Mozilla is rendering huge tables. I'm talking about the 1 meg of text variety. Has anyone tried putting the various browers through the paces on this kind of test?

    1. Re:Table rendering performance by Simon+Brooke · · Score: 3, Funny
      One area where IE simply trashes Netscape and Mozilla is rendering huge tables. I'm talking about the 1 meg of text variety. Has anyone tried putting the various browers through the paces on this kind of test?

      If you've got 1 meg of text in a table, you've solved the wrong problem. That's more than a full-length novel.

      --
      I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
    2. Re:Table rendering performance by sultanoslack · · Score: 1

      Yes, I do this for some database applications (interactive SQL through CGI). I normally use Konq for this and I think it's the best on Linux. Netscape was horrible at this, but recent Mozilla builds have been better.

    3. Re:Table rendering performance by Ayende+Rahien · · Score: 1

      Think about outputting data from DB to a table.
      That can very easily became big.
      IE handles that rather well, as well as handling complex, big (400KB) documents well enough.
      My experiance with NS & Mozilla (not lately, though) shows that even on simple & small pages, they have problems, usually the fatal kind.

      --

      --
      Two witches watched two watches.
      Which witch watched which watch?
    4. Re:Table rendering performance by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Mozilla can handle it - it just really bogs down while rendering.

      As for where you see huge amounts of data in tables - check out slashdot.org.

    5. Re:Table rendering performance by Karora · · Score: 1


      IE surely trashed Netscape 4.x in this regard, but Mozilla has passed IE's performance on this some time ago.

      I have an application I have been doing for a client, and IE would just crash for them when they tried to view a table with 20,000 lines in it (they asked for all the results on one page :-) but Mozilla was perfectly happy, rendering the table in around 70 seconds on my PIII 800.

      I have also noticed IE performance to be painfully slow rendering :hover CSS background, but I rarely use IE so I don't know where else it might be better/worse.

      --

      ...heellpppp! I've been captured by little green penguins!
    6. Re:Table rendering performance by SirRichardPumpaloaf · · Score: 1

      The version of IE that ships with Mac OS X is actually terrible at rendering large tables. Loading a page of Slashdot comments in nested mode can easily freeze IE for upwards of thirty seconds if the comments are deeply nested. Mozilla blows IE away in this regard (on OS X), with the prereleases of OmniWeb not much behind. I use OmniWeb because it's so damn pretty, and as a Mac user I'm obviously easily amused by shiny things. :-)

    7. Re:Table rendering performance by Admiral+Llama · · Score: 1

      Ok, well open up about 5 - 10 tabs, each with a 1 meg text table in it. Now watch Mozilla. It can do about 2 without giving the impression of being crashed. Otherwise its time to go for coffee.

  28. Dependencies by tempest303 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    If one uses Ximian Gnome, keeping up with all those "horrible" dependencies is a snap. I understand why it can seem like a pain, but what does the reviewer want? STATIC builds of everything? Screw that. I'll just pop open Red Carpet and grab it all at once, thanks...

  29. Opera needs a full-featured set for Linux by gosand · · Score: 2

    I recently switched from Netscape to Opera on my Windows platform, and I LOVE it. The tabbed windows, the ability to block pop-up windows, and the mouse gestures ROCK. So naturally I downloaded it for my Linux machine (Redhat 7.2). Snooze. I had to switch back to Mozilla in 5 minutes. The features just aren't there. I switched from Netscape 4.7.2, so I am used to not having a robust browser, but Opera on Linux just didn't do it for me. I do most of my browsing on Windows, because Opera on that platform is awesome. They really need to have the same features available in the Linux version.

    --

    My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.

    1. Re:Opera needs a full-featured set for Linux by urmensch · · Score: 1

      try using galeon 1.1.3. it's not as fast as i'd like yet, but it has tabbed browsing, pop-up blocking and gesture navigation.

    2. Re:Opera needs a full-featured set for Linux by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      The tabbed windows, the ability to block pop-up windows, and the mouse gestures
      Aren't all those in Mozilla? tabbed windows and pop-up blocking are builtin, while mouse geasture you can get at http://optimoz.mozdev.org
    3. Re:Opera needs a full-featured set for Linux by belbo · · Score: 3, Interesting

      What features are you referring to? All the features you mentioned are in Opera 6 for Linux (and others are even exclusive to the Linux version).

      I'm using my web browser 10 h a day (work & play), and for me there's simply *nothing* which even remotely compares to the usability and robustness of Opera (yes, I do have the whole bunch installed).
      It's the only program on Linux I ever bought a license for, and looking at the current selection, it likely will hold that position.

      Let's go through them:

      Konqueror: No tabbed browsing. Nuff said. I usually have about ten browser windows open ...

      Mozilla, Netscape & Galeon: I'm an editor in a webboard and that f*cking textarea input bug makes it hardly bearable to use it for that.
      It just shouldn't be that a browser in this day and age inserts text where *it* wants and not where *I* want.
      Cut and paste ... Need I say more? I *have* to use C-c and C-v? Even when cut & pasting from one tab to another? No thanks.

      And no browser I know compares to Opera when it comes to bookmark management, especially with the new search function in 6.0.
      My 2c

      b.

      --

      --
      "Just believe everything I tell you, and it will all be very, very simple."

    4. Re:Opera needs a full-featured set for Linux by Peaker · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Why do people like tabbed Windows?

      Is your window manager not managing Windows well enough?

    5. Re:Opera needs a full-featured set for Linux by Jonny+Ringo · · Score: 1

      You must have been using opera 5 for linux than, because the Opera 6.0 TP3 for linux has all the same features you just mentioned.

      I'm with you Opera is simply the best. I just can't get excited about Mozilla even if it is open source, Opera has seriously set the standard much higher than the other web browsers can reach.

    6. Re:Opera needs a full-featured set for Linux by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well not all of us like having thirty-gazillion windows open all over the place.

      Tabbed browsing is very handy if you're surfing several pages at a time and dont want to spend half an hour looking for that page you were just looking at that contained the secrets of Life, The Universe, & Everything ;-)

    7. Re:Opera needs a full-featured set for Linux by 13Echo · · Score: 1

      I am pretty sure that Opera 6 TP3 has most of the features that you are looking for. It was just released a few days ago. Give it a shot.

    8. Re:Opera needs a full-featured set for Linux by 13Echo · · Score: 1

      Why do you need multiple browser Windows? One isn't enough for pr0n?

    9. Re:Opera needs a full-featured set for Linux by Yosho · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Well, I don't believe it's a case of the window manager not working well enough, but it just not being the right tool for the job -- in Opera, I always have at least eight different pages open, sometimes upwards of a dozen. If these were all shown in the taskbar, the rest of my programs would be crowded into obscurity.

      Not to mention that Opera's one instance in the taskbar function kinda like a control for all of the tabs -- if I suddenly decide I want Opera minimized so I can do something on the desktop, I just click the minimize button. If I have eight pages open in a non-tabbed browser, though, that's eight times I have to click minimize.

      It also makes it very easy to close everything at once -- when I want to shut down a non-tabbed browser, I've got to close every window individually, while I can do it all at once in Opera.

      There's also one other thing I love about Opera that Mozilla can't do yet -- start up with multiple pages. Typically whenever I sit down at the computer, the first thing I'm going to do is quickly check those eight pages. As soon as Opera opens, it begins loading all of them, and I can switch through the tabs at my leisure. In every other browser I'm aware of, though, I have to load them one at a time. (While this is only a small saving grace on a high-bandwidth connection, think about how long you'd have to wait for each individual page to load on a modem...)

      --
      Karma: Terrifying (mostly affected by atrocities you've committed)
    10. Re:Opera needs a full-featured set for Linux by 13Echo · · Score: 1

      Let's not forget that it is totally fast and totally lightweight. That is the most important thing to me. It displays all web pages with the occasional few that force you to use IE. 99.9% of the time, Opera can be successful in pretending to be IE5 or Mozilla, but you get those occasional web pages that are written for one platform and one browser.

      It has way more features and configurability than any other browser out there.

    11. Re:Opera needs a full-featured set for Linux by Peaker · · Score: 2

      That's what I mean by a window manager not functioning well enough.

      I place my browser windows in a single desktop and then my taskbar functions as your tab.

      I really don't see why you want window-management facility from your applications

    12. Re:Opera needs a full-featured set for Linux by Peaker · · Score: 2

      Well, I don't believe it's a case of the window manager not working well enough, but it just not being the right tool for the job -- in Opera, I always have at least eight different pages open, sometimes upwards of a dozen. If these were all shown in the taskbar, the rest of my programs would be crowded into obscurity.

      This means your window manager/taskbar is not doing its job properly.
      I just place my browsing windows in one desktop, and my taskbar in that desktop is equivalent to your browser tab. In other desktops, those windows are not visible.

      Not to mention that Opera's one instance in the taskbar function kinda like a control for all of the tabs -- if I suddenly decide I want Opera minimized so I can do something on the desktop, I just click the minimize button. If I have eight pages open in a non-tabbed browser, though, that's eight times I have to click minimize.

