Tombuntu

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.

Midori

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

Michael Houghton

This was useful, thanks - now I have a trivial way to test with webkit without going to the trouble of rebuilding Epiphany.

Andrew Conkling

The Epiphany switch is fantastic. I wonder what will happen with Midori after that? I suppose it’s more of a GTK+ browser than a GNOME browser, but I love to see consolidation of projects; focused energies are great. :)

Stemp

Just a note to tell you my ppa is also available for Hardy with Webkit 31841 (from Debian) and the git version of midori from today ;)

Scott Wegner

Is there any reason to use Midori in Ubuntu, rather than Firefox? I remember hearing some fuss that Firefox’s icon set wasn’t quite open-source, although that shouldn’t be an issue now that FF3 is using GTK in Ubuntu.

Matthew Daly

I believe that as of version 1.0, Skipstone also supports Webkit.

Schur

I cannot fint CODE in menus. If an html document doesn’t use charset, it may garble.

Tom

Scott Wegner:
The problem with Firefox is it’s name and logo, not the icons.

Matías

The fonts are way too small (5pt) and any attempt of change the size makes midori segfault.

Any workaround for this?

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