Remember EU's mandate on Microsoft to offer browsers other than IE?

This British guy did a review on all the browsers offered, (@ http://www.pcpro.co.uk/features/356350/on-test-the-hidden-seven-browsers-in-the-windows-ballot/2 ), including KM, and this is what he says about KM:

A browser that looks and performs like the software of yesteryear. Only an option for those running equally aged hardware.

And his review for KM is @ http://www.pcpro.co.uk/reviews/software/356371/k-meleon

And oh yes, he reviewed an old version of KM !

If you have some free time, please tell that idiot how you feel.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/15/2010 11:39PM by penang.

Quote

But K-Meleon is both deliberately and desperately short of features. Even the few innovations that do make it into the browser are plain odd. Take the search button, for instance, that brings up a pop-up box to enter your Google search. Why not just link straight to the Google homepage, where features such as suggested searches and advanced search come into play?

It hurts to read such uninformed nonsense, that is just plain wrong
So the guy is used to a browser that pops up the google entry page, if he hits the search button, and now he insists that all other browsers have to handle it the same way. It never even occured to him to perhaps hesitate the second that it would take to show the tooltip in KM, that explains that one can just type the searched words into the URL bar, and then get the google search results directly with that button (or select some text on the current page, but that info is yet missing in the tooltip). Let alone that he would read in that tooltip that one can choose another search engine with 1 click, simply by right-clicking that button. He seems to have overlooked in general (due to certain other "top" browsers not having any right-click menus), that many more very handy features are readily available on right-click, and described in the tooltip that just needs 1-2 seconds to pop up! GRMPF...
Perhaps KM should change the default action on this button to not pop up that search box, if there's no search string given, but to pop up a little alert that asks to write the search string please in the URL bar, or select it on the current page?! Otherwise people used to such restricted menu-less buttons may not discover such stuff at all :-/

And neither did he mention that one can put a nick on bookmarks, like a search engine (g for google, w for wikipedia etc.), and then have it search with that engine just by typing e.g. "g whateverhessearching" and hitting the enter key, to pop up the results! Which I guess is described in the FAQ, but why bother looking at that before condamning something?!

And so much more stuff he didnt even look at, like sessions and Undo Last Closed etc. Man, if they do such reviews claiming to be based on some testing, then they should at least look at the tooltips before condamning a program round-about, just because they are too much used to the ways of their own favorite browser, and blind to everything else, even if it may actually be easier!!!

It may be true that not all of the advanced KM features are obvious at first look, but the search button options definitely do NOT belong to those!!



Edited 6 time(s). Last edit at 03/16/2010 08:48AM by siria.

That bloke must be a Firefox user, I've always suspected they're not that bright! LOL

K-Meleon ~ Not a Melon!

penang,

Can you tell me which version of KM this guy was testing?

Tks.

N

Quote
ndebord
penang,

Can you tell me which version of KM this guy was testing?

Tks.

I can only speculate.

Looking at the screenshot the KM he uses looks like 1.5.3

But then I could be wrong.

km1.5.3≈ fx3.ox

perhaps that bozo will change his opinion about K-meleon when version 1.6 gets released later this year, which will use a gecko 1.9.1.x engine similar to Firefox 3.5.x.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/18/2010 04:43PM by 4td8s.

He says something about a link (bookmark) to a ff extensions page, where it is? If there is any I think it should be removed from KM.

Quote
slayer
He says something about a link (bookmark) to a ff extensions page, where it is? If there is any I think it should be removed from KM.

Probably located in about : plugins Top-Left?

Find more information about browser plug-ins at mozilla.org.

It is a bug of 1.8 GRE. You cannot alter the link - it seems it is hard coded in a dll somewhere? SeaMonkey 1.1.x has the same bug.

For GRE 1.9: You will be able to change this string & link in region.properties

#
# Localizable URLs
#
pluginStartupMessage=Starting Plugin for type

# plug-ins URLs
more_plugins_label=K-Meleon Extensions
more_plugins_url=http://kmeleonbrowser.org/forum/read.php?9,94027
plugindoc_label=plugindoc.mozdev.org
plugindoc_url=http://plugindoc.mozdev.org/

I included it as hack in a K-Meleon.jar. Which i passed on.
It will work and look like:

Find more information about browser plug-ins at K-Meleon Extensions

Screenshot:




The link leads to the intro of extension forum. That has in turn links to alain's and disrupted's extension pages.

Provided Dorian wants to use this hack.

Downs. The change requires that the string "K-Meleon Extensions" is localized. E.g. To "K-Meleon Erweiterungen" in de-DE while the rest of the jar does not need work.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/19/2010 05:17PM by guenter.