      Why don't you just switch desktops? Its at least as easy..

      It also makes it very easy to close everything at once -- when I want to shut down a non-tabbed browser, I've got to close every window individually, while I can do it all at once in Opera.

      This is an interesting function for window managers: Close all of current desktop's windows.
      This is a lack of functionality in all window managers, more than it is a good feature of a specific application.

      There's also one other thing I love about Opera that Mozilla can't do yet -- start up with multiple pages. Typically whenever I sit down at the computer, the first thing I'm going to do is quickly check those eight pages. As soon as Opera opens, it begins loading all of them, and I can switch through the tabs at my leisure. In every other browser I'm aware of, though, I have to load them one at a time. (While this is only a small saving grace on a high-bandwidth connection, think about how long you'd have to wait for each individual page to load on a modem...)

      Having a persistent environment of documents is an interesting feature, but its not really associated with tabbed browsing.

      I'm not sure, but wouldn't "Saving the session" in KDE re-load all the Konqueror windows in the same pages they were?

      What I mean to say here is, tabbed-windows is just an attempt to implement some features that really belong in your window manager, where all apps can enjoy them.

      In the Window manager, you can also associate documents/windows of any type and function together, rather than of one specific application.

    13. Re:Opera needs a full-featured set for Linux by AirP · · Score: 1

      It's pretty close to being as nice as Opera, but the shortcuts for bookmarks are really nice, I enjoy writting BOB in the url and getting to my friends site, or typing crap and I show up at microsoft.com. To my knowledge none of the other webbrowsers do this.... A simple feature that just makes browsing so much easyer, no more running thru the bookmarks to get what I want....

    14. Re:Opera needs a full-featured set for Linux by mudshark · · Score: 1

      People who haven't browsed in an MDI environment just don't get it. But to me, it's one of the coolest things about Opera. The ability to fire up my "morning five" and flip back and forth among them is superb.

      Why should this functionality be relegated to the window manager? Other apps have MDI - word processors, graphical editors, IDEs - why should I need to spawn yet another browser instance just to open a new page?

      There's an even cooler twist to Opera's implementation: crash-proofing. We have a god-awful static problem in my office, and if I forget to touch my ground wire before my magnesium-encased notebook, Bad Things can happen. A couple of times the whole thing has simply shut down hard. But when it finishes fscking and comes back up and I start Opera, it asks me if I'd like to continue the interrupted session as they were left. This can save oodles of time on searches.

      Brilliant.

      --
      In other news, astrophysicists have announced that they now know what all that dark matter is: it's stupidity.
    15. Re:Opera needs a full-featured set for Linux by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      they are coming.
      If you don't like Opera .
      Wait a while it will change....
      for the better!

    16. Re:Opera needs a full-featured set for Linux by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "I am pretty sure that Opera 6 TP3 has most of the features that you are looking for. It was just released a few days ago"

      TP3 was the last version.
      Opera 6.0 Beta 1 was the version just released a
      few days ago.

    17. Re:Opera needs a full-featured set for Linux by gosand · · Score: 3, Informative
      OK, looks like I need to make sure I have the latest version of Opera for Linux.

      Another thing I like about the mouse gestures in combination with tabbed windows is being able to open a link in another window in the background. (right click on link, move mouse down, up, release button). For reading /., this is great, as I can open up the stories I want to read in their own windows as I am browsing, then go back and read them.

      --

      My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.

    18. Re:Opera needs a full-featured set for Linux by maxpublic · · Score: 1

      I really don't see why you want window-management facility from your applications

      Personal preference. You want to do things by switching desktops, I'd rather do it from inside the app. Neither method is inherently superior to the other.

      Max

      --
      My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
    19. Re:Opera needs a full-featured set for Linux by Kwil · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I just place my browsing windows in one desktop, and my taskbar in that desktop is equivalent to your browser tab. In other desktops, those windows are not visible.


      Linux using elitist. :-)

      Some of us don't have the luxury of multiple desktops - in which case Opera's ability to have multi-tabbed windows is a mind saver.

      --

      That Jesus Christ guy is getting some terrible lag... it took him 3 days to respawn! -NJ CoolBreeze

    20. Re:Opera needs a full-featured set for Linux by jKelloggs · · Score: 1

      What standard are you talking about? Opera 6 has very little support for DOM2/DHTML/XML as opposed to Mozilla (and Konqueror / IE for that matter).

      Lately I have realized that in Linux there is no all-in-one browser, like IE for Windows. I find myself using all three browsers during a daytime, but for different purposes, like: Opera for conventional webpage browsing and Mozilla for accessing pages and web based applications because of the scripting support.

      Mozilla is probably the browser for Linux that has the best and most complete support for a wide range of W3C recommendeds standards - but the the price we are paying for this is performance. Opera, on the other hand, is the fastest and most elegant, and the reason seems to be that the Opera folks have left out a number of the features that make Mozilla heavy.

    21. Re:Opera needs a full-featured set for Linux by Peaker · · Score: 2

      Switching desktops is inherently superior because it works for all apps while switching inside the apps only works for apps that support it, and works inconsistently across apps.

  30. one of my favorites is 'links' (not 'lynx') by keithmoore · · Score: 3, Informative
    it's pure text-based, but it supports tables and a mouse (in xterm, anyway). and it's *fast*.

    no java, javascript, cookies, or any of that crap. so it's not good for everything, but when you just want fast access to stuff that is mostly text, or if you're trying to read a site that is too busy (maybe because it's slashdotted), it's a winner.

    http://artax.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~mikulas/links/

    1. Re:one of my favorites is 'links' (not 'lynx') by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      * links for text browsing.
      * dillo for most graphical browsing.
      * galeon for heavyweight, slow browsing.
      And all needs are met, life is good. Works for me on a PII/266.

    2. Re:one of my favorites is 'links' (not 'lynx') by fferreres · · Score: 1

      There's a Lynx fork right now, which will bring javascript, tables, etc to lynx.

      You may not like Javascript, but some times the end result if you are forced to go GUI because of it. I'd love to stay at the command line some times...

      --
      unfinished: (adj.)
    3. Re:one of my favorites is 'links' (not 'lynx') by orabidoo · · Score: 2
      i actually like lynx better than links (and use it for most of my article reading, including /.), because it *doesn't* support tables.

      when you're reading a text article in a terminal window, you (well, at least *I*) don't want navigation bars at the left or right. i want a full screen of text. lynx, by turning <tr> into linebreaks and <td> into space, lets you browse like this: skip the first few pages of nav junk with a few spacebar hits, and then read the article without anything else cluttering the window.

    4. Re:one of my favorites is 'links' (not 'lynx') by WWWWolf · · Score: 2

      One of the things that bug me in Links is the mouse support. I liked Lynx before it make the disabling of xterm mouse support Painful!

      (I don't want any of this silly mouse clickin' action, especially if it interferes with xterm cut-and-paste!)

      For textual browsing, I prefer w3m.

  31. Please... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The only web browser I even think about using on my Linux computer is Konqueror.

    1. Re:Please... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well that's you now isn't it?

  32. I have to go with galeon by Ixe · · Score: 1

    Though I have had one or two slight issues with pages not working right (they didn't work with konqueror either sorry, had to use mozilla, which I think is a little too fat of a program IMHO) I just love the nice slick interface of galeon mainly having the checks for allowing popups or java/javascript right on the settings menu as well as the option for the lil bar with the text boxes at the top with google, rpmfind, etc etc.

    Though despite my GUI addictions I use lynx weekly for various reasons and hold nothing against text browers. BTW I never was 1337 enough to think of using telnet on port 80 thx for the idea ;)

    --
    Sigs pose an operational security risk and help the baddies aggregate data. I guess commenting does too, oops.
  33. Mozilla all the way .. by TheViffer · · Score: 5, Interesting

    may not be the best, but with there latest security options, it makes live nice.

    Go into

    Edit>Preferences>Advanced>Scripts & Windows

    and uncheck "open unrequested windows"

    The pop-up nightmare has ended!

    Not saying other browsers cant do this, but if they can't, they will be real soon.

    Now I am just waiting for the "block these sites" style of entry which can be seeded by a downloaded file to block ad servers.

    --
    -- Knowing too much can get you killed, but knowing who knows too much can make you rich.
    1. Re:Mozilla all the way .. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Dude! You say "Mozilla all the way," then say that it "might not be the best," and make a completely half ass argument for Mozilla!

      Who the hell modded parent up?

    2. Re:Mozilla all the way .. by inerte · · Score: 1

      Opera, at least for Windows, has it since version 5.0.

    3. Re:Mozilla all the way .. by fferreres · · Score: 1

      I better like Galeon's feature "Open pop-up in tab". So eventually, you don't miss any important pop-up (something that's part of the website, like send-by-email pop-up for example).

      The advantage is that a pop-up NEVER steals your sight from what you are reading. And you can close uncalled tabs without opening them if you really want.

