So I am not the smartest individual - I am trying to see the benefits of using kmeleon over chrome or firefox or opera

since I am not a person who writes code or is a power user - does kmeleon have an upside to a everyday user like myself

Fast, uses macros, no memory hog like FF, etc.

It runs on older computers without trouble. It is compatible with Win9X systems.

It doesn't have Xul inside. It is highly configurable.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/04/2010 09:57PM by panzer.

You have a Help Forum to ask when You are facing problems.

Quote
steve
So I am not the smartest individual - I am trying to see the benefits of using kmeleon over chrome or firefox or opera

Why not use it?

What have Chrome, Firefox or Opera to be better than K-Meleon?
(Except to a most modern render engine currently, but we are working in this to version 1.6)

K-Meleon in Spanish



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/04/2010 11:04PM by desga2.

i am Using it, and i love it.
fast start, fast rendering, concise, it's enough for everyday use.

Quote
steve
So I am not the smartest individual - I am trying to see the benefits of using kmeleon over chrome or firefox or opera

since I am not a person who writes code or is a power user - does kmeleon have an upside to a everyday user like myself

Steve,

The macros are why I use KM. Although I don't do coding, IF there is a modified macro that I need to use, I merely ask here or on rare occasions, modify the macro myself as it is text based, so you can do changes yourself. I've added dozens of search engines over the past few years to my system and some macros that I needed I asked for here. One day I asked in the morning and the macro showed up in an hour! Now that's fast! (tks jsnj)

N



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/05/2010 06:02AM by ndebord.

Steve, just do not turn away because of ugly default skin and a fact that ctrl+alt+v does not bring sign @.

I did just that. Luckily, after 2 weeks I abandoned Opera and went back.

Every browser has its pros and cons, so choosing one is just a matter of personal taste and preferences. Nothing left but to try them for a while and then take the one you like best!

But if you're looking to make a list of pros and cons first, I must say the pros of KM alas aren't quite obvious from the start. Must admit I do not really know much of other browsers any more, having used mostly this one for a couple years, so please keep in mind when I'm listing something here as "pro" it does not necessarily mean that other browsers wouldn't have it too
Well, at first customizing is certainly not quite as easy with it, but it's not that complicated either. Depends on what one wants to do, but once understood this philosophy of configuration by editing text files, one can do really easy things at first, like hiding/showing single buttons, and then usually starts liking that much more is possible this way. For example changing menus exactly as one likes it, or putting all sorts of menus as right-click on any button, or all sorts of commands on a new button.
One starts discovering that by opening about:config and typing a search word most related settings are right at hand, without much searching, and for more difficult things one can always ask in the forum.
If one has fun with technical stuff, they sooner or later start writing macros (little extensions) themselves, first just little modifications or copies of existing ones, then step by step more complicated ones. It's cool to see it working, although you still have no clue of real programming :cool:

Some of many things that I like too, just personally:

It's just FAST, good for me as an impatient person. KM starts up faster than firefox, and on my old win98 machine with 256 RAM it can hold over 30 tabs open, while FFx already freezes with 15-20. Obviously one of those different-needs-aspects As most:

The skin background can be a pretty photo, just name it back.bmp and put it in the skin folder. I've just LOVED that skin for years and never got tired of the sunrise background, while the number of buttons grew more and more:

Don't mind the mass of buttons, that's just me, there are other people who prefer a simplistic 1-line-skin - everything is possible
Now when I tried adding that background to FFox recently, this was next to impossible, so clueless me tried messing deeper in it, but only ended up messing instead the whole profile - oops... ;-)

The stored sessions are very handy, and when accidentally closed a tab, it can be reopened again with one click.

When searching something on a page, one can just start typing out-of-the-blue, no need to click the search-icon first.

Favorites!! They can be shared with Internet Explorer, meaning no exporting or copying over, just using the same fav folder with both programs. Or alternatively, one could also use different favorites for each program. The only prob is KM's native function for *adding NEW favorites*, which wouldn't let you even rename or choose a folder, but this can be helped with one of the user-written favorites macros.
Additionally I use the "bookmark" system and the "hotlist" system, for special stuff. And my most used URLs have a tiny toolbar with just numbers or icons on them, or can be opened by Ctrl+Number 0-9. Obviously, the text menus for Favorites-Bookmarks-Hotlist grew rather long, but no prob to hide that in KM, and put the functions on the icons (DOES require a little more knowledge, but just ask in forum and then copy the few needed lines into the cfg file).

