@perflyst
GNU IceCat or the Tor Browser. 😃 I use both on a regular basis. They work well.

@aral

@masterofthetiger
i also use them but they would vanish if mozilla vanishes
@aral

@perflyst
There are enough people who would support keeping the code alive. Do you really think the Tor Browser will die if that happens?

@aral

@alcinnz @aral
"Apple's Webkit"
Originally written by KDE.

@gemlog @aral And Apple's not the only one actively developing it. There's also Igalia, and I don't know who else.

@alcinnz @aral I wish more time was going into konqueror. It was what I used to use until FF came along.
So nice having your web browser also be your file manager that could also handle ftp and ssh. Plus those lovely splittable windows.
I know dolphin can handle most of that except the browsing.
Actually, all the kde stuff like kate, kwrite, dolphin w/e uses kio slaves to handle file, fish, ftp and so on.

@gemlog
What about the *nix philosophy of:
"Do One Thing, And Do It Well"?

I'm with you on the splittable windows for file managers, specifically for copying/moving files between windows.

@alcinnz @aral
#DOTADIW

@fitheach @alcinnz @aral 'Moving and viewing files' over multiple protocols IS doing one thing well.
Confining that use to a single protocol means needing Multiple apps; as many as one for each protocol.
Dolphin does exactly this, so you win there (no web).
I enjoyed having the other protocols there as well though. Sometimes, i still do.

@gemlog
I was meaning a browser also being a (kind of) file manager.

@alcinnz @aral

@fitheach @alcinnz @aral I guess konqueror was/is really it's own thing.
Today I replace it with Dolphin+browser on the desktop and still mc+lynx in the shell as mc can handle file, ftp and ssh.

@gemlog
It's a while since I looked at Dolphin, but ti struck me as a mighty fine file manager.

The file manager/browser mash-up: didn't it start way-back when browsers were viewing the Desktop as if it was a webpage? I certainly remember the GNOME browser doing that (Galeon?). MS Windows did that for a while, too. Horrible idea.

@alcinnz @aral

@gemlog @fitheach @aral Well most file managers do support moving files over multiple protocols (including HTTP, WebDAV, and FTP), but it's rare for them to also support viewing those files within themselves.

On the other hand links do call for a lot of similar UI controls.

@alcinnz
Gosh, it isn't that long ago that file managers added features to allow use of WebDav, FTP and SSH/SCP etc. Libraries like KIO or filesystems like FUSE or GVFS were only added ten years ago, maybe slightly more.

Viewing file contents using FMs has probably been around a bit longer, usually by calling other applications. What seems weird to me is having a FM that is also a web browser (or is it a web browser that is also a FM?).
@gemlog @aral

@alcinnz
@gemlog @aral
Ok did some checking. Gnome-VFS was the predecessor of Gvfs and, for example, it was first used in Tux Commander in 2004 (a bit earlier than I thought):
http://tuxcmd.sourceforge.net/versions.php

@fitheach @alcinnz @aral
I was a fan of emelfm back then.

@gemlog
Finding the perfect file manager is like searching for the Holy Grail; the quest is eternal, and never fulfilled.

I have tried emelfm(2), and also Gnome Commander, Tux Commander, Nautilius, ROX, and many others. All of them have nice features, but I'm always looking for more. For years now my mainstay FMs have been Thunar and MC. Pretty happy with those two, although I would like a graphical two-pane FM (I know Dolphin, but KDE...).

@alcinnz

@fitheach @alcinnz
Yes, we do part company on DE's, but that doesn't stop me running a few gtk apps.

@gemlog
Yup. I think the thing with KDE is that all the apps are tightly integrated, using an isolated FM doesn't make much sense. The packaged versions of KDE apps don't even allow that possibility. Probably much the same with GNOME or Cinnamon or Mate

@alcinnz

@fitheach "The packaged versions of KDE apps"
What does this mean, sorry? I've never run into a situation when I can't mix and match any programs written with any old graphical tool kit.

@gemlog
When you install, e.g. konqueror or most any apps, under distros like Fedora, Debian, Ubuntu etc. you install a package where the developers have already made decisions for you regarding settings and dependencies. Alternatively, you could install the app from source(s) and perhaps avoid some un-needed dependencies.

@fitheach Can you give me an example please? I'm still not understanding. Everything is entirely changeable in prefs wrt what happens to each filetype, which is quite extensive.
I swear i'm not being deliberately obtuse Iain - just never ran into this problem you've experience with settings.
Depends, yes, of course. Any program using external libs has depends.

@gemlog
The dependencies are quite often flags which you set when you compile an app. When you install a package it has been compiled already, with decisions about those flags made by the package developer.

@fitheach I'm familiar with these things, yes.
Just looking for an example of where this limited people to only being able to use other kde applications with something.
It's very early here and perhaps I'm missing the obvious.

@gemlog
Have a look through the KDE documentation. This page (although talking about extragear) explains the high level organisation:
https://docs.kde.org/trunk5/en/extragear-utils//kdesrc-build/kde-modules-and-selection.html

This page gives the flags when building from source:
https://community.kde.org/Guidelines_and_HOWTOs/Build_from_source/Details

Adding or omitting some of these modules could dramatically change the nature of individual KDE apps.

@fitheach Always seemed endlessly configurable and fine-grained.

@fitheach @alcinnz @aral It must have seemed weird to others too, because it is no long actively developed.
Just little old weird me who liked it :-)