Konqueror Gets Activ(eX)ated

Konqueror has received another
huge shot in the arm, this time
by gaining the ability to embed MSIE ActiveX controls such as
the popular Shockwave
Player
. KDE developers
Nikolas Zimmermann and
Malte Starostik today announced
the initial release of reaktivate.
While not perfect yet, work is ongoing to support other controls
for which no native Linux/Unix solutions exist, such
as Apple's QuickTime.
Credit goes to the WINE developers
for providing the ActiveX support. So now that Konqueror can embed
MSIE ActiveX controls, Netscape Communicator plugins (for Linux), any
X window
(through X window parenting), Java applets and any KParts components, and does an excellent job at handling HTML, CSS and JavaScript natively, it seems to me Konqueror is fast becoming the best browser on any platform. Sweet. Read more for the full press release.

 

DATELINE JULY 9, 2001

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

KDE Web Browser Konqueror Gets Activ(eX)ated

Konqueror Embraces ActiveX, Plays Shockwave Movies

July 9, 2001 (The INTERNET).
Nikolas Zimmermann and
Malte Starostik today announced
the availability of reaktivate for
Konqueror, KDE's web browser.
Reaktivate enables Konqueror to embed
ActiveX controls,
such as the popular
Shockwave
movies, for which no native Linux/Unix solution exists. Reaktivate relies
on the
WINE libraries to load and run
ActiveX controls.

With this addition, Konqueror now enables KDE users to take optimal advantage
of sophisticated websites that make use of Microsoft Internet Explorer plugins,
Netscape Communicator
plugins for Linux and Java applets,
as well as KDE plugins designed using KDE's
KParts
technology.

According to Malte, the reason he and Nikolas implemented reaktivate
is rather simple: it broadens the spectrum of web sites accessible
to Konqueror, and it was possible.

Successes and Limitations

Theoretically,
Reaktivate can eventually be used to embed any ActiveX control into Konqueror.
Currently, however, not all ActiveX controls are compatible with reaktivate.
In particular, the Microsoft
Windows Media Player
cannot be installed using reaktivate (though it is not known if a player which is already installed will work with
reaktivate). Thus it is likely there exist other ActiveX controls which
will not yet work with reaktivate.
Work is ongoing to increase compatability with other ActiveX controls,
including the
Apple QuickTime plugin.

So far, however, reaktivate has been successfully tested with the
following ActiveX controls:

ControlStatus
Test-URLScreenshots

Macromedia
Shockwave Flash 5

No known problems.
Click here
[1], [2], [3], [4], and [5]

Macromedia
Shockwave Player 8

Some files require the use of a native msvcrt.dll instead of the
one provided by winelib. The post-installation dialog is functional
but hard to decipher due to drawing problems. Some movies do not
display properly (only black stripes and rects are shown)
Click here
[1]

LivePics
Clicking the "info" button in the toolbar has no result, everything
else works fine.
Click here
[1] and [2]

Note on Security

Install ActiveX controls only from sites that you
trust.

Microsoft's ActiveX technology has often been criticized for weak security.
Those controls are dynamic libraries that are executed exactly like any
other piece of code installed on the user's system. This means they have
full access to the file system, the system registry etc. As a means to
establish the users' trust in the controls a web site wishes to install,
every ActiveX control is cryptographically signed and carries a certificate
issued by an authority known to the web browser (like
VeriSign). A control
that has no signature or no certificate or if they are invalid will not be
installed.

With reaktivate the situation is similar: the installed controls can call
every WinAPI function provided by the WINE libraries and therefore have
access to WINE's registry and all files visible to the WINE installation.
The current implementation of reaktivate will ask the user for
confirmation to install a new control, but it will not check the embedded
certificate and signature. This is due to technical reasons as well as
limited time. Therefore we strongly advise to install controls only from
sites that you trust. To save your files from malicious controls, you might
also consider using this feature only from a seperate user account that
has no access to your main user's files. Reaktivate will not run from the
root account.

Installing Reaktivate

Source code for reaktivate is freely available under a Free, Open Source
license from the
kdenonbeta
module
in
KDE's CVS repository
and its mirrors.
See the KDE website for
information about how to get a module from CVS. You only need
the toplevel, admin and reaktivate directories from kdenonbeta. Before
compiling, get the latest CVS
version of WINE
(a snapshot will likely not be new enough). Next,
apply all patches from reaktivate/patches-for-wine/ against the WINE
sources and build/install WINE. Finally, you can build and install
reaktivate.

Disclaimer: reaktivate is not in any manner sponsored or endorsed
by, affiliated with, or otherwise related to,
Microsoft Corporation.

