
Luakit – fast, extensible, and customizable web browser - lelf
https://luakit.github.io/
======
diggan
Another alternative that I use as a daily browser is qutebrowser. Basically
the same idea, but with Python instead. Also comes with nice vim-bindings for
navigation: [https://qutebrowser.org/](https://qutebrowser.org/)

~~~
dead_mall
Qutebrowser is nice, but it uses the same webengine (QtWebengine) that chrome
uses. This is a concern for some

~~~
coldtea
> _This is a concern for some_

I don't think so. Why would it be a concern? It's not like the web rendering
engine will "phone home" under your nose or something...

~~~
meruru
I don't use any of these alternative browsers because I don't want to increase
the Blink/Webkit marketshare even further.

~~~
dead_mall
This ^

------
mitchtbaum
The new website looks great! And it seems new maintainers have stepped up. Is
Luakit on an upswing?

This project could have immense value to the web. Having multiple language
communities working on the same types of problems, and in cross-cultural
collaboration, gives the best approach, ie with [Model-driven engineering]
([example below]).

I have reviewed Luakit's codebase, trying to figure out the extent of its DOM
scripting capabilities (notes elsewhere atm). If anyone else is interested in
this, pls message me on Discord, @naturallymitchell via [The Programmers
Hangout] or [Luvit].

A good example issue for DOM scripting would be something like [scrolling
screenshots],

[https://github.com/luakit/luakit/issues/763](https://github.com/luakit/luakit/issues/763)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model-
driven_architecture](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model-driven_architecture)

[http://luvit.io/](http://luvit.io/)

[https://discord.gg/BQN6BYE](https://discord.gg/BQN6BYE)

~~~
O1111OOO
Sometime back I was looking for alternative browsers and came across your
comment (dated 2015)[0]:

> The code itself works very well. Mason, founder of Luakit and most generous
> contributor, got hit by a bus so new maintainership roles have yet to get
> filled by existing and new users and developers. All current development
> takes place outside of "central" repo, and it needs organizing and
> compiling. Once this takes place, development and merge requests can
> continue full course.

I actually saved the comment as a placeholder in ZIM[1] - in a section where I
keep programs to try in the future. You seem to keep up with the project
pretty well and it also looks like the project itself has been moving forward.
Going to give it a try this time ("This project could have immense value to
the web." \- I agree).

[0]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10418268](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10418268)

[1] [https://zim-wiki.org/](https://zim-wiki.org/)

------
drakenot
I wish that there was a way for Luakit / Qutebrowser to support extensions
from the major browsers.

Every time I use one I love it initially but then find myself desperately
wishing for uBlock Origin and my password manager extension.

~~~
Evidlo
Well qutebrowser already has a built in host-based adblocker. There are also a
number of password manager scripts available.

------
pull_my_finger
I really liked Luakit, but one problem I was having was with videos not
loading I believe. I _could_ have hacked it up with an external player I
believe, but I couldn't get it to work. Has this been sorted?

Big fan of the project though, can't say that enough. It was a nice, lite and
zippy browser with nice key bindings + Lua scripting. A lot to like about it,
just hope some of the issues get resolved.

~~~
YellowSuB
Try looking at the settings page to see if it could be disabled. There are
settings relating to video playback and hardware acceleration. There was a bug
in hardware acceleration that caused the browse to use a lot of cpu, maybe it
has been fixed at this point.

------
curioussavage
I really liked using this web browser. I like qutebrowser too but luakit has
some things it doesn’t have. One was making your own luakit:// pages.

I tried to get a flatpak working for it but was unable to get one of the
dependencies luafilesysyem to work. I think the author was going to remove it
so once that’s done installing the latest version should get much easier.

~~~
O_H_E
> One was making your own luakit:// pages would you min expanding or leaving a
> link on that

------
ujuj
How does it compare with uzbl?
([https://www.uzbl.org/](https://www.uzbl.org/))

~~~
YellowSuB
I quite liked uzbl when it was being more actively developed, seemed like a
very promising project. Unfortunately development stalled some time ago and it
doesn't seem like it's going to start again any time soon. So I migrated to
luakit. Luakit and uzbl are pretty much on par with each other feature wise
and both are pretty scriptable.

------
Lowkeyloki
I wish the latest release wasn't from two years ago. And that it wasn't based
on webkit.