      It's so undisturbing i just find it years better to just block them. Plus, you help the site sell more adds (which i know is a Good Thing since many good sites depend on them and i don't want them to close).

      Bottom line: I watch the adds of the sites i want, when i want and IF i want. And i don't lose content/features pop-ups.

      --
      unfinished: (adj.)
    4. Re:Mozilla all the way .. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Now I am just waiting for the "block these sites" style of entry which can be seeded by a downloaded file to block ad servers.

      Trying to save $5.00 on a slashdot subscription?

    5. Re:Mozilla all the way .. by Dante'sPrayer · · Score: 1
      Mozilla 0.9.8:
      • Preferences->Navigator->Tabbed Browsing->Tab Display->Load links in the background
      • and Preferences->Navigator->Tabbed Browsing->Open tabs instead of windows for->Windows opened by the web page
    6. Re:Mozilla all the way .. by Wolfier · · Score: 2

      Is it propaganda or what.

      Why are some options always get labelled as "Advanced"? To scare them off so they don't use it?

      I'd suggest renaming them as "More".

    7. Re:Mozilla all the way .. by fferreres · · Score: 1

      The point was to explain why for me opening pop-ups in a tab is better than plain blocking them. Not endorsing Galeon (which i usuualy do :-)

      I mean, there are tons of features, but this ones is just great. Every browser could benefit from it.

      --
      unfinished: (adj.)
    8. Re:Mozilla all the way .. by Hoonis · · Score: 1

      right click the image, "block images from this server". You can go into the prefs and add sites/remove them, probably just a text file, so you could also seed it as you describe

    9. Re:Mozilla all the way .. by Dante'sPrayer · · Score: 1

      Yep, and the point was just how to make the same thing on Mozilla. No offense attempted.

    10. Re:Mozilla all the way .. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Absolutely. Blocking ad servers is a the best part about Mozilla. Now, whenever I go back to IE, I go into seizures because of the ads and pop ups.

    11. Re:Mozilla all the way .. by AirP · · Score: 1

      Opera has that plus bookmark shortcuts that allows you to type the shortcut name in for the address and get to that specified bookmark, very handy and you don't have to screw around with the bookmark folders anymore.

    12. Re:Mozilla all the way .. by 42forty-two42 · · Score: 1
      Now I am just waiting for the "block these sites" style of entry which can be seeded by a downloaded file to block ad servers.

      Take three parts perl and one part iptables. Mix thouroughly. Serves 1.

    13. Re:Mozilla all the way .. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      For some reason that setting broke an applicaiton I was working on that uses "requested" (onClick) popup windows. The setting should be sorta of hidden because it potentially is a support issue.

      Also keep in mind that the first big site that to use popup ads was netscape.com.

    14. Re:Mozilla all the way .. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      >Now I am just waiting for the "block these >sites" style of entry which can be seeded by a >downloaded file to block ad servers.

      Until this day comes, check out the

      "junkbuster" http proxy. (Free, and open
      source for Linux and Windows). VERY configurable

      for blocking servers, or subsets of pages

      f
      From particular server, using regexp matching.

      Blocks cookies the same way, though I think

      coookies set through javascript still get

      through.

      http://www.junkbuster.org

    15. Re:Mozilla all the way .. by llamalicious · · Score: 2

      I'll redundantly post that Opera supports turning off this feature (but only globally, there's no option to specify disabling of the feature only on load/unload of a page. I still like to popup windows from an anchor tag, thankyouverymuch)

      The other privacy feature of Opera I like is the ability to disable referrer logging.

    16. Re:Mozilla all the way .. by Evil+Attraction · · Score: 1
      And while you're at it, you should really uncheck the following items;
      • Move or resize existing windows; I want to have multiple windows open on my desktop all the time. If I want my browser to go to fullscreen or move it around, then it's my decision, not the developer of the visiting web page.
      • Raise or lower windows; What is this? I really can't imagine that it is what it says, 'cause I don't see any purpose. Anyway - as with the previous point - I appreciate your effort in helping me, but I would rather do this myself. This time and forever.
      • Change status bar text; Doh! All those porn sites change the status bar text so that it seems like you're about to visit an image gallery site when you hover the link. However, after you click it, you seem to end up in a never-ending popup browser nightmare.
      I don't mind about those cookies etc. If anyone want to surveillance my surfing habits, go ahead. I guess they'll get pretty bored after a few weeks anyway.

      I have used Opera a lot, and I like the browser, but you can't turn off only unrequested popups there. That's a shame. Instead, you can turn off all the popups. I don't want to do that. There are in fact popus out there I want to pop up. Really!

      So - in the end; I'm sitting here with Mozzilla 0.9.8, and I'm very satisfied. The Linux version seems a bit more stable than the Windows version, but I don't care. This is 0.9.8 after all.

      I'm really looking forward to the Mozilla 1.0 release, so keep ut the good work!

      --
      Evil Attraction
    17. Re:Mozilla all the way .. by jesser · · Score: 1

      For some reason that setting broke an applicaiton I was working on that uses "requested" (onClick) popup windows.

      That sounds like a Mozilla bug. Please file a bug and include a small bit of code that demonstrates the problem. Also, I'd appreciate it if you would reply to this comment with the bug number.

      --
      The shareholder is always right.
  34. Dependancies by gorf · · Score: 1

    Galeon is a small download but can be difficult to upgrade due to its Mozilla and GNOME dependencies.

    Dependancy problems? I don't think that's an issue which should affect Galeon at all. Dependancies are supposed to be sorted out by the package management system; problems with dependancies is a failure of the package management system (or the distribution) and not that of any individual client program. (I note here that galeon is currently in Debian woody and installs without problems)

    In fact, all that a large number of dependancies really means is that the programmers are re-using a lot of code, which is generally considered to be a Good Thing.

    1. Re:Dependancies by fferreres · · Score: 1

      True. But many people give up on Galeon because of that. Just to many dependancies AND asumptions. For example, you (at least before) had to open mozilla at least once before using Galeon, and add an path var (MOZILLA_FIVE_HOME) if mozilla was not at default location.

      I use Galeon, but a single package would be GREAT. Hopefully, now that most of Mozilla is LPGL (i think) and it's reaching maturity, will see that.

      --
      unfinished: (adj.)
  35. Here's the deal: by Anonynnous+Coward · · Score: 1
    - The *AA have the money to buy the legislation.
    - Intel supports the idea of locking you out of your own machine, just not the law to require it.

    The answer? Stock up on the best machines you can afford now, before the ban. And make them AMDs.

  36. Konqueror failure - how does Redhat package it? by Snowfox · · Score: 3, Insightful
    The author stated that attempting to install Konqueror required that he install all of the KDE environment, and that it damaged his machine.

    Does Redhat not package the KDE environment in pieces? If not - why not?

    With other distributions, it's been possible to install Konqueror and just the base KDE libraries for quite a long time. You should be able to fit all that you need on a handful of floppies - not a tens-of-megs RPM as the author claims.

    1. Re:Konqueror failure - how does Redhat package it? by bero-rh · · Score: 3, Informative

      Does Redhat not package the KDE environment in pieces? If not - why not?

      We do. kdelibs+kdebase is enough to run Konqueror.
      We aren't splitting things up even more (like, maybe, splitting kcontrol off kdebase) mostly to keep a "ls *.rpm" tree you can bear to look at, and also to save translation cost for package descriptions.

      --
      This message is provided under the terms outlined at http://www.bero.org/terms.html
    2. Re:Konqueror failure - how does Redhat package it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "The author stated that attempting to install Konqueror required that he install all of the KDE environment, and that it damaged his machine."

      The author is damaged int the head, obviously.

  37. New Opera by srichman · · Score: 2, Informative
    the premier Linux browsers are Galeon 1.0.3, Mozilla 0.9.8 and Opera 6.0 TP3
    FYI, Technology Preview 3 is no longer the current version of Opera for Linux. They recently released 6.0 Beta 1.
  38. Re:You guys are all crazy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Netscape 4.x is actually pretty stable under Windows, but not Linux. 6.x just plain sucks a large turd.

  39. Problems upgrading KDE?? by Vajsvarana · · Score: 1

    Under SuSE 7.2:
    1. download all upgraded RPMs from ftp.suse.com.
    2. rpm -U *.rpm
    3. SuSEconfig
    4. enjoy

    Please don't blame KDE for your distribution's packaging errors.

    1. Re:Problems upgrading KDE?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh, don't be an idiot. It's just as easy to do exactly the same thing with RH (a lot easier, since SuSE generally sits on their ass and doesn't release ISOs -- IMHO, because they're money-grubbing jerks). This guy probably tried installing the source from the KDE project, which _is_ a good way to screw up your system.

    2. Re:Problems upgrading KDE?? by Vajsvarana · · Score: 1

      > Oh, don't be an idiot.
      Ok, I'll try :)

      > It's just as easy to do exactly the same thing with RH
      Tried: kdm hangs, ksycoca and Desktop corrupted.

      > a lot easier, since SuSE generally sits on their ass and doesn't release ISOs
      Having the installation ISOs shoud make upgrading "much easier"? Do you know what you're speaking about??

