K-Meleon
KMeleonWiki > FAQ
K-Meleon is an open-source browser based on Gecko, the rendering engine also used by Firefox. It is intended to be a light, fast, and customizable browser.
K-Meleon has been designed specifically to run on Windows computers. There are no plans to port K-Meleon to other operating systems. If you are looking for a Mozilla-based browser for Linux, visit the Galeon project. Camino (formerly Chimera) is a Mozilla-based browser for Mac OS X.
Please consult the release notes for that particular version (the release announcement should have a link). For example, the release notes for version 1.0 is available in ReleaseNotes10.
K-Meleon is designed to be a browser only with a minimal interface that emphasizes speed and utility. It is not a suite, thus it does not include features such as an e-mail client or a web page editor, which can bloat and slow it down. The K-Meleon developers will consider enhancements that improve the performance and usefulness of the browser.
Currently, there is no automated build system for K-Meleon.
The Contribute page has some information on the things you can do to contribute to the K-Meleon project.
K-Meleon uses the Gecko rendering engine developed for Mozilla which provides excellent support for current (X)HTML, CSS (level 1 and some level 2), and DOM standards.
K-Meleon provides several features that will be familiar to users of Internet Explorer including:
K-Meleon provides several features that will be familiar to users of Netscape, Mozilla and Firefox including:
Yes. The installation is the same as in the case of Firefox or SeaMonkey. You simply have to run the same exe files.
K-Meleon supports Java. If you want to use Java in K-Meleon, see the section on How do I enable Java in K-Meleon?
Note: Java support will not work when the User Agent Browser Identification is set to MSIE 6.0 (Internet Explorer).
The Loader automatically loads portions of K-Meleon at start-up to allow K-Meleon to launch more quickly from the Desktop. The Loader is an optional component and can be enabled during the installation. Be aware that if you use the Loader, K-Meleon never "exits" so changes in various components will not take effect until you close the Loader and restart K-Meleon.
The first time K-Meleon is run with the bookmarks plugin enabled, it automatically creates a new empty bookmarks file in your profile directory. You also have the option of using your existing Netscape, Mozilla or Firefox bookmarks file in K-Meleon by going to Preferences - Plugins - Configure, where you can locate the file. Keep in mind that by sharing the same bookmarks file among browsers, any changes made to the file by either browser will also be apparent in the other browser. In Mozilla, Netscape and Firefox, the bookmarks file is stored in your profiles directory, which is different depending on your operating system. The following example is for your Mozilla profiles directory.
Netscape creates its own folder in the same folder that contains Mozilla. Firefox creates its folder within the Mozilla directory. Mozilla (SeaMonkey) can use a file located anywhere.
If you share a bookmarks file with Firefox, K-Meleon ignores the live bookmarks and after the file is overwitten by K-Meleon's plugin, Firefox will not find the live bookmarks. Favicons get also lost when the file is saved by K-Meleon's plugin. Bear this in mind when you answer the question "The Bookmarks file was not created by this plugin. Would you like to save your changes?"
If you share a bookmarks file with SeaMonkey, the bookmarks which are originally a group of tabs (layers) appear in K-Meleon as a folder. You can delete from or add to this folder, after saving it will still show up as a a group of tabs in SeaMonkey.
Should you want to share a bookmarks file among the three Gecko-based browsers, the easiest way to do it would be navigating both SeaMonkey and K-Meleon to Firefox's bookmarks file.
K-Meleon automatically locates your Internet Explorer Favorites when it is run with the Favorites plugin enabled. From that point your Favorites are shared between K-Meleon and Internet Explorer. You also have the option to import your Favorites to your Bookmarks.
The first time K-Meleon is run with the Hotlist plugin enabled, it will automatically create a new empty hotlist file in your profile directory. You also have the option of using your existing Opera hotlist file in K-Meleon by going to Preferences - Plugins - Configure and locating the file. Keep in mind that by sharing the same hotlist file, any changes made to the file by either browser will also be apparent in the other browser.