Thanks to Andreas "Dre" Pour and
Navindra Umanee for assisting in
drafting this release.

Trademarks Notices.
KDE, K Desktop Environment and Konqueror are trademarks of KDE e.V.
Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.
Unix is a registered trademark of The Open Group.
Microsoft, ActiveX, Microsoft Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player
are registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation.
Shockwave is a trademark or registered trademark of Macromedia, Inc. in
the United States and/or other countries.
Netscape and Netscape Communicator are trademarks or registered trademarks
of Netscape Communications Corporation in the United States and other
countries and JavaScript is a trademark of Netscape Communications Corporation.
Apple and Quicktime are trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc., registered in
the U.S. and other countries.
All other trademarks and copyrights referred to in this announcement are the property of their respective owners.

Dot Categories: 

Comments

by anon (not verified)

> Konqueror Developers just like Linux developers could care less if you can see web pages properly or if something is outputting correctly

they obviously do care-- look at bugs.kde.org.

Please read http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/hyatt/archives/2003_11.html for a indication about how large the web is, and how hard supporting every webpage is.

by Richard Moore (not verified)

You may be right - you give me the distinct impression I couldn't give a shit if your websites work.

by khyeron (not verified)

You seem to denigrate Konqueror, but you, as a web designer should've used your brain to realize that every apple/mac OS/darwin BSD user is going to be a SAFARI user, which USES KONQUEROR as its base... where they merely rewrote the QT engine in C++ if my memory serves correctly. This not meaning that they replaced any other parts of Konqueror.

As a double test, I believe the only browser other than Opera and Safari that passes the ACID2 test (google it) is Konqueror. This means that it interprets the HTML properly.... hmmm, I wonder why Firefox and IE can't do it right? Could it be they are using shortcuts to render things as may not be specified in the whitepapers at w3c? (after all they DO set the standards for the web... even if microsoft rarely abides by them, the OSS community cares about this a bit more than you do)

~Khye

by Flangitaire (not verified)

Remember, this is an old discussion.

Konqueror was pretty sucky back in those days, but how things have changed!

Now it's my browser of choice. When I'm forced to use Windows, I can't stand using any browser other than Konqueror (3.5.*).

And tabbed file management - the most fantastic feature ever. Once you've tried it, you'll never go back.

by Flangitaire (not verified)

Just to clarify the above statement:

When I'm forced to use Windows at work, I get frustrated by not being able to use Konqueror (yes, I know about cygwin etc.)

It's a fantastic file manager and browser.

by Michael H (not verified)

I would like to download Firefox but I am using Konqueror and when I go to the Firefox page the download icon does not appear. After screwing around for ever i can find a page with a linux download icon. When I click the icon, Kongueror renames the file and downloads the file somewhere. Konqueror does not prompt me for a download location. When I finally find the file I can't unzip it. What am I doing wrong?

After 2 days I am still not up and running with Firefox.

by Generic User (not verified)

Ha ha ;)

You can always use ftp://ftp.mozilla.org to download mozilla/firefox.

The installation process is somewhat more complicated. The easiest thing to do is to use your particular brand of linux's package management system. For instance on fedora typing 'yum install firefox' (as root) would install firefox. Using this method you do not need to download firefox in advance.

Otherwise you need to install whatever it is you downloaded. If it is a rpm, rpm -i might do something. Otherwise if it is a tar.gz file tar xvfz will uncompress the file. Then traverse the directory tree until you find the firefox binary... If it is a tar.bz, then try tar xvfj .

If it is a zip file, chances are you downloaded the windows version.

by garion911 (not verified)

Awesome! Now if Konq could actaully work with my online banking...... (Note: I don't believe its Konq's problem... My online banking has a Java applet where the classes are suppose to be loaded by https, and I don't think the Java plugin supports loading of classes via https.. I have the same problem w/ mozilla..)...

by henrik (not verified)

That's cheese. The java you need works in the newest version of KDE.

by garion911 (not verified)

I've been running KDE 2.2Beta2 w/ JRE 1.3.0_01, and it doesn't load classes via HTTPS.. The JRE can handle HTTPS within the applet, but it can't load it via HTTPS... Its something to do with the ClassLoader itself.

--Garion

by someone (not verified)

>The JRE can handle HTTPS within the applet, but it can't load it via HTTPS.

Not sure if I'm confusing something but did you install Sun Microsystem's JSSE as mentioned on http://www.konqueror.org/konq-java.html ?

by Peter Schmitteckert (not verified)

I have the same problem with both of
my banks, e.g.
http://www.sparkasse-gnp.de
even doesn't get rendered correctly.
Compare the page with old netscape 4.72,
you'll realize, that the right menu is missing.
Too sad.

