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Uzbl is a discontinued
free and open-source Free and open-source software (FOSS) is software available under a Software license, license that grants users the right to use, modify, and distribute the software modified or not to everyone free of charge. FOSS is an inclusive umbrella term ...
minimalist
web browser A web browser, often shortened to browser, is an application 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 scr ...
designed for simplicity and adherence to the
Unix philosophy The Unix philosophy, originated by Ken Thompson, is a set of cultural norms and philosophical approaches to Minimalism (computing), minimalist, Modularity (programming), modular software development. It is based on the experience of leading devel ...
. Development began in early 2009 and is still considered to be in an
alpha Alpha (uppercase , lowercase ) is the first letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of one. Alpha is derived from the Phoenician letter ''aleph'' , whose name comes from the West Semitic word for ' ...
state by the developers. The core component of Uzbl is written in C, but other languages are also used, most notably
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 (prog ...
. All parts of the Uzbl project are released as free software under GNU GPL-3.0-only. The name comes from the word ''usable'', spelled in lol speak. Development of Uzbl is in the
alpha stage The software release life cycle is the process of developing, testing, and distributing a software product (e.g., an operating system). It typically consists of several stages, such as pre-alpha, alpha, beta, and release candidate, before the fi ...
. Uzbl was originally designed for
Arch Linux Arch Linux () is an Open-source software, open source, rolling release Linux distribution. Arch Linux is kept up-to-date by regularly updating the individual pieces of software that it comprises. Arch Linux is intentionally minimal, and is meant ...
, but operates with other
Linux distribution A Linux distribution, often abbreviated as distro, is an operating system that includes the Linux kernel for its kernel functionality. Although the name does not imply product distribution per se, a distro—if distributed on its own—is oft ...
s and
BSD The Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD), also known as Berkeley Unix or BSD Unix, is a discontinued Unix operating system developed and distributed by the Computer Systems Research Group (CSRG) at the University of California, Berkeley, beginni ...
systems. Compilation guides are available for
Gentoo Linux Gentoo Linux (pronounced ) is a Linux distribution built using the Portage package management system. Unlike a binary software distribution, the source code is compiled locally according to the user's preferences and is often optimized for ...
,
Ubuntu Ubuntu ( ) is a Linux distribution based on Debian and composed primarily of free and open-source software. Developed by the British company Canonical (company), Canonical and a community of contributors under a Meritocracy, meritocratic gover ...
,
MacPorts MacPorts, formerly DarwinPorts, is a package manager for macOS and Darwin. It is an open-source software project that aims to simplify the installation of other open source software. It is similar in function to Fink and the BSD ports collection ...
, and
Nix package manager Nix is a cross-platform package manager for Unix-like systems, and a tool to instantiate and manage those systems, invented in 2003 by Eelco Dolstra. Approach The Nix package manager employs a model in which software packages are each installe ...
. The project is currently "abandoned" due to lack of time. Despite being in early stages of development, Uzbl has gained prominence as a
minimalist In visual arts, music, and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in the post-war era in western art. The movement is often interpreted as a reaction to abstract expressionism and modernism; it anticipated contemporary post-mi ...
browser. As of 2019, further development on the project has been discontinued.


Design

Uzbl follows the
Unix philosophy The Unix philosophy, originated by Ken Thompson, is a set of cultural norms and philosophical approaches to Minimalism (computing), minimalist, Modularity (programming), modular software development. It is based on the experience of leading devel ...
, “Write programs that do one thing and do it well. Write programs to work together. Write programs to handle text streams, because that is a universal interface.” As a result, Uzbl does not contain many of the features of other browsers. Uzbl has none of its own tool bars or
graphical control elements Graphics () are visual images or designs on some surface, such as a wall, canvas, screen, paper, or stone, to inform, illustrate, or entertain. In contemporary usage, it includes a pictorial representation of the data, as in design and manufact ...
, and does not manage
bookmarks A bookmark is used to keep one's place in a printed work. It can also refer to: * Bookmark (digital), a pointer in a web browser and other software * ''Bookmarks'' (album), 2013 album by Five for Fighting * ''Bookmarks'' (magazine), an American ...
, history, downloads, or
cookies A cookie is a sweet biscuit with high sugar and fat content. Cookie dough is softer than that used for other types of biscuit, and they are cooked longer at lower temperatures. The dough typically contains flour, sugar, egg, and some type of ...
, leaving them to be handled by external programs or scripts. These scripts are typically user-written, although some are available for download like ''uzbl_tabbed'' for
tabbed browsing In interface design, a tab is a graphical user interface object that allows multiple documents or Panel (computer software), panels to be contained within a single window (computing), window, using tabs as a navigational widget for switching be ...
support. For interaction it can read input from
standard input In computer programming, standard streams are preconnected input and output communication channels between a computer program and its environment when it begins execution. The three input/output (I/O) connections are called standard input (stdin), ...
( FIFO pipe) or from POSIX local IPC socket or it can be passed
text file A text file (sometimes spelled textfile; an old alternative name is flat file) is a kind of computer file that is structured as a sequence of lines of electronic text. A text file exists stored as data within a computer file system. In ope ...
s such as a
configuration file A configuration file, a.k.a. config file, is a computer file, file that stores computer data, data used to configure a software system such as an application software, application, a server (computing), server or an operating system. Some applic ...
. This design is intentional, allowing for more customization.