      > IMHO, because they're money-grubbing jerks
      Of course, of course... while RedHat is a Holy Charity...

      > This guy probably tried installing the source from the KDE project
      Read The F...ine Article:
      "After downloading 37 rpm files totaling 69 MB, the upgrade destroyed my system!"

      You could sure build a better Troll... try again.

  40. Re:You guys are all crazy by SyntheticTruth · · Score: 1

    I realize this is a troll, most likely...

    But IE has not stablity problems?

    Do [Dial Up|Cable] tech support sometime and keep track of IE issues, bad .dlls, and other general nastiness. In my experience, using both *nix on the desktop (FreeBSD, Linux) and Windows -- they *all* crash and burn.

    For the record, I prefer Konq on Linux, Moz on FreeBSD, and I have a choice in Windows these days? ;)

  41. missing pieces by futuresheep · · Score: 3, Interesting

    What about 128-bit support for online transactions? Ease of installing plugins?

  42. VIEW SOURCE is a necessity - mozilla loses by mgkimsal2 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    There was a linuxjournal article last month comparing many browsers and their ability to handle ssl, printing, etc. I don't think this is the same article (can anyone verify that?).

    Anyway, on to my flamebait of a title. Most geeks are developers of some sort, and need to see 'under the hood'. Yeah, you've got source code, but if you're a webmonkey, you need to see the source of the page you're one. That's usually not possible in Mozilla or Netscape if you've POSTed stuff. As much as I'd like to use Mozilla for everything all the time (once it speeds up just a bit more!) I can't - I have to use something else (IE, Konqueror, depending on platform). Why the heck isn't this fixed YET? I see we can get MathML builds, but something as basic as this STILL isn't addressed.

    "Go code it yourself" is an answer I feel coming on from someone, but you and I both know it's not a realistic solution. :)

    1. Re:VIEW SOURCE is a necessity - mozilla loses by Christianfreak · · Score: 2

      I agree whole heartedly. The problem seems to be that when you do view source that Moz reloads the page without the posted material... I can't understand why it doesn't just show what it just parsed like NS 4 does.

      Thats the sad thing. I still keep NS4 around, even though it renders like crap it can show me the full output of my CGI scripts, syntax highlighted and detection of some HTML errors.

    2. Re:VIEW SOURCE is a necessity - mozilla loses by mr3038 · · Score: 2

      In case you think your copy of Mozilla supports view source correctly you might want to try this. Just click Go! and select view source. Does the source look like it belongs to page you're viewing? Please don't go to bug #55583 unless you really have to. We don't want bugzilla to be slashdotted again.

      --
      _________________________
      Spelling and grammar mistakes left as an exercise for the reader.
  43. Mozilla 0.98? by mrm677 · · Score: 1

    That's funny. Mozilla 0.98 crashes on me constantly on Linux. Mozilla 0.96 is as stable as a rock. Anyone else seeing this behavior?

    1. Re:Mozilla 0.98? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      All the version since 9.6 have been "crashy" on Windows and Linux. Personally I only use 9.6 now.

    2. Re:Mozilla 0.98? by Christianfreak · · Score: 2

      I have trouble with it too. It doesn't crash but it does strange things. It keeps shifting pieces of the page over about 2 pixels.

      Chatzilla crashes.... very strange. I love .97. I guess here's hoping .99 will be better.

  44. Well the fastest is probably... by Sits · · Score: 2, Informative

    Dilo if you don't mind imperfect rendering (doesn't do frames yet).

    If you don't mind having a text only interface, Lynx and Links are both good and surprisingly functional.

    Of course fast does not necessarily imply best but it's a welcome addition.

    1. Re:Well the fastest is probably... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'd say that dillo is on the order of twenty times as fast as the mozilla rendering widget (when mozilla is compiled without debugging crap, of course -- the precompiled versions of mozilla are awful).

      I wish that the GNOME project would adopt dillo as their help viewer. The current one is ugly, slow, and unstable. Dillo is small, fast, launches almost instantly, and kicks the shit out of gnome-help-browser.

  45. Minimal dependencies?! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    When's the last time you tried to instal galeon on solaris, or, let me say that as when is the last time you installed gnome properly on solaris (and the sun package is crap -- I'm talking compiling baby -- 3 days of tracking down every dependency in your spare time)

    That is *not* minimal dependencies. If there is one thing kde got right, it's having all the depencies right in the source package, rather than scattered across the world.

  46. What was he using as the desktop? by Sits · · Score: 1

    Obviously, if he was using KDE then of course Konqueror will start quickly but if it was Gnome it's difficult to be beat Galeon.

    Was he using one of the major desktop environments (which would have had various libraries preloaded) or was he using something neutral?

  47. Huh? by cjpez · · Score: 2

    I've been using Mozilla since M18, and I've never had any problems viewing page source . . . Back then it wasn't colorized, but it worked. So what's broken?

  48. article review.. by mark_lybarger · · Score: 1

    I found the article very hard to follow for a technical comparison type article. The feature comparison jumped out as something the reader shouldn't need to read through heaps of comentaries on. A more tablular or bulleted format would be easier to sift through. also statements such as "the Web browser still has a few problems, is lacking in features, and its upgrade options are very limited." regarding knoqueror without any further overview of what those problems/lacking features/limited upgrade options are would be extremely beneficial to the reader. i realize the author delved into his personal horror story of a kde upgrade attempt on a rh 7.1 box, but that's more a redhat issue than a kde issue. has anyone experienced "dependancy hell" installing kde upgrades from source? i know it can be pretty challenging for some folks, "./configure && make && make install" is really all it takes (though there are better ways, this is probalby the easiest). next, on the latest version. the latest stable version that i am aware of for konqueror is 2.2.2. that's one point, point release away from what the author of the article is using. somewhere in the article, surely the author points out the most current version of kde as of writing? i couldn't find it.

    one other thing, when that author begins with.. I use Evolution for Email and I needed advanced Web download facilities.>i>

    i don't use evolution for email. could someone explain the corelation between using theis email product and requiring advanced web download facilities? and what are advanced web download facilities? aren't most downloads from the web? the advnaced features i can think of are, download resume from a partial download. maybe drag n drop download. i guess this is what turned me off from the start.

  49. load/rendering times and java by theCURE · · Score: 1


    One of the cool things about this review is the load and rendering charts. It's cool to see that sort of information since i'm so impatient. While i see that this is an OS dependant article, comparing the load/rendering times to IE would have been interesting. Another issue to bring up is java. Any browser that chokes on a java app or javascript gets a big thumbs down. I don't think they stress that point enough. I don't want to spawn a different browser to go to a site just because it has java on it. I want to completely configure one browser, and have it work everytime. It doesn't need to manage my email and do all of my accounting, just browse everything, as fast as possible with little or no errors.

    --
    "i can never say no to anyone but you"
  50. shacknews comment rendering? by MoNsTeR · · Score: 2

    I have but one question...

    Will ANY of these browsers render the Shacknews comments system (in threaded mode) correctly? There's no way I can use anything but IE so long as that's the only browser that Shacks correctly...

    Yes I realize it's as much a problem with the 'shack as it is with these browsers, but that makes no practical difference.

  51. Ok...lets get the order right... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    > == "Is better than"

    >= == "Is better than or on par with

    Internet Explorer > Konqueror > Mozilla >= Netscape 6.x >= Galeon > Netscape 4.x > Links > Lynx > Emacs > Telnet

    This chart right in all cases. If you ever forget which browser is better than which, you can consult this post.

    Your's truly,
    Anonymous Coward #554861

  52. Still more customization would be nice by EatAtJoes · · Score: 1

    I still don't understand why browsers don't offer more domain-specific customization.

    Pop ups are a good example. For certain sites I need all of the javascript and pop-ups to work: online banking, or retail catalog sites where the only blowups available for a picture are in pop-up screens.

    But for ANY other sites I want it all turned off. No browser offers this, yet I imagine it would be easy to implement.

    Looking for this I've tried Moz, Opera, Konq (not Galeon cuz too many dependencies). The first to implement this gets my vote.

    Stuart

    1. Re:Still more customization would be nice by aliens · · Score: 1

      With Konq, you can have the option asking if you want to open the popup, sure it's just as many clicks to close the dialog as it is to close a popup, but at least it won't download and render and the dialog is always right in front of you.
      I've been using Konq (without the rest of KDE) as my web browser and file manager for sometime now and have been very pleased with it. It was only a few days ago that I installed Rox-Filer and the newest galeon, which is alittle faster than Konq in my experience. AA Fonts work much better with KDE apps than GTK+(constant crashes)

      --
      -- taking over the world, we are.
    2. Re:Still more customization would be nice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Internet Explorer does this -- you are just limited to 2-3 site "zones" (which is annoying). My setup is "Internet" = All Script/ActiveX/Cookies turned off and "Trusted" = Everything turned on.

      It would be nice to see someone copy the feature and expand on it. As pointed out, the infrastructure exists in Mozilla, but the interface is a PITA.

