After almost 4 months of development, Midori web browser project managers recently announced the release of the new version of the Midori 9 web browser, which is based on the WebKit2 engine and the GTK3 library and under development by the participants of the Xfce project. The core of the browser is written in the Vala language. The project code is distributed under the LGPLv2.1 license. The binary builds are ready for Linux (snap) and Android.
The search engine is based on OpenSearch, the program renders the pages quite well, Although it fails with some javascripts such as the one for google maps, one of its main characteristics is that it has an option that allows it to be identified as another web browser.
Among its main characteristics of this web browser, the following stand out:
- Tabs, bookmarks, private browsing, session management, and other common features
- Quick access to major search engines
- Tools for creating custom menus and customizing the layout
- The ability to use custom scripts to render Greasemonkey-style content
- Interface to edit cookies and handler scripts
- Built-in ad filtering tool (Adblock)
- Built-in RSS reader interface
- Tools for creating separate web applications (start with hide panels, menus and other elements of the browser interface)
- Possibility of connecting several download managers (wget, SteadyFlow, FlashGet)
- High performance (works smoothly when opening 1000 tabs)
- Support for connecting external extensions written in JavaScript (WebExtension), C, Vala and Lua.
Main news of Midori 9
In this new version of the browser modifications were made to the home page with which the developers implemented the display of icons from specified sites using the OpenGraph protocol (protocol that was originally created by Facebook) and that are simply a series of meta-data that is included in the source code of the browser.
Along with it support for JavaScript pop-up dialogs has been improved within the browser, as well as providing the ability to save and restore attached tabs while saving or restoring a session.
On the other hand the developers now in the tabs where the sound is played, they included the volume control icons to be displayed.
Midori 9 now comes back with the trust button with TLS certificate information (a feature that is already indispensable in every web browser today).
Within of the other novelties that can be highlighted in this new version of the web browser we can find the following:
- Improved handling of input focus for reopening and background tabs
- Added an item to the context menu to close the tab
- Added an option to open URL from clipboard to address bar
- Sidebar controllers support has been added to the Web Extensions API
- Application and Page combo menu
How to install Midori browser 9 on Ubuntu and derivatives?
As was said in this article, the compilations of this new version of the web browser are prepared for Linux in the snap and Android package format (obtained from the Play Store).
In Android they just have to go to the following link to request installation to your device from the PlayStore. The link is this.
For those who are interested in being able to install this web browser on their systems, they can do so by following the steps that we share with you below.
If they are Ubuntu 19.04 and Ubuntu 18.04 users will have nothing else to do the installation running the command shown below.
Users of previous versions will have to add the support to be able to install Snap packages in their systems.
So that all they have to do is open a terminal (they can do it with the key combination Ctrl + Alt + T) and in it they will have to execute the following command:
sudo snap install midori
And that's it, you can start using this browser on your system.