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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."
from the left coast, woohoo!
He will be missed
Show me That Smile (The Growing Pains Theme Song):
Show me that smile again.
Ooh show me that smile.
Don't waste another minute on your crying.
We're nowhere near the end.
We're nowhere near.
The best is ready to begin.
As long as we got each other
We got the world
Sitting right in our hands.
Baby rain or shine;
All the time.
We got each other
Sharing the laughter and love.
Alan Thicke's Journal
My Slashdot ads say "
Someone forgot to mention Konqueror in the summarizing article...
P.S. - Please don't steal anything on your way out.
Cunning linguists
I have been involved in the marketing (dirty word I know!) of software and hardware to non-technical people for a number of years. The consultancy group I work for numbers many of America's top blue-chip electronics and software corporations among its clients, I have over 11 years experience of marketing, and 4 years experience of software development (VB) and systems administration (NT 3.51), in addition to a marketing science qualification from one of America's top business schools - so it's safe to say that I know what I am talking about when it comes to computers and marketing.
I have been keeping an eye this forum for quite some time now, as part of my daily intelligence gathering, I find the robust exchange of views, and technical arguments make an interesting diversion from some of the other corporate bullshit I have to deal with in my working day. I also read corporate intelligence reports from the Gartner group, Forrester, the Meta group, and Olsen Online Business Intelligence Services. Slashdot has often proved to be far more accurate when it comes to the technical details,and I am often amazed at the incredible levels of intelligence and insight shown by its readership, some of whom demonstrate a knowledge of Linux and Operating systems far in advance of anyone I have ever met, even in the IS department of major corporations. For this reason, I feel I should contribute my 2c to the debate about the future direction of Linux and the whole Open Source movement in general.
I feel I can do my bit for the Open Source community by offering (free of charge) some of my hard-earned knowledge straight from the bloody trenches at the front-line of tech-Marketing. Normally I would be paid over $4000/day for my perspective, but Slashdot - this one's on me. You people can think of it as my small and unworthy attempt to "give something back" to the Community.
Why Linux/Open Source has an image problem in major US Corporations and what the community can do about it. Like any movment, political or religious, Open Source/Linux has its Leaders, High priests and Gurus. These high profile individuals represent the public face of the organization. Like it or not, these people are associated with the product in the eyes of the buying public. One of the first things the Linux movement must do in order to gain acceptence by middle-America and Joe-and-Jean Sixpack and their 2.4 kids, is to develop what we in the Marketing profession call a "Happy Face".
When Joe Sixpack drives past a McDonald's, he associates it with the smiling face of Ronald McDonald the clown,and quality food served quickly. When he is choosing a collect-call company, the smiling face of Al Bundy (of TV's Married with Children) springs to mind, and when he thinks of fried chicken in large capacity bucket-like containers, it is the image of the happy-go-lucky avuncular Colonel with his associations of good old Southern hospitality that sticks in his memory. (In marketing terms this is known as a "positive association". Because the image puts the consumer into a "buying-receptive" mental state).
Linux/Open Source lacks any kind of "Happy Face". Now this in itself is not a problem, were it not for the fact that Linux has several extremely high-profile advocates who are the exact opposite of "Happy Faces" in that they invite negative associations into the consumers head and put him/her into a state known by Marketers as "passive-aggressive sales-message rejection" (In layman's terms they don't want to buy the product).
Now, I will not lower the tone of the debate by naming names. I will give a few brief profiles and community members will know who I am talking about.
In reverse order of harmfullness we have the laconic, dour nothern European. Not known for his sense of hunor, and with far too many nights spent coding when he should have been out partying he creates an image of Linux as the OS of choice for "friendless geeks who never got laid". (note - I do not subscribe to this viewpoint, but trust me some of my focus group members do).
Then we have the good old gun-toting libertarian self-proclaimed open source guru. Although M.R. studies show that 78% of PC owners show right-wing bias this person is too wacko and off-the scale for them. He alienates them, and in the worst case scares them that they risk being physically harmed if they don't agree with his fundamentalist libertarian "philosophy".
Finally we have a bearded Communist hippy. Do I need to say any more ?
