Falkon

Last updated

Falkon
Original author(s) David Rosca
Developer(s) KDE
Initial releaseDecember 2010 (2010-12)
Stable release
23.08.3 [1]   OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg / 9 November 2023;2 months ago (9 November 2023)
Repository
Written in C++
Operating system Unix-like (Linux, FreeBSD, etc), [2] Haiku, [3] Windows 7 or later
Platform Qt framework
Included with KaOS, openMandriva Lx [4]
Available inMultilingual
Type Web browser
License GPL-3.0-or-later
Website www.falkon.org

Falkon (formerly QupZilla [5] ) is a free and open-source web browser developed by KDE. It is built on the QtWebEngine, [6] [7] which is a wrapper for the Chromium browser core. [8]

Contents

Both KaOS and openMandriva Lx use Falkon as their default browser. [4] [9]

Features

Falkon provides several icon sets and other elements to match the native look and feel of users' desktop operating systems. [10] Some additional features of the browser include the integration of history, web feeds and bookmarks in a single location, the ability to take a screenshot of the entire page, and an Opera-like "Speed dial" home page. [11] It is reported to consume fewer system resources than the major general purpose browsers like Firefox and Google Chrome. [12]

Falkon uses the Qt cross-platform application framework and offers a built-in AdBlock. By default this adblocker whitelists the web page of Falkon's main search engine, DuckDuckGo. A "portable" (no installation) version for Windows platforms exists. Falkon is also distributed in the PortableApps format. [13]

History

QupZilla v1.7.0 passed the Acid3 test. Qupzilla Acid3 test.png
QupZilla v1.7.0 passed the Acid3 test.

The project was started as a research project in 2010. The first preview release, written in Python (using PyQt library), was ready by December 2010. [14] In 2011 the source code was rewritten in C++ with a goal to create a full-featured general purpose portable web browser based on QtWebKit, with the initial target being visual integration with the look and feel of multiple desktop environments including Microsoft Windows, GNOME, and KDE Plasma. [15] Version 1.6.6 (May 2014) still supported Windows 2000. [16]

On 30 March 2016, QupZilla 2.0 was released. It marked the transition from QtWebKit to Qt WebEngine. [6]

On 10 August 2017, QupZilla's developer David Rosca announced in a blog post that QupZilla had become a KDE project. [17] After the release of Qupzilla 2.2 the project was renamed to Falkon. [18] KDE Falkon 3.0 was released on 27 February 2018. [5]

Falkon 3.0.1 was included in Lubuntu 18.10 beta but replaced with Firefox in the actual Lubuntu 18.10 release. [19]

Falkon 3.2.0 was released on 31 January 2022. [20]

On 14 February 2022, Falkon started transitioning to KDE Gear by adopting the same version number. [21] Starting with version 22.04 on 21 April 2022, the first version of Falkon as part of KDE Gear was released. [22] [23] Official releases are thus announced on the KDE news website rather than the official Falkon website. [24]

The most recent version is 23.08.0, released on 24 August 2023. [25]

See also

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References

  1. ↑ "Falkon - KDE Applications".
  2. ↑ "Qupzilla at Freshports". Freshports. Retrieved 8 September 2022.
  3. ↑ "Haiku Depot Server". depot.haiku-os.org. Retrieved 8 September 2022.
  4. 1 2 "DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 821, 1 July 2019". 1 July 2019. Retrieved 4 July 2019.
  5. 1 2 "Falkon 3.0 Released As The Successor To The QupZilla Browser". Phoronix . 27 February 2018. Retrieved 28 February 2018.
  6. 1 2 David Rosca (30 March 2016). "QupZilla 2.0.0 released with QtWebEngine!". QupZilla Blog. Archived from the original on 28 February 2018.
  7. ↑ Němec, Petr (28 December 2011). "Softwarová sklizeň" [Software picks (28 December 2011)]. Root.cz (in Czech). Retrieved 25 February 2012.
  8. ↑ "Qt WebEngine Overview - Qt WebEngine 5.11". doc.qt.io.
  9. ↑ Nestor, Marius (6 March 2018). "KaOS Linux Switches to Falkon Browser, March's Release Adds KDE Plasma 5.12 LTS". Softpedia . Archived from the original on 3 April 2022. Retrieved 3 April 2022.
  10. ↑ Голубев, Сергей (10 February 2012). "QupZilla – браузер на основе Qt и WebKit" [QupZilla – browser based on Qt and WebKit]. PC Week/RE (in Russian). Retrieved 23 November 2018.
  11. ↑ Richmond, Gary (6 January 2012). "QupZilla Browser: one web browser, three niche features". Free Software Magazine . Archived from the original on 11 January 2012. Retrieved 25 February 2012.
  12. ↑ Sneddon, Joey (22 December 2011). "Qupzilla – the Best Browser You've Never Heard of?". OMG! Ubuntu!. Retrieved 25 February 2012.
  13. ↑ "QupZilla Portable 1.8.8 (web browser) Released". PortableApps. 21 October 2015. Archived from the original on 11 August 2017.
  14. ↑ "History". falkon.org. Retrieved 4 July 2020.
  15. ↑ Chirkov, Maxim, ed. (26 December 2011). "Qupzilla – новый многоплатформенный web-браузер на базе Qt и WebKit" [Qupzilla – new multiplatform web browser based on Qt and WebKit]. OpenNet (in Russian). Retrieved 25 February 2012.
  16. ↑ David Rosca (10 October 2014). "Cookies issue + Build for Mac OS X available!". Development updates on QtWebKit browser QupZilla. Archived from the original on 26 March 2018. Retrieved 29 January 2015. the latest 1.8 version is not working on Windows 2000
  17. ↑ "QupZilla is moving under KDE and looking for new name". Archived from the original on 26 March 2018.
  18. ↑ "QupZilla Web Browser Becomes KDE Falkon". Phoronix . 25 August 2017. Retrieved 26 August 2017.
  19. ↑ Simon Quigley We've replaced Falkon with Firefox, retrieved 21 April 2020
  20. ↑ "Falkon 3.2.0 released - Falkon". www.falkon.org.
  21. ↑ "use version number of kde gear (14171e29) · Commits · Network / Falkon · GitLab". GitLab. 14 February 2022. Retrieved 9 September 2022.
  22. ↑ "KDE Gear 22.04.0 Full Log Page". KDE Community. Retrieved 9 September 2022.
  23. ↑ Pablinux; Pablinux (21 April 2022). "KDE Gear 22.04 arrives with new features for its suite of apps". Ubunlog. Retrieved 9 September 2022.
  24. ↑ "Announcements". KDE Community. Retrieved 9 September 2022.
  25. ↑ "Falkon". KDE Applications. Retrieved 14 September 2023.
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