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K-Meleon
KMeleonWiki > FAQ Frequently Asked QuestionsTable of Contents
GeneralWhat is K-Meleon?K-Meleon is an extremely fast, customizable, lightweight web browser based on the Gecko layout engine developed by Mozilla which is also used by Firefox. K-Meleon is free, open-source software released under the GNU General Public License. What platforms does K-Meleon run on?K-Meleon is designed specifically for Microsoft Windows (Win32) operating systems. There are no plans to port K-Meleon to other platforms. What are the system requirements?While a Pentium level processor is recommended, K-Meleon can run on 486 systems that meet the minimum RAM requirements. Please consult the release notes for particular versions of K-Meleon. Users of Windows 2000 may experience problems due to the absence of msvcp60.dll. Install the Windows 2000 Support Tools from your setup CD or consult the Windows Update website. Users of Windows 95, Windows 98 and Windows NT 4.0 may have to install Vcredist.exe to get the latest run-time components for Visual C++ applications. Users of Windows 95 may also have to install shlwapi.dll (part of Internet Explorer). What is new/improved/fixed in the latest version of K-Meleon?Please consult the release notes for that particular version of K-Meleon, and the download page for notes about the minor version changes (mostly new gecko engines and bug fixes). How do I install/uninstall K-Meleon?Please consult the release notes for the particular version of K-Meleon you want to install/uninstall. How do I set K-Meleon as default browser?Either at setup, or later with Edit > Preferences (F2) > Browsing, click "Set as Default Browser" (which also offers the "Use Loader" option again). Note: In K-Meleon 1.5.x the set-default routine is outdated, it works only up to XP-SP2 correctly. If you're on a newer Windows and use KM1.5.x please read HERE.
FeaturesDoes K-Meleon support current web standards?Yes. K-Meleon uses the Gecko rendering engine developed by Mozilla, which is also used by Firefox. Gecko provides excellent support for current (X)HTML, CSS and DOM standards. K-Meleon has built-in support to run JavaScript. Does K-Meleon support secure (encrypted) transmissions?Yes. K-Meleon 1.1 provides SSL (version 3) and TLS support. Does K-Meleon support tabbed browsing?Yes, since K-Meleon 1.5 true tabs are used instead of 'layered' windows. Layer macros are obsolete and it is strongly recommended to not add them in modern versions. Does K-Meleon support Java?Yes. To run Java applets in K-Meleon, you have to install the Java Runtime Environment (JRE). Once installed, K-Meleon automatically detects your JRE installation and no other configuration is necessary. You can download the JRE from the Java website. To see if the JRE is properly installed, open Help > About Plugins. If you see the Java Plug-in listed, K-Meleon properly recognizes the JRE. What is the K-Meleon Loader?The K-Meleon Loader preloads portions of the K-Meleon browser and thus allows it to launch more quickly - especially on low-end hardware. Be aware that the K-Meleon browser keeps running as long as the K-Meleon Loader is running. Some changes to the configuration of K-Meleon will not take effect until you close and restart the browser. When using it, you also have to close and restart the Loader to make such changes take effect. Review the details here. What privacy features does K-Meleon include?Under Tools > Privacy you can quickly enable/disable privacy-related features such as cookies, Java, JavaScript and popup windows, frames and HTTP referers. The Privacy Bar provides even more direct access (View > Toolbars). Cookie acceptance, image loading and popup blocking can be configured in detail through Edit > Preferences. K-Meleon's UserAgent string can be quickly changed through Tools > User Agent. The Privacy Plugin empowers you to delete privacy-related data such as cache, cookies, history and passwords automatically at startup or at shutdown, or manually at any time (Tools > Privacy > Clear Data). Tip: If you'd like to check what your browser actually reveals to webmasters of visited sites, test your current privacy settings on sites like browserspy.dk Important: Some websites will not work fully if you're blocking things like javascript, cookies etc. See below. But you can also just toggle the global settings for a moment if needed (menu Tools > Privacy). For example if it's an unknown website which requires more permissions, and you decide to allow it, but not permanently. If that happens often, you may want to switch on the Privacy Toolbar (View > Toolbars), which contains buttons for most of the entries in the Privacy menu, incl. Kill and Clear commands. Not all buttons are visible by default, to show more or less of them look above. Note: The flash-block is a bit tricky. It works fine if you have javascript enabled, otherwise it's useless and grayed out in the menu. There are several workarounds, more or less perfect, please search in the forum and extensions. Why does K-Meleon not include feature "X" (e-mail client, etc.)?K-Meleon is intended to be a fast, customizable, lightweight web browser. It is designed to be a browser only, not a suite. Thus, it does not include features such as an e-mail client or a web page editor, which could bloat and slow K-Meleon down. Users are encouraged to use their favorite applications for these and other particular purposes. The K-Meleon developers will consider enhancements that improve the performance and usefulness of the browser.
