92 lines
4.6 KiB
Plaintext
92 lines
4.6 KiB
Plaintext
|
Frequently asked questions
|
||
|
|
==========================
|
||
|
|
The Compiler <mail@qutebrowser.org>
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
[qanda]
|
||
|
|
What is qutebrowser based on?::
|
||
|
|
qutebrowser uses http://www.python.org/[Python], http://qt-project.org/[Qt]
|
||
|
|
and http://www.riverbankcomputing.com/software/pyqt/intro[PyQt].
|
||
|
|
+
|
||
|
|
The concept of it is largely inspired by
|
||
|
|
http://portix.bitbucket.org/dwb/[dwb] and
|
||
|
|
http://www.vimperator.org/vimperator[Vimperator]. Many actions and
|
||
|
|
keybindings are similiar to dwb.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
Why another browser?::
|
||
|
|
It might be hard to believe, but I didn't find any browser which I was
|
||
|
|
happy with, so I started to write my own. Also, I needed a project to get
|
||
|
|
into writing GUI applications with Python and
|
||
|
|
http://qt-project.org/[Qt]/http://www.riverbankcomputing.com/software/pyqt/intro[PyQt].
|
||
|
|
+
|
||
|
|
Read the next few questions to find out why I was unhappy with existing
|
||
|
|
software.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
What's wrong with http://portix.bitbucket.org/dwb/[dwb]/http://sourceforge.net/projects/vimprobable/[vimprobable]/https://mason-larobina.github.io/luakit/[luakit]/http://pwmt.org/projects/jumanji/[jumanji]/... (projects based on WebKitGTK)?::
|
||
|
|
Most of them are based on the http://webkitgtk.org/[WebKitGTK+]
|
||
|
|
http://webkitgtk.org/reference/webkitgtk/stable/index.html[WebKit1] API,
|
||
|
|
which causes a lot of crashes. As the API is
|
||
|
|
https://lists.webkit.org/pipermail/webkit-gtk/2014-March/001821.html[deprecated],
|
||
|
|
these bugs are never going to be fixed.
|
||
|
|
+
|
||
|
|
The newer
|
||
|
|
http://webkitgtk.org/reference/webkit2gtk/stable/index.html[WebKit2 API]
|
||
|
|
seems to lack basic features like proxy support, and almost no projects
|
||
|
|
seem to have started porting to WebKit2 (I only know of
|
||
|
|
http://www.uzbl.org/[uzbl]).
|
||
|
|
+
|
||
|
|
qutebrowser uses http://qt-project.org/[Qt] and
|
||
|
|
http://qt-project.org/wiki/QtWebKit[QtWebKit] instead, which suffers from
|
||
|
|
far less such crashes. It might switch to
|
||
|
|
http://qt-project.org/wiki/QtWebEngine[QtWebEngine] in the feature, which
|
||
|
|
is based on Google's
|
||
|
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blink_(layout_engine)[Blink] rendering
|
||
|
|
engine.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
What's wrong with https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/[Firefox] and http://5digits.org/pentadactyl/[Pentadactyl]/http://www.vimperator.org/vimperator[Vimperator]?::
|
||
|
|
Firefox likes to break compatibility with addons on each upgrade, gets
|
||
|
|
slower and more bloated with every upgrade, and has some
|
||
|
|
https://blog.mozilla.org/advancingcontent/2014/02/11/publisher-transformation-with-users-at-the-center/[horrible
|
||
|
|
ideas] lately.
|
||
|
|
+
|
||
|
|
Also, developing addons for it is a nightmare.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
What's wrong with http://www.chromium.org/Home[Chromium] and https://vimium.github.io/[Vimium]?::
|
||
|
|
The Chrome plugin API doesn't seem to allow much freedom for plugin
|
||
|
|
writers, which results in Vimium not really having all the features you'd
|
||
|
|
expect from a proper minimal, vim-like browser.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
Why Python?::
|
||
|
|
I enjoy writing Python since 2011, which made it one of the possible
|
||
|
|
choices. I wanted to use http://qt-project.org/[Qt] because of
|
||
|
|
http://qt-project.org/wiki/QtWebKit[QtWebKit] so I didn't have
|
||
|
|
http://qt-project.org/wiki/Category:LanguageBindings[many other choices]. I
|
||
|
|
don't like C++ and can't write it very well, so that wasn't an alternative.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
But isn't Python too slow for a browser?::
|
||
|
|
http://www.infoworld.com/d/application-development/van-rossum-python-not-too-slow-188715[No.]
|
||
|
|
I believe efficency while coding is a lot more important than efficency
|
||
|
|
while running. Also, most of the heavy lifting of qutebrowser is done by Qt
|
||
|
|
and WebKit in C++, with the
|
||
|
|
https://wiki.python.org/moin/GlobalInterpreterLock[GIL] released.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
Is there an adblocker?::
|
||
|
|
Not yet. Adblocking has a
|
||
|
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/25j41u/adblock_pluss_effect_on_firefoxs_memory_usage/chhpomw[big
|
||
|
|
impact] on browsing speed and
|
||
|
|
https://blog.mozilla.org/nnethercote/2014/05/14/adblock-pluss-effect-on-firefoxs-memory-usage/[RAM
|
||
|
|
usage], so implementing it properly might take some time and won't be done
|
||
|
|
for v0.1.
|
||
|
|
+
|
||
|
|
However, there are some alternatives you could use to block ads:
|
||
|
|
+
|
||
|
|
* You can use a hosts file to block ads. Examples:
|
||
|
|
http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/[1],
|
||
|
|
http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm[2],
|
||
|
|
http://www.hosts-file.net/[3]
|
||
|
|
* Set up a http://www.privoxy.org/[Privoxy] proxy server and use it to
|
||
|
|
filter ads before they even get to the browser.
|
||
|
|
* Use the https://www.requestpolicy.com/[RequestPolicy] functionality to
|
||
|
|
block ads, which currently isn't implemented either.
|
||
|
|
+
|
||
|
|
If you think you can add ad blocking or request policy, please contribute!
|