Hi,

I am curious when is the newer version is going to be available? I have been waiting for ever. Is there any official timeline planned for the release?

I love Kmeleon and use it for most of my browsing. Only concern is, if a newer version comes out once an year, will it be as secure as the browsers which are getting updated once a month (say firefox)

No official live time.

AFAIK the next official 1.5.4 will bring a new 1.8 GRE and minor core fixes. But no release date is scheduled. This project is supported in spare time by PPL that have full time jobs... like You, me and any Dick, Tom or Harry. It will come when the devs (especially Dorian, the core developer) have time to finish it.

Unofficial GRE updates are available (by desga2 who made the official es-ES translation). PPL from user forum prepare and support the unofficial GRE updates since IV 2005.

These updates do not require that an official dev has time but that someone competent enough to update a GRE has time. These updates came within days after a new 1.8 GRE by Mozilla.org is out and fixes security bugs.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/08/2009 12:36PM by guenter.

Quote
Phani
Hi,

I am curious when is the newer version is going to be available? I have been waiting for ever. Is there any official timeline planned for the release?

I love Kmeleon and use it for most of my browsing. Only concern is, if a newer version comes out once an year, will it be as secure as the browsers which are getting updated once a month (say firefox)

Phani,

Fred just talked about the latest FF update and how it did not matter for KM.

So long as Seamonkey 1.xxxx has security updates, KM will be safe imo.

Down the road, the work that Fred and Hao are doing on Gecko 1.9 will undoubtedly be used by Dorian in the next release of KM, which will be based on Gecko 1.9.

An important issue for KM is SQLite. It is not clear (to me) that it is the perfect dBase for Gecko. Security is an issue there and the developers at Mozilla Corp. have raised the issue of quickly replacing SQLite, at some unidentified time in the future. As KM is a macro-based browser, there are other solutions, but that will be up to the developers to implement.

KM 1.5.3 is very secure and if and when it is no longer secure, you will know about it here as the KM community is not shy about talking about what is working and what is not with this browser.


Just my 2 cents worth.

N

Thanks for the info guys... I will wait for the next version ..

I've got to go with Phani on this one guys.

From everything I've seen in the previews, the new version will be smoking fast.
Not all of us have the time or ability to do our own builds.

Your loyal fanbase will wait patiently for the new release. Consider the
marketshare you can gain by having the fastest thing out there. That's what
got me interested in K-Meleon in the first place.

Keep up the good work but stop teasing!

-gmb

1.5.4 & GRE 1.8 means that there will probably be a maintenance release for the current branch.

1.6.x would be a change to a GRE 1.9.x which can mean faster JavaScript and improved rendering speed.

p.s. From what I know: Webkit has V8 JavaScript engine which is fastest JS-engine currently. A new K-Meleon will not be using that but continue to use Mozilla GREs.

Actually, WebKit's Javascript engine is called Nitro (formerly SquirrelFish Extreme), and it is definitely a different thing from V8. V8 is the Javascript engine developed by Google and used in Google Chrome.

Nitro and V8 are currently pretty neck-and-neck for the fastest Javascript engine, but the newest V8 builds seem to be slightly faster, especially on XP platform.

But guenter is right KM will continue to use GRE, whose TraceMonkey Javascript is slow in comparison.

Quote
bksening
Actually, WebKit's Javascript engine is called Nitro (formerly SquirrelFish Extreme), and it is definitely a different thing from V8.

V8 is the Javascript engine developed by Google and used in Google Chrome.

Nitro and V8 are currently pretty neck-and-neck for the fastest Javascript engine, but the newest V8 builds seem to be slightly faster, especially on XP platform.

Thx for correcting my false memory!

During tests V8 Prototypes about 2-5 times faster than other new JS engines.
But that does not mean that the browsers using it is generally faster with surfing.

p.s. Other aspects like the speed of css, canvass ... rendering are not much influenced by the current leap frog race to improve JavaScript speed.

It means they are faster with tests.
And they are fast probably on JavaScript Heavy pages.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/13/2009 09:19AM by guenter.

As someone who almost never uses javascript, I absolutely love that KM starts up on my old machine in 2 sec, compared to 8sec in Firefox 3.5 (let alone the 25 sec in Firefox2!) As for page loading, no idea, luckily I have a fast connection now and just "feel" the loading and rendering speed is definitely fast enough for me, although I'm a very unpatient person

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ndebord

So long as Seamonkey 1.xxxx has security updates, KM will be safe imo.

unfortunately, ndebord, Mr. KaiRo may stop offering any new SM 1.x security updates soon. but there may be just one more SM 1.x release that will have the updated gecko 1.8.1.24 code in either late December 2009 or early next year. support for SM 1.x is almost coming to an end after the release of SM 2.x.

Quote
4td8s

Quote
ndebord

So long as Seamonkey 1.xxxx has security updates, KM will be safe imo.

unfortunately, ndebord, Mr. KaiRo may stop offering any new SM 1.x security updates soon. but there may be just one more SM 1.x release that will have the updated gecko 1.8.1.24 code in either late December 2009 or early next year. support for SM 1.x is almost coming to an end after the release of SM 2.x.

It is not only Mr. R. Kaiser & SM that fix - but also Linux distros that pledged commercial long term service/support. They are committing especially Firefox fixes to the codebase. You can still build updated Firefox 2.x and not only SeaMonkey 1.x as longs as they care for that Gecko branch. Well, probably as long as the Windows part does not break.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/03/2009 04:59AM by guenter.

The nightlies for Seamonkey1.1.19pre have been resumed.
There is a Seamonkey with Gecko 1.8.1.24pre from
December 2nd.
I don't know if existing bugs have been fixed.
The SVG bug seems still to exist. Seamonkey does not crash
but it freezes, when the test case is used.
Nevertheless it's a good sign, that the nightlies are
back. An updated Seamonkey 1.1.19 seems possible.
This would enable creating an updated K-Meleon with
Gecko 1.8 , which could be used by Windows 98 users
for a while, although these updates would end soon ,
as it seems.

Fred

The 1.8 GRE updates will end when both commercial Linux support for TB, FF and SM and SM project support for that GRE ends. No idea what the schedules are.

Unlike 2005 we do not only have to rely on scavanged dll.
Else have to wait for a new GRE untill a skilled dev can spare time.
I have a functional build environment to build GREs.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/03/2009 01:23PM by guenter.

a K-meleon 1.54 release is almost ready. there's a release candidate of KM 1.54 available now.

as for continuing GRE 1.8.1.x updates for TB2/SM1.1.x, still undecided. an upcoming TB 2.0.0.24 release is being planned but no timetable for that one, along with an upcoming SM 1.1.19 release also TBD (to be determined). GRE 1.8 updates for FF2.x were retired in Dec. 2008.