K-Meleon browser

Discussion in 'other software & services' started by atomomega, Nov 3, 2011.

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  1. atomomega

    atomomega Registered Member

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    I noticed there's a lof of threads on Wilders about K-Meleon, but they all seemed dated (last one from 2010).
    I would like to know if there's somebody using it, and what version are you running? Also, do you run the Preload feature? I barely notice any difference wether it's enabled or disabled.
     
    Last edited: Nov 3, 2011
  2. Sully

    Sully Registered Member

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    Re: K-Melon browser

    Kmeleon is almost dead. Only a handful of devs are left, and they have real life to attend to, so it is not looking good.

    I loved KM, but have left it primarily because it hasn't been updated and just doesn't look like it will ever be again. I would put it on slower machines still, but don't use it on mine.

    Preload feature made a difference on slower machines, both in how fast it took to load the browser and in some things that would stay across shutdowns of the browser because it wasn't really shut down fully. On a new machine, you should still be able to tell the difference IMO.

    Sul.
     
  3. Daveski17

    Daveski17 Registered Member

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    Re: K-Melon browser

    I believe K-Meleon's pre-load feature was the same as the one SeaMonkey utilised. The beta based on SeaMonkey 2.0.11. has been out for about a year I think. Unfortunately I think K-Meleon will soon disappear.
     
  4. guest

    guest Guest

    Re: K-Melon browser

    I liked K-Meleon and the last thread about it on Wilders was probably mine. But K-Meleon's development is nearly dead now.
     
  5. mhf

    mhf Registered Member

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  6. Daveski17

    Daveski17 Registered Member

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    Re: K-Melon browser

    I think that there are several unofficial builds, hopefully that beta will be going RC in a while. It was a great browser, I hope it still does have a future.
     
  7. atomomega

    atomomega Registered Member

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    Re: K-Melon browser

    Yeap, that's the one I was refering to, a lot of people showed love to K-Meleon around that time.
    You are right, seems like it's still alive. BTW, what's the last stable release? I'm running 1.5.4.
    I really like this feature, specially cause I'm using this on a low-end system.

    Now, if I could make a suggestion, I'd change the logo to look like the one in the About K-Meleon section. That cartoonish alligator just don't cut it. lol
     
  8. Blitzer

    Blitzer Registered Member

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    Re: K-Melon browser

    @atomomega

    Latest final release is 1.5.4 and latest development release is 1.6.0 beta2.
    The logo has changed since 1.6.0 beta as you suggested :)

    BTW it is called K-Meleon and not K-Melon .
     
  9. MerleOne

    MerleOne Registered Member

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    Re: K-Melon browser

    And I am still using V 1.5.4 extensively because, it's light, fast and has a nice password manager, a bit like Opera's one.
     
  10. nord1

    nord1 Registered Member

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    Re: K-Melon browser

    The latest round of developers have not been working on updating the browser, but promises have been made to do something this winter. Whether or not that happens, the K-Meleon 1.6 beta2 is stable and works well (equiv of firefox 3.5 gecko engine 1.9.1). There are what I would call homebrew variations that use firefox 3.6 gecko 1.9.2, which means they are up-to-date with 3.6.xxx. FWIW, Secunia 2.0 says my KM 1.6b2 is secure (as it doesn't incur the problems of Firefox's XUL interface).

    I use KM 1.6 and Fred's (a homebrew developer who likes Wine and Linux) variation that uses Gecko 1.9.2 (K-Meleon 1.7 alpha engine) with a variety of parts from earlier K-Meleon releases that works well enough. Works in Windows with the addition of a couple of DLLs.

    All of this came about because of Mozilla's decision to kill off embed, which allowed 3rd party developers to modify Gecko for their own spinoffs. So Gecko 2.0 is a problem for K-Meleon and Camino and probably others that I am not aware of. IMO, Mozilla is focusing solely on Firefox and has significantly moved away from its open source philosophy.

    FWIW, as much as I like the old password manager (pre-SQLite Gecko) in K-Meleon, I personally use PasswordSafe for anything financial.

    IF there are any C++ developers out there who would like to be involved in the only other Gecko browser with decent extensions (KM uses KKO's scripting language to do some of what XUL does for Firefox, only without the software emulation overhead), send them on over to the K-Meleon forum!
     
  11. Daveski17

    Daveski17 Registered Member

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    Re: K-Melon browser

    @nord1, thanks for the info update. :thumb:
     
  12. dw426

    dw426 Registered Member

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    Re: K-Melon browser

    I wasn't aware that the browser was in such dire straits.
     
  13. Sully

    Sully Registered Member

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    Re: K-Melon browser

    It works well, but doesn't seem to have a future for many reasons. The small nature of it, and now the way it is becoming segregated by the home-brews doesn't help any either. I used some of the versions (alpha and home-brew) that came out after the last official release, but figured if it was going to fade, might as well get used to something else.

    Too bad, I really like KM and made quite a few macros for it to do what I wanted it to do. It was a browser, nothing more, which is why I liked it. It might not die, but it certainly doesn't seem like it is ever going to grow much either.

    Sul.
     
  14. Trooper

    Trooper Registered Member

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    Re: K-Melon browser

    Wow thanks for the update Nord1.

    I used this browser years ago and loved it. Maybe I will re-download it for nostalgia's sake.

    Cheers.
     
