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  • From: baslinux AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • To: baslinux AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [BL] Firefox
  • Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2009 17:31:05 +0000 (UTC)

Arora uses WebKit rendering engine built on top of Qt with C++, minimalistic and lightweight interface, CSS. http://arora-browser.org
Cross-platform. Project owners are icefox.
arora-0.5.tar.gz source code 746K (or rpm 752K).
arora-0.4.2.i586.rpm package 419K. Needs GTK2, Qt, and git to compile it. No Makefile.

Midori is similar but needs python 2.4 not git to compile it.

Steven, do you want to tackle either of these or stick with Firefox 1.5?

Both use WebKit layout engine derived from Konqueror via Apple Safari written in C++ and ported to Qt for linux with a JavaScriptCore called Squirrelfish Extreme (SFX) Sept 18, 2008, which compiles JavaScript into native machine code making it run faster.

Other linux layout engines - Gecko, GtkHTML, KHTML, Presto, Prince XML.
KHTML is much slimmer than Gecko (used by Mozilla/Ice*).
Only Opera and Nintendo and Wii use Presto.

Miscellaneous layout engines:

Netsurf does no javascript and has lots of dependencies.
Skipstone requires Mozilla and adds things to it.

"HTML Viewer 3 (Hv3) is a powerful yet minimalist web browser that uses Tkhtml3 as a rendering engine and Simple ECMAScript engine to interpret scripts (javascript)" and it is written in Tcl and is alpha since
2006. Precompiled Windows executable 08_0203.exe and a generic linux executable with "no dependencies" 2.6MB which expands to 3.3MB binary.

The dependencies are:
libdl.so.2
libm.so.6
libc.so.6
ld-linux.so.2

libstdc++.so.5
libgcc_s.so.1

Slackware 7.1 does not have the last two but Slackware 11 does.

fwm - left click on the empty grid. Install hvpolipo.

Options - change or hide icons, font size, zoom, enable/disable images javascript CSS. Bookmarks, history. Tabbed browsing. Enter URL or search terms in same box, the latter with " " to use google.

Left arrow and backspace and Page Down don't navigate. Mouse does.

Clicked on a link at a music calendar of events and it complained the website has a java error - Element " is undefined. As in Links2, the void:(0) links do not work. (Perhaps they are badly written and Gecko and Opera can handle more errors?). Some identical looking links do nothing (no complaint message). It segfaulted while moving the mouse.

It appears to download all the images even when instructed not to display them (like Opera, unlike lynx). Primary advantage is low memory - 3.3MB plus xinit/X. Links2 uses 2MB memory (svgalib only that, or in X also xinit/Xvesa) and does not segfault (in X). Have not tried with Xvesa.
It might work better than Dillo or links2 for some things.

The browser identifies itself as Mozilla and Suse-hv3-alpha. Still alpha.

links2 and hv3 loaded instantly. Firefox took 10 seconds at 1.6GHz from a fast hard disk, and uses 25MB memory (7 processes each of that amount, plus one smaller one). They all download pages at about the same speed. Without broadband, rendering speed is less important.

It displays javascript errors only on request. Unlike Opera, you don't need to click on a link and then go to the bottom of the page to view something - putting the mouse arrow on it brings up a box with fake shadows containing the information for a page where all the info is there but buried in javascript. hv3 could not handle this page at all.

Opera won't work at all with some sites. AOL mail, HP driver download... 8.54 does AOL mail and displays fonts properly in BL but may have video problems. 9.63 displays with only two fonts in BL2, but has them all in Slackware 11. It must be looking for X fonts.

Cyrillic and Greek display in both Opera and Firefox in Slackware 11, and in links2 graphical in BL.

Opera but not Firefox 1.5 displays Asian fonts (Chinese and Korean and Japanese and others - Tamil or Hindi, Armenian), in Slackware 11, which has /cyrillic and /encodings = microsoft fonts, iso-8859, greek, visciii = Vietnamese, arabic, armscii = Armenian, etc.). 61.4MB fonts.

How does one stop images from downloading or at least displaying with Firefox 1.5? They waste memory as well as time. Firefox 1.5 has no Tools. Opera lets you toggle images, or right click to load just one.
But I think it downloads them all anyway, unlike lynx and links.

Will BL2 icewm work in Slackware 11?

Steven, thanks very much for finding this older version.

An add-on package of ONLY what is needed by Firefox 1.5 for BL3 and BL2 would be great! Slackware 11 is too big. I would put BL3 in a separate partition and chroot there from BL2 to use Firefox. Also set up BL3 with Firefox and Cyrillic for other people who cannot handle Opera.

Sindi




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