Otter Browser is a cross-platform
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 o ...
that aims to recreate aspects of
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 libr ...
12.x using
Qt framework
Qt (pronounced "cute") is cross-platform software for creating graphical user interfaces as well as cross-platform applications that run on various software and hardware platforms such as Linux, Windows, macOS, Android or embedded systems wit ...
while keeping seamless integration with users' desktop environments.
Otter Browser is licensed under
GPL-3.0-or-later. It works on
Linux
Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, w ...
-based operating systems,
FreeBSD,
OpenBSD,
macOS
macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and lapt ...
, and
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 ser ...
platforms (others in development).
History
Following the decision by the board to change focus at
Opera Software
Opera is a Norwegian multinational technology company and subsidiary of Kunlun that specializes in web browser development, fintech, as well as services such as Opera News and YoYo Games. The company's total user base, including users of its ...
towards quarterly profits, co-founder
Jon von Tetzchner
Jon Stephenson von Tetzchner (Icelandic: Jón; born 29 August 1967 in Reykjavík) is an Icelandic-Norwegian programmer and businessman. He is the co-founder and CEO of Vivaldi Technologies. Before starting the Vivaldi Web browser, he launched a ...
left the company. Opera then announced that it would switch from the
Presto layout engine that it had developed to 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 P ...
rendering engine, also used by
Google Chromium
Chromium is a free and open-source web browser project, mainly developed and maintained by Google. This codebase provides the vast majority of code for the Google Chrome browser, which is proprietary software and has some additional feature ...
project. It later followed Chrome again when it changed to the
Blink rendering engine. Around the same time, the Opera community website My Opera was closed down. The new Opera left many of its users disgruntled.
At this time, Michał Dutkiewicz began creating Otter Browser.
The first iteration of the browser was released in 2014—an alpha release in binary form and source code.
A notable aspect of the emergent browser is its modular model, making it possible for users to replace components.
Features
* Password manager
* Addon manager
* Content blocking
* Spell checking
* Customisable GUI
* URL completion
* Speed dial
* Bookmarks and various related features
* Mouse gestures
* User style sheets
References
External links
*
Web browsers
Internet suites
Software based on WebKit
Web browsers that use Qt
{{Web-software-stub