Sorry guenter, but I need pointed that you are wrong.
As you said this is in chrome (localized part) and you can change it, it isn't a Gecko 1.8 bug.

For example in K-Meleon 1.5.4 (1.8 GRE) work;

1) Close K-Meleon an go to you \K-Meleon\chrome folder.
2) Make a backup of your localized chrome file, en-US.jar (for example), renamed it to en-US_original.jar
3) Extract/unzip en-US_original.jar file with 7zip (is better) in a new temp folder.
4) Open in your text editor (Notepad++ or PSpad) the extracted file: embed\locale\US\global-region\region.properties
5) Change the lines:

more_plugins_label=mozilla.org
more_plugins_url=https://pfs.mozilla.org/plugins/

To this others:

more_plugins_label=K-Meleon Extensions
more_plugins_url=http://kmeleonbrowser.org/forum/read.php?9,94027

6) Save changes in file, and compress again with 7zip; zip format without compression, all folders extracted above (not the temp folder, only his subfolders contained) in a file named en-US.jar.
7) Move the new compressed en-US.jar to your \K-Meleon\chrome folder and delete the temp folder.

And "K-Meleon Extensions" I think not need translation because is a link and in the links is usual indicate the url or the title of the web page and this not need translations. In this case "K-Meleon Extensions" can be considered the title of the web page or forum thread title.

K-Meleon in Spanish



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 03/19/2010 10:49PM by desga2.

Outdated?

This guy probably lives in a castle, drinks tea (and not coffee) and dreams about the days when Great Britain was still a force to be reckoned with.

Who is outdated now?



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 03/20/2010 09:09AM by panzer.

Quote
desga2
Sorry guenter, but I need pointed that you are wrong.
As you said this is in chrome (localized part) and you can change it, it isn't a Gecko 1.8 bug.

For example in K-Meleon 1.5.4 (1.8 GRE) work;

No need to be sorry

ok, means that I made some mistake when I tried to transfer it.
Because I know it since long (more than a year) and tried to transfer it and it did not work.

So it is an avoidable SeaMonkey bug.

A Pity that it is not fixed in 1.5.4 already

Quote
desga2

6) Save changes in file, and compress again with 7zip; zip format without compression, all folders extracted above (not the temp folder, only his subfolders contained) in a file named en-US.jar.

7) Move the new compressed en-US.jar to your \K-Meleon\chrome folder and delete the temp folder.

desga2,

Thanks... the format was called "store" to add files to a JAR file without compressing them.

N



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/20/2010 04:56PM by ndebord.

I think K-Meleon need to release versions a little more faster atleast in the pace of IE...

Quote
panzer
Outdated?

This guy probably lives in a castle, drinks tea (and not coffee) and dreams about the days when Great Britain was still a force to be reckoned with.

Who is outdated now?

:cool:

Charlie

~~If it ain't broke, why screw it up?~~

Quote
panzer
Outdated?

This guy probably lives in a castle, drinks tea (and not coffee) and dreams about the days when Great Britain was still a force to be reckoned with.

Who is outdated now?

Well, I prefer Lapsang Souchong to coffee but I don't live in a castle. It's worth pointing out that the English invented the world's first programmable electronic computer, the first browser & the World Wide Web. It's a pity we can't make a browser as good as KM though!

K-Meleon ~ Not a Melon!

Quote
Daveski17
It's worth pointing out that the English invented the world's first programmable electronic computer,

the first browser & the World Wide Web[/url]. It's a pity we can't make a browser as good as KM though!

English?

Continental European or mostly Continental European (financed) tech, You mean.

1.) Zuse did never immigrate to England.

2.) A graduate of Oxford University, England, in 1989, Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web, an internet-based hypermedia initiative for global information sharing while at CERN, the European Particle Physics Laboratory.

His idea solved a typical European problem. Cern's Swiss and French networks had a different infra structure. & laboratories thus communication problems.

3.) It is still fashion in the of the South UK to do some Kraut bashing or at least some Frog baiting - so why should K-Meleon, a mostly European supported project get any good reviews.


More serious. We simply tested K-Meleon and some other browsers more thoroughly with view of our own needs.


The guy probably uses resource saving Windows classic theme. So do I. By default K-Meleon blends with the system colors. If You do not notice that it is skinable, it looks drab. Most of us use pretty skins, K-Meleon has more than 100 skins - most browsers have far less - so we are upset about this comment.

