[kde-linux] Re: Konqueror 4.6.2 and "Connection to Server Closed Unexpectedly"

[Duncan]

Jerome Yuzyk posted on Thu, 05 May 2011 13:07:31 -0600 as excerpted:

> Yes, I was getting a bit crabby when I asked that. There does seem to be
> progress and Konq is still my default browser after all these years and
> other alternatives. WebKit seems to be (more) useful for eBay now so
> that's a positive benchmark for me.

I've been earnestly hoping that kde gets on the webkit bandwagon and that 
all the major webkit players (so kde/qt/apple/google, at least) decide on 
a common extension format.  IMO, that's the most effective way to match 
firefox's lead in the extensions department, the biggest reason I use 
firefox these days.  konqueror remains by default browser as well, but 
more and more frequently, when browsing anything other than my normal 
sites, I find myself turning to firefox, because I keep scripting off by 
default and there's simply no match for its no-script extension.  Trying 
to work with konqueror's script-permissions facility is an exercise in 
frustration, by comparison, in particular because there's no way other 
than digging it out of the page source directly, to see what sites other 
than the obvious, the site one is actually visiting, are asking to run 
scripts.

But it's simply unrealistic to expect konqueror alone to come up with the 
same level of tools available as firefox extensions, because the community 
is so much smaller.  The only way it could really happen, would be (1) if 
konqueror was firefox extension compatible -- a serious technical problem 
since that would require supporting firefox's chrome GUI extensions as 
well, so that's unrealistic as well, or (2), if konqueror and chrome/
chromium and safari and ... can come up with a common webkit extension 
format that's easy for all webkit based browsers to support.

That should be at least technically possible, but unfortunately, I've seen 
absolutely no hints of any effort to that end, politically.

Which unfortunately likely means that one of these years, I'll end up 
switching to either firefox, or possibly chromium, if it develops a 
similarly healthy extension community. (I've not tried it yet, but read 
that it's reasonably extendable, and has a good start.)  But there's 
plenty of time as I spend most of my time on sites, many of which are 
Linux or general tech sites and thus should be reasonably aware of the 
alternative browsers out there, that I long ago configured in konqueoror, 
and I can and do just "open in firefox" when I end up visiting some other 
site that has scripting that's not yet configured to my liking.

Privoxy is both a help and a hassle in this regard, as I can and do 
sometimes write custom site-specific filters (that unlike greasemonkey 
scripts or in-browser ad-blockers are NOT browser specific), but at the 
same time, when there are problems, I have privoxy to worry about as 
another potential cause of the problems, not least because I have a fairly 
invasive set of filters designed to enforce my "reverse" color preference 
(light text on a dark background) while still preserving the site's 
general color ideas (the filters simply, or not so simply actually, darken 
the background and lighten the text, while trying to keep general color 
tones, so dark red text designed to contrast well with a white background 
becomes bright red text to contrast well with a black background, for 
instance), and those filters while honed over the years to work 
/reasonably/ well every once in awhile go to work on a site with a new 
color specifying trick up its sleeve that the filter might not work 
correctly on, so in that regard, privoxy is a hassle as well.  Tho given 
that I do NOT like light backgrounds, it's also a lifesaver on a default-
white-background web that would otherwise be making my eyes bleed!

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman