
Qutebrowser – A keyboard-driven, Vim-like browser based on PyQt5 - tomxor
https://www.qutebrowser.org/
======
Aelius
One of the things that can really make or break a project for me is how its
developers behave towards the users. The developer of this project is a really
upstanding, responsive, kind human being. I think his project deserves all the
attention it can get.

I have used qutebrowser as my primary browser on Linux for years. I have no
complaints. In fact, qutebrowser runs smoothly on some of my older machines
where Firefox struggles to run.

Unfortunately, I also use Windows a lot. QTWebEngine builds for Windows do not
have some codecs most of the internet expects you to have, and some js laden
sites seem to perform poorly on the Windows builds. Both of these problems are
with the qtwebengine project and there's nothing qutebrowser can do about
that. Even so, I would recommend Windows users give it a try anyway.

~~~
kabacha
Props to TheCompiler, even before Qutebrowser I remember him helping people
out on freenode#python. I've backed his latest kickstarter and there were
plenty of updates and cool swag. He's also very active reddit, irc and
mastodon.

Not sure where he finds so much time and affords to do what he does living on
one of the most countries in the world (Switzerland) but dude is truly
inspiring!

I truly hope he doesn't ever leave FLOSS.

~~~
The-Compiler
Thanks! On the flip side, I sometimes feel like I never really have time for
coding because I'm putting a lot of effort into community things, for better
or worse :)

As for affording it: I still live with my mother (I'm 25 and a full-time
student), so that works out well so far.

Not sure yet what'll happen after the studies, from how things look like now I
might end up moving to my girlfriend's place in Vorarlberg (Austria, but close
to the Swiss border) where things are cheaper, and try to live off qutebrowser
donations and some freelancing gigs. We'll see!

~~~
tomxor
You do awesome work Compiler, I'm sure people will continue to fund you for
more open source work in the future (if that's what you want)... that said -
you are young and have so many opportunities after your studies, keep an open
mind as to what _you_ want and good luck with everything.

------
igneo676
I wish I could have the best of all worlds here - a minimal browser like
qutebrowser but also built on the latest Chromium (or whatever engine you
prefer, something built on Servo would be cool) but sadly even the
qt5-webengine backend is stuck back in Chromium 65.X which was released at the
very beginning of this year

To be fair, I've not done enough research to KNOW whether or not that poses
any real security risk but it's still a concern. There's also the FOMO that
I'm missing some modern browser features that I can only test out in other
browsers :/

It's OSS though, so I should probably shut up and roll up my sleeves

~~~
drakenot
The main thing that I miss when using Qutebrowser is extensions.

On Chrome I rely on 3 extensions: 1Password, uBlock Origin and Vimium. I
obviously don't need Vimium on Qutebrowser. I could possibly get by without
1Password if I switched to something like Pass. However, I can't give up
uBlock Origin. I run it in "medium mode" (3rd party frames/js blocked by
default) and I can't give this up.

I would pay decent money to be able to run uBlock Origin on Qutebrowser.

~~~
sandov
Have you thought about using your hosts file to ads?

~~~
The-Compiler
qutebrowser has a hosts-based adblocker built in, so that probably won't make
a big difference.

------
Foxboron
Been using qutebrowser as my daily browser quite happily since summer 2017. I
still have chromium as a backup browser in case of wierd webpage/embedded
banking apps decides to dislike qutebrowser. Quite happy honestly, and the
progress on the project itself is going steadily forwards.

A plugin API seems to be in the works with a recent announcement;
[https://lists.schokokeks.org/pipermail/qutebrowser/2018-Sept...](https://lists.schokokeks.org/pipermail/qutebrowser/2018-September/000514.html)

------
mig4ng
It seems interesting, is is compatible in any way with BitWarden[1], it has a
CLI[2] extension that can probably be used in Qutebrowser.

Does anyone know if it is possible integrate? If so, how difficult would it
be?

[1] [https://bitwarden.com/](https://bitwarden.com/)

[2] [https://github.com/bitwarden/cli/](https://github.com/bitwarden/cli/)

~~~
The-Compiler
You could probably write a qutebrowser userscript similar to the other
password scripts which already exist:

[https://github.com/qutebrowser/qutebrowser/tree/master/misc/...](https://github.com/qutebrowser/qutebrowser/tree/master/misc/userscripts)

Hopefully, things will also get easier in the future with the upcoming plugin
API:

[https://lists.schokokeks.org/pipermail/qutebrowser-
announce/...](https://lists.schokokeks.org/pipermail/qutebrowser-
announce/2018-September/000051.html)

------
busterarm
Anybody want to voice their preferences for post-Firefox 57 based plugins like
this? There seem to be a lot of options...

~~~
mcjiggerlog
I used vimium on Chrome for years and since web extensions became available on
Firefox have started using it there too. Gets my vote.

[https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/vimium-
ff/](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/vimium-ff/)

~~~
jaaames
Lack of Vimium stopped me from even attempting to switch back from Chrome to
Firefox.

Can't live without Vimium.