So the normal consumer associates Linux with a sucicidal friendless nerd from some godforsaken corner of Northern Europe, a plainly insane right wing lunatic, and an "alternative lifestyle" Communist throwback to Woodstock with a facial hair problem. Is it any wonder that time after time, the message comes back from my focus groups that Linux is for wierdos ?
Here are a few example comments from a focus group session from Q3 1999 in response to a question about their attitudes to Linux and open source software, you'll get the general idea.
I could go on and on with these genuine responses, but I think I've illustrated my point well enough. Linux has a serious image problem.What to do about it is more problematic. Open Source proponents and Linux advocates are fiercely independent and proud of their alternative stance. They see any form of marketing as "selling out to da man" or "not groking it" or becoming a "suit" Any mention of money or financial rewards is derided, and developers are supposed to be content with "Kudos" from the community. Whilst this might be ok at college, or if you are tremendously wealthy, it cuts no ice with Joe Sixpack who was raised on Microsoft and associates Bill's millions with the quality of the software his company puts out. From the focus group again:
Again the message is clear: Microsoft is winning the hearts and minds not only of Joe Sixpack, but also Juan Sixpack in South America, Jean-Paul Sixpack in France, Jeroen Van der Sixpack in the Netherlands, Nkwele-Olamu Sixpack in West Africa, Mohammed-Al-Sixpack in Iran, Kulwant Chandrasekhera Sixpack in India, and Boris Sixpack in the Russian Federation.
Their message is powerful, international, and presented relentlessly with no internal bickering and bitching.
What can be done ?
There are no easy answers. The Linux/Open Source community has proved unwilling or unable to accept critisim (even constructive criticism such as this) gracefully, preferring to mount foul-languaged assaults on the personal integrity of anyone who steps out from the party line.
I offer no easy solutions, however here are a few pointers:
- As a damage limitation exercise Linux/GNU should appoint itself a "Marketing Spokesperson". This person would be the "official face of Linux/GNU/Open Source". First and Foremost, they would wear an expensive suit, especially when talking to the press or when dealing with high-profile major corporation with deep pockets and $$$s to spend. I realise this is ridiculous from a technical perspective, but with my blend of tech-savvy and marketing exprience, I realize the importance of presentation over technical merit. It goes against the grain of the community, but if we are to become the next Microsoft (and why else would we be in this game if not to win it at all costs), we must fight them on our battleground, but with the same weapons they use against us.
- The Penguin logo MUST go ASAP. Although it seemed "cute" and funny at the time, in the eyes of the corporate MIS department it just looks juvenile. Linux needs a new logo, preferably one of those kind of eliptical ones with a swoosh that in the eyes of the public can mean one thing: Hip and cool DOTCOM Corporation. The logo should be bland, yet robust, non-controversial yet ahead of the curve, and toned in serious businesslike colors such as gray, silver, and white. It should transcend culture and religion to be internationally recognized like the Coca-Cola image is all over the world.
- Downplay RMS, Linus, ESR, etc. They are technicians with zero understanding of the general public, or of software consumers in general. Indeed many of them only write their program for themselves to "scratch an itch". This is hardly the way to gain public acceptance.
- Direct X - A MAJOR stumbling block on Linux's road to world domination is the lack of Direct X support for Linux. This trivial omission means that most games will not run on Linux. Linux could gain 1000's of new games by simply implementing the DirectX api. This is a no-brainer. Kernel support for XML would be a big performance booster too in the B2B and B2C application area, and would make Linux buzzword compliant for XML.
- Finally FOCUS GROUPS. Before you think about starting that new open-source project, (be it a new web browser like Mazola, or simply a new front-end for the cdplayer application) Get a focus group together. Use a few minutes of your non-tech-savvy friend's time. If you don't have any friends like that, try your folks, or your grandparents. Ask them what they would like to see in your new program. This way, you will gain "market perspective" on the likely acceptance of your product by the "normal people" of the world.
thank you for your timeFrom the annals of the Troll Library .
..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.
It rocks, except for a few JavaScript nasties.
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!
