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Galeon

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This article is about the web browser. For the type of sailing ship, see Galleon. For other uses, see Galleon (disambiguation).
Galeon
Original author(s)Marco Pesenti Gritti
Developer(s)Philip Langdale
Tommi Komulainen
Ricardo Fernández Pascual
Yanko Kaneti
Crispin Flowerday
Initial releaseJune 2000
Final release
2.0.7[1] / 27 September 2008; 16 years ago (2008-09-27)
Written inC
Operating systemUnix-like operating systems
TypeWeb browser
LicenseGPL
Websitegaleon.sourceforge.net

Galeon was a web browser for GNOME based on Mozilla’s Gecko layout engine.[2] Galeon’s self-declared mission was to deliver the web and only the web. Its development was discontinued in September 2008.

Features

Galeon made use of Gecko's features including configuration options and standards support. Apart from that, Galeon had several features that were uncommon in browsers at that time:[2][3][4]

Development history

The project was started by Marco Pesenti Gritti with the goal of creating a web browser that would be fast and consistent with the GNOME desktop environment.[3]

On the rise

The first releases of Galeon were criticised for lacking such basic features as cookie and proxy support.,[5] though the browser added some new features with every release.[3] Version 1.2 of Galeon introduced many new features that drew attention from the general public.[3]

At the time of Galeon’s creation, the most popular Linux browsers, including Netscape and Mozilla, were large multi-functional programs. This made them slow to start and often impractical due to their high memory usage and processor requirements.[6] The Opera was a way faster, but it was proprietary software distributed in trialware and adware versions, both of which lacked some of the functionality of Microsoft Windows version.[7][8]

Galeon was widely seen as one the best Linux browsers available.[6][9] The polls revealed the substantial usage share of Galeon,[10] though its popularity was regarded as owing to lack of stability evident in Mozilla's browsers.[11]

Split of the development team

Main article: Web (web browser)

With the release of new version of the GTK+ widget toolkit, which was used to construct the user interface of Galeon, the team decided to write a new version of Galeon from scratch. At the same time the GNOME project has adopted its new Human Interface Guidelines, which promoted simplicity and uniform design.[12] The Galeon team had differing opinions on the new guidelines. The author and lead developer, Marco Pesenti Gritti, endorsed them and saw the rewrite as an opportunity to make Galeon simpler. Many other developers believed that reducing the number of preferences and simplifying the user interface would harm the project.[3][13]

As the result of several discussions on the topic Gritti made the decision to fork the project and started development of a HIG-compliant web browser he called Epiphany, now known as Web.[13][14]

After the split

As Gritti no longer controlled the development of Galeon, the previous functionality was restored in subsequent releases and some new features were added.[15] Development slowed after the split.[3] At the same time the rising popularity of Firefox, its status of the default browser in major distribution and the overwhelming number of its extensions led to decline of Galeon's user base.[11][13]

Eventually the Galeon developers announced plans to halt development of Galeon, saying "the current approach is unsustainable" regarding the resources required to maintain it. Instead, they planned to develop a set of extensions for Epiphany to provide similar functionality.[13][16]

Persistence

Even after development ceased in September 2008 the browser remained popular and in December 2011 was still available in some Linux distribution's repositories, such as Debian 6 Squeeze,[17] although it will not be part of Debian 7 Wheezy.[18]

Reception

Galeon was praised for its customizability[6] and speed,[2] as compared to Netscape Navigator[5] and Firefox,[19] though Konqueror and Opera were still faster on older hardware. Galeon was noted for its session handling and crash recovery.[6]

In November 2002 OSNews conducted a poll to determine the most popular Gecko-based browser, which included several browsers for Microsoft Windows, MacOS and Linux, but didn't include Netscape Navigator and Mozilla Suite. The Linux-only Galeon was the second most popular, after cross-platform Firefox, at that time known as Phoenix.[10]

Critics noted Galeon's tricky plugin installation.[2]

See also

References

  1. ^ Galeon Downloads, SourceForge, retrieved 2011-11-15
  2. ^ a b c d Galeon at a glance, FreeOS.com, 2001-06-15, retrieved 2011-11-16
  3. ^ a b c d e f DeRosia, Chris (2003-07-29), Galeon History, retrieved 2011-11-15
  4. ^ README.ExtraPrefs file, The GNOME git repository, retrieved 2011-11-16
  5. ^ a b Hall, Michael (2000-07-18), Looking at the Galeon, Linux Planet, retrieved 2011-11-16
  6. ^ a b c d Valliere, Rob (2002-05-09). "Valliere: 2002 Linux Browser Review". Linux Today. Archived from the original on 2005-02-11.
  7. ^ Dahle, Håvard (2001-05-29). "[Opera-linux] The road ahead: features in linux vs. ms win client". opera-linux (Mailing list). {{cite mailing list}}: Unknown parameter |mailinglist= ignored (|mailing-list= suggested) (help)
  8. ^ aaron (2001-05-29). "[Opera-linux] The road ahead: features in linux vs. ms win client". opera-linux (Mailing list). {{cite mailing list}}: Unknown parameter |mailinglist= ignored (|mailing-list= suggested) (help)
  9. ^ Krause, Ralph (2000), "Browser Comparison", Linux Journal (95), retrieved 2011-11-17 {{citation}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  10. ^ a b Loli-Queru, Eugenia (2002-11-01), Poll: Vote for the Best Mozilla/Gecko-based Browser, OSNews, retrieved 2011-11-16
  11. ^ a b Whitinger, Dave (2004-02-09), Firefox 0.8 is the release that won me over, LXer, retrieved 2011-11-16
  12. ^ Benson, Calum; Elman, Adam; Nickell, Seth; Robertson, Colin Z. (2002), [GNOME Human Interface Guidelines http://interface.free.fr/Archives/hig-gnome-1.0.pdf] (1.0 ed.), The GNOME Usability Project {{citation}}: Check |url= value (help); External link in |title= (help); Unknown parameter |lastauthoramp= ignored (|name-list-style= suggested) (help)
  13. ^ a b c d Min, Andrew, "Epiphany, the ultimate Gnome browser", The Ubuntu Applications book (under construction), Free Software Magazine, retrieved 2011-11-16
  14. ^ Former Galeon Maintainer Starts New Epiphany Browser Project, 2003-02-19, retrieved 2011-11-16
  15. ^ Topher The Web Guy (2003-07-26), Galeon Developer Interview, retrieved 2011-11-16
  16. ^ Langdale, Philip (2005-10-22), The future of Galeon, retrieved 2011-11-15
  17. ^ Debian (2011). "Package: galeon (2.0.7-2.1 and others)". Retrieved 27 December 2011.
  18. ^ Debian (29 December 2011). "All Debian Packages in "wheezy"". Retrieved 29 December 2011.
  19. ^ Jon (2005-10-16), GEEKY FUN: Galeon Web Browser, retrieved 2011-11-16
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