~~~
dbdjfjrjvebd
Did you not know that the old Firefox had much more functional vim emulation
add ons?

~~~
bovine3dom
I think it's unfair to describe Vimium as less functional. They do less but
they do it well with a modern looking UI.

------
dmos62
The "Similar projects" section [0] contains a concise list of similar
browsers, like luakit and surf. Although I've used these two extensively, I
always eventually came back to Firefox or Chrome, due to some obscure
inconveniences. I hope others are having better luck. I'd sure like to one day
see a true variety of popularly used browsers.

[0] [https://github.com/qutebrowser/qutebrowser#similar-
projects](https://github.com/qutebrowser/qutebrowser#similar-projects)

~~~
saurik
I honestly clicked the link in your comment hoping to read a compiled list of
obscure inconveniences that have prevented you from using alternative
browsers. Any hope we can learn some of these issues? ;P

~~~
jgkamat
I actually have the opposite list, the reasons why I can't use traditional
browsers with plugins:

    
    
      - Keybinds are lost when page is loading or on special pages, which is a huge break in flow
      - Some keys cannot be bound (eg, unbinding Ctrl-q, binding Ctrl-w)
      - Lack of options when customizing the UI (I can't get my nyan fix, can't move tabs to the bottom/right of the screen)
      - The omnibar (firefox, chrome, vimium) feels extremely slow, especially compared to lighter weight history searches.
      - (sometimes) lack of an insert/passthrough mode, to send keys to js running on the page
      - Inability to integrate cleanly with the rest of my system (:spawn mpv {url}, qb userscripts)
      - Much harder to hack on the browser itself

~~~
bovine3dom
Integration with your system is easy with native messaging. I don't know why
more extensions don't use it.

Customising browser interface is possible with userChrome.css on Firefox, and
there's something similar for Vivaldi but it's actually supported. I'm not
sure if anyone has bothered releasing a Vim add-on for it though.

~~~
jgkamat
Can you write a simple script using native messaging to launch the current URL
in mpv? The api looks much too complicated for me to figure it out myself.

~~~
bovine3dom
I'm on my phone so this is untested:

`composite js document.location.href | !s mpv`

Should work. I think we might have a `currenturl` ex command that you could
replace the js bit with but I can't remember.

------
timwaagh
the main reason i dont use it is the hints work differently from pentadactyl.
you cannot type characters of the link and have to use the letters that appear
on the hint. so i'm still on pale moon+pentadactyl. but i think qutebrowser
has great potential.

~~~
The-Compiler
You can if you do :set hints mode number.

~~~
rflrob
Is that documented somewhere? I can’t find it on their website, but searching
on mobile means the issue is just as likely to be me as the documentation.

~~~
jgkamat
:help hints.mode

[http://qutebrowser.org/doc/help/settings.html#hints.mode](http://qutebrowser.org/doc/help/settings.html#hints.mode)

------
bachmeier
Wonder how this runs on old hardware. I have a 2009 dual core laptop with 4 GB
of RAM that runs everything I throw at it without a problem, except a web
browser. Web browsers are just too heavy. My solution is to use Textadept,
with Lynx as a backend, as my "browser" on that machine. Works well (can even
open YouTube videos in VLC) but I miss having a real browser.

~~~
tomxor
I have pretty much the same type of machine, and while it's true browsers are
hevier than they used to be, I suspect it's the rest of the software on your
machine consuming too many resources to leave anything for the browser... With
my x session and window manager my machine only uses about 300MiB RAM,
browsing is not unlike using a modern machine.

If you are using a big DE consider switching to something lighter and you
might be surprised how little RAM you can use.

(My anecdote is from using both Chromium, FireFox and qutebrowser more
recently - I haven't noticed much performance difference in the latter but it
wasn't struggling to beggin with)

------
kodablah
QtWebEngine, like CEF and other Chromium lib distributions, doesn't come with
proprietary video/audio codecs compiled in. This is for obvious legal
distribution reasons and can be compiled by the user manually. I hope as more
browser downloads come about without proprietary codecs, more websites start
providing formats like webm.

~~~
jgkamat
It does if you install qtwebengine from the sources of most distributions (eg:
debian, ubuntu). The one from pip does not come with it though, which the
win/mac releases are compiled with.

------
hultner
Used this regularly for a couple of years but stopped at some point, had it as
my default browser for opening links but it never became my main browser,
mainly because it didn’t integrate with password managers and some things
didn’t quite work. Haven’t used it for a good year and a half now so it might
have improved.

~~~
jgkamat
You may want to try some of the password filling userscripts available. The
best support is for pass, but theres userscripts for lastpass and keepass too.

[https://github.com/qutebrowser/qutebrowser/blob/master/misc/...](https://github.com/qutebrowser/qutebrowser/blob/master/misc/userscripts/)

~~~
ReverseCold
The word userscript makes me think that it injects js onto the page? If that's
the case, couldn't existing js hijack that? Sounds unsafe.

~~~
The-Compiler
Yeah, the name is a bit unfortunate - it's coming from dwb[1] which I think
also invented that concept, and was the main inspiration for qutebrowser.