  53. Mozilla? Doubt it... by pongo000 · · Score: 2

    I've yet to be able to make a complete build of Mozilla, and the binaries don't seem to like my glibc versions. I suppose if one has the latest/greatest version of RH, Mozilla is fantastic. But shouldn't I be able to build Mozilla on any Linux platform (such as my heavily-modified SuSE box), given the prerequisite libs are present?

    There still seem to be serious issues with the Mozilla build tree for some of us. I realize for every one of me, there will be a you who sez "Hey, luser, Mozilla builds just fine for me." Thing here is that Mozilla should build fine for everyone.

  54. Konqueror is not a renderer. by secondsun · · Score: 2, Informative

    Yes Konqueror is used as a webbrowser, but the renderer is called khtml. Konqueror is the pane that the different kparts embed into. It is possible, has been done, and isn't a bad idea to use mozilla inside of konqueror to render webpages (now there are some benchmarks I would like to see.)

    --
    There is nothing wrong with being gay. It's getting caught where the trouble lies.
  55. Phooey... by pongo000 · · Score: 2

    The best damn browser is still Lynx, hands down! Why not live in the fast lane?

    1. Re:Phooey... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You obviously havn't tried links.

  56. Has anyone tried Arena? It's not based on Mosaic, and it's got support for HTML3. It's not quite up to 3.2 yet but maybe it'd be good enough for simple stuff. Here's your link...

  57. Konquerer should get a lot better soon by pointwood · · Score: 5, Informative

    As can be read in the KDE3 beta2 announcement, Konqueror in KDE3 should be a lot better than the KDE2 version. Here is the quote:

    "One of the major improvements brought by KDE 3.0 over KDE 2.2 is the Javascript/DHTML support in Konqueror," stated David Faure, a Konqueror and KOffice developer. "The DOM 2 model, used to render an HTML page, is now mostly implemented, and changes to the DOM tree are handled much better. The Javascript bindings and support is almost complete, faster and more stable than in KDE 2. These changes result in a much-improved rendering of dynamic websites and is something users will immediately appreciate."

    IIRC, the tabbed browsing feature is planned for KDE 3.1.

  58. CVS Mozilla User by fire-eyes · · Score: 1

    I've been using CVS Mozilla for the past few months. I love it. The only problem with Mozilla is it's resource intensive, i'd say a 333MHz machine is the use/don't bother border line.

    --
    -- Note: If you don't agree with me, don't bother replying. I won't read it.
  59. Stand-alone or Integrated ? by InodoroPereyra · · Score: 1

    IMHO, the two big Linux browsers are Mozilla and Konqueror. The former is a stand-alone, pretty much desktop independent browser, and the latter is extremely well integrated with a particular desktop (KDE).

    It looks to me that the article is biased towards the stand-alone approach. I use KDE and prefer Konqueror. It does all I need (web browsing, some file management, man page browsing, embeds ps, embeds pdfs, etc.), and it does it fast and well. It's intuitive if you use KDE. My wife, on the other hand, uses GNOME, and Mozilla is a better bet for her. She can manage chat, email, web browsing, etc. from the same app. And she doesn't care if it the fastest browser in the Universe.

    The bottom line to me is: Mozilla will be the biggest shot because it fits pretty much any possible user. And Konqueror will be the choice for mant KDE users.

    My 2 cts.
    -- Don Inodoro

  60. Well, I use the mail part" by Ripat · · Score: 1

    Well, I use the mailpart in mozilla, and I certainly want to keep it.

    It's very nice to be able to use the same mail client with the same settings on different platforms.

    /Ripat

  61. Re:You guys are all crazy by Cap'n+enigma · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Okay fine, I can accept being crazy if you can live with being an idiot.

  62. Konqueror and tabbed browsing by Brian+Knotts · · Score: 2
  63. Yeah... by Greyfox · · Score: 2
    I recently wiped RedHat off my system and installed Debian at home. Upgrading the system is easy and I don't have to worry about hunting a big batch of RPMs to resolve dependencies when I want to install something new. And I can use alien to put .RPM and binary .tar distributions into the package management system.

    The upshot of all that is I don't have to worry about dependencies or the difficulty of downloading and installing an app and I don't have to worry about keeping it current. That's a pretty big win in my book (I think RedHat has some auto-updater stuff available but I've never been able to locate any documentation about it.)

    --

    I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?

    1. Re:Yeah... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > The upshot of all that is I don't have to worry about dependencies or the difficulty of downloading and installing an app and I don't have to worry about keeping it current. That's a pretty big win in my book (I think RedHat has some auto-updater stuff available but I've never been able to locate any documentation about it.)

      What you were looking for was Connectiva's version of apt-get that worked with .rpm files and an .rpm file repository. Check around, many folks have used it.

      Also, urpm is supposed to have the same functionality at resolving dependencies as apt.

  64. I hate apt by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I tried apt a while ago. I use rpm, but I like doing some things via tarball (like the kernel). So I use rpm for 99% of my stuff, and just run rpm with --nodeps for the few things that want the kernel to be there, like glibc.

    apt doesn't like this in the least. AFAIK, it *will not allow me to ignore dependencies*. If you go apt, you have to go entirely apt, and not use any tarball stuff at all. That pisses me off -- I know what I need better than apt does -- it's free to suggest stuff, but I want to make my own decisions. If I thought otherwise, I'd be using MS products.

    So, I haven't used .debs and they could be fine. And maybe there's some secret feature in apt that I missed. But, from my experience, apt just sucks, and rpm works wonderfully. That experience also taught me that I'll never use Debian as long as I live, since AFAIK Debian implies the use of apt.

    1. Re:I hate apt by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      apt /= rpm. rpm's equivalent in debian is dpkg.

      Read the documentation and you'd know this,

      apt is designed to automatically get all dependencies. If you don't want the dependencies, just download the pacakge, and then
      dpkg -i --force-depends

      I hate replying to trolls, but people trashing Debian on the basis of not having a clue really pisses me off sometimes

  65. Give credit where it's due ! by kigrwik · · Score: 4, Informative

    Konqueror is *not* a web browser.

    kHTML is.

    Konqueror is a mostly empty shell that wraps around components that use the KPart architecture to display context-dependent widgets/menuitems, or kio_slaves that provide a filesystem-like display of stuffs.
    Konqueror technically has the ability of embedding mozilla through the kMozilla component.

    But then, you can also view DivX, PS, PDF (through KParts), browse an audio CD (and rip in .ogg or .wav with a simple drag n' drop (including freedb.org querying)), your POP3 account (possibly still in development) in Konqueror, and lots of other things (through KIO).

    Actually, Konqueror is what looks most like the good old Unix philosophy of small tools:
    "cat slashdot.org | kHTML | Konqueror"

    Besides, with anti-aliased fonts, it's truly gorgeous !

    --
    -- don't discount flying pigs until you have good air defense
  66. Parent is flamebait by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "Galeon may only be a web browser, but so is Konqueror, except due to the powerful KDE technology Konqueror is based on, Konqueror is more powerful"

    Good grief.

  67. Opera has 2 nice features that sets it apart. by AirP · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Opera has a few features that I think that sets it apart from the other browsers(I may be wrong though...). Mouse Gestures... I sometimes get tired of having to go hit the back button, the forward button and so on and so on... I can hold the Right Mouse Button and then hit the Left Button and I go back, I do the opposite to go forward. I can go over a link, right click and pull downward and it opens the link in a new window. The Bookmark Shortcuts... You can give a bookmark a shortcut name so now, instead of going into bookmarks, you could just put your shortcut name for the url. These are 2 features I'm amazed that no one else has done yet and something that I think sets Opera apart from the rest.

    1. Re:Opera has 2 nice features that sets it apart. by Mike+Shaver · · Score: 2

      It would be more amazing if only Opera did that, I think. =)

      Mozilla's had bookmark keywords for ages and ages (including parameterization, see http://www.google.ca/mozilla/google-search.html), and Galeon has that need parameterized-toolbar studd.

      The mozgest guys have some great gesture bits available for installation, too: http://optimoz.mozdev.org/gestures/.

    2. Re:Opera has 2 nice features that sets it apart. by Mike+Shaver · · Score: 1

      "that need parameterized-toolbar studd", indeed. Neat parameterized-toolbar stuff. Ahem. Please send sleep.

  68. Konqueror -- the distro's desktop by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    The easiest way to upgrade KDE is to wait until your distro with the user friendly install comes out with a new version.

    Unless someone knows of a userfriendly installer/upgrader for KDE? Something that ensures dependencies are satisfied and installs everything the correct order? I thought once-upon-a-time someone was working on this, but it doesn't seem to have materialized.

  69. Re:Mozilla? Doubt it... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Should work for "everyone," even if you don't have the right libs?
    Yes, doggone it, Mozilla must be able to run on Redhat 2.0 and Suse 1.0, or it sucks!

