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qutebrowser - Mini-Review

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Tuxman:
Basic Info

App NamequtebrowserApp URLhttp://qutebrowser.org/App Version Reviewed0.10.1Supported OSesmost (or even all?) OSs which have Python 3 and QtWebKit availableSupport Methods[*]GitHub Issues
[*]#qutebrowser on freenode.net
[*]the qutebrowser mailing list[/list][/tr]
[tr][td]Pricing Scheme[/td][td]qutebrowser is licensed under the terms of the GPLv3, meaning that you're - at least - free to use it without spending any money.[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Screencast Video URL[/td][td]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glfJJfTEB2g[/td][/tr]
[/table]

qutebrowser - Mini-Review

Intro:

In 2017, the world wide web has long lost one of its key features, namely its simplicity. Remember when you could just visit most websites with a text-mode browser and not lose any relevant information? By today, the web has turned into a giant blob of anti-features, making it unnecessarily hard to keep a low memory and CPU footprint while trying to use it. Browsers like NetSurf which feature their own engine and manage to use as few resources as possible are neat, but they fail to be compatible with just anything, at least right now.

A pretty good compromise between a low footprint and an adequately large feature set is the qutebrowser which is amazing in multiple ways: It is fast even with its Python core, it is efficient even with its QtWebKit engine, it is accessible even though being modeled after Vim.

Here is my review.

Who is this app designed for:

The qutebrowser is a great alternative for the Unix-only uzbl browser and Firefox's to-be-deprecated Vimperator and Pentadactyl extensions, focusing on Vim-like UI and keyboard features. Having to use the mouse can be annoying in a text-based medium like the web.

If you prefer a minimal waste of screen space and efficient keybindings to giant toolbars and weird mouse (or even touch) gestures, qutebrowser could be for you.

The Good

If you know Vim, qutebrowser won't be a big deal for you. You can use most of Vim's basic keybindings (including hjkl), one-key commands (like O for opening something in a new tab) and some Vimperator-like commands like :tab-close. (You can still switch between the tabs with your mouse if you want to.) qutebrowser will show a DuckDuckGo tab and a Quickstart manual on its first start (see the screenshot above).

qutebrowser - Mini-Review

There is a built-in ad blocker, advertised on the first start: Just type :adblock-update and you're good. Also, have I mentioned the low resource usage?

qutebrowser - Mini-Review

If you're not happy with some of the defaults, the built-in settings page provides a couple of rather advanced options including things like the window title format and the statusbar padding. Sorely missed from recent Firefoxes. And: Of course the qutebrowser has an "insert mode" for forms.  ;)

The needs improvement section

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

How does it compare to similar apps

Compared to Firefox with Vimperator or Pentadactyl, qutebrowser is not nearly as extensible but it saves you quite some headaches. There are official FAQ about that. :)

Conclusions

I'll see if this will be my default browser after Firefox's effective death on Nov. 14. You can never have enough options. For now, I'm impressed - I uninstalled NetSurf and dismissed Otter and I'll give this one a ride for a while.  :Thmbsup:

Enjoy.

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