Badwolf- a recent, standards compliant minimal Web Browser

[Member PPC]

I just found out about a very minimal browser, that’s both fast, runs on low resources, and still allows the user to view regular webpages!
It’s called Badwolf (I, probably like the user that first published about this browser over at the Mx forum, found out about it on the excellent DistroTube Youtube (DT) channel, that just reviewed it).

Installation:
The browser is not packaged in deb format, so we have to be adventurous and (gaps!!!) compile it!

First we need to install the dependencies. From the terminal type:

sudo apt install libsoup2.4-dev

(this downloads 15,8 MB of files, that occupy 76,1 MB of disk space)

sudo apt install libwebkit2gtk-4.0-dev
(this downloads 13,4 MB of files, that occupy 55,7 MB of disk space)

-To go https://hacktivis.me/projects/badwolf
– Download the latest file under the title “Releases” – “From source”: badwolf-x.X.X.tar.gz to your Downloads folder.
– Using your File Manager, click that file and extract it’s contents
– Go to the extracted folder and open your terminal there
– From your terminal, type:
make
[wait for the process to finish]
sudo make install
[enter your password, if prompted to, and wait for the process to finish]

Now to run the browser, on the terminal (or Menu > Run) you can type:
badwolf

There’s also a .desktop file that you can use to make badwolf available from the menu…

cd ~/badwolf-1.0.0 
sudo cp b*.desktop /usr/share/applications
sudo desktop-menu --write-out-global

That’s it, badwolf is on your menu!

Using the Browser:

The badwolf opens almost instantly on my single core system.
The first tab is always “Downloads”, the second tab is where you can type the web page you want to go.
Please note: to the left of the address bar, there are two buttons “JS” and “IMG” that refer to “JavaScript” and “Images”. If the background of those buttons is blue then that option is activates.
It’s handy not to load Images if you have limited band width or low internet speed.
You need to activate JavaScript for more elaborate sites, like Youtube and using webmail…
To open a new tab press CTRL + T or click the button with the “+” sign on the top right.
There are more keyboard shortcuts, but, like DT noticed, the man page is broken and does not display the keys…

P.

[Member ModdIt]

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Thanks for the pointer PPC
Dependency issues encountered on my Antix Installation so in this installed to a laptop with MX.

After some intense usage, an interesting project, it worked on all the sites I tried. Comfort somewhat limited
but that is offset by speed.

Lack of telemetry web bugs and other devilry inflicted on users by the likes of mozilla and goog scumbags,
very refreshing, is that why it is so fast, my guess is yes.

Missing, a deb for user installation, I had a go at creating a package yesterday afternoon and evening, up
to now failed dismally. If anyone can help on that I would appreciate a working understandable (for my rusty old brain)
recipe.

[Member Xecure]

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How is RAM usage for the badwolf browser? Can it be compiled for 32 bit systems?
I will later see the distrotube video to see the benchmarks, as he usually is a hater of bloat, and checks how much space a program takes, the RAM and CPU usage, etc. If it can be compiled and packaged to be used in debian, it may be a good option for replacing dillo, but there is a lot to do before that (translations, testing, etc.).

Thanks for the recommendation, PPC.

antiX Live system enthusiast.
General Live Boot Parameters for antiX.

[Member cyrilus31]

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On gitlab project a user gave this feedback :

I noticed that 32-bit x86 wasn’t listed as “tested” on the BadWolf frontpage. I confirmed that BadWolf compiles and runs on 32-bit x86 systems without any issue on my Dell Mini 10v running Gentoo Linux. No source modification is required either. Only minor issue I ran into is that BadWolf’s scrolling is noticeably laggier than scrolling in the Suckless Surf browser, which also uses the WebkitGTK engine. I’m not sure if this is an issue on only my machine, 32-bit systems, or the project as a whole. I will do some more testing later. I am currently running the release version.

Thanks PPC for the suggestion. I will try today.

By the way, the author is a fellow countryman, very “Hacktivist”, and very antiX compatible from what I can read on his site 😀

• This reply was modified 2 years, 10 months ago by cyrilus31.

[Member ModdIt]

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@PPC, please advise which sources you are using, my Antix system tells me it is up to date but I am unable
to install the required -dev packages due unsolvable dependency’s. Both apt and Synaptic are throwing error.

On MX the Badwolf runs but is still throwing an error: GApplication is required for xdg-desktop-portal-access

Any ideas how to fix that would be appreciated.

On MX opening Badwolf then viewing this post ups my RAM usage by around 100mb which is lightweight compared to
Firefox or Palemoon on same page.