Phoenity 1.5's default skin was used for other browsers & all the rage several years ago - so K-Meleon looks antiquated for PPL that know several browsers.
Contemporary PhoenityAura was finished but is so far shipped only with 1.6as.

The JavaScript Engine Test Suites are collections of Script items that compile well. So if You assume that good performance on the suite is equal to rendering speed - You would share his opinion. Many PPL do.

The new Script engines definitely give some more script speed but not as much as most assume. (The Mozilla's new Jaeger engine concept might give more general improvement. Hope so, since K-Meleon will one day use it.)

His good point: The guy noticed that K-Meleon can run on low resources. Not as low as he thinks - his figure shows that he did not test long. K-Meleon would have used more - like all Mozilla it is by default not set to leave much idle RAM.

But IMHO the guy never finished his thinking. He says: good for old hardware only.

He is not alone with this and his testing approach. In the tests they all use only the browser. Some even notice the usage peaks when new Chrome or Opera JIT compilers work hard. I never came across a single test where PPL run other apps in the background. :mad:

& that is IMHO why we are upset about the findings - not only with his. We use K-Meleon as every day browser and find it runs well during a normal, average PC session.

Low resource hunger is an asset on every PC. At least I personally think so. Reason: the better my PCs have become the more I do in the background while i use the browser to get info or to wile away time waiting for something to get finished.

@ Daveski17 hope You are not too mad - but I could not resist to pull Your leg a little.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/20/2010 09:32PM by guenter.

Quote
guenter
1.) Zuse did never immigrate to England.

I must have been thinking of Colossus.

Quote
guenter
3.) It is still fashion in the of the South UK to do some Kraut bashing or at least some Frog baiting - so why should K-Meleon, a mostly European supported project get any good reviews.

Ah, that explains it, I'm not from the South. I can't understand how they speak down there anyway LOL. (They're all a bit odd south of the Watford Gap)

Quote
guenter
The guy probably uses resource saving Windows classic theme. So do I. By default K-Meleon blends with the system colors. If You do not notice that it is skinable, it looks drab. Most of us use pretty skins, K-Meleon has more than 100 skins - most browsers have far less - so we are upset about this comment.

I like Klassic in Vista blue & aeroglass, Phoenity is quite bright & pleasant in Vista blue as well. I prefer it to Firefox.

Quote
guenter
Contemporary PhoenityAura was finished but is so far shipped only with 1.6as.

I'd love to see a screen shot of PhoenityAura!

Quote
guenter
& that is IMHO why we are upset about the findings - not only with his. We use K-Meleon as every day browser and find it runs well during a normal, average PC session.

It's just one opinion of someone who did not have the patience to acquaint himself with the browser properly. I admit it may not be as immediately user-friendly to someone used to Firefox or IE but I think KM is every bit as good if not better. On my platform IE 8 is slow & Firefox won't render Ajax scripts properly. KM renders my interactive pages perfectly & is fast. I use it a lot.

Quote
guenter
@ Daveski17 hope You are not too mad - but I could not resist to pull Your leg a little.

It's OK, that bloke was a little embarrassing anyway. He must be a Southerner..

K-Meleon ~ Not a Melon!

At least You did not think of ENIAC

While I was mad first I tried to understand the reviewers reasons. With limited time the review could possibly not be done any better. It was a first impression. And maybe K-Meleon dev team can profit from the author's frank words.

IE8 is fast on the JS test mentioned in the review (on my system too). And if You do not clear the cache all Trident using browsers keep using it and seem fast. Nobody can say IE has no pro - its cache use is fast.

For the rest: On my system K-Meleon and Opera will have opened & rendered the start page before IE is fully loaded.


You must have seen the new PhoenityAura skins.
2 Auras are shipped with with 1.6as'. 1.6.a3's default skin is based on it.
pref("kmeleon.general.skinsCurrent", "AuraAlpha(Large)");

Its read me text starts. Phoenity-aura icons is designed by Lim Chee Aun and is released to the public under the creative commons license. The icons were adapted for the K-Meleon browser by the K-Meleon Community for the K-Meleon Community and is released for the sole purpose of using them as a K-Meleon skin. The skin is published by permission from Lim Chee Aun and by using this skin you agree to use it under the same creative commons license. You are granted permission to use this skin under that license and you are allowed to further adapt and modify the skin icons provided that you always include this license file in your package.

Alternative non official versions e.g. without alpha transparency support for older 1.5.x and with some other icons and pics are at: http://two.xthost.info/kmupdate/skins/Skin-RCs.7z

We are all free to use the icons for future skins of our own. So i did my own in pseudo 3d.



p.s. Pity that Aura was not used for a mere maintenance release like 1.5.4.