  70. dild^hlo, you forgot the best browser! DILLO by tarzeau · · Score: 0
    runs even fine on a sparc classic, 32 mb system memory and 8bit graphics!

    dillo homepage

    yeah my absolute favourite! faster than opera!

    links is a nice browser too btw

    and and if you just need porn, you don't need a browser but porn-get

    --
    Windoze not found: (C)heer, (P)arty or (D)ance
  71. But hasn't he even a small point there? by Pac · · Score: 2

    I am not much of a GNOME user, for some reason or another I always find that I can make KDE run faster and I know exactly how to configure it to match my taste.

    But a week or two ago I decided to upgrade the GNOME in my machine to give it another try. So I launched Red Carpet, subscribed to the Ximian channel, checked every checkbox and let it run. After a couple of unattended hours I had Gnome upgraded. KDE, on the other hand, requires a lot more work.I think that at this point, a piece of software of KDE's importance should really have a very visible and easy to use upgrade utility (as a sidenote, I am still using KDE. GNOME Ximian is good and pretty, but KDE is still better for me).

    As for the features, you may be right about some (like the sidebars, the first thing I make disappear every time I install Mozilla), but I feel that you should not generalize, either we would all be still using Lynx... Tabbed browsing, for instance, is something I can barely live without at this point. When I have to use IE I find it very annoying having to open a new window every time I need to see a new page.

    My two last complains about Mozilla are its loading time (an eternity under Linux compared to the same version in the same machine under Windows 2000) and the fact that I can't save a whole bunch of tabbed URLs under the same bookmark name. Once these are there, I would probably have found my browser forever.

    1. Re:But hasn't he even a small point there? by isorox · · Score: 2

      But a week or two ago I decided to upgrade the GNOME in my machine to give it another try. So I launched Red Carpet, subscribed to the Ximian channel, checked every checkbox and let it run. After a couple of unattended hours I had Gnome upgraded. KDE, on the other hand, requires a lot more work.I think that at this point, a piece of software of KDE's importance should really have a very visible and easy to use upgrade utility

      A problem with the upgrade tools you have installed.

      I upgraded kde at christmas when I went home and used my parents cable modem. Took about an hour to pgrade my entire system (including KDE), to 2.2 something (IIRC).

      How you ask?
      "apt-get update; apt-get upgrade -y"

      But none of this malarky effects the browser. In most distributions (I believe redhat/suse etc have caught debian up), Installing software is up to the distro.

  72. mouse gestures by __aawsxp7741 · · Score: 1
    Have you tried the mouse gestures? Now that's a feature the other browsers should add soon.


    In fact, it should be possible to add these to gtk, qt etc. Anyone?

  73. Text Zooming by brunes69 · · Score: 2

    See the little magnifying glass on your toolbar with the (+)? The one with the "Increase Font Sizes" tooltip? Click that.

  74. Red Carpet by dirtkilla · · Score: 1

    If my memory serves me correct Red Carpet now includes Galeon in it's options.

  75. Then you are voting for Mozilla by Pac · · Score: 3, Informative

    I understand Mozilla has had this feature for a long time. It is not a menu/GUI driven option, though.

    You can edit the file user.js using the instructions in Custumizing Mozilla

    Not exactly user friendly, but fairly easy anyway.

  76. Re:You guys are all crazy by fferreres · · Score: 1

    Now that you notice, the other day i was doing some stuff for a site. And i screwed some how. It made Galeon crash (100% CPU, unresponsive). My Windows friend laughed at me (just joking).

    I asked him to open the page. BUM. He had to reboot. It was some kind of cross-referenced circular for(i) { for (j) {} } stuff. I had forgotten javascript has no local scope! About enough to bring Windows down.

    We then tried from Windows 2000. No reboot necesary, but he had to Kill IE as well.

    By the way, my Galeon (moz 9.7) is really stable. Give it a try.

    --
    unfinished: (adj.)
  77. Not the limit, but only the fonts... by thefleau · · Score: 1

    Even simple fonts give big problems under different system. And antialiasing also plays a big role in the game. You would be surprized to see how it can turn a browser poll away from the big boys. Take a look at the poll to see by yourself: Browser poll

    1. Re:Not the limit, but only the fonts... by sydb · · Score: 2

      Interesting poll, wouldn't let me vote though.

      I would have gone for browser 2, Konqueror on BSD with anti-aliasing. The output is beautiful. I don't understand why there were votes for any other browsers, outside of a proportion of people being blind. Do you have any insights?

      --
      Yours Sincerely, Michael.
  78. Why I don't like Mozilla... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The only reason I don't like Mozilla is the bookmarks menu. I've been using the same bookmarks file for five years and now have tons of bookmarks. Mozilla scrolls them instead of cascading them when the list is larger than the screen, and it scrolls painfully slow. CASCADE THE DAMN BOOKMARKS MENU!

  79. Hrm by Etriaph · · Score: 2, Informative
    Ok, I don't want to get upset and this guy did do a decent comparison, but I have to argue with his evaluation of Konqueror. He talked about some problems/bugs in Konqueror under the RedHat 7.2 install. I totally agree with him, RedHat packaged it wrong. The KDE 2.2.1 RPMs for RedHat 7.2 (and even the updated 2.2.2 RPMs for 7.2) had problems. KHTML would just crash now and again (well, kio_http) for whatever reason. So I went and compiled KDE 2.2.2 on my system, and it's fine. Konqueror is perfectly normal. I have run tests on my own PIII 800EB w/256MB of RAM and have noticed something significant: Galeon does not run *faster* than Konqueror. I'm not sure how other people are getting this result.

    Granted, Galeon is light years ahead of Mozilla in speed (Mozilla is after all based on the Netscape browser that everyone loves to hate) but it's not faster than Konqueror. I don't even want to think about how fast Konq/KHTML will be under 3.0 which is due in a couple of weeks. Another thing that bugs me is he went to all the trouble to download a copy of everything else but didn't even think to get a recent version of Konqueror. I'm not sure if his comparison was very objective.

    --
    "It's here, but no one wants it." - The Sugar Speaker
  80. Advantages by __aawsxp7741 · · Score: 2, Interesting
    I find it really hard to decide on which browser to use, most having a feature that I don't really want to live without:
    • Konqueror: I really love the "web shortcuts". For instance, entering imdb:brazil in the location bar will directly search imdb for brazil for me.
    • Opera: Speed. And, of course, mouse gestures. Very nice. And speed.
    • Galeon: Tabbed browsing. And it has a very fast, reduced feel to it.


    Mozilla is missing here, although it really shouldn't be. After all, no Galeon without Mozilla. So what's it killer feature?


    And if anybody can tell me how to do the "web shortcuts" with galeon, I'd be very grateful.

    1. Re:Advantages by leviramsey · · Score: 1

      Opera has had tabbed browsing since the early days (3.0? earlier?). I believe it's possible to edit the search feature so that web shortcuts are supported.

    2. Re:Advantages by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Galeon has similar feature to web shortcuts. It is
      called "nicks". Create bookmark:
      http://www.google.com/search?q=%s
      add the nick gg for it and there you go:
      gg booba
      searches for booba.

  81. KDE needs a porn browser...Kunnilingus? by Ukab+the+Great · · Score: 3, Funny

    Despite what people say about Konqueror, you haven't really made it in the open source browser world until you have a fork like Pornzilla that's truly devoted to surfing the forgotten 20% of the traffic on the internet.

  82. obviously you have gnome installed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    one of the major problems with galleon
    is that you have to have a large
    chunk of gnome installed.


    Your post shows apt-get fetching one package.
    So you must have gnome already. Great.


    But if you dont have it, then its a little
    more complicated (time consuming) than
    you would have us believe.

    1. Re:obviously you have gnome installed by swillden · · Score: 2

      Not with apt-get. If I hadn't already had the necessary components of gnome installed, apt-get would have downloaded and installed them.

      --
      Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
  83. Skipstone != lots of dependencies by cliffom · · Score: 0

    Skipstone relies on GTK and mozilla. This is why muhri coded it, so it would not require all the gnome libs and junk like that.

  84. ONE VERY IMPORTANT THING! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You can't compare programs in a Pentium III 800Mhz 256MB RAM !

    This so fast that you lose precision -- hence you get similar times.

    Use instead a low-spec machine like the test guy did. That way differences are more exposed.

    1. Re:ONE VERY IMPORTANT THING! by Etriaph · · Score: 1

      I can compare it if I wish. If I'm seeing, even on my fast box, a noticable difference between Galeon and Konqueror on several test sites then I would assume I would see the same noticable difference, even more so, on a lower end box. As long as I'm comparing everything on the same playing field, I can benchmark how I wish.

      --
      "It's here, but no one wants it." - The Sugar Speaker
  85. Mandrake by Pac · · Score: 2

    Mandrake 8.1 have not installed apt-get. I do not know if they don't carry it or just do not install it by default.

    And I was not really talking about the browser, but about KDE in general.

    I agree it should be up to the distro to upgrade the packages, and Mandrake has its own update tools, but I was really pointing to the fact that Red Carpet is the easiest tool I saw to date (it is rpm based, everything is automated and nicely GUIed).

