The return of Iceweasel [LWN.net]

The return of Iceweasel

Posted Sep 25, 2006 18:02 UTC (Mon) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]

Maybe. It's kinda odd that people ended up with a webkit fork of khtml instead of actually contributing back to khtml or something like that.

And firefox is pretty secure browser. I wouldn't trust konquerer anymore then I'd trust firefox.

Personally I use Epiphany browser, which is the 'Gnome' official browser. A lot simplier and cleaner interface then firefox and it uses the same rendering engine. Galeon browser was nice and it is being slowly integrated into Epiphany.

Also they have extensions for Epiphany for some of the more popular firefox extensions. (greasemonkey, mouse gestures, etc)

The return of Iceweasel

Posted Sep 25, 2006 18:21 UTC (Mon) by cventers (subscriber, #31465) [Link]

I shall start out with full disclosure: I am an ardent, long-time
supporter of Konqueror.

> Maybe. It's kinda odd that people ended up with a webkit fork of khtml
> instead of actually contributing back to khtml or something like that.

I think this had a lot to do with differing goals of KDE and Apple. The
impression I got was that Apple wasn't always fully committed to
cooperation; additionally, they made certain bug-fixes and advancements
in 'get it out the door fashion' rather than 'make it right fashion'. The
KHTML guys didn't want to pull in every change that seemed like a hack
that they did not understand or trust, and so the two code-bases
diverged.

Of course, things weren't always totally out of sync; for example,
Konqueror started passing ACID2 shortly after Safari CVS did because the
code shared enough heritage to share the ACID2 work.

The Unity project has mixed reactions from the KDE community. Some people
are uneasy about switching from the KHTML 'we made' to the WebKit 'they
forked'. But it was pointed out that if we don't like where WebKit is
going, we're free to fork it back to KHTML.

What I love about Konqueror is that the memory footprint is tiny,
especially compared to Firefox, the performance is absolutely
outstanding, especially compared to Firefox, and the standards compliance
is thorough, especially compared to Firefox. Firefox consumes lots of
memory, leaks more and renders pages a lot slower than Konqueror does.

In years of heavy browsing with Konqueror, it is rare for me to have to
reach for Firefox in order to use a website. There are a few limited
exceptions, but it's always been the case that the web developer has done
something catastrophically dumb and wrong. And there is an occasional
site which tries to feed code based on User-Agent:, but these sites tend
to work just fine when you tell Konqueror to pretend to be Firefox or IE
when talking to them.

> And firefox is pretty secure browser. I wouldn't trust konquerer
> anymore then I'd trust firefox.

It is my personal observation and opinion that Konqueror is a trillion
times more secure than Firefox. You don't tend to hear too much about
Konqueror or Safari in terms of security vulnerabilities, but Firefox has
been fighting hole after hole after hole. It is particularly troubling to
learn more about how their political practices interfere with the
distribution of security patches. That alone would be enough for me to
slap a huge black mark on the browser's security status.

I used to be a huge fan of the 'fox when I used Windows, but after
switching exclusively to the GNU/Linux desktop some years ago, I couldn't
help but notice Konqueror is better in pretty much every way.

Knowing now what I have just learned about the Mozilla Foundation, I'm
even more convinced than ever that I didn't make the wrong choice.

The return of Iceweasel

Posted Sep 25, 2006 20:04 UTC (Mon) by k8to (subscriber, #15413) [Link]

Be very careful of judging security by hearsay. That is, do not judge
the security of a program based on the number of reported holes, unless
you have good reason to believe that a comparable program is receiving
the same level of scrutiny.

The return of Iceweasel

Posted Sep 25, 2006 22:41 UTC (Mon) by cventers (subscriber, #31465) [Link]

True, but you have to wonder about things like this:

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060925-7818.html

The return of Iceweasel

Posted Sep 26, 2006 16:14 UTC (Tue) by vmole (guest, #111) [Link]

The memory footprint of Konqerour is only "tiny" if you are running KDE, and have already payed the price of the KDE libs. As a standalone under GNOME or whatever, it might still be smaller than Firefox; I don't know. But "tiny"?

The return of Iceweasel

Posted Sep 26, 2006 18:20 UTC (Tue) by k8to (subscriber, #15413) [Link]

Typically, I find that the footprint of konqueror (and all its daemons)
is around half that of firefox. I don't run KDE.

The return of Iceweasel

Posted Sep 28, 2006 8:17 UTC (Thu) by Jel (guest, #22988) [Link]

No, it really is tiny. However, re-using libraries is a benefit not a disadvantage. The whole point of
common library code is to share it between applications, thereby reducing memory use, increasing
integration, and improving testing and refinement.

The return of Iceweasel

Posted Sep 28, 2006 16:36 UTC (Thu) by vmole (guest, #111) [Link]

Splitting the footprint doesn't change it. If you don't otherwise use those shared libraries, then it doesn't matter how small the konqueror binary is; the total footprint must include those libraries, since they are loaded solely to support konqueror. The fact that they can support other KDE binaries is irrelevent.

The other comment claims the total is still around half the total for Firefox, so I guess I'll give it another try. If only KDE weren't so ugly... :-) (NOTE SMILEY! I'M EXPRESSING PERSONAL OPINION ON A MATTER OF TASTE. THAT'S ALL. NO NEED TO FIGHT ABOUT IT.)

The return of Iceweasel

Posted Sep 26, 2006 16:30 UTC (Tue) by job (guest, #670) [Link]

While I agree with you that Firefox is the better "tool" for getting
stuff done over the web (because it works with a larger part of the web),
saying that it's a "pretty secure browser" is just crap.

Pretty secure compared to what? It has had more than it's fair share of
idiotic bugs. I'm sure that there are more in there. It's a really big
codebase with lots of inter-dependencies without a clear overall design.

Yes, Internet Explorer may be even worse in regard to security
(especially having the ActiveX thing tacked on) but that does NOT make
Firefox secure. It's got most of it's default user interface right so it
doesn't automatically install spyware on Windows, but that's not
security.

The return of Iceweasel

Posted Sep 28, 2006 8:15 UTC (Thu) by Jel (guest, #22988) [Link]

I certainly trust konqueror more than firefox. Its anti-popup feature is designed in a more user-friendly way which allows it to be on all the time (user friendly, just-works security is a great achievement), and it actually works.

Secondly, it seems to be designed based on solid understanding and best principles, rather than trying to take market share from IE. Extensions are installed in the normal, distro way, rather than being allowed directly from a url on the web. It's only recently that firefox has enforced pre-authorisation for downloads. Before that, the bad security vs. competitiveness issues in firefox were pretty obvious for all to see. I'm not sure that has changed, despite some fixing of gaping holes as afterthoughts.