BTW. The idea of a K-Meleon skin using the PhoenityAura icons is by Dorian.
So our reviewer was not alone with his opinion about old fashioned looks.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/21/2010 02:01AM by guenter.

if u have installed a nice system theme, it would look better.

'You must have seen the new PhoenityAura skins.
2 Auras are shipped with with 1.6as'. 1.6.a3's default skin is based on it.
pref("kmeleon.general.skinsCurrent", "AuraAlpha(Large)");'

Ermmm... no. I'm REALLY curious now though!

K-Meleon ~ Not a Melon!

Quote
chinarobin


if u have installed a nice system theme, it would look better.

That looks very Safari-esque! It's nice.

K-Meleon ~ Not a Melon!

yes， it is.
milk skin of km and apple system theme

But KM is outdated in the most important part! It's still using Gecko 1.8! None of the other UI discussion or memory or size matters. KM is definitely out of date.

When will KM-1.6 final be ready for public release? Then KM can be discussed with current tech browsers again.

Quote
bksening
But KM is outdated in the most important part! It's still using Gecko 1.8! None of the other UI discussion or memory or size matters. KM is definitely out of date.

When will KM-1.6 final be ready for public release? Then KM can be discussed with current tech browsers again.

Well, If you not have a Core 2 Quad 64 bits or AMD Athlon II X4 64 bits with a lot of GB of DDR3 RAM and a some TB of HD SATA with a last Linux distro or Windows Seven you are outdated.

I'm outdated and for this reason I use K-Meleon, I love abandonware or I don't have money to spend in spacecraft computers to read my mail, browse for some web pages, some downloads and post in some forums like K-Meleon Forum.


K-Meleon in Spanish



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/22/2010 11:15PM by desga2.

Quote
desga2

Quote
bksening
But KM is outdated in the most important part! It's still using Gecko 1.8! None of the other UI discussion or memory or size matters. KM is definitely out of date.

When will KM-1.6 final be ready for public release? Then KM can be discussed with current tech browsers again.

Well, If you not have a Core 2 Quad 64 bits or AMD Athlon II X4 64 bits with a lot of GB of DDR3 RAM and a some TB of HD SATA with a last Linux distro or Windows Seven you are outdated.

I'm outdated and for this reason I use K-Meleon, I love abandonware or I don't have money to spend in spacecraft computers to read my mail, browse for some web pages, some downloads and post in some forums like K-Meleon Forum.

Well, I think that software being outdated and hardware being outdated can't be treated in the same way. If you have the latest hardawares, that means you don't have to be picky about how much resource the softwares use. That kills one of the reasons to use KM.

Anyway, the slowness of Gecko 1.8.1 when executing Javascript indeed is a problem.

Let's just sit back and wait for KM1.6.

Quote
bksening
But KM is outdated in the most important part! It's still using Gecko 1.8!

Aren't You are mixing the HTML engine and the JS engine?

Anyway. Hardly anyone uses HTML 5 features seriously.

So 1.8 is good enough; Except that oligopolists that are browser vendors themselves (e.g. Google, MS), have contracts with browser vendors for search engine (yahoo) and make money with new OS and hardware advertising (the whole bunch, including the PC magazine) tell You Your browser and OS is outdated - and that You must stuff their business partners with §§.

Faster JS is mainly needed by Web 2. apps. There very companies that want a share in that market, tell You JavaSript speed is the only thing that counts.

It would be nice if a newer JS engine could be paired with 1.8 to run on older OS. But K-Meleon would need many skilled men hours for that. K-Meleon does not charge users or sell its search engine. No money and few volunteers. It is out of rage.

p.s. Feel free to post Your demands for immediate final 1.6 release somewhere else. You did not pay, You did not contribute so... go and race for the newest fastest most shiny where You payed.

I have an outdated AMD Turion 64 with a mere 4 GB RAM and outdated, legacy XP because Vista did not live up to what MS full mouthed slogans promised. I am not going to join Your race.

