Why konqueror was abandoned?

Apprentice+ · 10-31-2022, 04:11 AM

Konqueror is the best file manager!

You can split your tab infinitely! Konqueror Image
I don't know of any other that does that!
I can't understand how people can prefer thunar, dolphin etc...They are very limited with the tabs!

And then, with every new version of konqueror released they remove its features, bug it more and more! The evolution of Konqueror in kde 3 to Plasma is a huge sadness!

What once worked so well, they decided to remove!

It no longer works as root!
They removed the Side Panel (F9), Now they brought it back 100% Buggy, nothing works!
Can no longer open FTP links, now directing to Falkon!
Bookmark Bugs, does not update icons...
Among many other things that ruined it!

They seem to have declared war on Konqueror. They hate him so much, they're making him useless to no longer be used!

EdGr · 10-31-2022, 04:25 AM

Having the same program be both a web browser and a file manager was a bad idea.

The idea came from Microsoft back when they were trying to convince regulators that Internet Explorer was an integral part of Windows. That never made sense.

You really do want a program that is good at managing files, and another program that is good at displaying web content.
Ed

rkelsen · 10-31-2022, 06:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by EdGr

Having the same program be both a web browser and a file manager was a bad idea.

As much as I agree with that sentiment, I also have to agree with OP in that Konqueror was a superb file manager.

I never used it as a web browser, but the other stuff out could do was pretty neat.

zeebra · 10-31-2022, 07:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Apprentice+

They seem to have declared war on Konqueror. They hate him so much, they're making him useless to no longer be used!

I agree, it's very sad.. Now with QT webengine, Konqueror is also a very fast and usable browser (again, long after KHTML was abandoned), but they removed most web features as well, so it's barely practically usable.

I've looked into the situation with Konqueror for quite awhile, and my impression is that it lacks developers and interested people, so it has basically been abandoned in favour of things like Dolphin and other projects. It still has a few maintainers it seems, but they are mostly doing necessary fixes.

It would be nice to see interest in Konqueror again, but the free software and "open source" community has changed over time. Priorities seems to have changed as well, and many people seem to be drawn to "big projects" rather than passion projects, which is a danger for the future of the whole free software movement. And development/developers seem to have changed from high level languages to object oriented "ease of use" kind of languages. I don't think there is a shortage for C++, but if your "projects" are C and all interested parties (open source/free software kind people) only can do things like Python, there is an issue. It's ofcourse a hyperbolic exhaggeration, but it's also a real situation. The amount of free software has grown alot in the last few decades, and some people might be bogged down in maintaining "necessary" projects, while others keep doing their projects. With such growth in projects over time, and little or no growth in people with high level programming language skills, and much growth in people with more simple object oriented programming, it surely must have created a gap. C++ is the most relevant language for KDE, and while there is probably not a shortage of people who know C++, and it is still commercially important as a language (popular for game programming among others), it does face some stiff competition from other languages with similar purposes.

Anyways, I'm just speculating as to why there might be less interested people in regards to a project like Konqueror.. But I also think it is possible to get people interested in Konqueror again. Web technology is interesting to many people, and if Konqueror was relevant an interesting to people in that context, it could be something again.

zeebra · 10-31-2022, 07:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rkelsen

I never used it as a web browser, but the other stuff out could do was pretty neat.

Actually, with very "little" effort, Konqueror could become a very good lightweight modern web browser. It already is actually, but some features are missing/non-functional, and it seems they are not being fixed.

In these days, with bloated feature rich "browsers" (online software suite) like Firefox, an alternative like that could offer some relief.

teckk · 10-31-2022, 08:23 AM

Source.
https://github.com/KDE/konqueror

It's about 16MB for the source.
https://github.com/KDE/konqueror/arc...ads/master.zip

Looks like it uses cmake.