Best wishes,
Peter

P.S. Yes I did install JSSE,
on my other bank account on a VOlksbank
I can start the applet, but after that I get a
sytem error within the applet :(

by Harold (not verified)

Well, I did think KDE's browser was a great thing..
But now I can kiss it good-by if its going to have Microsoft unsecurity to it and I won't use Gnome since it wants to copy the .NNNET crap too..

If you want to have Active X in the browser, go use windows..

by Josh (not verified)

What the hell's your problem? The Linux police aren't going to show up at your house tomorrow and make you install it.

by Timothy R. Butler (not verified)

Then don't use this new tool, and don't use Mono when it comes out. BTW, Linux supports many Microsoft technologies... well I'm not going to even go there...

-Tim

by Malte (not verified)

No one would ever force you to use it. We do not intend to enable it by default so whoever wants to use it will have to deliberately turn it on. Also, at least in the current state it takes even more action to install it because of the neccessary WINE patches. If you don't have a WINE version with our patches or no WINE at all, it won't be compiled at all.
No need to abandon Konqueror or KDE because of this.
Don't like/want ActiveX? Don't turn it on.
Don't like/want Java? Don't turn it on.
Don't like/want JavaScript? Don't turn it on.
...

by MrGrim (not verified)

your loss

by Tim Jansen (not verified)

Does "embedding kparts" mean that it is possible to use the tag to insert a KPart similar to a ActiveX control or a Netscape plugin (and if yes: where is this documented?) or does it only refer to the usual embedding of documents?
In the latter case the text is quite confusing. Embedding KParts in HTML could be very interresting though, especially for HTML-based administration tools and things like that.

by Malte (not verified)

You can embed KParts by using orp referably tags. The KPart to be used will be determined by the MIME type of the data you want to embed. E.g. this will embed the KWord part into a web page showing foobar.kwd:

by Matthias (not verified)

There's a test of webbrowsers for linux in the German Linux-Magazin. Konqueror-2.1.2 comes off badly. It was tested with i-Bench 2.0 from Ziff Davis Media, Inc. Seven browsers (Beonex-0.6pre, Galeon-0.11.0, Konqueror-2.1.2, Mozilla-0.91, Netscape-4.77, Netscape-6, Opera-5.01) were tested, also IE-6.0Beta for comparison.

Results in short: IE-6.0Beta is the fastest and the best in compatibility with standards. Konqueror is not very compatible to standards. Only Netscpae-4.77 is less compatible to HTML-4.0 than Konqueror. Konqueror is also slowly. Only Netscape-6 and Beonex are slower than konqueror.

Conclusion: It should be done more for speed, stability and compatibility than adding new features!

by Confused (not verified)

> Conclusion: It should be done more for speed, stability and compatibility than adding new features!

I'm sorry, what are you saying? That nobody should develop plugins and addons to Konqueror until the Konqueror developers improve KHTML speed and stability? This is a volunteer project where people work on the itch they feel, not according to the schedule you would impose.

As to compatability, if you could "closed" web standards, this does add a lot, wouldn't you say?

by Matthias (not verified)

> I'm sorry, what are you saying? That nobody should develop plugins and addons to Konqueror until the Konqueror developers improve KHTML speed and stability?

No, of course not! There's also a way between that.

> This is a volunteer project where people work on the itch they feel,..

But this is in my opinion a general problem of open source software. Nobody likes fixing bugs. It's cool to introduce new features. And so an advantage from linux gets lost: stability (ok, speed is not so important). But what can I do with a webbrowser with lots of cool features when I cannot use it.
That's surely overstated and I also use Konqueror even as my standard browser, but till now there was no KDE-release which does it for me (not because of features but because of stability). I would like to miss features if I can have more stability instead.

And besides this, I was trying direct attention to this article maybe in the hope to stimulate somebody to improve konqueror referring to this.
(And that's what with open source can done much easier.)

But for all that I love and use KDE. :-)

PS: The difference between Konqueror and KHTML can't be found from an user point of view.

by Confused (not verified)

> > This is a volunteer project where people work on the itch they feel,..
>
> But this is in my opinion a general problem of open source software.
> Nobody likes fixing bugs. It's cool to introduce new features. And so
> an advantage from linux gets lost: stability (ok, speed is not so
> important).

You are missing the point. The two developers are not Konqueror
developers. It wasn't like they put aside Konqueror development to
do this project. They got involved in Konqueror development through
this project.

> But what can I do with a webbrowser with lots of cool
> features when I cannot use it. That's surely overstated and I also
> use Konqueror even as my standard browser, but till now there was
> no KDE-release which does it for me (not because of features but
> because of stability). I would like to miss features if I can have
> more stability instead.

[ ... ]

> PS: The difference between Konqueror and KHTML can't be found from an user point of view.

Well you can tell b/c you start to see more apps using KTHM for online
help browsing, documentation and now there is even a KControl module
that embeds KHTML to permit using browser-based config tools in the
Control Center.

by ac (not verified)

Yes, and this article is widely known to be biased, misinformed and in several cases simply _wrong_. Better read the article, find the "mistakes" and complain to LinuxMagazin and the author.

by Matthias (not verified)

> Yes, and this article is widely known to be biased, misinformed and in several cases simply _wrong_.

Hmmm... I don't notice that there was already talk about it and I also don't read a comment about the article in KDE-news with a correction of this errors.

> Better read the article, find the "mistakes" and complain to LinuxMagazin and the author.

How can I find mistakes when I don't know it better? I read the article to inform me about the topic. A person like you had to complain to the author, otherwise many people (like me) read it and think it's true.
(I don't mean this personally but the logic was not right.)

By the way: What are the mistakes in the article? Are there links about a discussion to it?

by not me (not verified)

Well, since the article isn't available online, you're not going to find much discussion of it online. I'd never even heard of it. However, a post here says that they reported that Java doesn't work with Konqeror. If they did report that, I can't possibly imagine that their review is much good. That's almost certainly a distribution problem, nothing to do with Konqueror.

I am interested in why Konqeror got such a low standards rating. Did they do tests that indicated it had problems with HTML or CSS compatibility, or did they just complain about Java?

by Tom (not verified)

I have read this article and something made me confused about that: The article says that for example JAVA does not start with konqueror.

On my machine Java and konqueror is no problem. I think they had distribution based problems.

The other thing is that that the testing was compared to the newest IE beta from Windows XP;
konqueror was only tested in kde 2.1.x version. Why haven't they taken the newest konqueror version from CVS ???

I know that konqueror could be faster and more stable, but i think that a test should be made on unique coditions.

P.S.: I know the "stable" IE5 and often this one gets stuck without any chance to reproduce the bug.

by Jon (not verified)

Java does work with Konqueror, but it is by default not enabled - you have to go to configuration section and select the checkbox to enable it (the same is true of Javascript).

If the reviewers didn't even bother looking through the configuration dialogs, I imagine they got a lot of other things wrong as well.

by Timothy R. Butler (not verified)

huh, well, standards and actual usage are two different things. I've found Konqi renders waaaay better than Netscape or Opera (any version), and is faster any day.

BTW, ActiveX = compatibility.

-Tim

by Thorsten Schnebeck (not verified)

Its a synthetic browser test. I don't know if you can say the author is biased. Tackat and I had some fun with this guy on www.linux-community.de cause he first did the tests with a Konqi 1.9.x ;-) You can make the test yourself:

http://i-bench.zdnet.com/ibench/testlist/home_js.php

You will see, Konqi has some problems with this test. But reality it different, using the internet with Konqi is fun. Ok, there are some problems (most notably JaveScript), but if we give KDE developers the task: Konqi needs a 100% result in this benchmark, I think there would be not so much improvement in daily browsing.

Bye

Thorsten

by Choadzilla (not verified)

>Konqueror has received another huge shot in the arm,

For implementing the security nightmare that is ActiveX controls in a web brower, you deserve a shot in the head, not the arm.

by Carbon (not verified)

This does not decrease the security of the browser itself, only when the browser is using an ActiveX control. Read the discussion above about chrooting.

by matthias (not verified)

Although I'm reading this with Opera and will soon switch to a Mac. (wine won't work),
I wan't congratulate the Konquerer developers.
You're doing a great job and keep up the work.
You are the guys that will prove that Linux-Desktop lives more than ever.

THANX

by cosmo (not verified)

Speaking of embedding X windows, any idea whether Konqueror will ever be able to embed java applets/windows within itself on window managers other than kwin?

by Peter Schmitteckert (not verified)

That's something I never understood,
why we don't have X11 windows in todays
browsers. We could serve a complete remote
KDE desktop if the Browser infrastructure would allows this.

Best wishes,
Peter

by Chris (HUPER) Hughes (not verified)

Hey everybody!

