Xombrero

Last updated
xombrero
Original author(s) Marco Peereboom
Developer(s) Marco Peereboom, Stevan Andjelkovic, Edd Barrett, Todd T. Fries, Raphael Graf, Michal Mazurek, Josh Rickmar, David Hill
Initial releaseMay 30, 2012 (2012-05-30)
Final release
1.6.4 [1]   OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg / 17 February 2015
Repository
Written in C, JavaScript
Engine WebKit
Operating system Unix-like, Windows
Platform Cross-platform
Size 0.2 MB
Available inEnglish
Type Web browser
License ISC license
Website github.com/conformal/xombrero
xombrero showing the Acid3 test results Xombrero passing Acid3 test.png
xombrero showing the Acid3 test results

xombrero (until 2012 known as xxxterm) is a discontinued [2] [3] open-source web browser developed with a goal to be a lightweight and secure replacement for full featured browsers like Firefox. [4] The browser has found a niche among minimalist browsers for heavy keyboard users by balancing minimalism with usability.

Contents

xombrero is based on GTK+ 3. [5]

Features

xombrero is based on the WebKit engine [6] and provides an ability to control cookies, plug-ins and JavaScript policies on per-website basis. The user can define the whitelists of trusted websites for each of those security risks. [7] [8]

xombrero was designed for experienced command-line interface users, so it includes the features typically requested by such an audience: mouseless browsing, no URL prefetch, vi-like user interface and navigation (including command mode), plain text file configuration, and link hinting. [8] [9] [10]

User interface

xombrero provides a command mode (designed after vi) for entering commands for the common tasks, including tabs (buffers) switching, entering URLs, following links and navigating through browser history and bookmarks. [6] The same functionality can be accessed with keyboard shortcuts.

By default xombrero window contains two panels, providing the ordinary layout of a web browser window. The first one (on the top) – "fancy bar" – provides URL entry, backward, forward, stop and white-list toggle buttons and optional search string entry. Another panel (on the bottom) – "status bar" – reports the current URL (or page title), zoom level and position in page. With these panels enabled and a mouse attached, the user may operate xombrero like Firefox or Midori.

History

The development of the browser began in February 2010 under the name "xxxterm" by several OpenBSD users specifically for that operating system. [7] [11] Initially the releases of the browsers were identified by CVS revision numbers, though more common "X.Y.Z" version numbering scheme was introduced as development moved to Git. [12]

In the release announcement for version 1.11.2, Peereboom revealed the plan to rename xxxterm to xombrero, though an emergency release under the old name happened later the same day. [13] [14] Later it was revealed that the version numbers for the browser under the new name would start again from 1.0. [15]

In early 2017, it appeared the project was likely to be discontinued, as xombrero depended on an old version of WebKit which had multiple security vulnerabilities, and a port to a modern version of WebKit would be difficult. [16] [2] Due to these issues, [3] OpenBSD removed xombrero from its ports tree on 1 February 2017. [17]

See also

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References

  1. ↑ "XOMBRERO_1_6_4" . Retrieved 31 January 2018.
  2. 1 2 "WebKit2". GitHub. 4 February 2017. Retrieved 8 February 2017.
  3. 1 2 "rm -rf Xombrero". MARC . Retrieved 8 February 2017.
  4. ↑ Peereboom, Marco (2011-11-04), Why does the world need yet another browser?, archived from the original on September 30, 2012, retrieved 2011-11-27
  5. ↑ "Xombrero Major Features". GitHub .
  6. 1 2 Vervloesem, Koen (2011-12-15), "Xxxterm: Surfing like a Vim pro", LWN.net , retrieved 2011-12-16
  7. 1 2 Czarkoff, Dmitrij (2011-12-05), "Introduction: xxxterm Web Browser", OSNews , retrieved 2011-12-05
  8. 1 2 Rapenne, Charles (2012-10-08), "Browse the Internet Differently", BSD Magazine , vol. 6, no. 10, ISSN   1898-9144
  9. ↑ Uemura, Mark T. (2010-09-07), "[c2k10] Interview with Marco Peereboom (marco@) Part 8", OpenBSD Journal , retrieved 2011-11-27
  10. ↑ Bělka, Jiří (2010-02-25), "XXXTerm: nový prohlížeč postavený na jádře WebKit" [XXXTerm: new browser built on WebKit engine], Root.cz (in Czech), retrieved 2011-12-07
  11. ↑ "xxxterm: Commit 4b6598", xxxterm git tree, 2010-02-10, retrieved 2012-06-26
  12. ↑ Peereboom, Marco (2011-10-12), xxxterm 1.6.1 released!, archived from the original on March 4, 2016, retrieved 2011-10-12
  13. ↑ Peereboom, Marco (2012-03-01), xxxterm 1.11.2 released!, archived from the original on March 4, 2016, retrieved 2012-06-26
  14. ↑ Peereboom, Marco (2012-03-01), xxxterm 1.11.3 released!, archived from the original on July 9, 2015, retrieved 2012-06-26
  15. ↑ Peereboom, Marco (2012-05-17), xombrero is here!, archived from the original on March 17, 2016, retrieved 2012-06-05
  16. ↑ "maximum webkitgtk version?". GitHub. 4 February 2017. Retrieved 8 February 2017.
  17. ↑ "Bye Xombrero". GitHub. 1 February 2017. Retrieved 8 February 2017.
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