General :
K-Meleon Web Browser Forum
In another post "Kunfused - Which one to use?" someone new to the forum wanted to know why there were such a plethora K-Meleon's available and which one should they choose.? This posting probably won't give a clear answer to that question, but it will give a "brief" and probably inaccurate summary of why there are so many K-Meleon?
To begin with there is one and only one official: K-Meleon .9 1.7.5. So, lets address the first confusion - the numbers. K-Meleon .9 refers to the .exe file while 1.7.5 is the Gecko engine iteration from Mozilla.org that is common to all browsers (Firefox, Mozilla Suite, Seamonkey) that use the Gecko engine to render webpages. Essentially, Netscape gave the code for the Gecko engine to the open source community, now name Mozilla. When the official K-Meleon came out after beta testing the Gecko engine was 1.7.5 and it was called K-Meleon .9 . Just keep in mind that there are two parts .9 and a Gecko iteration like 1.7.5. Yet, in the forums there are other numbers and designations of K-Meleon browsers, so what happened?
K-Meleon .9 is extremely stable. The C-coders who produced it are still around, but are either caught up in their own pursuits (like working their real jobs) or have changed operating systems, but there is now no organized effort to advance K-Meleon to the designation of K-Meleon 1.0. One of the strengths of .9 is that you can change practically anything in the browser in its present shape to make it do and look like what you want without having to produce a brand new executable. Therefore, K-Meleon does not follow the common designation of 1.01, 2.0 or whatever as does, for example, Firefox which started out as 1.0 and is now at 1.06. As to new executables - they exist but as experiments. But, we'll get to that.
But, on to the rest of the "confusions." Because K-Meleon, using the same .9 executable is pliable enough to look and work in a variety of manners there are those who have produced "themes" or ported over old Mozillla and Netscape "themes" that they preferred for themselves as they viewed webpages. In turn, some posted their new "themes" and "profiles" to the forums in case others were interested. These were sometimes more extensive than look or feel, because routines were written in to block ads or make more proxy entries and so forth that expanded upon K-Meleon .9. These are unofficial and experimental modifications that generallly work very well, but sometimes have bugs or can even break the browser itself. Still, others were interested in more speed out of K-Meleon and the direction that took was building a new executable (sometimes referred to as "static") that is different from the way K-Meleon .9 works, but is still in the K-Meleon family.
Secunia, a watchdog group who tracks browser exploits, found some weaknesses and spoofs that could make the whole family of Gecko 1.7 browsers vulnerable to attack. K-Meleon .9 was built on the 1.7.5 Gecko engine and therefore was included as a vulnerable browser, though in fact, the exploit did not really work as designated. To offset the vulnerability Mozilla.org, who produces the "pieces" called "chromes, jars, and components", issued these changes as a single engine, and addressed the vulnerability. It was called 1.7.6 . So, Firefox when it incorporated the new engine, redesignated itself 1.01. As Mozilla.org has issued new engines until the present 1.7.11, Firefox has moved in upgrades to the present 1.06. Why doesn't K-Meleon follow this standard way of designating an "upgrade"? The simple answer is that the executable K-Meleon .9 is not rewritten for each Gecko engine upgrade.as is Firefox and other Gecko based browsers. Rather, the Gecko engine, which is really a bunch of "pieces" is explored and adapted to work with K-Meleon .9. When it was discovered that this more tedious method of adapting the Gecko engine to the K-Meleon .9 executable could be done, K-Meleon could address Security vulnerabilities as quickly, and often more quickly, than the other Gecko family of browsers. So, an unofficial way of designating a newer Gecko engine to the existing K-Meleon executible was to call it by the Gecko name. So, at one point it was K-Meleon 1.7.6, or K-Meleon 1.7.8 until K-Meleon 1.7.9, and as of late K-Meleon 1.7.10 and probably in the future 1.7.11.
Now, it gets complicated. The very industrious and generous folks who make this adaptation often incorparate the newer Gecko engines into the "themes" and "profiles" that are their preferences. As you read, keep in mind that these are all unofficial and experimental adaptations though many run flawlessly. Expect bugs; don't expect a finished and complete product. Before we get into the more radical experiments, here's a review of what some of these adaptations are from the least most complicated to the very sophisticated.