The privacy bar! Okay, that's optional for FFox too (prefbar), but in KM it's there by default, it just needs to be switched on (View/Toolbars). Lots of handy buttons that I use daily and also want to have always in view, being "slightly" paranoid :cool:

Must admit KM has also a couple con's, but you'll figure that out for yourself (if it's stuff you consider important) ;-)
Well okay, my biggest prob was always that flashblock only worked with javascript switched on, but meanwhile have created an own privacy button to toggle embedded objects and plugin stuff, and am quite happy with that workaround now
And rarely there's something on a page that doesn't work, which may well be because of all my paranoia settings, no idea, but then I cheat and use an alternative browser (FF or Opera), just for a moment

But as you see, my needs are probably not very main-stream, that's what I mean with different tastes One can sure say that KM is extremely flexible though!

Edit: Oh forgot, the group bookmarks are something I love too: give a bookmarks or hotlist folder a nickname, then just type that nickname (a few characters) in the URL bar and hit enter to open all bookmarks in it at once! Single bookmarks can have nick too though, e.g. "gi"+ a search-word for google-image-search.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 02/14/2010 10:11AM by siria.

I think that siria has summed it up very well. I would add one more item and that is a groups function that is independent of the Favorites, bookmarks or hotlist that you might use. You can find Groups2 in the macrolibrary. http://kmeleon.sourceforge.net/wiki/KmmGroups2

Quote
JamesD
I think that siria has summed it up very well. I would add one more item and that is a groups function that is independent of the Favorites, bookmarks or hotlist that you might use. You can find Groups2 in the macrolibrary. http://kmeleon.sourceforge.net/wiki/KmmGroups2

JamesD,

Thanks for reminding me about Groups2. It is absolutely essential to my mind and for my needs.

N



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/07/2010 08:59PM by ndebord.

K-Meleon is the best browser solution for the Windows platform

When you use Chrome, FireFox, Opera and lets not forget Internet Explorer, most of the time you aren't aware what else it's doing in the background and it definitely makes the browsing experience a lot less enjoyable when things suddenly go wrong for no reason.

K-Meleon appears to simply do what you ask it to without adversely affecting any other part of the operating system platform on which it runs. It's also highly customisable and you can personalise it according to the way you like to browse the internet. The latest official build is near flawless and should you run into any difficulties, the people who have released it are more than willing to provide the help you require here in the forum.

I've switched to K-Meleon since the demise of Netscape and I'm very pleased that the developers of this browser are continuing to make the right types of improvements that make each successive version more efficient than any other current Windows internet browser.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/08/2010 04:12PM by n301.

Simple, light and fast. I run K-Meleon on a 300-Mhz Celeron with 192 MB of memory on WinXP. It works great on it. Granted if you run some heavy javascript apps like Gmail or Facebook, it's not as responsive as Chrome or FF, but the speed is definitely acceptable.

Another reason why I like K-Meleon is how it handles plugins. For Flash I just use the flash dll in the plugins folder and do not have flash installed in a windows folder. Together with FlashBlock, it means I don't have to see a flash video unless I click on it, a distinct plus to my mind. Additional perk? Just using the dll means absolutely no flash cookies hiding deep within the bowels of a windows computer to come back and bite you (particularly if you think your cookie manager has actually cleaned up properly for you when it hasn't).

N



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/10/2010 05:20PM by ndebord.

Quote
ndebord
Another reason why I like K-Meleon is how it handles plugins. For Flash I just use the flash dll in the plugins folder and do not have flash installed in a windows folder. Together with FlashBlock, it means I don't have to see a flash video unless I click on it, a distinct plus to my mind. Additional perk? Just using the dll means absolutely no flash cookies hiding deep within the bowels of a windows computer to come back and bite you (particularly if you think your cookie manager has actually cleaned up properly for you when it hasn't).