    1. Re:Mandrake by isorox · · Score: 2

      apt-get is for debian and debian based systems, but its similar to red carpet.

      The point it none of it has anything to do with kde, and therefore shouldnt effect a review of a part of kde.

    2. Re:Mandrake by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > apt-get is for debian and debian based systems, but its similar to red carpet.

      Connectiva's made a version of apt that works with .rpms.

    3. Re:Mandrake by G+Money · · Score: 1

      If you use Mandrake you don't need apt-get. There's a tool called urpmi which does exactly the same thing and they've been polishing it for a while now. Just urpmi.addmedia to create a list of updates from a source (check the mirrors), urpmi.update , urpmi --auto-select -M and everything gets updated. Or urpmi to install just that package and whatever it depends on. You can urpme name to uninstall it and whatever depends on it as well. Very convenient. It's the only way I can not use debian.

  86. Actually Opera has that feature built in by AirP · · Score: 1

    In preferences or quick preferences you can turn off popups

  87. Re: drive letters by King_TJ · · Score: 2

    Actually, just as sort of a side note to this whole discussion, drive letters haven't quite "outlived their usefulness" yet. They're still needed, as long as people want to use DOS batch files without breaking anything.

    If it wasn't for the need for "backwards compatibility", then you wouldn't see drive letters in Windows by now. Unfortunately, MS never really spent time replacing the DOS batch file language with an updated/more powerful replacement and gave people a clear set of instructions for editing existing batch files to work under the new system.

  88. Konqueror 3.0 Beta2 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why does he test Opera 6.0 TP3 (aka Alpha 3) but not Konqueror 3.0 Beta 2?
    I think one must blame RedHat for not offering KDE 3.0 Beta2 rpms publicly (they are in Rawhide).

  89. Offtoptic: JvaScript scoping by nullard · · Score: 1

    Quote:
    It was some kind of cross-referenced circular
    for(i) { for (j) {} } stuff. I had forgotten
    javascript has no local scope!

    -------------

    To get locally scoped variables in JavaScript simply declare it with var.

    for(i=1;i<5;i++){
    for(i=18;i>-5;i--) {
    }
    }

    is infinite.

    for(var i=1;i<5;i++){
    for(var i=18;i>-3;i--) {
    }
    }

    is not.

    --


    t'nera semordnilap
    1. Re:Offtoptic: JvaScript scoping by fferreres · · Score: 1

      Oh, thanks. Makes more sense than the global $var; from PHP (because some function may declare global something you used in other places as global).

      --
      unfinished: (adj.)
  90. Not necessarily... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There is a problem with Konqueror 2.2.1 with not closing the tags correctly.

  91. What about IE? by LadyLucky · · Score: 2
    Really... does the Unix version work on Linux?

    And does it even work at all? what happens if I go to a page with a ActiveX component in it?

    *ZZzzap*, I think I just lost some karma points.

    --
    dominionrd.blogspot.com - Restaurants on
    1. Re:What about IE? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Platforms available:

      Solaris - Internet Explorer 5 with Outlook Express
      HP-UX - Internet Explorer 5 with Outlook Express

    2. Re:What about IE? by base3 · · Score: 1

      Back in the day, a team made it so SCO binaries could run on Linux. Maybe someone would do the same for either Slowlaris or HPucks so that we could bask in the glory that is IE :).

      --
      One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
  92. Re: drive letters by spitzak · · Score: 2
    They don't have to make drive letters not work. All they have to do is make it so a drive letter is not required to name a file on the system.

    This can easily be done by making a file system with mount points (and some non-Unix easy way to control it, such as having all devices that exist automatically create the mount points called / and mount themselves unless configured otherwise).

    They can continue to have ":" be a reserved character and recognize any attempt to open : and remap that to //. This will retain back compatability. Also reserving the colon will allow service names much like the KDE file naming convention, though I think in the future service names will disappear just like drive letters as there is no need for the end user to know them.

    But in fact back-compatability is easily maintained. I believe the reason MicroSoft does not fix this (and does not provide real symbolic links that can be used with their libc without a program having to understand them) is because that would allow easy Unix compatability by rearranging the MSDOS filesystem to look like a Unix one.

  93. Re: drive letters by spitzak · · Score: 2
    Sorry, slashdot ate all my angle brackets.

    Devices would create a mount point called /<device> and <letter>: would be turned into /<device>/<current dir for disk>

  94. opera /dev/null by nslu · · Score: 0

    unitil opera starts to support charsets different from iso-8859-1, it is practically useless. windows version supports them somehow, but not perfectly

  95. Is there a Linux Web browser works on FlipDog.com? by antdude · · Score: 2

    I tried Konqueror (whatever from KDE v2.2.1, Opera 6, Mozilla (v0.98)/Galeon, and Netscape Communicator v4.79 (it works in Windows, but not Linux!) on FlipDog.com, but they all failed.

    Basically, I cannot get a list of cities in after selecting a state in the U.S. map. I hate going to Windows just to use this awesome job site.

    Any advices? Thank you in advance. :)

    --
    Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
  96. It's about time Opera got some bytes on /. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There have been a few stories covering mouse gestures, the introduction of a free ad displaying
    version, and a reference to a LT story on Browser
    Wars in Linux.
    But there hasn't been a story covering
    a release since Opera 4.0b1 For Linux in Oct of
    2000.

    when opera 6.0 final comes out it had better
    get a story or there is some subltle bias
    going on.

    1. Re:It's about time Opera got some bytes on /. by leviramsey · · Score: 1
      when opera 6.0 final comes out it had better get a story or there is some subltle bias going on.

      My thoughts exactly. It's definitely more useful to the average Slashdot reader than a Linux 2.5 release (stable releases are a different story.

  97. Re: Fuck You Pre-historic Console Geek by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Dont you see we are in 2002? There is nothing funny or special if you are a bloody console user. You're just a bloody user.

  98. Dependancies by Ogerman · · Score: 1, Redundant

    Galeon is a small download but can be difficult to upgrade due to its Mozilla and GNOME dependencies.

    Don't know what kind of broken Linux distribution you guys are using that doesn't handle dependancies. On mine, installing galeon is as easy as:

    apt-get install galeon

    Debian all the way!

  99. Konqueror problems with Macromedia? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I used Konqueror quite a bit and the only problem I really ever had was with Macromedia Flash and Shockwave elements. I can't remember if both weren't supported, but I remember stumbling upon sites that used one or more of the elements and the browser would immediately begin spawning multiple browser windows (approx. 20 of them). Other than that it was pretty nice.

  100. Opera Java by SPaReK · · Score: 1

    The one thing I have against Opera, is that I cannot get Java to work on it. I'm using Opera 6.0 TP2. Has anyone gotten the Java plugin to work? Is there something else you have to do. I followed instructions on Opera's site.

    Despite this, I still use Opera as my broswer of choice. I just use Netscape if I have to use Java.

  101. Re:Mozilla? Doubt it... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You said it yourself it doesn't like your glibc. Chances are you hosed up some other libraries on your "heavily-modified" box - I guess you don't have the requisite libs.

    If you can't compile and you really have *all* the requisite libs at the *correct* revision level then file a bug, and quit yer bitchin.

  102. Konqueror has something called "smart popup policy by Moritz+Moeller+-+Her · · Score: 2

    This will only allow popups, that are activated either by mouse clicks or key operations.

    I have almost forgotten what popups ARE, by now.

    Check out the KDE-3.0 release candidate next week, it is quites stable as a desktop and Konqueror is approaching IE-6.0 in comfort. In fact it is better in most things and standardss compliance.

    --
    Moritz
  103. Ease of installation by MobyTurbo · · Score: 1
    The best Web downloads and installs were from Opera and Mozilla, which have minimal dependencies. Galeon is a small download but can be difficult to upgrade due to its Mozilla and GNOME dependencies.
    Galeon *RPMs* are difficult to upgrade, but if you build it from source it works with any GNOME and Mozilla; just tell ./configure where the directories for Mozilla and GNOME are if they aren't the default, and off you go! Of course, that doesn't count as "easy to install" in the minds of people who think that RPMs are always easier than a source tarball.:-)
  104. Why not Skipstone? Why not Netscape 4? by pigeonhk · · Score: 1

    I'm not a big fan of gnome. I'd say if you want to engine the gecko engine while you don't want to run mozilla, you should give skipstone a go. galeon has way too many dependencies on gnome libraries.

    My current primary browsers are mozilla and netscape 4. Though crashing netscape 4 is damn easy, it does handle some pages better than gecko.

    And, not that I hate opera, but I just don't want to mention that close source browser which depends on that non-free toolkit library :)

    --
    If you have the source, you have the whole world...
  105. Galeon and SSL Certificates by TobiasSodergren · · Score: 1

    Is it possible to administrate your Certificates from within Galeon? I have had a look around in the menus and I haven't found it anywhere. I run Galeon 1.0.3. It is a great feature and it do exist in Mozilla, so I wonder why they haven't implemented any administration in galeon. Or maybe they have and I'm just too blind to see it :)

  106. Re:Konqueror has something called "smart popup pol by jesser · · Score: 1

    Konqueror has something called "smart popup policy"... This will only allow popups, that are activated either by mouse clicks or key operations.