Looks like an interesting project for someone. It is indeed a bunch of c++.

konqmain.cpp

Code:

#include "konqdebug.h"
#include <QFile>
#include <QDir>
#include <QDirIterator>
#include <QStandardPaths>
#include <QProcess>

#include <KDBusService>
#include <QCommandLineParser>
#include <QCommandLineOption>
#include <KStartupInfo>
#include <KWindowSystem>
#include <kwindowsystem_version.h>

static void listSessions()
{
    const QString dir = QStandardPaths::writableLocation(QStandardPaths::AppDataLocation) + QLatin1Char('/') + "sessions/";
    QDirIterator it(dir, QDir::Readable | QDir::NoDotAndDotDot | QDir::Dirs);
    while (it.hasNext()) {
        QFileInfo fileInfo(it.next());
        printf("%s\n", QFile::encodeName(fileInfo.baseName()).constData());
    }
}
...

OP should try and build it. Get familiar with the source, modify it. Make your own fork of it. Nothing like something practical, that you will use, to get you interested in learning.

pan64 · 10-31-2022, 12:37 PM

is it really abandoned? In general no GUI apps like this should be used as root.

boughtonp · 10-31-2022, 12:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by teckk

It's about 16MB for the source.

It's a 16MB download, which expands to ~50MB of disk space across 2,755 files - however ~44MB/2,092 files of that is the "po" directory (translation files?).

The "src" directory is ~1MB and 114 files, which makes things interesting.

However, how much bandwidth and disk space are used when its various dependencies are downloaded?

teckk · 10-31-2022, 03:59 PM

Quote:

However, how much bandwidth and disk space are used when its various dependencies are downloaded?

Good question, depends on what one already has installed for other software. For sure it needs Qt5, qt5-webengine, kinit, keditbookmarks, maybe dolphin, qt5-gstreamer, kdesu, etc.

The arch version of konqueror wants (I'm not up to date):

Code:

Packages (81) attica-5.97.0-1  baloo-5.97.0-1  baloo-widgets-22.08.0-2
              btrfs-progs-5.19-1  convertlit-1.8-10  dmraid-1.0.0.rc16.3-13
              dolphin-22.08.0-1  dosfstools-4.2-2  ebook-tools-0.2.2-7
              exiv2-0.27.5-3  gptfdisk-1.0.9-1  iniparser-4.1-4
              kactivities-5.97.0-1  karchive-5.97.0-1  kauth-5.97.0-1
              kbookmarks-5.97.0-1  kcmutils-5.97.0-1  kcodecs-5.97.0-1
              kcompletion-5.97.0-1  kconfig-5.97.0-1  kconfigwidgets-5.97.0-1
              kcoreaddons-5.97.0-1  kcrash-5.97.0-1  kdbusaddons-5.97.0-1
              kdeclarative-5.97.0-1  kded-5.97.0-1  kdnssd-5.97.0-1  kdsoap-2.0.0-1
              kdsoap-ws-discovery-client-git20200927-2  keditbookmarks-22.08.0-1
              kfilemetadata-5.97.0-1  kglobalaccel-5.97.0-1  kguiaddons-5.97.0-1
              ki18n-5.97.0-1  kiconthemes-5.97.0-1  kidletime-5.97.0-1
              kinit-5.97.0-1  kio-5.97.0-1  kio-extras-22.08.0-1
              kitemviews-5.97.0-1  kjobwidgets-5.97.0-1  knewstuff-5.97.0-1
              knotifications-5.97.0-1  kpackage-5.97.0-1  kparts-5.97.0-1
              kservice-5.97.0-1  ktextwidgets-5.97.0-1  kuserfeedback-1.2.0-1
              kwallet-5.97.0-4  kwidgetsaddons-5.97.0-1  kwindowsystem-5.97.0-1
              kxmlgui-5.97.0-1  libatasmart-0.19-5  libblockdev-2.27-1
              libbytesize-2.7-1  libdbusmenu-qt5-0.9.3+16.04.20160218-6
              libimobiledevice-1.3.0-5  libkexiv2-22.08.0-1  libplist-2.2.0-5
              libusbmuxd-2.0.2-1  libyaml-0.2.5-1  media-player-info-24-2
              ndctl-74-1  parted-3.5-1  phonon-qt5-4.11.1-3
              phonon-qt5-gstreamer-4.10.0-3  polkit-qt5-0.114.0-1  qca-qt5-2.3.4-3
              qt5-speech-5.15.5+kde+r1-1  qt5-wayland-5.15.5+kde+r38-3
              qt5-x11extras-5.15.5+kde+r0-1  solid-5.97.0-1  sonnet-5.97.0-1
              syndication-5.97.0-1  syntax-highlighting-5.97.0-1  taglib-1.12-2
              udisks2-2.9.4-1  upower-0.99.20-1  usbmuxd-1.1.1-1
              volume_key-0.3.12-7  konqueror-22.08.0-1