Features

Uzbl uses the
WebKit WebKit is a browser engine primarily used in Apple's Safari web browser, as well as all web browsers on iOS and iPadOS. WebKit is also used by the PlayStation consoles starting with the PS3, the Tizen mobile operating systems, the Amazon K ...
layout engine, and therefore inherits support for many web standards, including
HTML Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It defines the content and structure of web content. It is often assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets ( ...
,
XML Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing data. It defines a set of rules for encoding electronic document, documents in a format that is both human-readable and Machine-r ...
,
XPath XPath (XML Path Language) is an expression language designed to support the query or transformation of XML documents. It was defined by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) in 1999, and can be used to compute values (e.g., strings, numbers, or ...
, Cascading Style Sheets,
ECMAScript ECMAScript (; ES) is a standard for scripting languages, including JavaScript, JScript, and ActionScript. It is best known as a JavaScript standard intended to ensure the interoperability of web pages across different web browsers. It is stan ...
(
JavaScript JavaScript (), often abbreviated as JS, is a programming language and core technology of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. Ninety-nine percent of websites use JavaScript on the client side for webpage behavior. Web browsers have ...
), DOM, and
SVG Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) is an XML-based vector graphics format for defining two-dimensional graphics, having support for interactivity and animation. The SVG specification is an open standard developed by the World Wide Web Consortium sin ...
, passing the
Acid3 The Acid3 test is a web test page from the Web Standards Project that checks a web browser's compliance with elements of various web standards, particularly the Document Object Model (DOM) and JavaScript. If the test is successful, the results ...
browser test. Web kit supports
Netscape Netscape Communications Corporation (originally Mosaic Communications Corporation) was an American independent computer services company with headquarters in Mountain View, California, and then Dulles, Virginia. Its Netscape web browser was o ...
-style plugins such as
Adobe Flash Player Adobe Flash Player (known in Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Google Chrome as Shockwave Flash) is a discontinuedExcept in China, where it continues to be used, as well as Harman for enterprise users. computer program for viewing multimedia ...
and
MPlayer MPlayer is a free and open-source media player software application. It is available for Linux, OS X and Microsoft Windows. Versions for OS/2, Syllable Desktop, Syllable, AmigaOS, MorphOS and AROS Research Operating System are also available. A ...
. Uzbl's design focuses on keyboard control and hot keys, although it also supports mouse and other pointing device input. Like the '' pentadactyl'' and ''
vimperator Vimperator is a discontinued Add-on (Mozilla), Firefox extension forked from the original Firefox extension version of Conkeror and designed to provide a more efficient user interface for keyboard-fluent users. The design is heavily inspired by t ...
'' Firefox extensions, Uzbl employs a mode-based interface derived from the vi and Vim text editors. Rather than move the cursor to an address bar or a link, a user presses a hotkey to switch to "command" mode. From this mode the user may: select links in the view port through assigned keys (0 through 9 by default) or through typing an unambiguous string of the link text; navigate to another web page by typing its URL; modify settings; and perform other normal web-browsing tasks. While this mode-based interface creates an initially steep
learning curve A learning curve is a graphical representation of the relationship between how proficient people are at a task and the amount of experience they have. Proficiency (measured on the vertical axis) usually increases with increased experience (the ...
, once learned it typically allows a user greater speed and convenience than many other browsers. Uzbl allows configuration of the hot keys used.


History

The idea of creating a new web browser started in spring 2009 on the internet forums of Arch Linux. Dieter Plaetinck started the development of the browser and was then supported by other developers. The first code was published on April 21, 2009. The product was usable after only two months of development . Besides compilation guides for a series of Linux distributions and
Mac OS X macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...
/ Darwin ( Mac Ports) several pre-compiled binaries are available, although officially there is not yet a version marked as stable. On September 21, 2009, Uzbl was accepted into the
Debian Debian () is a free and open-source software, free and open source Linux distribution, developed by the Debian Project, which was established by Ian Murdock in August 1993. Debian is one of the oldest operating systems based on the Linux kerne ...
unstable repository branch and was migrated to its testing branch on October 2, 2009.


See also

*
qutebrowser qutebrowser (pronounced "cute browser") is a web browser for the operating systems Linux, Windows, and macOS, with vim-style key bindings and a minimal graphical user interface (GUI). It is keyboard-driven and is inspired by similar software ...
* surf (discontinued) *
xombrero xombrero (until 2012 known as xxxterm) is a discontinued open-source web browser developed with a goal to be a lightweight and secure replacement for full featured browsers like Firefox. The browser has found a niche among minimalist browsers fo ...
(discontinued)


References

*


External links

*
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{{GTK Free software programmed in C Free web browsers POSIX web browsers Software based on WebKit Web browsers that use GTK Discontinued web browsers