7 ms·

Uzbl: a browser that adheres to the Unix philosophy

74 points by 3ds 17y ago

astine 17y ago
I use this browser. It's put together mainly by a bunch of Arch Linux users. It's little more than a thin wrapper around webkit providing pipes and things. It requires a lot of work to configure, (unless you copy the default) but it's very lightweight and integrates with some systems and styles of work better. Edit: : A few more thoughts, If you like the stuff that the suckless people (http://suckless.org/ http://suckless.org/) put out, you will like uzbl. Otherwise it might be a bit of a culture shock. I still haven't been able to let completely go of firefox yet.
- dkersten 17y ago
  I've been planning on using this for a while now.. one day I'll get around to it. I feel Arch + Musca + Uzbl would make a great match for a simple, minimal system. Musca and Uzbl are both externally scriptible, so I can set up a nice and easy system for myself :-P
- pbhjpbhj 17y ago
  I don't want to install just to check this point - from the keybinding info it appears you can do a google search but you can't simply enter a url?? Is that right or did I miss something.
  - astine 17y ago
    There are no keybinding by default. You have to bind them all yourself using the config file. The example config shipped with it contains usable defaults though. o<space><url><enter> will do what you are expecting.
truebosko 17y ago
Just downloaded this and gave it for a whirl. Running Ubuntu (Jaunty), it definitely felt buggy. (Which is ok, considering it's stage in development) For starters, the window maximized height-wise past my screen and I couldn't resize it so I had trouble seeing everything (all I did was copy the default config) Additionally, loading up YouTube.com in it made it grind to a crawl. Video loaded, but the front page took a good 10 second pause before it was fully loaded. I like the idea though and I plan to tinker with it more in hopes that it is more ... uzbl :)
- astine 17y ago
  The chief performance issue is that the default cookies handler has to spin off a new process for every cookies handled and that can make things really slow. That might be the problem you are having now. There are better scripts available, but I can't tell you much about configuring them.
  - judofyr 17y ago
    > the default cookies handler has to spin off a new process for every cookies handled What? Why?
    - astine 17y ago
      The default handler is a python script. Part of the design philosophy is to keep it separate from the browser itself. There is an alternative: http://www.uzbl.org/news.php?id=14 http://www.uzbl.org/news.php?id=14
  - truebosko 17y ago
    Thanks for the suggestion. I tried your below link on using cookie_daemon.py and it does indeed speed it up, especially on sites like YouTube (which I'm guessing is creating a lot of cookies on many of its pages) but unfortunately it's still not too speedy. To be honest though I love the way you use it. A minimal browser with navigation mostly tied to the keyboard is awesome.
unignorant 17y ago
I am running it now (just got it through arch linux package management), and it has made a good first impression. I liked the transparency of all settings within the config file, customizable keybindings, ect. The defaults seem pretty usable; probably the most apparent problem that I can see is its speed -- for instance, loading hulu took quite some time.
hungdaddy 17y ago
awesome What about flash?
- truebosko 17y ago
  Works fine if you have the right plugins.
3ds 17y ago
Just noticed that there've already been interesting discussions about Uzbl on HN: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=626281 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=626281 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=578618 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=578618 What I wonder the most about is why they don't try to bring a command line interface to firefox, kind of like how you can call safari and its content from applescript. I think firefox can already be used with keyboard shortcuts only and they have a hard time getting their browser to be half as fast. What configurability is concerned, I think that mozillas choice of saving all the user configs etc in a sqlite database is easy enough to access by script. Still interesting and probably good fun to fool around with!
- psyklic 17y ago
  >> What I wonder the most about is why they don't try to bring a command line interface to firefox See http://labs.mozilla.com/ubiquity/ http://labs.mozilla.com/ubiquity/
  - 3ds 17y ago
    yes that is really cool too but no, i meant an actual shell interface to communicate with the browser
    - mordero 17y ago
      Something like this: http://wiki.github.com/bard/mozrepl http://wiki.github.com/bard/mozrepl ?
      - s2r2 17y ago
        or like this: http://surfraw.alioth.debian.org/ http://surfraw.alioth.debian.org/ (works fine with "minimalist" browsers)
      - 3ds 17y ago
        Yes! That is the most amazing thing I hadn't known I wanted to have :D It takes greasemonkey and jetpack to a whole nother level. Awesome awesome awesome! If I didn't have a very important test tomorrow I know I'd spend hours messing with firefox till nothing was left.
saurabh 17y ago
Warning: Doesn't work on Windows yet.
- bergeron 17y ago
  Seriously? "Uzbl - a browser that adheres to the Unix philosophy." You expect this to work on Windows?
  - saurabh 17y ago
    Yes of course, its written in Python. I hope with a few tweaking, it might be able to start; I haven't looked at the code though.
    - Dobbs 17y ago
      BTW: It is not written in python. The core is C. The outer control systems (like cookies) are written in python.
jcw 17y ago
Here I am thinking that it's a required nowadays that browsers are huge, hulking monsters because of the multitude of things that need to be parsed and rendered on a web page. A minimal and unix-y browser sounds wonderful. I've been enjoying Arora lately because of how small and lightweight it is, it runs blazingly fast on my old 64mb/333mhz: http://code.google.com/p/arora/ http://code.google.com/p/arora/ How does Uzbl match up to it in terms of memory usage? I'm (probably wrongfully) assuming it runs slowly because it's written in python.
- astine 17y ago
  Uzbl is actually written in C. Many of it's companion scripts (for cookies, etc...) are written in python however and can be slow.
  - dflock 17y ago
    True, however the scripts aren't compulsory - you can have uzbl call anything in response to actions, so you could call scripts in python, bash, whatever - or other native compiled apps, or tool your own stuff in assembler if you like - it's agnostic about the external apps it uses.
- icefox 17y ago
  Well they are both using WebKit, the GTK port and for Arora the Qt port. They are probably not too far apart in memory. P.S. How is the startup time for Arora on a 333Mhz machine? I worked hard to make it as quick as possible especially when you set it to open with a blank window.
  - jcw 17y ago
    It starts up about as fast as IE6 does. I'm guessing two or three seconds. Because of Arora, that computer is actually usable now. Thanks for the great browser!
erlanger 17y ago
> letter-spacing: -1px; Please don't do this for copy.
- fnid 17y ago
  yeah, that was horrible. I actually went into firebug and changed the class so that i could read it.
ramanujan 17y ago
It's worth mentioning conkeror as well -- it's basically Firefox with emacs keybindings. You can use the mouse if you want (as training wheels) and a lot of FF plugins still work. Moreover, the .conkerorrc is in javascript rather than emacs lisp. Very cool.
zokier 17y ago
Isn't XULRunner bit like this
edu 17y ago
Unix philosophy is great for some things, not so great for others. C'mon, handle my bookmarks through an external script? No, thank you. I'll keep with Chrome/Firefox/Safari.

