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Gecko-based K-Meleon 0.9 browser Released

Posted by Hemos on from the keep-the-pressure-on dept.

Fylfot writes "After a long time in development, version 0.9 of the Gecko-based K-Meleon web browser for Windows has been released. K-Meleon is the geekier, more configurable, lighter-weight (XULless), speedier twin of Firefox. When 1.0 comes out, Microsoft may have another reason to worry about Internet Explorer marketshare. Also reported on Chip Online and MozillaZine."

21 of 345 comments (clear)

  1. I don't think so by Takyn-U-RUN · · Score: 5, Insightful

    K-Meleon is the geekier, more configurable... Microsoft may have another reason to worry about Internet Explorer marketshare.

    If K-Meleon is more geeky than Firefox, than I don't think IE will be worrying any time soon.

  2. It's MS only :( by photon317 · · Score: 2, Insightful


    How can that possibly be geekier than multiplatform Firefox?

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    11*43+456^2
  3. Geekier? by Savant · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What percentage of the Internet Explorer audience run it because Firefox isn't geeky enough, and will be tempted by a "geekier, more configurable" browser?

    I don't buy the threat to IE market share. I'm sure it's a great browser, and I'm geeky enough to take an interest in it, but if I were representative of 99% of the population, Linux would be massive on the desktop.

  4. If its *that* good... by E+IS+mC(Square) · · Score: 5, Insightful

    then, i guess it would be Firefox which may lose market-share. after all, both of them (K-melon and FF) appleal more to the techie ppl than those rest 90% (i.e. IE users).

    So, chances are more that a FF user may convert to K-melon than an IE user!

    or not?

  5. Tisk tisk by paranode · · Score: 1, Insightful
    And are you counting the overhead of starting KDE and all those unpleasant threads that KDE starts (which make ssh -X so unpleasantly hard to log out of). Course they're not.

    Nice KDE troll and all but this product is for Windows. Can't even read the headline blurb before posting? You almost had it too but then you had to flame away.

  6. Faster but... by radixvir · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Well it seems much faster than firefox, but there's a point at which an application becomes 'too customizable'. You have to edit a text file just to change the toolbar buttons? And there doesnt seem to be any extensions right now, you might want to wait. Personally I would like to see a native-rendered firefox.

  7. One LESS reason to worry for IE? by ZakMcCracken · · Score: 2, Insightful

    A new Open Source platform... doesn't the community stretch out its efforts a bit?

    Imagine these developers working instead on bringing to life open-source products that are really lacking. Like a good Exchange substitute.

    1. Re:One LESS reason to worry for IE? by Bedouin+X · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You might have a point, but I'm sure that Kmeleon predates Firefox/Bird/Phoenix so I don't think that it really applies here.

      --
      Dissolve... Resolve... Evolve...
  8. Re:Geekier? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    You can customize Firefox, too. Now, you'll say "But that requires hacking XUL!" Well, K-Meleon is claiming to be geekier, not easier.

    Also, those screenshots are horrible. The UI is totally non-standard. Why would anyone use that?

  9. Re:Speedier twin of Firefox by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Oh can it. Servers are designed to hand out data, and all pipelining does is make better use of the resources available. Should I take up several seconds of a web server's time loading image after image from a site, or should I take them all at once and be on my way in half a second?

    The latter is much better use of their resources, and allows others to come in next even faster than before.

  10. Why not support HURD? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    because on my subGHz AMD Athlon based computer with 512mb of RAM, I have regularly found Firefox to take a full second before a right click yields the context menu. XUL can slow things down something awful. I've come across those who refuse to use Firefox because XUL slows it down so much, making it downright unpleasent to use.

    Besides, try using Firefox on a Pentium 1, then try K-Meleon. Basically, Firefox is a dog on older computers, and K-Meleon isn't.

  11. Re:You forgot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    I hate the cliché that all geeks are into Star Trek. I take pride in being a geek but I could never force myself to watch Star Trek. It didn't even carry much scientific value, the acting was bad, and it was really more of a soap opera for the socially inept.

  12. Re:Geekiest by wikinerd · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It is a good idea to use official builds or compile the software myself to be safe from various security threats. Unofficial builds may be faster, indeed, but I would prefer to read instructions on how I can compile Mozilla to load pages faster**, instead of installing a prebuilt program that I don't know what is changed in it and how secure it is.

    ** Note: I use Konqueror and it is orders of magnitude faster than Mozilla/Firefox/IE in loading Web pages. I definitely believe that Konqie is the perfect browser. The only other browser that I have found to be faster than Mozilla/Firefox (but not faster than Konqie) is Opera. Too bad that Opera isn't open source, if it was then IE would be history by years now.