Bookmarking SystemsHow do I use my existing Firefox/Netscape/Mozilla Bookmarks?The first time K-Meleon is run with the Netscape Bookmark Plugin enabled, it automatically creates a new bookmarks file in your profile directory. You also have the possibility of using your existing Firefox, Netscape or Mozilla bookmarks file in K-Meleon. Open Edit > Preferences > K-Meleon Plugins > Netscape Bookmarks and go to the Netscape Bookmarks File section. Click on Browse. This is where you can set the location of your bookmarks file. Specify the location of your existing Netscape, Mozilla/SeaMonkey or Firefox bookmarks file here. Mozilla/SeaMonkey, Netscape and Firefox store their bookmarks file in their profile directory. Its location depends on your operating system. The following example is for the Mozilla/SeaMonkey profile directory:
Netscape creates its own folder in the same folder that contains the Mozilla folder. Firefox creates its folder within the Mozilla folder. Note: K-Meleon's bookmarks plugin does currently not support Firefox's live bookmarks and favicons. Firefox3 uses a new system for bookmarks. To get a copy in the traditional (KM-compatible) style, open Firefox and click Bookmarks > Organize > Import and Backup > Export HTML How do I use my existing Internet Explorer Favorites?K-Meleon's IE Favorites Plugin automatically locates and uses your Favorites. This plugin does not import your Favorites, it allows you to share your Favorites between K-Meleon and Internet Explorer! K-Meleon's Netscape Bookmark Plugin allows you to import your Favorites into your bookmarks file. Choose Bookmarks > Edit... and then press Import Favorites. How do I use my existing Opera Hotlist?The first time K-Meleon is run with the Opera Hotlist Plugin enabled, it will automatically create a new empty hotlist file in your profile directory. You also have the possibility of using your existing Opera hotlist file in K-Meleon. Open Edit > Preferences and go to the Plugins section. Select Opera Hotlist Plugin and press Configure.... This will open the Opera Hotlist Settings dialog where you can set the location of your hotlist file. Specify the location of your existing Opera hotlist file here. How do I Backup my Bookmarks, Hotlist or Favorites? Backup Favorites: Backup Bookmarks or Hotlist: Backup Bookmarks or Hotlist with non-default path: How do I search inside my Bookmarks, Hotlist or Favorites? Bookmarks or Hotlist: Favorites: How do I open all Bookmarks in a folder at once?Edit your Bookmarks or Hotlist and fill in the Nick field of a folder. Then if you want to open all those pages later, just type the nick into the URL bar. Also works for single bookmarks, also for "Hotlist", but not "Favorites". What are Hotlinks?Hotlinks are provided through the Macro Extension Plugin and are in a way K-Meleon's own bookmarking system. Very simple, yet efficient. Through Tools > Hotlinks... you have the possibility to assign an URL to each of the key combinations Ctrl+0, Ctrl+1, ..., Ctrl+9.
PluginsWhat do each of the default K-Meleon plugins do?
How do I enable/disable a K-Meleon plugin?Open Edit > Preferences and go to the Plugins section. Select the plugin in question and press Enable/Disable. A green checkbox background indicates that a plugin is currently loaded. Checked plugins will be loaded next time K-Meleon starts. How do I make K-Meleon use a third party Netscape/Mozilla plugin?K-Meleon automatically detects the Adobe Acrobat Reader, the Sun Java Runtime Environment, Apple QuickTime and Windows Media Player. Flash and Shockwave setup programs automatically detect K-Meleon. If it's not working automatically, any Mozilla plugin should work by being copied into K-Meleon's plugins directory (not kplugins directory), which is located in the K-Meleon installation directory. You can check the status of any plugin by opening Help > About Plugins. All your plugins currently used by K-Meleon will be listed there. For more information please review the page about third party plugins.