~~~
curioussavage
Looks like the latest release was Nov 2018.

~~~
Lowkeyloki
Then it's misleading that the site prominently says "Latest release — Luakit
2017-08-10"

------
wockaflocka
Can this do basic functions such as play a video, post a form or run advanced
JavaScript? If it can’t then it is broken today’s web technologies are just
too advanced for some of these small browsers

------
pselbert
The page says the latest release was 2017-08, that seems tremendously
outdated. Am I missing something? Is it updating in the background?

~~~
rochacon
Page is indeed outdated. Check the project GitHub repo, last release (e.g. git
tag) was on Nov 2018, version 2.1.

Since then just the “develop” branch has received new code, but GitHub
Insights shows stable activity on the last month.

I’m not involved in the project, they’re probably low on contributors and
taking things slow. The documentation does point to compiling from code, so
you should be good by using the develop branch and even bumping some
dependencies if concerned with security issues and etc

------
zamadatix
Anyone know of something like this but with web technologies rather than a
different stack? Vivaldi is the closest I can think of and while it is built
with a similar concept it's structured in a way that makes it near impossible
for you to modify substantially as a user (and you have to reapply your edits
after every update).

~~~
jaredklewis
What are you looking to do that can't be done with local chrome/firefox
extensions?

~~~
zamadatix
E.g. in Vivaldi I blend the URL bar into the top-of-window space where tabs
are.

Also while there are many things web extensions can do in page their
interactions with the browser as a whole or OS are extremely limited. This is
good for security, bad for customization. Even in cases where web extensions
are appropriate it can make implementation much more difficult (again, good
for general user security, bad for running your own code).

------
kwhitefoot
Could someone who uses it say what this is really for? What can one do with
it?

For instance: does it make automating interactions with web sites easier than
using other tools?

------
sam_lowry_
Instructions for Arch Linux are broken.

~~~
jolmg
Some dependencies have the package "luarocks-5.1" as a build dependency, and
that package has been removed. Apparently, it's been replaced by "luarocks",
so you can install in Archlinux by fixing these dependencies (tested on my own
system):

    
    
      set -e # halts if there's an error in the following
      # move to a directory for building modified dependencies
      mkdir -p build
      cd build
      for aurpkg in lua51-{say,luacheck,luassert}; do
        # downloads the aur-package building script and files
        cower -d "$aurpkg"
        (
          cd "$aurpkg"
          # replace dependency
          sed -ri 's/luarocks-?5\.1/luarocks/' PKGBUILD
          # install dependencies, build package, and install
          makepkg -si
        )
      done
      # install luakit-git from aur
      pacaur -y luakit-git
    

Of course, these things being in the AUR, it's preferable if one gives the
PKGBUILDs a read before deciding to build and install each of them, but if
you've judged it's OK, you can just run the above.

If luakit is really on an upswing, maybe the package will be moved back to one
of the official repos.

------
petra
What can you do with this that you can't do with chrome/firefox extensions?

~~~
craftyguy
You can extend it using lua.

~~~
aey
If Firefox is generalized to be extended with wasm - which could run a lua VM
- what would be the benefit of a single language specific browser?

~~~
nathcd
The lua api in luakit
([https://luakit.github.io/docs/](https://luakit.github.io/docs/)) is trusted,
meaning it has similar capabilities to pre-57 Firefox, as opposed to
webextensions (in modern FF and Chrome), which are treated as untrusted and
thus are somewhat more limited in what they can do.

------
twelfthnight
Silly observation: The logo shows the Earth visible through a crescent moon.
In reality the moon is always round, it's never transparent. :)

~~~
jolmg
Well, maybe the Earth is just smiling. Maybe, it's laying down and having a
nice dream. :)

------
saagarjha
Is Luakit a web browser or a web view component?

~~~
craftyguy
Read the very first paragraph of the page linked above.

~~~
saagarjha
Not helpful. The reason why I asked this was that the page claimed that Luakit
was a web browser but then immediately started talking about it being a “web
browser framework”, and the screenshots showed nothing except for what looked
like a web view (there’s no browser chrome, for instance).