[Member PPC]

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@Moddit:

My repos are (please check for any typos):
http://glua.ua.pt/pub/mx-packages/antix/buster/buster main nosystemd nonfree
https://brave-browser-apt-releases.s3.brave.com/stable main
http://ftp.cica.es/mirrors/Linux/MX-packages/antiX/buster buster main nonfree
http://linux.teamviwer.com/deb stable main
http://deb.debian.org/debian buster-backports main contrib non-free

@Xecure: for a simple web page, badwolf uses about 100Meg of RAM…

[Member ModdIt]

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Thanks PPC, still not fixed my installed system dependancy errors, anyway no extra risks at this point in time.

Writing here in the forum now with Badwolf running from a live stick. I had to install libsoup2.4-dev libwebkit2gtk-4.0-dev with synaptic to get dependencys fixed.
Pulled in quite a few more packets. Adding an empty directory named .git in downloads fixed my make errors.

Starting from Terminal showed

dbind-WARNING **: 19:52:35.013: Error retrieving accessibility bus address: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.ServiceUnknown: The name org.a11y.Bus was not provided by any .service files

fixed by installing libatspi2.0-dev

(badwolf:18498): WARNING **: 19:52:35.205: GApplication is required for xdg-desktop-portal access in the WebKit sandbox. Actions that require xdg-desktop-portal will be broken.

Looks like systemd/gnome related error. Still no solution but Badwolf seems to work ok.

I am browsing with VERY LOW Ram usage, searching with Meta Ger.

I really hope this browser gets more development, a method to add a default, user choice search engine would be nice. Otherwise Fast, no crashes, low RAM usage.

I am Impressed. Be really nice to have a deb package so this gets more users and support.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 10 months ago by ModdIt.
• This reply was modified 2 years, 10 months ago by ModdIt. Reason: Improved post

[Member ModdIt]

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Hi all, I have been trying to get Badwolf 1.02 to compile on antix stable, failing with so many dependency errors.

Tried to fix but in merry go round. Please someone with more knowledge give some help.

The browser is really fast, lightweigt, very minimal and being actively developed.
No Ads, telemetry Tracking or other crap, opens pages in isolated tabs.

Not for those looking for search suggestions and other perceived creature comforts but I my humble opinion very fitting to antiX.

If only we had a deb.

[Member seaken64]

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Sorry I can’t help you Moddit. I’m terrible at compiling and know nothing about how to package a .deb. But I am also interested in this browser.

On the MX forum there is a Request a Package area. Do we have such a thing here in antiX forum?

Seaken64

[Member ModdIt]

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Having just spent more than an another hour and still in dependancy merry go round, a package request for latest version sounds very attractive.

Badwolf 1.02

[Member cyrilus31]

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Same situation here.
I’m facing many dependancy errors even following the author advice. We need a .deb 😉

[Member ModdIt]

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had been hoping PPC would chip in here, he is very quiet.
I sincerely hope he is ok in these troubled times.
Same goes for all others too. Here covid is pickung up speed. bad.

[Member manyroads]

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@Moddlt Thanks to our stablegenius…. things in the US are a complete train wreck.

Pax vobiscum,
Mark Rabideau - http://many-roads.com
"For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong." H. L. Mencken
dwm & i3wm ~Reg. Linux User #449130
20 Jan 2021 ~ "End of an Error"

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

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I downloaded badwolf-1.0.2 on MX 19.2 and built it. I was able to fairly quickly make the image, but I received some errors because I do NOT have the French fr locale entries on my system. Because of this I was not able to do make install, and I received errors during the make process.

I was, however, able to produce a badwolf binary in the badwolf-1.0.2 directory. I was able to sudo cp b*.desktop /usr/share/applications.
sudo desktop-menu –write-out-global did not work on my system, but I copied the badwolf image: sudo cp badwolf /usr/bin
and coupled with the desktop entry, badwolf is recognized, and I am able to use it to access this site.

The image is indeed very compact, but it has some limitations. Yahoo Mail (Webmail), is accessible, but it does not work properly. This site, however, does seem to work; at least I’m able to reach this page.

I tried Google, and I am able to access the search engine, but I cannot login to any Google services and therefore I cannot use Gmail. Since Yahoo Mail and Gmail are two of the things I use quite often, this browser will have limited use until these issues are resolved. It does have potential, if issues like this are resolved. Perhaps the failure to build for the locales it wanted to build prevented all current features from getting built; if that’s the case, it still isn’t quite ready for my purposes, but it does look promising and very efficient for what it CAN do.

--
Brian Masinick

[Member cyrilus31]

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Hi Brian and thanks for the feedback.
I have french locale on my system but I have the same problem than ModdIt (GApplication is required for xdg-desktop-portal access in the WebKit sandbox. Actions that require xdg-desktop-portal will be broken.) preventing me from using many web sites.

@manyroads : november will soon arrive. But it’s uncertain you will have a new president. His approval rate is incredibly stable…

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