74 points by 3ds 17y ago

I use this browser. It's put together mainly by a bunch of Arch Linux users. It's little more than a thin wrapper around webkit providing pipes and things. It requires a lot of work to configure, (unless you copy the default) but it's very lightweight and integrates with some systems and styles of work better. Edit: : A few more thoughts, If you like the stuff that the suckless people (http://suckless.org/ http://suckless.org/) put out, you will like uzbl. Otherwise it might be a bit of a culture shock. I still haven't been able to let completely go of firefox yet.

dkersten 17y ago
I've been planning on using this for a while now.. one day I'll get around to it. I feel Arch + Musca + Uzbl would make a great match for a simple, minimal system. Musca and Uzbl are both externally scriptible, so I can set up a nice and easy system for myself :-P
pbhjpbhj 17y ago
I don't want to install just to check this point - from the keybinding info it appears you can do a google search but you can't simply enter a url?? Is that right or did I miss something.
- astine 17y ago
  There are no keybinding by default. You have to bind them all yourself using the config file. The example config shipped with it contains usable defaults though. o<space><url><enter> will do what you are expecting.

truebosko 17y ago

Just downloaded this and gave it for a whirl. Running Ubuntu (Jaunty), it definitely felt buggy. (Which is ok, considering it's stage in development) For starters, the window maximized height-wise past my screen and I couldn't resize it so I had trouble seeing everything (all I did was copy the default config) Additionally, loading up YouTube.com in it made it grind to a crawl. Video loaded, but the front page took a good 10 second pause before it was fully loaded. I like the idea though and I plan to tinker with it more in hopes that it is more ... uzbl :)

astine 17y ago
The chief performance issue is that the default cookies handler has to spin off a new process for every cookies handled and that can make things really slow. That might be the problem you are having now. There are better scripts available, but I can't tell you much about configuring them.
- judofyr 17y ago
  > the default cookies handler has to spin off a new process for every cookies handled What? Why?
  - astine 17y ago
    The default handler is a python script. Part of the design philosophy is to keep it separate from the browser itself. There is an alternative: http://www.uzbl.org/news.php?id=14 http://www.uzbl.org/news.php?id=14
- truebosko 17y ago
  Thanks for the suggestion. I tried your below link on using cookie_daemon.py and it does indeed speed it up, especially on sites like YouTube (which I'm guessing is creating a lot of cookies on many of its pages) but unfortunately it's still not too speedy. To be honest though I love the way you use it. A minimal browser with navigation mostly tied to the keyboard is awesome.

