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Maniphest T17392

First class citizen web browser
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Description

Description

First comes the Navigator, then the Explorer, and then the Konqueror. In a way the Konqueror indeed conquered the world as KHTML became WebKit and Blink, major browser engines! KDE kind of lost its browser over time however. The main other browsers Mozilla Firefox and Chromium are not using Qt/KDE libraries and integration is suboptimal.
I propose putting a native KDE browser forward as a central part of KDE again.

A native KDE browser will pave the road for closer integration in ways we may not even be able to imagine. Some ideas:

  • handle different pages/web applications as different applications within KDE Plasma
  • make it explicit when external/foreign applications are running in a sandbox and the restrictions that are imposed on this sandbox
  • such indicators could become standard parts of the desktop environment
  • possibly these indicators could be employed with different sandboxes as well (Snap)

What it will take

Take an existing native KDE browser and position it as a central/critical application within the KDE environment. Its status would be similar to that of Konsole and Dolphin for instance.
(Or port another browser over to KDE.)
Further ideas/integrations could be developed in small steps on top of this.

How we know we succeeded

A significant percentage of KDE users will use a KDE native browser as their primary browser (at least 15-20% of all KDE Plasma users).

Relevant links

Some examples of KDE native browsers:
https://www.falkon.org/
https://apps.kde.org/konqueror/
https://apps.kde.org/angelfish/

Champions

I am imagining more people might be interested in this goal and putting it out here for that reason. I do not have experience with developing on KDE myself. There is no group/team I described it to prior.

The team is:

  • XXX
  • XXX
  • XXX

I am willing to put work into this

  • add your name

I am interested

morsmortium added a subscriber: morsmortium.Jun 9 2024, 7:47 AM

As a recommendation, here is another browser: https://github.com/OtterBrowser/otter-browser https://otter-browser.org/ It does not use KDE frameworks, only Qt, but is pretty feature rich.

nhays added a subscriber: nhays.Jun 12 2024, 12:04 AM

I was using Falkon for a while in the last few months, moved back to FF but willing to support this for Falkon or another if it picks up. (Probably just bug report/compare experience)

lydia added a subscriber: lydia.Jun 14 2024, 6:03 PM

Each goal needs Champions. If no-one is found it will unfortunately not be eligible for voting.

apol added a subscriber: apol.Jun 14 2024, 6:18 PM

Maybe a way to move this forward would be to come up with which parts within KDE would need to adapt to this. Or do you think that making Falkon better would be enough?

lydia triaged this task as Wishlist priority.Jun 14 2024, 6:29 PM
jschwartzenberg added a comment.Jun 14 2024, 9:00 PM

Falkon already seems quite impressive indeed! And it's already part of KDE. I guess it may help to formulate features that would need to be there to make it the standard browser for KDE?

ngraham updated the task description. (Show Details)Jun 16 2024, 4:33 AM
ngraham added a subscriber: ngraham.
redstrate added a subscriber: redstrate.Jul 6 2024, 5:52 PM

Do you mean a browser application or a browser engine? One is much harder to develop than the other...

This is something that's a bit scary to take on because people depend on browsers every day, and their requirements increase tenfold each year. Will we intentionally limit ourselves on features that will never be implemented (Widevine, the newest CSS features, etc)? If we can't compete with even Firefox, what's the point in doing our own? I don't really see the point either now that we have PBI too

jschwartzenberg added a comment.Jul 14 2024, 6:47 PM

What does PBI stand for?

redstrate added a comment.Jul 15 2024, 3:34 PM

Ah that meant "Plasma Browser Integration"

frdbr added a subscriber: frdbr.Jul 29 2024, 3:54 PM
frdbr added a comment.Aug 12 2024, 7:40 PM

Hello,

Please note that the deadline just around the corner on Wednesday, so now is the time to finalize your proposal. Remember that proposals without a Goal Champion will be disqualified, so this step is crucial to ensure your idea moves forward. If you need help or have any questions, please let me know.

If you’re unable to finish your proposal but still want to participate, consider contributing to other ongoing tasks.

Thank you for submitting your ideas for the KDE Goals!