I can't understand why people are Kicking MS about their .NET services. It really is a solidly laid-out architecture. If you have been getting MSDN Cd's you would realize that it is a VERY powerful set of tools that run on a nicely integrated environment. I have been following XML for a while and have not seen ANY large scale support, I am glad to see that MS will push this standard into the mainstream.

Thanks
Chris

by S Lone (not verified)

Microsoft lackey!

by not me (not verified)

Knee-jerk zealot!

by Carbon (not verified)

Oh yeah, I'm a turban!

by Timothy R. Butler (not verified)

I'm not sure if you could say Microsoft is pushing out standards, only their twisted version of standards... but still I'm glad to see .net support in Linux. It will mean that Microsoft will not be able to dominate next generation computing.

by Alex (not verified)

>I have been following XML for a while and have not seen ANY large scale support

Look at java or beter yet j2ee, plus Micro$oft has it's own XML standart, plus what does that have to do with ActiveX except for letter X?

by Alain (not verified)

I am dubitative. Today Konqueror is installed without Flash and Java (by Mandrake 8.0 for instance).

You may say that it is possible to add such plugins, but it is complex... So Konqui don't know Flash and Java for many users.

About Shockwave I feel it will be more difficult, because there are Wine things and they are not easy to install.

So nothing will change. And it's not important, I don't worry, I don't like sites using Shockave or other ActiveX gadgets...

Yes, Shockwave is also unpopular...

by Tim Jansen (not verified)

I see your point, but this is not exactly Konquerors problem but the problem of the distribution (and the legal situation of proprietary things like Flash). Write Mandrake that you want your Konqueror pre-installed with Flash and Java. If they cannot distribute Flash, tell them that they should write some script that automatically downloads and installs it for you.

by Alain (not verified)

Tim says :

> this is not exactly Konquerors problem but the problem of the distribution

So, please don't say that Java and Flash run with Konqueror, it is false.

Today Java and Flash work with Suze-Konqueror and don't work with Mandrake-Konqueror and many other distribs.

I think that the Konqueror team has to help distribs (write some scripts...) so that they all will deliver Konqui with Flash and Java, and in the same way (so that we may easily change distrib...). It will be useful, also, for advanced users...

It's too easy to say it works when it don't work for many and many users. It's too easy to say the fault comes from distribs...

by Tim Jansen (not verified)

I am using Konqueror on Debian and Flash works fine. I never tried Java though.

by Navindra Umanee (not verified)

> So, please don't say that Java and Flash run
> with Konqueror, it is false.

Nonsense. I have been using Java and Flash with my Mandrake 8.0 since Day 1.

-N.

by Juan (not verified)

It depends on which are the installed rpms. Mandrake 8.0 includes this support in an RPM called kdensplugins, or something similar. I had to install it after initial system installation. And it works very nicely.

by Alain (not verified)

It seems impossible with the 2 Mandrake basic CD :
- the rpm netscape-plugins is absent and it is necessary for Flash
- there is no java machine

I asked on a Mandrake mailing list and also on the Usenet Kde forum : there was no other solution than following the Konqueror site manipulations...

My questions - and then the questions of other users - where seen by many users and NO ONE said it was commonplace, as you seem to say...

Perhaps you made an update with Mandrake while netscape-plugins and java machine were already installed ? It is a very particular and exceptional situation...

by Navindra Umanee (not verified)

KDE cannot control what Mandrake decides to distribute or not -- so you should complain to them as a paying customer and not blindly flame KDE.

HOWEVER I, too, am a paying customer and bought my Mandrake Linux Standard Edition. I can tell you it comes with netscape-plugins, FlashPlayer, etc and all this works flawlessly. It's also true that as I develop Java, I already had the latest Java RPM from my previous Mandrake 7.2 installation. Mandrake probably distributes it with their Plus Pack.

So please be reasonable and find the right people to complain to instead of accusing us of making false claims.

by Alain (not verified)

Navindra explains that he is not a basic Mandrake user using the two basic CD.

> So please be reasonable and find the right people to complain to instead of accusing us of making false claims.

Sorry, I was right: in the basic Mandrake distrib and many other distribs, Konqueror is installed without Flash and Java. It is true, it is not a "nonsense", but a great trouble to improve.

(yes I say "great" because it was the biggest trouble of my Mandrake install and I have seen other users with the same difficulties, so I am perhaps a little disturbing, but I don't want to see such things minimized !)

I also said that it is possible to add Flash and Java with complex (for a basic user) manipulations. So now it is only for advanced users. I wish it will change... And I think that it will be better done by the Konqueror team than by the many distrib teams...

(And I worry that it can be seen something like a "blindly flame". It is a constructive wish)