    That's essentially what unchecking Mozilla's "allow scripts to open unrequested windows" option does. Thanks for pointing that out, though; I didn't know Konq had a similar feature.

    --
    The shareholder is always right.
  107. Netscape 0.9b Irony by Graspee_Leemoor · · Score: 1

    I was trying out an old copy of Netscape 0.9b on Windows XP
    and so the first site I tried (Ok, the 2nd- msn.com is quicker
    to type in manually) was of course /.

    Amazingly it actually let me log on- so it must I suppose support
    cookies?!?!?!

    Well, the first story that caught my eye was this one
    and I must say, even though it is slightly off-topic
    that everything was very very grey back in 1994.

    Haha- I don't have an option to select plain text/html etc.
    Maybe Netters 0.9b doesn't support comboboxes even
    though it supports cookies. Biiiizarre.

    I must go and browse on now- to see if Netscape of this
    vintage is immune to page widening.

    Just checked in another window- yay! Page-widening immunity!
    (I always said browsers were getting worse...)

    Well bibi from 1994, if you want to get this yourself
    it's available from: (forgive me- I don't know if I'm
    posting this as html!)

    http://21ct.gooddays.org/ncsp09.html

    graspee

  108. I couldn't live without Opera by anti11es · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I've been using Opera since the 3.x days, back when it was only offered on Windows. Now it is my main browser for linux, and it works for 95% of the sites that I visit. Opera is one of the very few programs I'm willing to pay money for, in fact I am grateful that they actually made the effort to port their browser to so many different platforms.

    Three are a few things I just can't live without in a browser now:
    1. Mouse gesters. Once you learn them you will *NEVER* go back. In fact, whenever I'm using one of those other browsers I end up trying the mouse gesters (which of course does nothing).
    2. Tabbed windows (I know most of the browsers offer this now, but Opera has always had it).
    3. All those cool search boxes/quick links you can customize and put into your personal bar.
    4. The main search box (deafaul google of course but it can be anything you want).

    I'm sure I'm forgetting a bunch. My only gripe is that Opera sometimes crashes, although the newest version 6.0 B1 hasn't crashed on me once yet (although it has only been released a few days ago).

    1. Re:I couldn't live without Opera by leviramsey · · Score: 1
      I'm sure I'm forgetting a bunch. My only gripe is that Opera sometimes crashes, although the newest version 6.0 B1 hasn't crashed on me once yet (although it has only been released a few days ago).

      Opera crashes every few hours of heavy use. I think it might be in the ram caching code...

  109. Raise or lower windows by jesser · · Score: 2

    Raise or lower windows; What is this? I really can't imagine that it is what it says, 'cause I don't see any purpose. Anyway - as with the previous point - I appreciate your effort in helping me, but I would rather do this myself. This time and forever.

    It corresponds to the javascript function window.focus(). On Windows 98, that brings a window to the front, makes its titlebar blue, and directs keyboard commands to that window.

    Window.focus() used almost exclusively in two situations:
    1. Immediately after opening a window, focus the old window (only pop-under ads).
    2. Immediately after opening a window, focus the new window (pop-up ads and useful windows). I don't know why sites do this, since it seems unnecessary, but many do.

    If you've disabled "open unrequested windows", I recommend that you enable "raise and lower windows" so sites using #2 legitimately don't encounter a javascript error when they try to focus the window they just opened.

    Once bug 117707 is fixed, window.focus() will do nothing instead of halting javascript execution when you have it disabled.

    --
    The shareholder is always right.
  110. What the hell do dependencies have to do with it? by Nailer · · Score: 2
    The best Web downloads and installs were from Opera and Mozilla, which have minimal dependencies. Galeon is a small download but can be difficult to upgrade due to its Mozilla and GNOME dependencies."

    What does dependencies have to do with the quality of software you're using? It seems like the reviewer is complaining more about the simpler mechanisms for installing software he has avaliable than the quality of the web browsers. This guy's running Red Hat 7.2
    • Apt-get, which can install Galeon RPMs from the Red Hat Gnomehide mirror at apt.nixia.no, and Konqueror packages from the Red Hat updates mirror at tuxfamily.net. apt-get install kdebase galeon
    • Ximian Red Carpet, which can also handle these things automatically (and has crypto signed archives as well)
    • Grab, which fetches RPMs from any mirror, including vanilla http download sites

    Fucking hell, the Galeon and Konqueror people put in a lot of work. Judging them because they actually go to the effort of acting like a normal app in their respective user interfaces unlike Mozilla and Opera, seems ridiculous.
  111. why mozilla, why? by BigBir3d · · Score: 1

    wtf? why can't i save a bookmark in mozilla in a specific folder? i am using 0.9.8+ on a machine that is not mine, so i save all of my bookmarks in a folder that is mine, with a sub-directory structure of my own. problem is, i have to 'edit bookmarks' to move them around, instead of being able to save them where they belong.

  112. Opera is light, but not fast! by mynickhere · · Score: 1

    Everyone keeps talking about how Opera is fast. On my system it is my slowest browser. It loads at a good rate but drags it's feet on anything graphics heavy or has too much code.

    In a yeah, everyone will be talking about Dillo.

  113. Buy an pack then by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Before the ads, Opera wasn't free. If you bought Opera, you get no ads, like now. This has always been the case.
    I buy good browsers, and I have saved $40 for Opera 6 Linux.

    1. Re:Buy an pack then by GSV+NegotiableEthics · · Score: 1
      I think my original posting has been misunderstood. I don't mind adware, and much prefer to subsidize a product using that method rather than pay a fixed charge that I might regret if I subsequently switch to another product.

      In the case of Opera, I happily used the browser for well over six months, but just one ad campaign rendered the browser very difficult to use because it incorporated a quickly animated human head.

      Since there are many usable browsers available for free, paying for the ad-free version of Opera would not only have been uneconomical, it would have rewarded unacceptably poor usability.

  114. Re:Galeon and Opera being my favs-urpmi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    urpmi Galeon takes care of a lot of what you have to do to get it installed, and yes I ran into the exact same problems. Fully loaded machine too.

  115. Re:Opera needs a full-featured set for Linux-multi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There's windows shells that offer multiple desktops. Windowblind is one.

  116. Dealing with Opera .... by SacredNaCl · · Score: 1

    The first rule of thumb with Opera for Windows is have it identify itself as MSIE XX.XX. That solves a ton of problems right there, most of them on the other end of the equasion. I'll grant you that it has some problems with Java and Javascript, the best solution is disable them - it's more secure, no popups and other garbage... Turn 'em on if you need 'em as you need them. (6.0 has a quick bar for doing this, very convienant) I find problems very rarely ...but I do have to load IE to deal with a page on occasion (and usually completely change my security settings to boot).

    Opera for Linux has been my #1 choice if I have to surf on the Linux box. Konquerer is my second. I've always found Mozilla and Netscape and Galeon to be flaky. (Galeon tends to run up the system resources as well, until you manually kill off the process.) I'm not saying Opera is an end all, it's still got a lot of problems in the Linux version. Can't get XXX plug in to view this or that because it's windows only... No way around that. Sometimes it will massacre a page for whatever reason. I've found it to occasionally crash as well, just not as often as the other browsers. I honestly prefer to surf in Windows 2000, as I run into less hassles. Not a flame, just the truth. The situation has improved slightly, but it's still got a long way to go.

    --
    Freedom is merely privilege extended unless enjoyed by one and all.
  117. moderating morons by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    the above is not redundant you twats!

  118. Re: drive letters by scrytch · · Score: 2

    That's precisely how it is now. \Device\HardDisk0\Partition0, (yes, backslashes, the path parser can do either forward or backslashes, though the object manager uses backslashes canonically). Colon is a reserved character in filenames, but it's used to separate the filename from the fork name in NTFS. Ironically, the only system I know of that can use forked files from the shell is cygwin -- again, because of a braindead parser in the cmd.exe and explorer shells that rejects them.

    Symbolic links don't exist per se in windows, but something more powerful does, and that's reparse points. reparse points are understood in the kernel and do not require application support, and they act exactly like translators in hurd. Unlike hurd, reparse points are stackable, whereas hurd translators are not. Reparse points are also used to implement mount points as well.

    --
    I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
  119. Re: drive letters by spitzak · · Score: 2
    Try those names under fopen() or open() and you will see that they don't work.

    Stop posting the fact that they "do it" when it is not true. Unless the actual calls that the vast majority of programs use actually work with these names and links, they are NOT implemented.

  120. Opera DOES have a full set for Linux by gosand · · Score: 2

    Sorry to reply to my own message, I know nobody really cares. :-)

    I downloaded the latest version for Linux, and it rocks hard. I had an older version. It is interesting to see how much better versions get in each release. Not like SOME browsers out there that spend all their time releasing security patches instead of valuable and innovative software. :-)

    --

    My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.