Brian - has produced a small executable that, when run, adds or adapts K-Meleon .9 to work with the newest Gecko engine and its modifications. In theory and generally in practice, it simply "updates" K-Meleon .9 to a higher Security level or to be able to use things like Google maps. Brian has had to add more .xpt coding to make things work with some of the newer Gecko engines, but he manages to get things to work
guenter - has created a modified K-Meleon which he calls Wald Wolf and sometimes WW. He incorporates themes and tools into his WW which expands on K-Meleon .9 but not intrusively. Given that, his efforts at the present are to explore the "pieces" in the newly issued Gecko engines and issue an "upgrade" of the whole WW series. He now calls this simply K-M_1.7.9 or K-M_1.7.10 based upon the latest Gecko engine revision. His download is a whole browser that should be placed in a new folder apart from the K-Meleon folder. It is unofficial and "experimental" but 9 times out of 10, it is extremely stable and thorough. Each new Gecko engine because it is made out of "pieces" changes sometimes just certain pieces and not others and those changes can break something unbeknowst to the person upgrading K-Meleon to the new Gecko engine. As these are discovered, in his "upgrade" guenter fixes these practically at the speed of light. Having said that, one is responsible for their own browser. Those like guenter and others who will be named, are very generous with their time and patient with their responses, but they do have obligations and should not be expected to be the equivalent of "support."
Fred and Hao - both produce "themed" or profiled full browsers that should be seen as separate experiments and should be placed in their own folders apart from the K-Meleon folder. These are experimental and incorporate a lot of coded modifications beyond K-Meleon official version. And both produce K-M's that use the 1.7 Gecko engine and they are experimenting with K-M executables that can run the 1.8 Gecko engines (Firefox uses the 1.7 family while Deer Park (a Firefox look alike and probably the next step in the Firefox evolution) uses the 1.8 Gecko engine). So, in looking at their "builds", which are often brilliant and elegant, they are experimental and of two types - 1.7 based Gecko engines and 1.8 Gecko engines.
Fred - has created his own themes and aside from his incorporating the newest 1.7 Gecko engines (and working with 1.8 Gecko engines) he includes Search engines within his browser that the majority of us would never have heard of unless he had brought them to our attention. Keep in mind that going down the paths Fred has chosen, it is an experiment, he welcomes feedback, and he is relentless in fixing things. You must often import along with the browser other programs that modify, for example, the way the downloading module of K-M works.
Hao - has several themed browsers. If anything an entire post can be written on his creativity. These are experimental browser modifications and they are many. He creates browsers that run for the 1.7 and 1.8 Gecko engines. He has extensive coding to cut out advertising, improve downloading options, and just too many things to number here. Hao pushes the envelope to its outer edges in K-M - always towards incorporating newer conviences for the browser or towards greater speed. Hao is clear that these are experiments - some are stable; some are not. But, he appreciates feedback and does work toward solutions often issuing entire new builds to make things work.
Perhaps, this will help to see why there are so many K-M's. It may seem confusing, but there is a logic to it. K-Meleon is an effort as much as a browser. There are those (and others) named above who make the modifications, and there are those who run them and through trial and error bring out the strengths and weaknesses. When found and corrected, that modification (experiment) becomes all the better. The strength of this approach is that so many things can be tried in some many ways that eventually a consensus can be reached at a new level so that someone who wants to write the next code for a K-Meleon 1.0 or 2.0 will not have to start from scratch. (I have a feeling that will be a fun debate). Nonetheless, at present K-M can and does evolve to meet security problems while at the same time is open to new modifications that makes it work better.
Hope this clarifies and does not muddy the waters too badly.
Well done Terry.
Very well written Terry...........Just wondering when will you have your own K-mel version.........Just joking..................................
Terry, thx for this unofficial end user "support" about official and unofficial k-m.
apart from the English: there are normally three German issues (rumpel & clickfish)
- what can be said about browsers i theme and update can be said about them too.
- stable updates to new Gecko engines sometimes additional gadjets and codes.
Sebastian has often themed updates available in English and German.
@xstones My dabbling with K-M and coming out with a version would truly give you a horse laugh. There was a time when I was updating the Gecko engine with what I got off of the Mozilla board for the 1.7 Nightlies. I really thought I was doing so well - basically because the thing ran. So, to see how my modification ran against others I downloaded one of Fred's and also guenter's WW. Theirs jumped onto the screen and went from website to website with alacrity. My modification - which was secure - had been driven to its knees by putting in superfluous files that were using up memory and cycles unnecessarily. I am not being humble when I say that you will probably never see a version from me, I am being realistic. And you will count your lucky stars the I didn't.
