xombrero (until 2012 known as xxxterm) is a discontinued

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 with a goal to be a lightweight and secure replacement for full featured browsers like

Firefox Mozilla Firefox, or simply Firefox, is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. It uses the Gecko rendering engine to display web pages, which implements current and ...

. The browser has found a niche among minimalist browsers for heavy keyboard users by balancing minimalism with usability. xombrero is based on

GTK+ GTK (formerly GIMP ToolKit and GTK+) is a free and open-source cross-platform widget toolkit for creating graphical user interfaces (GUIs). It is licensed under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License, allowing both free and proprie ...

Features

xombrero is based on the

WebKit WebKit is a browser engine developed by Apple and primarily used in its Safari web browser, as well as on the iOS and iPadOS version of any web browser. WebKit is also used by the BlackBerry Browser, PlayStation consoles beginning from the PS ...

engine and provides an ability to control

cookies A cookie is a baked or cooked snack or dessert that is typically small, flat and sweet. It usually contains flour, sugar, egg, and some type of oil, fat, or butter. It may include other ingredients such as raisins, oats, chocolate chips, nuts ...

, plug-ins and

JavaScript JavaScript (), often abbreviated as JS, is a programming language that is one of the core technologies of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. As of 2022, 98% of Website, websites use JavaScript on the Client (computing), client side ...

policies on per-

website A website (also written as a web site) is a collection of web pages and related content that is identified by a common domain name and published on at least one web server. Examples of notable websites are Google Search, Google, Facebook, Amaz ...

basis. The user can define the

whitelist A whitelist, allowlist, or passlist is a mechanism which explicitly allows some identified entities to access a particular privilege, service, mobility, or recognition i.e. it is a list of things allowed when everything is denied by default. It is ...

s of trusted websites for each of those security risks. xombrero was designed for experienced

command-line interface A command-line interpreter or command-line processor uses a command-line interface (CLI) to receive commands from a user in the form of lines of text. This provides a means of setting parameters for the environment, invoking executables and pro ...

users, so it includes the features typically requested by such an audience: mouseless browsing, no

URL A Uniform Resource Locator (URL), colloquially termed as a web address, is a reference to a web resource that specifies its location on a computer network and a mechanism for retrieving it. A URL is a specific type of Uniform Resource Identifie ...

prefetch, vi-like

user interface In the industrial design field of human–computer interaction, a user interface (UI) is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur. The goal of this interaction is to allow effective operation and control of the machine f ...

and navigation (including ''command'' mode), plain text file configuration, and link hinting.

User interface

xombrero provides a ''command mode'' (designed after vi) for entering commands for the common tasks, including tabs (''buffers'') switching, entering

s, following links and navigating through browser history and bookmarks. The same functionality can be accessed with

keyboard shortcut computing, a keyboard shortcut also known as hotkey is a series of one or several keys to quickly invoke a software program or perform a preprogrammed action. This action may be part of the standard functionality of the operating system or ...

s. By default xombrero window contains two panels, providing the ordinary layout of a web browser window. The first one (on the top) – "''fancy bar''" – provides URL entry, ''backward'', ''forward'', ''stop'' and ''white-list toggle'' buttons and optional search string entry. Another panel (on the bottom) – "''status bar''" – reports the current URL (or page title), zoom level and position in page. With these panels enabled and a

mouse A mouse ( : mice) is a small rodent. Characteristically, mice are known to have a pointed snout, small rounded ears, a body-length scaly tail, and a high breeding rate. The best known mouse species is the common house mouse (''Mus musculus' ...

attached, the user may operate xombrero like

Midori Midori (みどり, ミドリ, , , ) is the Japanese word for "green" and may refer to: Places * Midori, Gunma * Midori-ku, Chiba * Midori-ku, Nagoya * Midori-ku, Sagamihara * Midori-ku, Saitama * Midori-ku, Yokohama People Given name * Mi ...

History

The development of the browser began in February 2010 under the name "xxxterm" by several

OpenBSD OpenBSD is a security-focused, free and open-source, Unix-like operating system based on the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). Theo de Raadt created OpenBSD in 1995 by forking NetBSD 1.0. According to the website, the OpenBSD project em ...

users specifically for that operating system. Initially the releases of the browsers were identified by

CVS CVS may refer to: Organizations * CVS Health, a US pharmacy chain ** CVS Pharmacy ** CVS Caremark, a prescription benefit management subsidiary * Council for Voluntary Service, England * Cable Video Store, former US pay-per-view service * CVS F ...

revision numbers, though more common "X.Y.Z" version numbering scheme was introduced as development moved to

Git Git () is a distributed version control system: tracking changes in any set of files, usually used for coordinating work among programmers collaboratively developing source code during software development. Its goals include speed, data inte ...

. In the release announcement for version 1.11.2, Peereboom revealed the plan to rename xxxterm to xombrero, though an emergency release under the old name happened later the same day. Later it was revealed that the version numbers for the browser under the new name would start again from 1.0. In early 2017, it appeared the project was likely to be discontinued, as xombrero depended on an old version of WebKit which had multiple security vulnerabilities, and a port to a modern version of WebKit would be difficult. Due to these issues, OpenBSD removed xombrero from its ports tree on 1 February 2017.

References

External links

* {{Web browsers, desktop Free software programmed in C Free web browsers POSIX web browsers Software based on WebKit Web browsers that use GTK Software using the ISC license Discontinued web browsers

Features

User interface

History

See also

References

External links