I didn't know this was possible with K-Meleon

Can you explain how that can be achieved and where is it possible to find flash.dll?

Many thanks,

n301

n301,

Read this thread.

http://kmeleonbrowser.org/forum/read.php?1,90723,100398#msg-100398

download flashblock here.

http://two.xthost.info/kmeleon/extensions/K-Ext15X_Flashblock.zip

N

The flash dll is named differently, I was just using a name to describe the use of flashblock with KM.

N

I really appreciate all the informative and honest responses to Steve's question as I have tried K-Meleon on several occasions and am always frustrated with the bookmarking system. I like how it works by not needing multiple bookmark/favorite files, but editing seems to be cumbersome when compared to other browsers. But, based on what I have read in this post, I am willing to give it another go as I am not pleased with the performance and poor memory use of Firefox. I have actually been a Mozilla Suite/Seamonkey person for many years but migrated away when the browser only option was removed. I am quirky in that I do not like programs that I won't be using installed on my system.

I will install K-Meleon again as I do recall it being lightning fast and very light on memory usage. I also like the native Windows architecture and smooth integration with the OS when compared to multi-platform browsers such as Firefox and SeaMonkey. I have found Opera to be similar in many aspects, but for some reason K-Meleon offers more customization and does not include "extra" stuff.

Thank you again and thank you also for letting me share my thoughts.

Oops... that reminds me, had meant to add a note that for adding NEW "favorites" one should use a macro, but looks like I had forgotten it again. Don't know if that's of any interest for you Jeff, perhaps you prefer bookmarks (which work fine out-of-the-box already), but just in case other people stumble over it too:
Guess there are mainly 3 recent macros to choose from, for adding NEW FAVORITES with options, each a little different (for the different tastes ;-)

Macro to use the original MSIE "add new favorite" function:
http://kmeleonbrowser.org/forum/read.php?9,99856
(check back occasionally for an update of that one, a better version was almost finished When I got sidetracked again with other stuff, but some day... :cool

Macro FRA_combo, James' new extended version of his nearly 'classic' FavRenAdd:
http://kmeleonbrowser.org/forum/read.php?9,100483

Another new one, by disrupted, works with a little included autoit-program:
http://kmeleonbrowser.org/forum/read.php?9,100410

Anyway, good luck Jeff with his new try!



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/14/2010 11:05AM by siria.

Thanks for the information, siria - I am interested in using macros if they make life easier and it sounds like these will. Yes, I prefer bookmarks over favorites as I have spent more time with Gecko based browsers than IE. I discovered I can modfiy my bookmarks via the edit option but not in the bookmarks menu itself. No worries and this is something I need to break the habit of as I always end up moving bookmarks to other locations than I intended.

My main concern at this time is how long it has been since there was an update and that there is nothing in development (at least per the download page). I understand this a community effort (akin to Seamonkey but on a smaller scale) but was curious and concerned about the security of K-Meleon (although I see a multitude of security features built in which is nice).

Thus far, K-meleon has performed above and beyond my expectations. Every site I have gone to thus far has worked fine with no issues - even my school portal which does not work with anything other than IE or Firefox (e.g. Opera did not work right even in FF compatibility mode). K-meleon was ID'd as itself and no issues. :cool:

Thanks again and I will continue to evaulate this fantastic gem of a browser. It has come a long way since I last tried it out (~2 years ago).

i would have to disagree with it not being a memory hog ,there sir because it truly is a memory hog indeed.

Hi, mrbig,

a correct installation of K-Meleon isn't. Now, your installation seems to be faulty, as you posted in this thread. So I'll try helping you to adress that problem over there.

Cheers
SoerenB


Back again ...

Why use K-Meleon?

Once upon a time I used Firefox 2. It was great until Fx #3 & it got a tad bloaty for my laptop, then I discovered SeaMonkey & it was great until, like Firefox, it wouldn't load properly in some interactive sites (Ajax script). Besides, I couldn't get the adblocker to filter properly in my country with either of them.

Then I discovered K-Meleon.

I just love it! It's a Gecko-engined browser that works properly, is fast & customisable.

That's why!

K-Meleon ~ Not a Melon!