Hotlinks are in a way K-Meleon's own bookmarking system. It is very simple and very efficient. You have the option to assign ten URLs to the Ctrl + 0, 1, ... 9 button combinations. Hotlinks are only available if the Macro Extension is installed.
You can add and edit Bookmarks through the Bookmarks menu. If you choose to share Bookmarks between K-Meleon and Netscape/Mozilla the changes will be available in your other browser as well.
You can add and edit Favorites through the Favorites menu. Choosing Explore... will open your Favorites in Windows Explorer.
You can add URLs to the Hotlist through the Hotlist menu. If you choose to share Hotlist between K-Meleon and Opera, your additions will be available also from within Opera.
To enable a plugin: Click on the Edit menu and then select Preferences - Plugins. In the Plugins window, select the plugin from the list and click the Enable/Disable button. Its icon will change to a checkmark on a green background. The next time K-Meleon runs, the plugin will be loaded.
To disable a plugin: Select the plugin from the list and click the Enable/Disable button. When the icon is unchecked, the plugin will be disabled the next time K-Meleon runs.
K-Meleon automatically detects these 3rd party plugins: Acrobat Reader, Sun JRE, Quicktime, Windows Media Player 7. Flash and Shockwave detect K-Meleon.
If it is not done automatically, any Mozilla plugins should work by being copied into the plugins directory under K-Meleon. You can check the status of any plugin by entering about:plugins in the K-Meleon location bar. A page will be displayed that shows all of your currently installed plugins. A comprehensive list of plugins and instructions on how to enable them for Mozilla-based browsers is available.
You must first install the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) to run Java applets in K-Meleon. You can download the latest version from http://www.java.com/en/index.jsp. After you install JRE, K-Meleon automatically detects your JRE installation and no other configuration is necessary. To see if JRE is properly installed, type about:plugins in the URL bar. If you see Java Plug-in listed, K-Meleon has properly recognized the JRE.
Note: If you change the User Agent/Browser Identification, Java may not work.
K-Meleon currently supports a command-line option for starting the browser with a specific URL. Example: "C:\Program Files\K-Meleon\k-meleon.exe" www.yahoo.com This loads Yahoo! instead of the browser specified home page when K-Meleon is started.
K-Meleon also supports command-line options for Profiles. You can start with a specific profile by using -P <profile> where <profile> is the name of an existing profile that you have: Example: "C:\Program Files\K-Meleon\k-meleon.exe" -P Fred This launches K-Meleon with the profile for Fred.
K-Meleon also offers you the option of starting with the most recently used Profile by using -P mostrecent. Example: "C:\Program Files\K-Meleon\k-meleon.exe" -P mostrecent
If you have a profile stored in your Application Data directory, you can reference that location using -profilesDir $appdata Example: "C:\Program Files\K-Meleon\k-meleon.exe" -profilesDir $appdata If you do not have a directory, it will create one for you.
The home page and other browser preferences can be set in the preferences panel which can be accessed by selecting the Edit menu and the Preferences option. There are also additional preferences available throughout the UI (User Interface) within the main menu and by right-clicking various toolbar buttons. For developers and advanced users, a complete list of the K-Meleon specific preferences is available.
Key commands can be enabled, disabled, and modified by clicking on the Edit menu, selecting Preferences - Configs, and then selecting the Accelerators tab. A step-by-step guide to modify the key commands is available.
Macros can be enabled, disabled, and modified by clicking on the Edit menu and then selecting Preferences - Plugins. Select Macro Extension Plugin and then click on the Configure button. Follow the instructions provided in the macros.cfg file. See the Documentation section for more examples.
Profiles can be added, deleted, and renamed by going to the Edit menu and selecting Manage Profiles.
Click on the Edit menu, select Preferences, and then Proxies to configure your proxy settings. K-Meleon can also be configured to work properly with proxies such as Junkbuster that do not support the most recent HTTP specification. By default, K-Meleon tries to use HTTP 1.1. To use K-Meleon with a proxy that only supports HTTP 1.0, change the HTTP version under Edit - Preferences - General.
