Why Firefox is not a good choice of browser for a KDE/Plasma-based product

[Markus Slopianka]

On Thursday 27 March 2014 01:16:11 Kevin Kofler wrote:

> But it does not support KIO. :-( So, in particular, no man:, info:, gopher:
> etc. URLs. (Both Konqueror and Rekonq support that.)

Right, but I found it an acceptable trade off (YMMV) for a browser that is 
very actively maintained. Scrolling through commit logs, there is already a 
bunch of QupZilla contributors visible on the first page of GitHub, whereas 
Rekonq is pretty much a one-man show of Andrea Diamantini.

Konqueror is practically dead with most files not been touched for YEARS!
https://projects.kde.org/projects/kde/applications/kde-baseapps/repository/revisions/master/show/konqueror

When I looked at various browsers, my agenda was to find the best Qt-based web 
browser available. Not the best manpage browser, not the best Gopher browser.


> It also does not support KDE web shortcuts, like gg: to search in Google,
> bz: for Red Hat Bugzilla with a bug ID, bug: for KDE Bugzilla with a bug ID
> etc. :-( (Both Konqueror and Rekonq support that, too.)

I'm not too familiar with QupZilla’s extension infrastructure but I guess 
these could be added -- if one actually thinks that these shortcuts are a 
must-have feature (I don't).


> Also, Edit / Preferences does not comply to the KDE HIG. (It's a GNOMEism.)

In the limited time I had contact with QupZilla's maintainer(s), I found them 
easy to interact with and open for ideas. I'm sure this is something they 
would not refuse to implement, esp. if becoming default in Fedora KDE is a 
prospect.


> My personal opinion is that Konqueror is the right approach. But I'll take
> any KDE or even Qt-only browser as our default over Firefox any day. (As for
> myself, you can pry my Konqueror from my cold, dead hands. ;-) )

As you wrote yourself, this is not about removing options from the repos. ;-)
Personally, I use Firefox. While I considered QupZilla of all Qt-based 
browsers the best candidate for a default in a KDE environment, I would not 
keep it for me either (so from my own POV it actually does not matter what 
you'll choose).
I think of myself to have a good eye what most regular KDE users want: They 
are more advanced than the regular Ubuntu user but at the same time not so 
eager to tweak absolutely everything as Awesome WM users. ;-)

So please don't read my mail as one by a fanboy who wants "his" browser to 
become default. :-)



> Is QtWebEngine even good enough for that (i.e. writing a browser around it)
> yet? The Rekonq developer does not think it is, and based on what I've read
> from Qt upstream, I'd tend to agree.

I have no insights into QtWebEngine. All I know about it is from blogs 
(Digia's and QupZilla's).
I'm not sure if QupZilla 2.0 will simply support both QtWebKit and QtWebEngine 
or rely on QtWebEngine exclusively.
http://blog.qupzilla.com/2014/01/qupzilla-161-released.html does not got into 
detail on that topic.

http://blog.qt.digia.com/blog/2013/09/12/introducing-the-qt-webengine/ clearly 
says that Digia "no longer will do any feature development in Qt WebKit".

I am not aware of any plans by KDE upstream for their KDEWebKit wrapper to 
migrate.