Customization and OptionsDoes K-Meleon support skins/themes?Yes. K-Meleon is very easy to skin. You can find quite a number of skins in the K-Meleon Themes Wiki. In order to install one, simply extract the provided ZIP archive into K-Meleon's skins directory (the files of the new skin must all end up in a new subdirectory of the skins directory). After a restart of K-Meleon, you can select the new skin in Edit > Preferences > GUI Appearance. Choose there also if you want icons in the menus (if provided by the skin), or an image as toolbar background. You have to restart K-Meleon for skin changes to take effect. How to hide some buttons, or get more?Single toolbars can be switched on or off in View > Toolbars Does K-Meleon support command line options?Yes. Please review the page about command line options. Does K-Meleon provide localization/multi-language support?Yes. K-Meleon automatically attempts to recognize documents' character sets and display them properly. The browser's user interface is fully translatable since version 1.0 and supports multiple languages since version 1.1. Official localizations and language packages (to be installed additionally) can be found in the Download section. If you're interested in creating your own translation/localization, please refer to the Localization page. TIP: Some websites offer different language versions, but depending on your browser settings. If you speak another language than english, check if you see the country flags under the menu on the left side here? Do they vanish if you click english? Then change this setting: Open "about:config" page, ignore the warning this time, and filter for "lang". This line is important: Does K-Meleon allow to middle-click links to the background?Yes. Mouse accelerators such as MiddleClick, Ctrl+LeftClick, Ctrl+RightClick to open links in new (background) layers, can be configured quickly throug Tools > Mouse Accelerators. Simply choose the configuration that best fits your needs:
How do I customize shortcut keys?Key commands (accelerators) can be customized by editing the accel.cfg file in your profile folder. Choose Edit > Configuration > Accelerators to open it. Explanations can be found on the Configuration Files page. How do I set up macros?K-Meleon 1.1 provides support for modular macros to ease up macro installation (before they were all in one big macros.cfg). (To uninstall completely, delete the kmm file and, if it was part of a more complex extension with several files, delete those too. How do I set up profiles?Profiles can be added, deleted and renamed using the profile manager (click Edit > Manage Profiles...). If you do not want your profile folders placed in your windows user appdata folder (multi-user profile), but inside the K-Meleon program folder (single-user/portable version), create an empty file "profile.ini" in the K-Meleon root-folder. Consider you must have writing rights there. That way there may still be created a folder "K-Meleon" in appdata, but it's not used and stays empty. Instead you'll find a brandnew profile folder in K-Meleon/Profiles. (By the way you can copy over the contents of one profile folder into another, like bookmarks.html, history, userContent.css etc. The file "prefs.js" holds all your personal settings that are different from default, and also your typed URL bar history, sessions etc., unless you have them disabled. This file actually consists of the bold entries that you see in about:config. You can edit it either there, or per menu (Preferences), or -if browser is closed- with Notepad etc.) How do I configure proxies?For detailed proxy configuration open Edit > Preferences and select Proxy. K-Meleon only accepts hostnames for manual proxies. For proxies such as Junkbuster that do not support the most recent HTTP specification, you can set K-Meleon to use HTTP 1.0 instead of 1.1 on the General tab in Preferences. Through Tools > Proxy you can quickly switch between several proxy settings. Note that the custom proxy settings are currently limited to the HTTP protocol. How do I put Layer/Tab bar at the bottom?Edit > Preferences (F2) > Browsing > Tabbed Browsing. Several tab options there, click on tab "Tab Bar" to find the one for top or bottom position. Often overlooked: You can also set your preferences there for left/middle/right-clicking on a tab, change it if e.g. you want to close tabs with a middle-click and open new ones with double-click. How do to have a close button (X) in each tab?This feature is included since 1.5.1 version. You must create a new pref entry in about:config. How do I change default background color in new layers/tabs?Paste one of the following rules to your userContent.css (Edit > Configuration > User-Defined StyleSheet):
@-moz-document url(about:blank) {
body { background-color: Window; }
}
2) This will effect all pages that do not have a background color set:
body { background-color: Window; }
3) This will effect ALL pages:
body { background-color: Window !important; }
You have to restart K-Meleon to make changes in your userContent.css take effect. 'Window' is the symbolic name for your OS's window color, whatever it actually is. UPDATE: How to stop K-Meleon from warning me about fonts not installed?You must create a new pref entry in about:config. How do I reverse the mousewheel direction for zooming?The default direction for zooming with Ctrl+mousewheel depends from the version of the gecko engine, that's why it switched between K-Meleon versions 1.5.4 and 1.6. There exists a hidden switch to reverse that direction yourself, if you prefer, but it takes a bit manual work. See explanations in Forum. There's also a little macro available that creates a simple menu entry for switching.
TroubleshootingWhy does website "X" not display/work properly? Is it a K-Meleon bug?Probably not. In most cases it's just your Privacy & Security settings:
If that doesn't help and a site is still not displaying/working properly, it's normally caused by one of three issues:
And more and more sites require the gecko engine 1.9.x to work fully, so they need K-Meleon 1.6 or newer. Currently (Nov.2010) this version is in development yet (Beta version), but many people use it already quite happy and such sites seem to work fine with it. You can report such problems to the K-Meleon Forum - somebody may attempt to determine the source of the problem. Keep in mind that the particular authors are responsible for a website, not the K-Meleon developers. Why can't I see that image, it works in other browsers?Are "all" your images suddenly invisible?
Only certain images broken, not all?