K-Meleon only accepts hostnames for manual proxies.
We have a number of translations for the menu and tool bars in our Resources section. K-Meleon also automatically attempts to recognize character sets and display them properly.
You can change the image used for the background image or even turn it off by clicking on the Edit menu and then selecting Preferences - Display. A help guide? for using this feature is available.
Yes. K-Meleon is probably the easiest browser to skin. You find a number of skins on the KMeleonThemesWiki page. In order to install one, you simply have to extract a zip file into the \K-Meleon\skins directory. You can find detailed instructions on the ChangeSkin page. A tutorial on how to create skins is also available: TutorialSkinning.
K-Meleon allows you to control cookies the browser accepts. It also allows you to control the browser identity. You also have the ability to control and disable popup and popunder windows. The Privacy Plugin allows you to delete all data accumulated during a browser session including Cache, Cookies, History, URL Bar History and Passwords. Advanced users can setup additional site-policy privacy features by editing the prefs.js file. See http://www.mozilla.org/projects/security/components/ConfigPolicy.html for more details on advanced privacy features.
K-Meleon gives you basic control over cookies in the Preferences panel under the Privacy option. You can allow all cookies, only allow cookies from the site you are visiting or block all cookies. For more extensive cookie handling, you can use the Cookie Manager available from Tools - Privacy - Permissions.
K-Meleon allows you to set the UserAgent string that identifies the browser to the sites that it visits. You can access this feature by selecting the User Agent option in the Tools menu.
By default, popup windows are blocked in K-Meleon. You can unblock popups via the Preferences panel under Privacy. For quicker access to this setting and other privacy related settings, go to Tools - Privacy. Within that menu there is also a Permissions menu which contains a Popup Manager that allows you to specify sites you wish to allow popups on.
K-Meleon 0.9 provides SSL support.
K-Meleon allows you to disable Java, JavaScript, Images, Image Animation and HTTP Referer sending. These options are available from Tools - Privacy. For even quicker access to these and other privacy features, you can enable the Privacy Bar from View - Toolbars.
The dlls shipped with Windows are improved and enhanced with each version. Users of older Windows versions, Windows 95/98 and Windows NT, may have to update some dlls to run K-Meleon. If you experience problems with MFC42.dll or with menus and plugins not displaying, please download the following update:
K-Meleon does not use Internet Explorer components. The libraries which are used are only a set of controls which are used commonly by Windows applications.
A site not displaying properly is normally caused by one of two issues:
Please report these bugs and we will attempt to determine the source of the problem. Should you encounter this problem, for convenience you can quickly view the same site in Internet Explorer by right-clicking on the page or link and choosing View In IE.
The Personal Security Manager (PSM) in Mozilla, which K-Meleon is built on, uses sockets for communication between its security components. These communications are internal to the browser and do not go out to the Internet. There is no danger in allowing K-Meleon this access.
Mozilla does not provide proper support for 256 colors. See Mozilla Bug #88560?
This is a known issue with K-Meleon when using the Bitmapped menus plugin with the Silver theme enabled in Windows XP. The current workaround is to disable the Bitmapped menus plugin.
This type of problem is usually the result of the DDE (Dynamic Data Exchange) option being set in the Windows registry for the type of URL that you are trying to open. Go to the Windows Start menu, select Settings, Folder Options, then select the File Types tab. After you find the URL type in the list, click Edit, click Edit again, uncheck the "Use DDE" box, then click "OK" until you are out of the dialog.
If you know what you are doing, you can delete the DDE flag directly in the Windows registry for the URL type.
One or more DLL files are missing. A known culprit is the abscence of msvcp60.dll. Windows 2000 users, download this dll and copy it to C:\winnt\system. This file is also in the Support/Tools folder in SUPPORT.CAB on your Windows 2000 install disk. Windows98 & Me users can get it from the Microsoft Vcredist.exe file.
Submit your questions to the K-Meleon Forums. If you think you have found a bug, ask first in the Forums. Then file a bug report in our Bug Reporting System.