However, what I have found valuable in downloading Fred's and Hao's is to look at and sometimes remove the coding they put in there. I need Flash and Shockwave (which Hao declared war on in his browsers) to run on weather pages since today most of the local weather stations in Houston use them to show their satellite maps and radars. So, I learned how to go in and override what Hao had done. I don't need all of Fred's search engines, but I like his browser modification. So, I learned how to get into his and get rid of them.
I think it was jan, but it could have been someone else who showed us how he cleans up the "jars." With some spare time on my hands. I unzipped a jar and went in and looked what was there. "Cleaned it" with the jan method, and after a few minutes, prayed that my computer would still work when it sat their blankly glaring at me, inert to any key I pressed or imprecation I could mutter.
@guenter - I am myopic to the German contribution since I don't read it much to my grandfather's chagrin. I learned the words "essen", "Zimmer ", and wasserclauset and that pretty much got me by in Germany since wherever I travelled there everyone spoke English. Anyway thanks for covering what is a glaring oversight on my part.
IMHO You are right - Jan was the best chrome maker we have ever had...
& never mind about language - greetings to grandfather
- Your ligual abilities are best
- see first post in this thread. ; o) - & - good "Enkel" (grandson) ; o )
with well trained language ; o).
Speed: of updates depend on chrome that is why (me and others) we try to make small chromes.
Naturally an update without smalll chrome, unreduced number of dll & xpt (& joining xpt gives another second boost...or so) is a little slower - but Yours was as good and save as an(y) update as any produced by anyone in this forum!
I much regret that not more people scavange my and other updates to update
and post/offer their private theme for people that are just new or have no time.
My slogan: more k-m (s) more choice.
and thx for Your reviews, Terry.
ROFL that was me when visiting Maraia yesterday. regards
Terry,
I guess it's nice to have you all here to clear things up. I did try to make a K-mel of my own, but I probably ended up worst than you did. I learned a lot of from guenter and I'm very happy with Wald Wolf.................Maria could be right, more k-m (s) more choice........................have a nice day.....................
General discussion about K-Meleon. Questions about how to setup it, macro coding, all related to its usage and the project itself, including this website.
Confused on which one to use?
Posted by:
Terry
Date: July 30, 2005 03:27PM
In another post "Kunfused - Which one to use?" someone new to the forum wanted to know why there were such a plethora K-Meleon's available and which one should they choose.? This posting probably won't give a clear answer to that question, but it will give a "brief" and probably inaccurate summary of why there are so many K-Meleon?
To begin with there is one and only one official: K-Meleon .9 1.7.5. So, lets address the first confusion - the numbers. K-Meleon .9 refers to the .exe file while 1.7.5 is the Gecko engine iteration from Mozilla.org that is common to all browsers (Firefox, Mozilla Suite, Seamonkey) that use the Gecko engine to render webpages. Essentially, Netscape gave the code for the Gecko engine to the open source community, now name Mozilla. When the official K-Meleon came out after beta testing the Gecko engine was 1.7.5 and it was called K-Meleon .9 . Just keep in mind that there are two parts .9 and a Gecko iteration like 1.7.5. Yet, in the forums there are other numbers and designations of K-Meleon browsers, so what happened?
K-Meleon .9 is extremely stable. The C-coders who produced it are still around, but are either caught up in their own pursuits (like working their real jobs) or have changed operating systems, but there is now no organized effort to advance K-Meleon to the designation of K-Meleon 1.0. One of the strengths of .9 is that you can change practically anything in the browser in its present shape to make it do and look like what you want without having to produce a brand new executable. Therefore, K-Meleon does not follow the common designation of 1.01, 2.0 or whatever as does, for example, Firefox which started out as 1.0 and is now at 1.06. As to new executables - they exist but as experiments. But, we'll get to that.
But, on to the rest of the "confusions." Because K-Meleon, using the same .9 executable is pliable enough to look and work in a variety of manners there are those who have produced "themes" or ported over old Mozillla and Netscape "themes" that they preferred for themselves as they viewed webpages. In turn, some posted their new "themes" and "profiles" to the forums in case others were interested. These were sometimes more extensive than look or feel, because routines were written in to block ads or make more proxy entries and so forth that expanded upon K-Meleon .9. These are unofficial and experimental modifications that generallly work very well, but sometimes have bugs or can even break the browser itself. Still, others were interested in more speed out of K-Meleon and the direction that took was building a new executable (sometimes referred to as "static") that is different from the way K-Meleon .9 works, but is still in the K-Meleon family.