Why does K-Meleon forget my settings? (home page, bookmarks etc.)Your settings will all be forgotten if you do not have writing rights in your profile folder. If you don't need a portable version and just want a quick fix: Delete the file "profile.ini" (not profileS.ini) in the K-Meleon program folder and restart. This will create a new profile in your user appdata folder, where you already have writing rights by default, and your settings will be remembered next time. More info here and here. Why am I kicked out when using Backspace key in a input field (e.g. facebook wall)?That happens on some modern sites when visiting them with older versions of the browser's gecko engine. Not all input fields are fully recognized as such anymore, and then "Go Back" is used instead of "Delete". A quick on-the-fly workaround is to press SHIFT+Backspace for deleting. For a permanent solution you can remove the default "Go Back" shortcut from the "Backspace" key: (Notes:
The above solution is just a profile setting, not global. Better but slightly more complicated: Remove that shortcut in all profiles by default and instead of "Backspace" use "SHIFT-Backspace" as shortcut for "Go Back". For this edit the file K-Meleon\defaults\settings\accel.cfg and change Why does my personal firewall issue an alert that K-Meleon is requesting server rights?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. All Mozilla browsers behave like that. Why does K-Meleon refuse to run on my system?Your system may be missing some "Microsoft runtime libraries required to run applications developed with Visual C++". Those dll's are not included in the ZIP/7Z versions of KM. Usually they exist already on newer systems, but uninstalling another program may have removed them. KM 1.5.x needs: msvcp71.dll and msvcr71.dll KM 1.6 needs: msvcp80.dll and msvcr80.dll Unless you install the vcredist, you may find those dll's elsewhere in your programs folder or another computer, in internet dll-archives, or extract them from the "installer"-version of K-Meleon (e.g. with 7zip, instead of setup just right-click and unzip the exe). Why is K-Meleon opening two windows or displaying a "Can't open..." error message when I open an URL from an e-mail program or an Internet Shortcut?This type of problem is usually the result of the DDE (Dynamic Data Exchange) option being enabled in the Windows Registry for the type of URL that you are trying to open. In Windows Explorer, open Tools > Folder Options... and select the File Types tab. When you've found the type of URL in question (e.g. URL:HTTP ...), select it and click Edit.... In the list of Actions select open and click Edit.... Uncheck the Use DDE checkbox and press OK until you are finally out of the Folder Options dialog. Why do I get an error message on Windows 9X/NT related to mfc42.dll?Your system is missing certain libraries. See the system requirements. Why do the Bookmarks menu and/or other plugin menus not appear?Your system is missing certain libraries. See the system requirements. Why aren't links opening up in K-Meleon, it's set as my default browser?The set-default routine in K-Meleon 1.5.x is outdated, it works only up to XP-SP2 correctly. If you're on a newer Windows you can use this autoit-extension for KM1.5.x: Defaulter2 (unzip with 7zip into K-Meleons root folder and restart) Why does the new Java Plug-In not work right?The problem is Java's "Next Generation" plugin npjp2.dll. It seems to help to overrule that plugin with the "Classic" plugin: copy the file C:\Programs\Java\jre6\bin\npoji610.dll into K-Meleon's "plugins" folder (see forum). Where can I get more help?Please review the release notes of the K-Meleon version you are using for known issues/problems. Submit your question to the K-Meleon Forums (registration is not required to post and providing an e-mail address is optional). Be prepared that it may take some time until somebody knowing the answer to your question will read your post. So, check back from time to time. Bookmark the thread you posted to in order to find it again later. If you are registered, you can mark "Follow Topic" to find it listed in your 'Control Center', since currently there are no notifications by email. (Note: German language had a 'Blindflug' problem, set new Forum Language HERE.) If you think you've found a bug, ask in the Forums first. Most posted "bugs" turn out to be just simple HowTo questions or general troubleshooting, like bugs in websites or third-party plugins, not K-Meleon bugs. In any case, make yourself familiar with our Bug Reporting Guidelines before you file a report in our Bug Tracking System (requires registration). Be prepared that you are asked to provide more information - you have to help us to help you.
MiscellaneousWhere do I find the command to .... ?
Where do I find the configuration for .... ?
What does "chrome" have to do with K-Meleon?If by "chrome" you mean Google's new browser: Nothing! K-Meleon is 8 years older, and contained a "chrome" folder for its user interface long before Google even dreamed of creating an own browser and baptizing it "Chrome". To quote Wikipedia: "The visible graphical interface features of an application are sometimes referred to as 'chrome'". Regarding the Google browser it says: "The name is derived from the graphical user interface frame, or 'chrome', of web browsers."
More questions?You can post them in the K-Meleon Forum (no registration and no e-mail address required). The "General" section is usually best for most sorts of questions.
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