unignorant 17y ago

I am running it now (just got it through arch linux package management), and it has made a good first impression. I liked the transparency of all settings within the config file, customizable keybindings, ect. The defaults seem pretty usable; probably the most apparent problem that I can see is its speed -- for instance, loading hulu took quite some time.

hungdaddy 17y ago

awesome What about flash?

truebosko 17y ago
Works fine if you have the right plugins.

3ds 17y ago

Just noticed that there've already been interesting discussions about Uzbl on HN: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=626281 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=626281 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=578618 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=578618 What I wonder the most about is why they don't try to bring a command line interface to firefox, kind of like how you can call safari and its content from applescript. I think firefox can already be used with keyboard shortcuts only and they have a hard time getting their browser to be half as fast. What configurability is concerned, I think that mozillas choice of saving all the user configs etc in a sqlite database is easy enough to access by script. Still interesting and probably good fun to fool around with!

psyklic 17y ago
>> What I wonder the most about is why they don't try to bring a command line interface to firefox See http://labs.mozilla.com/ubiquity/ http://labs.mozilla.com/ubiquity/
- 3ds 17y ago
  yes that is really cool too but no, i meant an actual shell interface to communicate with the browser
  - mordero 17y ago
    Something like this: http://wiki.github.com/bard/mozrepl http://wiki.github.com/bard/mozrepl ?
    - s2r2 17y ago
      or like this: http://surfraw.alioth.debian.org/ http://surfraw.alioth.debian.org/ (works fine with "minimalist" browsers)
    - 3ds 17y ago
      Yes! That is the most amazing thing I hadn't known I wanted to have :D It takes greasemonkey and jetpack to a whole nother level. Awesome awesome awesome! If I didn't have a very important test tomorrow I know I'd spend hours messing with firefox till nothing was left.

saurabh 17y ago

Warning: Doesn't work on Windows yet.

bergeron 17y ago
Seriously? "Uzbl - a browser that adheres to the Unix philosophy." You expect this to work on Windows?
- saurabh 17y ago
  Yes of course, its written in Python. I hope with a few tweaking, it might be able to start; I haven't looked at the code though.
  - Dobbs 17y ago
    BTW: It is not written in python. The core is C. The outer control systems (like cookies) are written in python.

jcw 17y ago

Here I am thinking that it's a required nowadays that browsers are huge, hulking monsters because of the multitude of things that need to be parsed and rendered on a web page. A minimal and unix-y browser sounds wonderful. I've been enjoying Arora lately because of how small and lightweight it is, it runs blazingly fast on my old 64mb/333mhz: http://code.google.com/p/arora/ http://code.google.com/p/arora/ How does Uzbl match up to it in terms of memory usage? I'm (probably wrongfully) assuming it runs slowly because it's written in python.

astine 17y ago
Uzbl is actually written in C. Many of it's companion scripts (for cookies, etc...) are written in python however and can be slow.
- dflock 17y ago
  True, however the scripts aren't compulsory - you can have uzbl call anything in response to actions, so you could call scripts in python, bash, whatever - or other native compiled apps, or tool your own stuff in assembler if you like - it's agnostic about the external apps it uses.
icefox 17y ago
Well they are both using WebKit, the GTK port and for Arora the Qt port. They are probably not too far apart in memory. P.S. How is the startup time for Arora on a 333Mhz machine? I worked hard to make it as quick as possible especially when you set it to open with a blank window.
- jcw 17y ago
  It starts up about as fast as IE6 does. I'm guessing two or three seconds. Because of Arora, that computer is actually usable now. Thanks for the great browser!

erlanger 17y ago

> letter-spacing: -1px; Please don't do this for copy.

fnid 17y ago
yeah, that was horrible. I actually went into firebug and changed the class so that i could read it.

ramanujan 17y ago

It's worth mentioning conkeror as well -- it's basically Firefox with emacs keybindings. You can use the mouse if you want (as training wheels) and a lot of FF plugins still work. Moreover, the .conkerorrc is in javascript rather than emacs lisp. Very cool.

zokier 17y ago

Isn't XULRunner bit like this

edu 17y ago

Unix philosophy is great for some things, not so great for others. C'mon, handle my bookmarks through an external script? No, thank you. I'll keep with Chrome/Firefox/Safari.