Another 62.76 MiB.

And that's what I don't have installed already. I already have qt5-webengine(48.67 MiB), qt5-base(13.00 MiB). So it's not a light weight file manager. Might as well have KDE installed.

But, if konqueror isn't doing what you want, and you have to have it instead of another file manager, then you'll need to alter it and compile it yourself.

Edit:
https://apps.kde.org/konqueror/

https://aur.archlinux.org/konqueror-git.git
git://anongit.kde.org/konqueror

https://aur.archlinux.org/cgit/aur.g...=konqueror-git

jailbait · 10-31-2022, 06:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by EdGr

Having the same program be both a web browser and a file manager was a bad idea.

The idea came from Microsoft back when they were trying to convince regulators that Internet Explorer was an integral part of Windows. That never made sense.

You really do want a program that is good at managing files, and another program that is good at displaying web content.
Ed

I agree. Over the years I have switched web browsers and file managers several times. Whenever I tried out new web browsers and new file managers konqueror never matched the performance of the best web browser and the best file manager. The combination that I am currently running is Vivaldi and dolphin.

rkelsen · 10-31-2022, 06:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by zeebra

Actually, with very "little" effort, Konqueror could become a very good lightweight modern web browser.

I don't disagree with you. Particularly now that Flash is finally dead, and websites are being built on open standards.

To give an example of the features I used Konqueror for back in the day: You could pop in a CD, it'd do a CDDB lookup, automatically name the tracks and you could drag and drop individual tracks onto the desktop in any format you liked (although mp3 required some extra libraries - but I'd already switched to ogg anyway), and it'd rip & compress the track. This is mind blowing stuff to a Windows user. It freaks them out.

Also, SMB browsing on the local network.

Dolphin does both of those things now, but it still doesn't seem to work as well as Konqueror did in either case.

frankbell · 10-31-2022, 08:07 PM

I use Konqueror from time to time and haven't experienced any issues with it, but I notice the copyright date on v. 20.12.20 reads "1999-2016." So it does look like development may have stopped.

I said something derogatory in these electrons about Dolphin as a file manager several years ago, I must admit that it has improved significantly. I commonly have three or four or five tabs open and switch among them quite nicely; I have no qualms using it as my primary file manager now. I definitely prefer it to other Linux file managers.

Just my two cents.

mrmazda · 11-01-2022, 01:10 AM

Konq 3 still exists for those who care for it enough. It's available via openSUSE rpms from its optional KDE3 BS repo. It's also available compiled for several major distros from the TDE project, which was originally forked from KDE3 when KDE dropped v3. And of course, source is available from the same places for those who build their own.

zeebra · 11-01-2022, 05:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pan64

is it really abandoned?

It's maintained, but practically abandoned yes.

zeebra · 11-01-2022, 05:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jailbait

I agree. Over the years I have switched web browsers and file managers several times. Whenever I tried out new web browsers and new file managers konqueror never matched the performance of the best web browser and the best file manager. The combination that I am currently running is Vivaldi and dolphin.

I'm quite happy with Dolphin, but I miss Konqueror too.