Secunia, a watchdog group who tracks browser exploits, found some weaknesses and spoofs that could make the whole family of Gecko 1.7 browsers vulnerable to attack. K-Meleon .9 was built on the 1.7.5 Gecko engine and therefore was included as a vulnerable browser, though in fact, the exploit did not really work as designated. To offset the vulnerability Mozilla.org, who produces the "pieces" called "chromes, jars, and components", issued these changes as a single engine, and addressed the vulnerability. It was called 1.7.6 . So, Firefox when it incorporated the new engine, redesignated itself 1.01. As Mozilla.org has issued new engines until the present 1.7.11, Firefox has moved in upgrades to the present 1.06. Why doesn't K-Meleon follow this standard way of designating an "upgrade"? The simple answer is that the executable K-Meleon .9 is not rewritten for each Gecko engine upgrade.as is Firefox and other Gecko based browsers. Rather, the Gecko engine, which is really a bunch of "pieces" is explored and adapted to work with K-Meleon .9. When it was discovered that this more tedious method of adapting the Gecko engine to the K-Meleon .9 executable could be done, K-Meleon could address Security vulnerabilities as quickly, and often more quickly, than the other Gecko family of browsers. So, an unofficial way of designating a newer Gecko engine to the existing K-Meleon executible was to call it by the Gecko name. So, at one point it was K-Meleon 1.7.6, or K-Meleon 1.7.8 until K-Meleon 1.7.9, and as of late K-Meleon 1.7.10 and probably in the future 1.7.11.
Now, it gets complicated. The very industrious and generous folks who make this adaptation often incorparate the newer Gecko engines into the "themes" and "profiles" that are their preferences. As you read, keep in mind that these are all unofficial and experimental adaptations though many run flawlessly. Expect bugs; don't expect a finished and complete product. Before we get into the more radical experiments, here's a review of what some of these adaptations are from the least most complicated to the very sophisticated.
Brian - has produced a small executable that, when run, adds or adapts K-Meleon .9 to work with the newest Gecko engine and its modifications. In theory and generally in practice, it simply "updates" K-Meleon .9 to a higher Security level or to be able to use things like Google maps. Brian has had to add more .xpt coding to make things work with some of the newer Gecko engines, but he manages to get things to work
guenter - has created a modified K-Meleon which he calls Wald Wolf and sometimes WW. He incorporates themes and tools into his WW which expands on K-Meleon .9 but not intrusively. Given that, his efforts at the present are to explore the "pieces" in the newly issued Gecko engines and issue an "upgrade" of the whole WW series. He now calls this simply K-M_1.7.9 or K-M_1.7.10 based upon the latest Gecko engine revision. His download is a whole browser that should be placed in a new folder apart from the K-Meleon folder. It is unofficial and "experimental" but 9 times out of 10, it is extremely stable and thorough. Each new Gecko engine because it is made out of "pieces" changes sometimes just certain pieces and not others and those changes can break something unbeknowst to the person upgrading K-Meleon to the new Gecko engine. As these are discovered, in his "upgrade" guenter fixes these practically at the speed of light. Having said that, one is responsible for their own browser. Those like guenter and others who will be named, are very generous with their time and patient with their responses, but they do have obligations and should not be expected to be the equivalent of "support."
Fred and Hao - both produce "themed" or profiled full browsers that should be seen as separate experiments and should be placed in their own folders apart from the K-Meleon folder. These are experimental and incorporate a lot of coded modifications beyond K-Meleon official version. And both produce K-M's that use the 1.7 Gecko engine and they are experimenting with K-M executables that can run the 1.8 Gecko engines (Firefox uses the 1.7 family while Deer Park (a Firefox look alike and probably the next step in the Firefox evolution) uses the 1.8 Gecko engine). So, in looking at their "builds", which are often brilliant and elegant, they are experimental and of two types - 1.7 based Gecko engines and 1.8 Gecko engines.
Fred - has created his own themes and aside from his incorporating the newest 1.7 Gecko engines (and working with 1.8 Gecko engines) he includes Search engines within his browser that the majority of us would never have heard of unless he had brought them to our attention. Keep in mind that going down the paths Fred has chosen, it is an experiment, he welcomes feedback, and he is relentless in fixing things. You must often import along with the browser other programs that modify, for example, the way the downloading module of K-M works.
Hao - has several themed browsers. If anything an entire post can be written on his creativity. These are experimental browser modifications and they are many. He creates browsers that run for the 1.7 and 1.8 Gecko engines. He has extensive coding to cut out advertising, improve downloading options, and just too many things to number here. Hao pushes the envelope to its outer edges in K-M - always towards incorporating newer conviences for the browser or towards greater speed. Hao is clear that these are experiments - some are stable; some are not. But, he appreciates feedback and does work toward solutions often issuing entire new builds to make things work.
