Who Loves Ya, Linux Baby?

I started looking for alternatives to Firefox when they went to their insane six week release cycle. This just is another reason to look elsewhere for me, and there are plenty of choices for elsewhere: Midori, Arora, Konqueror, Kazehakase, xxxterm, Netsurf and, if I decide closed source is OK, Opera.

Midori is a fantastic browser, been using that for a few years when not using Chromium.

See, Patrick, there are things we agree on :) Midori is increasingly becoming my first choice.

"Don't fall in love with a corporation. They won't love you back." - Harvey Mackay

I definitely am not as enamored with firefox as I have been in the past but I still use it due to addons like adblock, https everywhere, foxyproxy.

From a features standpoint I love Opera and were some parts of the web not more hospitable to it and the fact that I prefer GPL or BSD licensened software it would be my browser of choice. Plus the fact that they package for just about any distro or BSD is really awesome.

Konqueror still makes for a much better file manager than a browser.

@Caitlyn I thought Arora was essentialy abandoned at this point?

Last I saw Arora was still getting updates. If that's changed it's news to me.

I'm sorry Konqueror never got better than it did, and that it seems to be mostly abandonware now. I used to use it semi-exclusively for a long time, back in the KDE3 days. It had some very nice features, such as the "up" arrow (which chopped off the last part of the URL path, so you could step up in the hierarchy, or if you were already only one level deep, you'd go to the site's home page), and a bookmark system that was better than any I've seen since in many respects (such as using XBEL for storing bookmarks, which was convenient if you wanted to write a Perl script to work with them somehow, and also making it very easy to place a new bookmark in exactly the folder you want without having to open up a separate bookmark manager window).

according to the download page there hasn't been a new release since 2010.

http://code.google.com/p/arora/downloads/list

I need proper socks4a/5 & PAC support in a browser and only Firefox and Chrome/Chromium really offer that, Opera didn't have full support last time i checked and all the other more lightweight browsers such as Midori which I would like to use don't either.

So for the moment I will stick with Firefox.

Quoting:I'm sorry Konqueror never got better than it did ...

You also forgot to mention my favorite feature of being able to indefinitely split views in Konqueror. I used that a lot to view and compare docs & Internet pages.

Rekonq is the replacement for Konqueror in KDE. It is still under development and it uses Webkits. The are following the same type design as in Chrome.

I am not sure whether it will have some of the unique features that Konqueror has. But Konqueror is still available though for download if not already installed.

Since Webkit is based on KHTML, Rekonq isn't really traveling too far from its roots.

Another nice feature of Konqueror was clear buttons in the URL and search bars.

Exactly what kind of "apps" was Mozilla going to provide that [your distribution of choice] doesn't?

My question too! Maybe something similar to what Google Chrome has for its Google apps, or maybe vice versa: whichever is most optimized for the other ???

2c

Quoting:If all this sounds ridiculous, "it's because the whole concept is ridiculous," Hudson concluded. "Everywhere you look, there's YASASP: 'Yet Another Stupid App Store Proposal.' We need another App Store as much as a street corner with three Starbucks (Nasdaq: SBUX) needs a fourth."

It's the top down control mentality, Every "platform " provider has to have their own "App Store", or the Universe will implode.

Quoting: It's the top down control mentality, Every "platform " provider has to have their own "App Store", or the Universe will implode.

Maybe the "Top" is worried about shareholders' expectations, and feel obliged to demonstrate that they (ie. "top" management) are properly focused on improving earnings -- or at least not neglecting "low-hanging fruit" ?

(Yes -- purely speculative, I know.)

Incidentally, why should a browser web-app care much, what the underlying OS is?

What am I missing?

Mozilla's Windows versions use Windows APIs, so I'm assuming the Linux and Mac versions use APIs from the respective operating Systems. Hence the cost in time and labour, if not also money of developing for the respective operating systems

Quoting:... and feel obliged to demonstrate that they (ie. "top" management) are properly focused on improving earnings ...

In the case of Linux Operating Systems. the smartest move would be to get one's "platforms" applications included in the existing "App Store(s)". Howver, even though such a move could lead to lower overheads (labour, money, time), it would mean a considerable loss of control, so it is the least likely option chosen.

Though come to think of it, that may be why Mozilla isn't bothered creating an "App Store" for Linux. There are already a lot of Firefox addons included in Ubuntu and Linux Mint repositories already, for example

If the Boot2Gecko platform can gain any traction, then Mozilla may well set up an App Bazaar.

@tracyanne,

"Though come to think of it, that may be why Mozilla isn't bothered creating an "App Store" for Linux. There are already a lot of Firefox addons included in Ubuntu and Linux Mint repositories already, for example"

I think you hit on something. Remember those websites in the mid to late 1990's that would require you to use M$ Internet Explorer ONLY to properly view their pages? Well once Linux and Mozilla's Firefox became much more popular, THAT Explorer requirement sure disappeared quickly! It's a similar thing here. Google's Chrome browser and Android have their respective Google services and Android store, and the iWhatevers have their Apple stores. FF doesn't NEED such higher overhead "App Stores" given the fact that more and more distro repositories can already provide those "apps" as FF addons. In this way, instead of the competitive BROWSERS forcing a hand in website design (as in the case of the internet Explorer), it's the competitive APPS in Linux distros that will force Mozilla's hand.

My 2c