[1] [https://portix.bitbucket.io/dwb/](https://portix.bitbucket.io/dwb/)

~~~
hultner
Interesting, might give it a try again.

------
wink
Used this on Debian testing a year ago or so, worked quite well. I think I
didn't get it to properly run on Ubuntu 16.04 for some reason, maybe time to
reevaluate.

One can never have too many browser to separate tasks out, although Firefox
containers are a solid replacement oftentimes.

~~~
The-Compiler
You won't be able to use the Qt version in the repos for Ubuntu 16.04, but if
you're on x86_64, you can use a prebuilt PyQt which ships with Qt:
[https://github.com/qutebrowser/qutebrowser/blob/master/doc/i...](https://github.com/qutebrowser/qutebrowser/blob/master/doc/install.asciidoc#tox)

------
jgresty
I would really like to use this as my primary browser, unfortunately
Atlassian's login flow doesn't work in this browser. I suspect it is actually
Atlassian at fault here but since I am forced to use Jira for work I have no
choice.

~~~
The-Compiler
Can you try setting "content.cookies.accept" to "all" instead of the default
"no-3rdparty"? If that doesn't help, can you set with --temp-basedir?

------
fliesblackflags
I'm impressed by how readable the code is. I also miss dwb, I just haven't had
time to re-adjust to the keybindings.

~~~
The-Compiler
Still not sure whether it was a good idea to (mostly) copy dwb's keybindings -
some of them are a bit weird and inconsistent...

------
JJseiko
Installed qutebrowser last week. Can definitely recommend it!

------
yosefzeev
Used it for awhile then had it stop working for certain needs. Switched over
to palemoon and pentadactyl. Happier with that combo.

~~~
michaelmrose
Palemoon is forever stuck with a version of Firefox that is older, less
secure, and slower that going forward will be incapable of taking their
project forward or even finding and plugging security holes.

Also they assert the right to decide how bsd/linux distributions package their
work on pain of lawsuit.

[https://github.com/jasperla/openbsd-
wip/issues/86](https://github.com/jasperla/openbsd-wip/issues/86)

Their behavior was tactless and poorly considered. I wouldn't trust them to
make me a ham sandwich let alone maintain my browser.

Just install tridactyl which is about feature complete compared to pentadactyl
by now.

~~~
timwaagh
it is a regrettable episode but they had their reasons. i would also wish this
would not be used against this great project. everyone knows how territorial
we can be as developers. people make mistakes.

i have been using it and pentadactyl ever since vimperator stopped working and
i love it. it gets updated frequently and fairly recently had a rebase to a
newer ff build. also their theming support is really nice and their logo isnt
as obtrusive. give it a chance and you won't regret it.

~~~
The-Compiler
It's unfortunately not the only questionable decision taken by the Pale Moon
devs - see e.g. [https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/1363542-pale-moon-team-
di...](https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/1363542-pale-moon-team-disables-
noscript-by-default-faces-backlash-blocks-discussion/)

~~~
yosefzeev
In my experience, this decision is correct. Noscript does cause the browser to
bog down and do all manner of annoying things that causes instability.

As a project lead, you get to decide things like what goes in the project or
leaves. Not everything needs a discussion once it has been decided.

I suspect the "not allowed to be discussed" is implemented so that these
discussions are bypassed and those that don't like the decision can simply
vote with their feet.

------
CuteBrowser
As a vimperator user still on 52 ESR, this sounds great but any serious
browsing requires me to use my add-ons, umatrix, ublock origin etc. Do we
extensions work on this?

Actually on second thoughts extensions probably don't have a relationship with
layout engine but with browser GUI so maybe no.

~~~
The-Compiler
No WebExtension support, and unless Qt implements support for them, I'm not
sure that'll change:
[https://github.com/qutebrowser/qutebrowser/issues/30](https://github.com/qutebrowser/qutebrowser/issues/30)

However, there's a built-in adblocker (which only blacklists hosts right now),
and there are plans for something like uMatrix:
[https://github.com/qutebrowser/qutebrowser/issues/28](https://github.com/qutebrowser/qutebrowser/issues/28)

------
dang
Url changed from
[https://github.com/qutebrowser/qutebrowser](https://github.com/qutebrowser/qutebrowser)
to the project page, which seems like the canonical URL for this project.

~~~
mindB
Could you change the title please? The project is called "qutebrowser". No
dash and no capitalization.

~~~
dang
Will two thirds do? It's a convention to keep the first letter of an HN title
capitalized.

~~~
mindB
Sounds good to me. Thanks!

------
otabdeveloper1
No, it's a Chromium browser skin that uses Qt.

~~~
detaro
I think you are wrong, given that it is based on Webkit components. In what
way does it use Chromium code?

~~~
tomxor
You're both a bit wrong. It can use either QTWebKit or QTWebEngine at runtime.
The latter is the default and is essentially the engine of chromium extracted
from chromium without any google services or binary blobs (uses system
libraries)... this is quite far from a chromium skin, it's not a fork of
chromium, and it lacks more than the front end, it completely removes all of
the privacy invasive features that has been troubling everyone recently.

This info on QTWebEngine is among the top comments on the page if you care to
look.

