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Posts with tag gecko

Sleipnir: Customizable web browser uses IE or Firefox rendering engines

Posted Jul 23rd 2008 3:00PM by Brad Linder
Filed under: Internet, Windows, Freeware, Browsers

Sleipnir
Sleipnir is a web browser that's popular in Japan and pretty much unheard of in the rest of the world. The Windows-only browser lets users choose between the rendering engines used by market leaders Internet Explorer and Firefox. But Sleipnir is more than just a pretty front end for either browser. It's a standalone tool that provides users with a huge number of customization options.

Fenrir, the company behind the free browser, has been making an English language version for a while now, but Computer World reports that the company is stepping up its efforts to promote the browser outside of Japan.

Here are a few of the things that make Sleipnir worth checking out:
  • If you install the optional Gecko plugin, you can switch between the Firefox and Internet Explorer rendering engines with the click of a button. You can do something similar with the IETab add-on for Firefox, but Sleipnir includes this functionality out of the box.
  • When you select text, a box shows up on screen letting you search for that text on the web or translate the text from English to Japanese and vice versa. You can even plot a highlighted address on a map.
  • You can extend the browser's functionality with scripts and plugins.
There's also a portable version of Sleipnir that you can run from a flash drive.

[via Digital Inspiration]
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Galeon: It's like Firefox for Spartans

Posted May 19th 2008 9:00AM by Brad Linder
Filed under: Linux, Open Source, Browser Tips

Galeon
A few weeks ago we looked at K-Meleon, a light-weight browser for Windows that uses the same rendering engine as Firefox 2. The result is a browser that loads any page you can open in Firefox, which uses significantly less RAM than Firefox. There's also no support for add-ons or many of the other bells and whistles that make Firefox tick.

Galeon pretty much the same thing, except it runs on Linux, not Windows. In our tests, the browser eats about half the RAM of Firefox 3, and renders pages using the same engine as Firefox 2, which means that some pages that look funny in Firefox 3 look better in Galeon, making the browser excellent companion piece of software.

Like K-Meleon, Galeon does not support add-ons, or Greasemonkey scripts. And it doesn't have some of the more useful features you can find in Firefox 3 like full page zoom.

There's no shortage of light weight web browser for Linux. But since Galeon can render any web page Firefox can, the browser is far more useful than other browsers such as Dillo or Konqueror.
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K-Meleon: It's like Firefox, without the bloat

Posted Apr 29th 2008 9:00AM by Brad Linder
Filed under: Internet, Windows, Browser Tips

K-Meleon
K-Meleon is a light weight web browser for folks who don't need a ton of plugins, options, or much of anything except for a good utility for viewing web sites. The browser uses the same rendering engine as Firefox, so pretty much any page that you can access in Firefox can also be opened in K-Meleon. But don't expect your Firefox add-ons or Greasemonkey scripts to play nice with K-Meleon.

Because K-Meleon lacks some of the bells and whistles you'd find in Firefox, Internet Explorer, or Opera, the browser is fast. Like really fast. It also doesn't use as much RAM as Firefox, which is known to be something of a memory hog.

That's not to say that K-Meleon is a one-trick pony. The browser is customizable, and you can choose from a variety of skins and themes. And K-Meleon supports tabbed browsing, mouse gestures, pop up blocking, and macros.

K-Meleon is Windows only. But if you're looking for light weight Mac or Linux web browsers that use the same Gecko rendering engine as Firefox, check out Camino or Galeon.
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Firefox 3 Alpha 5 released

Posted Jun 7th 2007 2:00PM by Brad Linder
Filed under: Mozilla, Browser Tips

Firefox 3 Alpha 5
Mozilla has released Firefox 3 Alpha 5. Keep in mind, when we say alpha, we mean this thing hasn't even earned the right to be called beta software yet, so install at your own risk. For example, when you install Firefox 3 (code named Gran Paradiso), you'll notice that clicking on your Firefox 2 icon will bring up Gran Paradiso whether you like it or not.

Gran Paradiso doesn't actually uninstall Firefox 2.0 though, so you can install Gran Paradiso and uninstall it with minimal risk. Except there's a chance you might lose some bookmarks. That's because the biggest change in the latest build is that Mozilla has added "Places," a new way of managing bookmarks, RSS subscriptions, and browser history in your sidebar.

Places first showed up in Firefox 2 Alpha 1, but has been disabled for the last few builds. It makes its triumphent return with Alpha 5, but you probably won't really notice any changes, since there's no graphical redesign to go along with the changes under the hood.

Some other updates:
  • A new crash reporting system is enabled on Mac OS X and about half of Windows installations. It's not yet available for Linux.
  • There's a new Javascript-based password manager.
  • And some miscellaneous bug fixes in the new Gecko 1.9 rendering engine.
[via WebWare]
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uBrowser: Web browsing in 3D

Posted Feb 24th 2006 6:40PM by Jordan Running
Filed under: Fun, Internet, Mozilla, Open Source

uBrowserWhat would you do if you could stick your web browser on a virtual 3D surface and spin it around in real time? Probably scratch you head and ask "but what is it good for?" Well, that's what you get with uBrowser, head-scratching included. In truth it's basically a tech demo that showcases Mozilla's Gecko web page rendering engine married to OpenGL. It's not really good for anything, but it is fun to stick your favorite web site on a sphere or a waving flag and turn it this way and that. Since it's based on LibXUL, it's a fully functional web browser, which means you can click on links, check your Gmail, and even play flash games. And it's also open source, so despite what I just said it probably is useful for developer-types.
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