  15. MerleOne

    MerleOne Registered Member

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    Re: K-Melon browser

    Yes, thanks for the update ! And for me it's still the present time, no need to succumb to nostalgia... :)
     
  16. nord1

    nord1 Registered Member

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    Re: K-Melon browser

    Sul,

    It may well die and it may not. I've been around since version 0.6, so know all the developers over time. There have been lulls in the past, this one not much different in the flow of things, aside from the embed difficulty.

    I may well be the worst coder in the world, and even I have written macros (although usually I just ask and somebody at the KM forum quickly writes one for me). Can't do that with XUL XPI extensions.

    * Fred's variations are designed to work with Wine in Linux and so in a sense, KM is cross-platform, if not natively.

    As for the segregation, not exactly accurate characterization. Firefox has lots of homebrew variations too, and the people who are doing homebrew for KM have always given back code to the main developer.**

    ** Usually only one, max two at any one time.

    <shrug>
     
  17. nord1

    nord1 Registered Member

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    Re: K-Melon browser

    Just to give you an idea. It loads slower than FF 7.0.1 (my other browser), but its runs almost as fast and that is with an older Gecko and Javascript engine. I run it on a very old Thinkpad with only 768 megs ram and it does quite well.

    Starting to run into useragent issues with some sites, like Google, but so far, so good, as there are spoofs that work. My current spoof is:

    Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:8.0a2) Gecko/20110911 Firefox/8.0a2

    An unoffical beta 3 is due out "any day now" <g> A full release? Not sure, as the two current developers have both had busy schedules. As this is a hobby for all the developers who have worked on it over time (since before firefox), it has always been hard to accurately predict when releases will come out. Mozilla's rapid release policy has put the hurt to a lot of people out there and K-Meleon is one.
     
  18. Sully

    Sully Registered Member

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    Re: K-Melon browser

    Yeah, I have been using it for a long time too, I think v04 if I remember correctly. All I remember is when XP first came out, I was using Opera (the old ad-banner version) as my primary, and I used Kmeleon for the pages Opera did not render properly. I have seen you there. I have had lots of help about macros, examples and such, great group of guys.

    I don't recall there being quite the "slow spell" that there has been lately though. The last release was some time ago, and from the talk over there, it really appears that it is at a standstill, indefinately. That is more of what I base my view on, that some devs are no longer there and the overall mood seems a bit on the down side.

    I wish it would have continued to develop, I would likely be using it still. Its stagnation is why I started using chrome to begin with. I forget now exactly, but there was some issue I had with it, and no new versions in sight made me try others.

    As you say <shrug> is really all one can do when things like this happen. I check the site from time to time to see if there is any breaking news, hoping...

    Sul.
     
  19. Daveski17

    Daveski17 Registered Member

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    Re: K-Melon browser

    And me.
     
  20. nord1

    nord1 Registered Member

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    Re: K-Melon browser

    Not so long ago, one of the developers promised work would be done in the winter (this after missing working on it during vacation time in August, a decision I totally understand, as a European vacation is a four week treat for the family). Another fellow is working on a beta3, but as he is new to the browser, it will take time for the work to shake out. No promises made and all hard to keep. Ideally a stable 1.7 will appear and that will extend the life in the near future. Down the road, no idea. But then that was part of the reason for Mozilla to kill off embed, to eliminate spinoffs, IMO.

    I saw work on it in the beginning, but didn't get around to downloading it until v0.6.... <LOL>
     
  21. nord1

    nord1 Registered Member

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    Re: K-Melon browser

    Ha! I too used Opera at that time and lots of stuff annoyed (forget the interface!)... that is where I found out about Foxmail which I use to this day (foxmail 5*, as the newer version is bloated after TenCents took it over).

    * with Avast to provide SSL3, which was a great relief (gmail) as using Stunnel to provide SSL3 was doable, but not ideal.
     
  22. atomomega

    atomomega Registered Member

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    Re: K-Melon browser

    Wow! Thank you all for your replies. I'm still using K-Meleon on my pc and I'm very happy with it. I haven't had the time to get inside of it and tweak it enough, but as soon as I have the chance, I sure will.
    So we all hope development continues... personally, as long as It does it's job and don't becomes a security hole, I'll be using it.
     
  23. atomomega

    atomomega Registered Member

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    Re: K-Melon browser

    So this one is still running as my default browser. Kind of already into it. I like it's simplicity and lightness. Customization is a bit of a hassle due to lack of extension updates, but not a big deal.
    Running 1.6 Beta 2
     
  24. nord1

    nord1 Registered Member

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    Re: K-Melon browser

    atomomega,


    Lots of extensions in a few places*:

    http://kmext.sourceforge.net/extensions/

    or

    http://kmext.sourceforge.net/

    Same thing, the first one is just the files.

    http://extensions.geckozone.org/K-MeleonEn

    This last one is JuJu's extensions which have been around the longest. Some are not updated.

    Right now I run K-Meleon 1.6 beta2 and K-Meleon-16-F3624 (Fred's variation on the theme which uses the KM 1.7 engine with kplugins from KM 1.5.4 and other parts from KM 1.6. Most things work, but not everything. Most definitely unofficial.

    * Some extensions exist only as posts in the K-Meleon Forum... searches for particular features there may let you find little macros that do different things.
     
  25. atomomega

    atomomega Registered Member

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    Re: K-Melon browser

    @nord1
    Thank you very much for the links. I went there already but found many discontinued extensions (specially lack of support for 1.6b2 on skins and some other stuff). I have AdBlock Plus/Flash/Adobe Reader as my plugins. Nothing else. Running phoneity theme. Looks pretty cool I'd say.
    Is KM your default browser?
     
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