The Case for Konqueror

SearchOpenSource.com has a short interview with David Brickner, author of Test Driving Linux: From Windows to Linux in 60 Seconds, about Konqueror. Brickner, who writes extensively about Konqueror in his new book, says malware, spyware and viruses have virtually no chance of penetrating machines through the open source browser and file manager. He talks about the security, multi-protocol support and comfort level that Konqueror provides for those coming over from Windows.

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Comments

by cm (not verified)

Funny. I've read other posts complaining that konqi's rendering is blazingly fast but not always good.

by mcosta (not verified)

Konqueror is the fastest free browser in GNU/Linux. Only opera is faster in some tasks. The unique konqueror slow work is javascript.

http://www.howtocreate.co.uk/browserSpeed.html

by Tim (not verified)

He's right. I kept hearing people say Konqueror is fast, but always thought it was really really slow. So eventually I tried turning javascript off. It does indeed make a large difference to the speed and general responsiveness (eg hovering over links).

http://www.howtocreate.co.uk/browserSpeed.html#linspeed

Konqeror 3.2 (Gnome) 13.90 2.85 0.80 1.54 107 2.44 41
Konqeror 3.2 (KDE) 3.02 0.55 0.80 1.52 111 2.34 60
Konqeror 3.5 (Gnome) 14.98 5.70 0.91 2.87 75 2.00 49
Konqeror 3.5 (KDE) 10.84 1.23 0.72 2.97 77 2.11 48

... or not. Stop trolling for a while and go check the figures for real.
Only application start up and table rendering are deemed as slower.
Css rendering, script speed, multiple images and history tests are all faster.

As for application startup, this is so dependant on compile time options, fontconfig bugs, plugins configuration, prelinking, gcc with visibility or not... bah.
I don't see what could have changed for worse since 3.2 in that respect (whereas in the sense of *faster* startup time, we have now the fvisibility enhancements).

by Torsten Rahn (not verified)

So when has KDE 3.5 been released after all? Yeah, right: currently it's still at beta2 stage. And the Author doesn't even mention which beta-version or snapshot he is using and how he got the binaries. Depending on that his results can only get better (Debug-mode? Compile-options? Optimizations?). So if you do a reality check and realize that many of the numbers surpass Konqueror 3.2 already you might come to the conclusion that Konqueror 3.5 will be a magnificent browser!

by anonymous user (not verified)

khelper
ksoftirqd
kacpid
kblockd
ksawpd0
kseriod
kjournald
khubd

by Icyfeet (not verified)

Thank you for promoting Konqueror. It is the most pleasing browser that I have used. A different (and beautiful) UI may be configured each day.~~~

by Mike (not verified)

I guess I'm the only that doesn't like Konq for browsing or file management. I much prefer the Mozilla rendering engine.

by ac (not verified)

I'll take the liberty of doing so many others as soon as a Konq story pops up - whining about my Konq pet peeve. Feel free to ignore me like I do myself with similar posts. ;)

I switched to Firefox after having used Konq for a couple of years, because I became gradually more annoyed that Konq freezes while loading a webpage. Middle-clicking on a link to bring it up in a tab in the background is very convenient, but only if the page I'm viewing doesn't freeze waiting for the new page to be rendered.

Does anyone else have this problem? I'm using Gentoo.

by ac (not verified)

that's "doing _like_ so many others" of course

by Morty (not verified)

Nope, works just fine here. Well it actually happens sometimes with links to single jpg's, guess it has to do with what displays it.

by fyanardi (not verified)

No, it works fine for me.

I use Konqueror everyday, with 10-40 tabs, 99% of my browsing activities, and for me it is quite stable. I only use firefox for my online banking website - but in Windows of course I use firefox, at least until KHTML is ported to Win32. I like Konq because it is very fast, integrated with my KDE desktop (you can middle click link a pdf file to open it in new tab, very useful for me ;)

Btw, maybe we need to create Konq's fans club or something like spreadfirefox? Anyone interested? :D

by Gerard (not verified)

If Konqueror is so secure, then why are banks like NAT WEST not prepared to allow it to access their Online Banking Systems. Firefox Yes Konqueror No.

How does that have anything to do with security? Does NAT WEST not want their site to be able to exploit the web browser accessing the site?

I believe the reason NAT WEST doesn't support Konqueror is because Konqueror's market share is FAR smaller than Firefox's.

If NAT WEST supports IE then it OBVIOUSLY has nothing to do with security.