Falkon (formerly QupZilla) is a

free Free may refer to: Concept * Freedom, having the ability to do something, without having to obey anyone/anything * Freethought, a position that beliefs should be formed only on the basis of logic, reason, and empiricism * Emancipate, to procur ...

and

open-source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...

web browser A web browser is application software for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's screen. Browsers are used on ...

developed by

KDE KDE is an international Free software movement, free software community that develops free and open-source software. As a central development hub, it provides tools and resources that allow collaborative work on this kind of software. Well-know ...

. It is built on the

QtWebEngine Blink is a browser engine developed as part of the Chromium project with contributions from Google, Meta, Microsoft, Opera Software, Adobe, Intel, IBM, Samsung, and others. It was first announced in April 2013. Naming Blink's naming was ...

, which is a wrapper for the

Chromium Chromium is a chemical element with the symbol Cr and atomic number 24. It is the first element in group 6. It is a steely-grey, lustrous, hard, and brittle transition metal. Chromium metal is valued for its high corrosion resistance and hardne ...

browser core. Both

KaOS KaOS is a desktop Linux distribution that features the latest version of the KDE desktop environment, the LibreOffice office suite, and other popular software applications that use the Qt toolkit. History The first version of KaOS was released ...

and

openMandriva Lx OpenMandriva Lx is a Linux distribution forked from Mandriva Linux. It is maintained by the OpenMandriva Association. History Origin of the distribution OpenMandriva Lx is a community Linux distribution. Originally an offering of Mandriva Linu ...

use Falkon as their default browser.

Features

Falkon provides several icon sets and other elements to match the native look and feel of users' desktop operating systems. Some additional features of the browser include the integration of history,

web feed On the World Wide Web, a web feed (or news feed) is a data format used for providing users with frequently updated content. Content distributors ''syndicate'' a web feed, thereby allowing users to ''subscribe'' a channel to it by adding the feed ...

s and bookmarks in a single location, the ability to take a

screenshot screenshot (also known as screen capture or screen grab) is a digital image that shows the contents of a computer display. A screenshot is created by the operating system or software running on the device powering the display. Additionally, s ...

of the entire page, and an

Opera Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a librett ...

-like "''Speed dial''" home page. It is reported to consume fewer system resources than the major general purpose browsers like Firefox and

Google Chrome Google Chrome is a cross-platform web browser developed by Google. It was first released in 2008 for Microsoft Windows, built with free software components from Apple WebKit and Mozilla Firefox. Versions were later released for Linux, macOS ...

. Falkon uses the Qt

cross-platform In computing, cross-platform software (also called multi-platform software, platform-agnostic software, or platform-independent software) is computer software that is designed to work in several computing platforms. Some cross-platform software r ...

application framework and offers a built-in AdBlock. By default this adblocker whitelists the web page of Falkon's main search engine, DuckDuckGo. A "portable" (no installation) version for Windows platforms exists. Falkon is also distributed in the PortableApps format.

History

The project was started as a

research project Research is " creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge". It involves the collection, organization and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular attentiveness ...

in 2010. The first preview release, written in

Python Python may refer to: Snakes * Pythonidae, a family of nonvenomous snakes found in Africa, Asia, and Australia ** ''Python'' (genus), a genus of Pythonidae found in Africa and Asia * Python (mythology), a mythical serpent Computing * Python (pro ...

(using PyQt library), was ready by December 2010. In 2011 the

source code In computing, source code, or simply code, is any collection of code, with or without comments, written using a human-readable programming language, usually as plain text. The source code of a program is specially designed to facilitate the wo ...

was rewritten in C++ with a goal to create a full-featured general purpose

portable Portable may refer to: General * Portable building, a manufactured structure that is built off site and moved in upon completion of site and utility work * Portable classroom, a temporary building installed on the grounds of a school to provide a ...

web browser based on QtWebKit, with the initial target being visual integration with the look and feel of multiple

desktop environment In computing, a desktop environment (DE) is an implementation of the desktop metaphor made of a bundle of programs running on top of a computer operating system that share a common graphical user interface (GUI), sometimes described as a graphica ...

s including

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

GNOME A gnome is a mythological creature and diminutive spirit in Renaissance magic and alchemy, first introduced by Paracelsus in the 16th century and later adopted by more recent authors including those of modern fantasy literature. Its characte ...

, and

KDE Plasma Plasma is a desktop environment by KDE, and can refer to: * KDE Plasma 5 (2014–today) * KDE Plasma 4 (2008–2015) * Plasma Mobile for smartphones * Plasma Bigscreen Plasma Bigscreen is a software project from KDE which contains an interface op ...

. Version 1.6.6 (May 2014) still supported

Windows 2000 Windows 2000 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft and oriented towards businesses. It was the direct successor to Windows NT 4.0, and was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RTM), releas ...

. On 30 March 2016, QupZilla 2.0 was released. It marked the transition from QtWebKit to Qt WebEngine. On 10 August 2017, QupZilla's developer David Rosca announced in a blog post that QupZilla had become a

project. After the release of Qupzilla 2.2 the project was renamed to ''Falkon''. KDE Falkon 3.0 was released on 27 February 2018. Falkon 3.0.1 was included in Lubuntu 18.10 beta but replaced with Firefox in the actual Lubuntu 18.10 release. Falkon 3.2.0 was released on 31 January 2022. On 14 February 2022, Falkon started transitioning to

KDE Gear The KDE Gear (also known as the KDE Applications Bundle or KDE Applications) is a set of applications and supporting libraries that are developed by the KDE community, primarily used on Linux-based operating systems but mostly multiplatform, and ...

by adopting the same version number. Starting with version 22.04 on 21 April 2022, the first version of Falkon as part of KDE Gear was released. Official releases are thus announced on the KDE news website rather than the official Falkon website.

References

External links

* * (old website, now deprecated)
Falkon Add-ons

Falkon's source code repository
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Falkon Free software programmed in C++ Free software projects Free web browsers Portable software POSIX web browsers Software based on WebKit Software that was rewritten in C++ Web browsers that use Qt

Features

History

See also

References

External links