Perhaps, this will help to see why there are so many K-M's. It may seem confusing, but there is a logic to it. K-Meleon is an effort as much as a browser. There are those (and others) named above who make the modifications, and there are those who run them and through trial and error bring out the strengths and weaknesses. When found and corrected, that modification (experiment) becomes all the better. The strength of this approach is that so many things can be tried in some many ways that eventually a consensus can be reached at a new level so that someone who wants to write the next code for a K-Meleon 1.0 or 2.0 will not have to start from scratch. (I have a feeling that will be a fun debate). Nonetheless, at present K-M can and does evolve to meet security problems while at the same time is open to new modifications that makes it work better.
Hope this clarifies and does not muddy the waters too badly.
Re: Confused on which one to use?
Posted by:
AmboyGuy
Date: July 30, 2005 04:00PM
Well done Terry.
Re: Confused on which one to use?
Posted by:
xstones
Date: July 30, 2005 04:12PM
Very well written Terry...........Just wondering when will you have your own K-mel version.........Just joking..................................
Re: Confused on which one to use?
Posted by:
guenter
Date: July 30, 2005 04:14PM
Terry, thx for this unofficial end user "support" about official and unofficial k-m.
apart from the English: there are normally three German issues (rumpel & clickfish)
- what can be said about browsers i theme and update can be said about them too.
- stable updates to new Gecko engines sometimes additional gadjets and codes.
Sebastian has often themed updates available in English and German.
Re: Confused on which one to use?
Posted by:
Terry
Date: July 30, 2005 08:34PM
@xstones My dabbling with K-M and coming out with a version would truly give you a horse laugh. There was a time when I was updating the Gecko engine with what I got off of the Mozilla board for the 1.7 Nightlies. I really thought I was doing so well - basically because the thing ran. So, to see how my modification ran against others I downloaded one of Fred's and also guenter's WW. Theirs jumped onto the screen and went from website to website with alacrity. My modification - which was secure - had been driven to its knees by putting in superfluous files that were using up memory and cycles unnecessarily. I am not being humble when I say that you will probably never see a version from me, I am being realistic. And you will count your lucky stars the I didn't.
However, what I have found valuable in downloading Fred's and Hao's is to look at and sometimes remove the coding they put in there. I need Flash and Shockwave (which Hao declared war on in his browsers) to run on weather pages since today most of the local weather stations in Houston use them to show their satellite maps and radars. So, I learned how to go in and override what Hao had done. I don't need all of Fred's search engines, but I like his browser modification. So, I learned how to get into his and get rid of them.
I think it was jan, but it could have been someone else who showed us how he cleans up the "jars." With some spare time on my hands. I unzipped a jar and went in and looked what was there. "Cleaned it" with the jan method, and after a few minutes, prayed that my computer would still work when it sat their blankly glaring at me, inert to any key I pressed or imprecation I could mutter.
@guenter - I am myopic to the German contribution since I don't read it much to my grandfather's chagrin. I learned the words "essen", "Zimmer ", and wasserclauset and that pretty much got me by in Germany since wherever I travelled there everyone spoke English. Anyway thanks for covering what is a glaring oversight on my part.
Re: Confused on which one to use?
Posted by:
maria
Date: July 31, 2005 02:15AM
IMHO You are right - Jan was the best chrome maker we have ever had...
& never mind about language - greetings to grandfather
- Your ligual abilities are best
- see first post in this thread. ; o) - & - good "Enkel" (grandson) ; o )
with well trained language ; o).
Speed: of updates depend on chrome that is why (me and others) we try to make small chromes.
Naturally an update without smalll chrome, unreduced number of dll & xpt (& joining xpt gives another second boost...or so) is a little slower - but Yours was as good and save as an(y) update as any produced by anyone in this forum!
I much regret that not more people scavange my and other updates to update
and post/offer their private theme for people that are just new or have no time.
My slogan: more k-m (s) more choice.
and thx for Your reviews, Terry.
Re: Confused on which one to use?
Posted by:
guenter
Date: July 31, 2005 02:21PM
ROFL that was me when visiting Maraia yesterday. regards
Re: Confused on which one to use?
Posted by:
xstones
Date: August 01, 2005 02:35AM
Terry,
I guess it's nice to have you all here to clear things up. I did try to make a K-mel of my own, but I probably ended up worst than you did. I learned a lot of from guenter and I'm very happy with Wald Wolf.................Maria could be right, more k-m (s) more choice........................have a nice day.....................
English