  13. But can it use FF extensions? by denis-The-menace · · Score: 2, Insightful

    If it can't use FireFox Extensions then it's almost Dead in the water for me.

    --
    Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
    1. Re:But can it use FF extensions? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      It can use certain extensions, but the installation must be done manually. Meaning, unzip your .jar or .xpi and place the files in the appropriate directories in the K-Meleon dir and edit whatever configs you need. If the extension doesn't rely on XUL for some interface element, it is likely to work. But just like there are extensions that will work in one but not the other of Mozilla and Firefox, some will not work in K-Meleon as well.

      However, K-Meleon does come with native versions of FlashBlock and IEView as standard, as of the most recent build, and it has used an internal mouse gestures engine for several versions now (it is implemented as a kplugin). These, along with Popup Alt and Line Marker, are the only extensions I ever really install in monolithic Mozilla or Firefox anyway. And in the case of Popup Alt, it is unnecessary for K-Meleon, because K-Meleon displays alt info in popups by default anyway, just as IE and Netscape Communicator used to do (behavior that I prefer).

      I use K-Meleon as my default browser, and really, I don't miss extensions at all.

  14. I predict... by bonch · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I predict that, because everyone here has grown so attached to Firefox, everyone will attack the submitters' "geekier" claim and mindlessly defend Firefox without even bothering to try K-Meleon, which really is faster and more configurable. Instead of actually discussing K-Meleon, the discussion will be about defending Firefox, because, for some reason, geeks really hate change or when the things they're used to get criticized or bested. Note that not all of you are like this--but a large majority.

    It's totally pointless for Firefox to re-implement its own widgets when I have a GUI that already provides those to apps for a reason! I switched to Opera long ago because it takes up half the memory and works at twice the speed. Cross-platform compatibility, you say? Opera happily exists on multiple platforms while still using native widgets. For crying out loud, Firefox even has its own generic string class! Unless the Mozilla/Firefox developers are intent on constructing their own OS, they should stick to just being a native browser on whichever platform of choice. Otherewise, Mozilla/Firefox will continue to be slower than they should be and will continue to take up ungodly huge amounts of RAM when they shouldn't. And most people will continue to defend it just because they don't like Microsoft and have adopted Firefox as their little badge of rebellion. Sheesh.

    1. Re:I predict... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      He wasn't talking to you, ass. By writing about a Windows-only browser, he was implicitly directing his post to those who use Windows. Those of us who are not looking for a Windows browser can quietly ignore the thread and move on to more interesting ones.

    2. Re:I predict... by T-Ranger · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I think you are missing the point about using its own widget set. Time for some buzword bingo here, but the network is the computer, and the browser is the way to access that. Why do you think Microsoft cares about IE? Because it subverted Netscape, and Netscape was well on its way to becoming a good platform for delivering apps, thus rendering Windows far less valuable. A web browser is far more then a tool for browsing the web.

      Firefox was relativly easy to develop, because of all of what you think is waste. Firefox has a kick ass extension system because of all that waste. Firefox, and its extensions, "just work" on a huge number of platforms because of all this waste.

  15. Re:Promotion, promotion, promotion... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    The reason Firefox has a reasonable shot is because it has an actual, honest-to-God fanbase and strong marketing for an open source product.

    Little things like technical merit of course don't count. I'm still looking for the ability to map any key to any action. Without writing XUL, which makes J2EE look streamlined. With KM I can do that by editing a single text file (a feature shared with Opera)

    You don't even bother to look at the things you criticize. You're ignorant. You call yourself a nerd?

  16. Because K-Meleon was there first! by matvei · · Score: 2, Insightful

    http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group _id=14285

    Version 0.5 is dated 2001-09-30 16:36. IIRC I used K-Meleon 0.3 or 0.4 way back because it integrated with Windows a lot better than Mozilla did.

  17. Re:Don't need it to load faster by ShieldW0lf · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I just dont need firefox to load 3-5x faster, it loads fairly fine as it is, i dont really notice how slow firefox goes, seeing as i havnt used anything else for a very long time now

    By itself, running solo on a modern machine, yeah, no prob, runs great.

    But when you're running IIS, MSSQL, and Postgres servers, K-Lite, eMule and DC++ clients, crunching video using VirtualDub in the background and playing NWN and you've tasked out to check the web on where to find that last item you need for your quest, you really notice the difference. The machine crawls while its paging out the massive memory footprint that firefox needs.

    Now, don't get me wrong, I continue to use it instead of IE, but lets not pretend that its a lightweight browser, because its not.

    --
    -1 Uncomfortable Truth