A Lightweight WebKit-based Browser

Update: I’ve written a new post about Midori covering a newer version.

Midori is a GTK web browser that uses the WebKit rendering engine. It’s nowhere near as polished, feature-rich, or stable as browsers like Firefox and Konqueror, but Midori is certainly usable. It is renders most websites perfectly, and even works with Gmail.

The current version 0.0.17 is easily installable in Ubuntu 7.10 and 8.04.

Ubuntu 8.04:

1. Install the package midori from your package manager or using this command:

   sudo apt-get install midori
   

Ubuntu 7.10:

1. Add the following software source in System->Administration->Software Sources, or to the end of your /etc/apt/sources.list file:

   deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/stemp/ubuntu gutsy main
   

2. Update APT by clicking Reload in Synaptic, or using this command:

   sudo apt-get update
   

3. Install the package midori from your package manager or using this command:

   sudo apt-get install midori
   

Does Midori crash whenever you middle-click a link to open it in a new tab? You can work around this bug by changing a setting. Click Edit->Preferences and select the Behavior tab. Check the box to Open tabs in the background. This will stop the segmentation faults, and make middle-clicking work more like Firefox.

We’re going to be seeing a lot more of the WebKit rendering engine in the future. KDE will be switching from KHTML, which WebKit is forked from, to WebKit. GNOME’s Epiphany web browser will also be switching from Mozilla’s Gecko. WebKit is looking good in Midori; it’s fast, standards-compliant, and compatible with most sites.

Archived Comments