Quartz browser - a Python/Qt5-based, basic web-browser.....in 'portable' format

[mikewalsh]

Afternoon, gang.

I've discovered another, alternative browser, over at AppImageHub.....if you're not too fussed about tons of bells & whistles.

It's another QtWebKit-based browser, allied with Python3 & pyqt5, and it's called Quartz Browser. However, unlike some QtWebKit browsers I've come across, the rendering & response times on this one are really rather good. I have to assume this is in fact using the QtWebEngine itself, because unlike, say, Falkon, there's not a whiff of Chromium involvement.

YouTube, despite a somewhat odd GUI layout, does in fact run well. I signed-in to my Google a/c, and all my bookmarks/subscriptions, etc, were present & correct.....and everything functioned. Obviously, you can't watch DRM-protected stuff like NetFlix/Prime, etc, since there's no provision for it. It appears to have a basic ad-blocker built-in; there's provision for printing; you have the option to switch to an external download manager if so desired; there's a bookmark manager.....quite a few neat little touches for what's a fairly basic browser.

You can even set this up in "kiosk" mode, if required.

It's under current development by the developer, a Sri Lankan gentleman by the name of Arindam Chaudhuri, presently residing in Kolkata.

https://github.com/ksharindam/quartz-browser-qt5

Releases do appear to be a few months apart, but he IS still refining it; apparently, he's hoping to have the next release out in about a month to six week's time.

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I've packaged this in my now 'standard' portable format. It's an AppImage, in its own directory, together with self-contained config stuff that's sym-linked out to the expected location at runtime, and deleted again afterwards. There's the option to add a Menu entry from wherever you place the portable directory.

If anyone's interested, y'all can find it here:-

https://mega.nz/folder/7SASVRST#YNdTtezCoO_NP8eRO5ln5A

Currently tested - and working in - Fossapup64 and Bionicpup64. Posting from it now in the latter. Will test Xenialpup64 later this evening.

See what you think. Enjoy.

Mike.

[keniv]

Afternoon, gang.

I've discovered another, alternative browser, over at AppImageHub.....if you're not too fussed about tons of bells & whistles.

It's another QtWebKit-based browser, allied with Python3 & pyqt5, and it's called Quartz Browser. However, unlike some QtWebKit browsers I've come across, the rendering & response times on this one are really rather good. I have to assume this is in fact using the QtWebEngine itself, because unlike, say, Falkon, there's not a whiff of Chromium involvement.

Hello Mike,
Definately a bit wierd as compared with other browsers. I downloaded and bookmarked duckduckgo lite as i'm not very keen on searching with google. I now have duckduckgo lite and this forum bookmarked and added to "home". Would be better with a choise of search engine and perhaps a way to import bookmarks but I suppose this would increase it's complexity. Not much in the way of settings. Certainly very fast. Running it in Easy OS 2.9 and posting from it now. Not really sure if it's a keeper but will have a play with it.

Regards,

Ken.

[keniv]

@mikewalsh

there's not a whiff of Chromium involvement

In settings>browsing there is a mention of Custom UserAgent Chromium 34. Does this mean it's pretending to be Chromium 34?
Also found copy and paste involves use of the middle mouse button/wheel. I remember this was the case in some terminals.

Regards,

Ken.

[mikewalsh]

@keniv :-

Hi, Ken.

Most WebKit browsers are a bit "odd" compared to what the major browsers offer, but that doesn't mean you should write them off without even trying 'em out. Think Falkon; Midori; the older Qupzilla; even good old QtWeb. All a bit different, but nonetheless good each in their own way. This one renders every site I visit regularly just as faithfully as the Chromium clones, or FF. Some of the others mentioned here won't!

As for search engines, there's tons of 'em out there. Qwant is a favourite of mine.....or there's mikeslr's favourite, Swisscows. Find a few, bookmark them for use. I don't LIKE Google - my normal one is DuckDuckgo - but for certain things, it's just better than the others.....it's the only one that found me a specific SoftMaker FreeOffice icon the other night, for example.

Useragents all use a string of text to identify them. You'll find plenty of examples online....just search for something like 'User Agent examples'.

Have a play with it. My motto is always 'Choice in all things', as you know; the more stuff we as a community have available, the greater chance there is that most can find summat they can live with for their particular use-case.

Mike.

[Geek3579]

Thanks Mike!

It seems to work fine in LXSC64 also.

Distro: LxPupSc64 19.09
Desktop Panel: lxpanel 0.10.0
Window Manager: Openbox 3.6.1
Desktop Start: xwin startlxde

[LateAdopter]

Hello mikewalsh
I think you are a bit mixed up about qtwebengine. It is a chromium derivative:
https://doc.qt.io/qt-5/qtwebengine-licensing.html

I use Vivaldi as my chromium variant. I use Otter-browser with qtwebkit as my anti-HTML5 browser.
Otter seems to be a one man (emdek) port of the mozilla GUI to QT. It can be built with either qtwebkit or qtwebengine. I use the focal package of Otter from launchpad.

The problem with qtwebkit is that it is unmaintained. According to github it's 58446 commits behind webkit master. It's not surprising that some websites are broken.

webkit2-gtk is maintained but I can't find a sensible front end that uses it.

[mikewalsh]

@LateAdopter :-

I'm no expert with Qt, or WebKit, or owt else if I'm honest. I've simply provided another package here that does work reasonably well, and may be of interest to some Puppians. That's all it is.

Mike.