Falkon – New browser under the KDE Umbrella
Falkon (formally QupZilla) is a QtWebEngine based cross-platform web browser. It has recently become a KDE project and by doing so has came to my attention (Being a KDE fanboy and all that 🙂 ).
After reading many internet articles and watching YouTube video reviewing it, I was curious.
The only problem was they all seem to recommend using a snap to run it. For me this option is like pulling teeth, as I am on a very slow internet connection! The idea of having to download almost 300Mb in snaps to allow one application to run is just not going to happen. Plus I am old school and not into these fancy snaps the kids are all using!
Kubuntu 17.10 has the majority of those framework packages installed by default and as the Kubuntu team are packaging Falkon using the Kubuntu Continuous Integration (KCI), it is available to tests via a Kubuntu member Simon Quigley.
It is worth noting that the package is a “git snapshot” and is mid re-branding (it still refers to QupZilla in many places), there are many bugs/issues and the software is no-where near release quality. But if you are nosy like me you can install, you can:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:tsimonq2/falkon
sudo apt update
sudo apt install falkon
**EDIT** I have recently ended my association with Ubuntu/Kubuntu and no longer maintain the package or the original PPA I was using to test it. Thankfully Simon has taken up the baton, so to speak, and has provided a testing PPA. Please direct any issues with the PPA or package directly to Simon. Thankyou
Still waiting for falkon to land in Debian Testing 🙁
Considering that there hasn’t been a release of falkon (either stable or unstable) yet that is not surprising to hear.
There is a snap version, have you tried that?
Thanks for maintaining this PPA, Clive. I’ll try to write about it in social media. My hope is that the Neon guys start packaging Falkon in it’s dev spins in order to help with exposure and the onboarding process (to presumably KDE Applications) for the falcon devs.