BTW. On this machine IE 8 as definitely slower on JS than K-Meleon 1.5.4. That IE 8 is one of the "new, better" browsers & this is the only machine that counts for me.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 03/23/2010 05:44AM by guenter.

gunter, i don't think lux is impatient or trying to rush things but it's understandable when users get annoyed by such ignorant reviews.

it's true, js engines and speed is the buzz now.. but it's over-hyped. it's browsers war all over, but it's now about cloud computing instead of more important things because people don't really care for web-standards... so they decided to give them something to engage in. personally i think anyone getting excited about all this virtual js speed needs to drive a fast car, break the speed limits and maybe get their licence suspended for a few months..then all this browser speed will appear to them like it truly is..bullshit :p

you should never care about what those "reviewers" think for several reasons. most of them are bias and are fanboys themselves or they are paid-reviewers..that is like bad cops they are on the mob(big browsers) pay-roll..so you should never take their articles seriously or get emotional about it. second, apart from pc-advisor; all brit pc mags are junk..and to be honest, unless there're a couple of asian chaps in the editorial staff you will not find a decent article especially when it comes to software. can you really believe this article where kmeleon has a slower launch than firefox??.. even the firefox developers will object to that

these days you will never find a decent brower review on the big pc websites..because there is serious money involved and they big players simply won't allow it. other sites that try to be impartial will just ignore browsers like k-meleon and never review it..they aren't allowed to say anything good about it so they have decided not to write anything. is it surprising that more "obscure" browsers like green and world get reviewed on cnet while kmeleon never gets a review? even the kmeleon ripoff internet spirit gets reviewed and apparently it's a very good browser but kmeleon isn't?http://download.cnet.com/Internet-Spirit/3000-2356_4-10885954.html

even if kmeleon had the latest gecko engine or its own super advanced engine that no browser can match..that pc pro guy would still have labelled it inferior and outdated because dorian isn't paying him. and don't worry kmeleon 1.6 isn't really that delayed.. kmeleon has always been based on the main mozilla trunk(seamonkey) and never on the firefox trunk.. the seamonkey official 1.9 was just released last november so kmeleon isn't that far behind and coding on the seamonkey trunk is way way better than firefox because the seamonkey devs are like the kmeleon devs..they take their time to test proof every line of code. firefox is in a rush..they are in a war but when that happens the product suffers and firefox 3.1 was littered with bugs due to that js haste.

never pay attention to those dumb articles and tests ..want to know how good kmeleon is doing..read the users reviews! those are honest and don't expect a cheque for their review

Quote

K-Meleon may have a cute animal icon, but it’s certainly not the most user-friendly browser we’ve ever come across. Right from the get-go, this old-fashioned browser will leave even experienced users bewildered – let alone the computing novices who may stumble across K-Meleon in the EU browser ballot.

I find this very beginning quite interesting already. I agree with the icon, but I totally didn't feel bewildered, considering myself an "experienced user". It's a bit different from the usual standard browsers for sure, but after clicking everywhere and reading through the menu I was done with most of the customization after a few minutes.
Besides, "experienced users" know there is a difference between "outdated" and "full of crap features" and "benchmark speed" and "real speed".



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/23/2010 01:21PM by Rockspecht.

Quote
Rockspecht
and "benchmark speed" and "real speed".

Do they?

No doubt that new JavaScript engines are faster on modern PCs way back to a Pentium 500 if it has much RAM. Today Opera's new JS JIT holds the golden band.

But if You start digging deeper You find: Rigged tests, the use off only a subset of functions in tests, tests that have reversed results on lower bandwidth, older hardware...

I am interested in speed benchmarks since 2004 or so. It boils down to: You only notice 25% difference, when You feel a browser is faster for You considering Your own: hardware, software, connection & surfing habits = it is.

BTW. I normally use chrome V8 test for my own JavaScript speed comparisons. V8 is a rigged test as the sources say (wikipedia and link). But it gives me a rough idea in a short time.

GRE 1.8.x is still not outdated not even in JS performance. Is before IE 8 in my test. Combined with the use of native widgets (k-meleon was based on MFC) the GRE is still going strong.

Specs and version mentioned the wikipedia article are a little outdated.
Mechanic translator does not work. Gives opposite meaning of some parts

For the Germans among us. http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Chrome

So läuft JavaScript in Chrome bei einem von Google vorgegebenen Test etwa doppelt so schnell wie im Firefox 3 oder rund zehnmal schneller als im Internet Explorer 7. Bei sehr rechenintensiven Tests werden diese Werte noch übertroffen. Diese Werte werden jedoch laut Heise mit einer fragwürdigen Skalierung der Tests erreicht. Laut dieser Meldung hat Chrome zwar in den Punkten der JavaScript-Verarbeitung eine Bestleistung erreicht, bei Veränderungen in der DOM-Struktur hingegen sind Opera und Safari schneller. Die Vorteile von Chrome können auch laut den Heise-Tests nur bei sehr hohen Bandbreiten ausgespielt werden. Bei niedrigen Bandbreiten hingegen belegt Chrome den letzten Platz.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/23/2010 02:52PM by guenter.