At least third post! I have niggah skillz.
Bow down before those you serve.
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
- lynx
- netcat with less
- vi
- emacs
- ed
- telnet
Graphics is just for banner ads.Owner of a Mensa membership card.
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
I mean really , who gives a damn? Maybe AOL lusers have pissing contests about the best
browsers but most linux users I know are more interested in other more technical matters
rather than Best Browser.
I'll say, "What about lynx? telnet? curl?"
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.
apt-get install galeon :)
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 ---
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.
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!
They want you to buy it, after all.
They have to make money somehow!
You cheap bastard.
Real hackers use telnet, the safest and most compatible browser since the invention of the web.
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
Jeeze another newbie. How did your da let you use that #263391 UID ? This is what we do on Slashdot, and you better like it :)
ha
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.
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.
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!
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
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!
Internet Explorer?
- Marco
You're all Ass-masters
mozilla is really sad.
So shitty only a zealot could love it.
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.
AHAHHAHAHA HAHAHAHHA HAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA AHAH
HEHE HEH EHEHEHEHEH HEHEHEH EHE
hohohoho ohohoho ohoh
ahahahahahahaha
That is too funny guys.
Unfortunately IE has none of these "stability" problems.
Good luck using vi + wget.
Now it's clear - slashdot is anti-Konqueror site. But why?
How about Kmeleon?
Today you will all be briefed on why Microsoft and it's
Security and privacy are a central part of creating and delivering compelling user experiences. Distributing computing power across numerous systems-both inside and outside the walls of your home or company-creates new types of challenges.
This is one of many areas where Linux falls way short of Microsoft.
The Microsoft®
The
By using the Internet to enable software applications to more easily work together, Microsoft®
With the tools of the
As you all can see, it is pointless to continue this Linux project and you should all consider dropping your current Open Source projects. Leave the programming and application development to the following:
The sooner you realize your errors the sooner you can begin to support and extend the knowledge of Microsoft.
Thank You.
Not if you have a decent package management system...
... ... 90725 files and directories currently installed.) .../galeon_1.0.3-0.4_i386.deb) ... ...
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
Unpacking galeon (from
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.
WOOOHOOO
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.
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.
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 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...
The Free desktop that Just Works
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.
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/
The only web browser I even think about using on my Linux computer is Konqueror.
dfdffddf
sg
stg
h
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.
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.
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.
- 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.
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.
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.
What about 128-bit support for online transactions? Ease of installing plugins?
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.
creation science book
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?
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.
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.
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?
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?
Al Qaeda has ninjas!
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.
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"
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.
> == "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
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
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.
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.
The best damn browser is still Lynx, hands down! Why not live in the fast lane?
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...
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.
Dildo.com
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.
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
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
Tabbed browsing is planned for 3.1.
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?
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.
.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.
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
Konqueror is *not* a web browser.
.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).
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
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
"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.
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.
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.
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!
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
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.
In fact, it should be possible to add these to gtk, qt etc. Anyone?
See the little magnifying glass on your toolbar with the (+)? The one with the "Increase Font Sizes" tooltip? Click that.
If my memory serves me correct Red Carpet now includes Galeon in it's options.
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.
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
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!
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
In preferences or quick preferences you can turn off popups
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.
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).
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
test
There is a problem with Konqueror 2.2.1 with not closing the tags correctly.
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
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.
Devices would create a mount point called /<device> and <letter>: would be turned into /<device>/<current dir for disk>
unitil opera starts to support charsets different from iso-8859-1, it is practically useless. windows version supports them somehow, but not perfectly
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).
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.
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.
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!
Opera is no more intrusive here. Just add this key to register: u-Hvw6z-W4bAk-c5tKR-EBMTa-pR3uT :-)
Doesn't matter name or company.
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.
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.
We are plesed to inform you that, after careful consideration, we have accepted your troll into the Troll Library.
You show a masterful skill at trolling.
Thank you for your time and your contribution.
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.
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
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...
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 :)
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.
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
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).
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
There's windows shells that offer multiple desktops. Windowblind is one.
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.
the above is not redundant you twats!
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.
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.
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.