K-Meleon - I Made The Move

I've known of K-Meleon since this project started, but I'm not sure why I never bothered with it, I guess because all these years I was happy with Firefox until recently.

All I can say is I haven't been happy dealing with version 2x & 3x of Firefox in the past with issues I've run across, also Opera 9.5 for me was a mess, and let's not even discuss IE, yuck...

Well finally the time had come to try out K-Meleon, and let me tell you my jaw is dropping, this browser is fast, lightweight with a small memory footprint and stable...

I'm in LOVE again!

I'd love to hear some thoughts on this browser from others...

THANKS

 

I really like K-Meleon too but sadly it doesn't work with RoboForm.

 

K-mel's toolbar customization is very cool. Just make sure that once you get things situated just the way you like, you "lock toolbars" (to prevent accidently screwing things up).
Also check out the "privacy bar".
See at a glance whether cookies, java, etc are enabled. Change acceptance policy with a click.

 

Yep, K-Meleon is and has always been very fast and snappy. Much better in that regard, loading and browsing speed, than FF. Probably not as versatile as FF with extensions perhaps, but if you're looking for speed, then KM is it.

 

It is nice...

 

Any plans for children?

 

Have been using it for a long time now. I mainly use Opera, because it had tabs before tabs were cool, and it had a good history, so going back was instant, instead of reloading page. When I come across that occasional page that Opera just won't open, I turn to Kmeleon, which has only let me down on pages that flat out require IE to run.

I would use Kmeleon as my only browser if they had 2 things:

a real download manager like Opera has (at least you can pause and resume)

an option to open browser up from where you left off, with ability to save a 'session'. This for me, is by far the feature that makes me stick with Opera. Open up 15 pages when researching something. Close Opera down, when it restarts, all pages are up just like you left them. Or you can save those open pages as a session, and reload it later. I use that everyday.

Pity kmeleon doesn't have such handy features. I have found it's cache to be better than Opera or FF, it is defiantely lightwieght, and I actually use the loader feature. One of the rare applications that I do that with.

There are some pretty cool skins available, the mouse gestures work pretty much like opera, the privacy options are good, the tweakability is good. Many tricks that can be used for FF can be used for Kmeleon.

Overall, what is not to like. It is a broswer that works and does not crash. Is it secure? I don't know. Is it targeted for exploits much? I don't know.

Sul.

 

DL mgr.s such as OrbitDownloader, Fresh Download, WinGet, Free DL Mgr, Download Express and others are available for K-Mel via extensions or External app.s:
http://pagesperso-orange.fr/jujuland46/JujuLand/KMES/KMES-Download.html#down_extensions

http://kmeleon.sourceforge.net/wiki/ExternalApplications#downloads

Don't know if it is as comprehensive as Opera's, , but K-Mel has an "Open Last Sesion".

It should share much of the security strengths (and weaknesses) of FF, in that they both use same Mozilla / Gecko engine.
(I typically run my browser sandboxed, so I worry little)

Cheers

 

Too true. Unfortunately I would prefer a more seamless integration. I have treid those, and really there are better types of apps than those. I don't want a standalone app to handle that.

Yes, this too I know. But did you know that you must not use tabs to use that feature? In Kmeleon anyway. It says to use it you must use windows not tabs. No thanks.

Truly, I have tried every resource mentioned with Kmeleon just to check them out. Most of them work great. Even the downloaders work, just not exactly what I would want.

One small thing that I have not liked about Kmeleon, is that from one version to the the next ( I don't remember which ones ), some of the syntax was changed for the plugins. Not a big deal, but some of my skins stopped working properly in some instances. I had to figure out what it was and change them. Seems they would document such stuff better, but it was sort of a needle in a haystack on some forums somewhere.

Thanks for the info tho.

Sul.

 

RoboForm working with K-Meleon I continue my tests. If everything working fine then I switch (again) to K-Meleon. I used it before I bought RoboForm.

 

Seems a good browser, but was slower than FF3 when I tried it.

 

Can't be true or there's some problem with your system. In my system memory usage is 1/3*Firefox and speed is superb. RoboForm working fine so I choose K-Meleon now.

 

I would second that. I have used Kmeleon and Opera for some years, when firefox was not even out yet, it was still mozilla 'firebird'. I have always found it to be very fast. Not as fast as Opera was.

It also help to quantify, what is fast? Fast loading? Fast downloading? Fast page loading? Fast when opening preferences?

I find it to be fast in most situations, definately not slower than FF, but maybe if faster, it would be for perhaps some things but not page loading. All browsers I use today seem to do that within a second of each other.

 

Nothing wrong with my system. But it was a while ago. Any particular update which may have made it faster..?

 

I have started with v1.01 and have archived all versions. I initially used it on 98se machines, especially older laptops because it was so light.

I have not noticed any significant speed issues though. I probably used 110 the longest, and collected the most stuff like skinz etc to go with it. I think v115 is the one that changed some of the syntax so some skins and themes had to be re-worked. v115 seemed a good one to me. The latest I have not played with enough to see any differences yet, but so far it is no worse than prior versions.

Then again, when I first started with mozilla 'firebird', it was fast too. Anything was better than Navigator or IE. I personally think all the browsers now are developing a rash of bloat. Only k-meleon seems to still be free of that blight. For the moment anyway.

Sorry that prolly don't help much.

Some things I found along the way, and I don't remember where anymore.

speedup.kmm
googleurl.kmm
copylayer.kmm
clonelayer.kmm

2 plugins I know are from the resources at the kmel website
gestures-rocker
searchbar

I dont' recall but I think I also got from the kmel website
Liquid-Icon and Toolbar-Paint ;; for making your own themes/skins

Sul.

 

I tried the latest version [1.1.6], big hangs before opening pages, FF3 is twice as fast as K-Meleon.

 

Something is amiss as KM has always been faster than FF.

 

That's impossible for it to be slower...

FF3 is a pig compared to K-meleon...