Badwolf- a recent, standards compliant minimal Web Browser

[Member Xecure]

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It took longer than expected, but I have built a .deb package for badwolf. Pick the one for your system:

64 bits (buster amd64)
https://filebin.net/g85oj5xgoa9vt3g4

32 bits (buster i386)
https://filebin.net/vaztctzbfg5hnrth

How to install:
– Easiest (but not the best in my opinion) – Download the .deb file for your system architecture. Right-click it, open with Gdebi, Install (not recommended, read more below).
– Best way (in my opinion) – Download the .deb file for your system architecture and move it to your home folder. Install using APT from terminal:
sudo apt install -f ~/badwolf_1.0.2-1_amd64.deb
or for 32 bits version:
sudo apt install -f ~/badwolf_1.0.2-1_i386.deb
Why I say this is the best way? No dependency problem, easy to uninstall later and it will add the corresponding entry for badwolf to the menu.

When I have time later or tomorrow I will upload the source code with the debian configuration for anyone interested in building a proper .deb (and not an amateur build like mine)
Build your own .deb for badwolf: https://gitlab.com/nXecure/badwolf
Changes compared to the original badwolf source code:
– Configured for debian building (added /debian folder with instructions and info)
– Fixed a part of the original makefile code that made it impossible to build a .deb file
– Changed the paths of installation so it is more debian-like

Don’t expect much support from me. I just built it to learn how to build .deb packages from source code.

The browser installation takes about 70 MBs on disk (including dependencies).
Tested on 32 bits VM, fullscreen (1050p): (only counted extra RAM used. Base system tested uses: 150 MB live)
Measurements done with: watch sudo ps_mem.py
badwolf just opened – 60 MBs
1 tab (antixforum.com) – noJS|noIMG – 80 MBs
1 tab (antixforum.com) – noJS|IMG – 100 MBs
1 tab (antixforum.com) – JS|IMG – 130 MBs
2 tabs (antixforum.com, arstechnica.com) – noJS|IMG – 150 MBs
3 tabs (antixforum.com, arstechnica.com, reddit.com) – noJS|IMG – 200 MBs

Notes:
Some websites (like reddit.com) don’t work properly with JS ON (at least for me on my testing machine).
Each time you open a new tab (‘+’ button on the top-right or using Control+T), it resets to noJS|IMG.
After some time, RAM accumulates. Closing and opening badwolf frees it.
On some websites, badwolf is a bit slow (stops entirely sometimes if JS is enabled, but only on that tab; close the problematic tab and continue browsing).
Cannot play audio or video. Don’t know how to solve this. In a BSD forum (https://www.unitedbsd.com/d/227-badwolf-web-browser) it is suggested to install gst-plugins, but I wasn’t able to solve this with them installed.
More info: read the badwolf man (man badwolf)

About the previous discussion (what JS and IMG are), PPC already explained in the first post (incase someone hasn’t figured it out after reading masinick’s and Moddit’s interventions explaining it):

PPC wrote:

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…

• This reply was modified 2 years, 8 months ago by Xecure. Reason: gitlab link

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

[Forum Admin anticapitalista]

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Excellent work Xecure!

Philosophers have interpreted the world in many ways; the point is to change it.

antiX with runit - leaner and meaner.

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

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anticapitalista wrote:

Excellent work Xecure!

Agreed, works well!

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Brian Masinick

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

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Our helpful contributor Xecure created a .deb package for Badwolf; check the recent posts for details.

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Brian Masinick

[Moderator caprea]

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@Xecure.So cool. It has to be said. Thanks for all your friendly and helpful contributions here in the forum.

[Member watsoccurring]

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Thank you Xecure,
for your work on this and help in many other areas.

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

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I’m sorry to report a “discouraging” update on Badwolf.
Previously I had an image installed on our sibling distribution MX Linux.
As everyone has noted, Badwolf is quite resource efficient compared to any recent full-featured browser.

It’s early in its lifespan (at least we can hope for many more good works on this effort). But today when
I took Xecure’s nice deb package and installed it on antiX 19.2 ‘runit’, I checked resource usage and noticed
memory utilization was indeed pretty good. But as I was running htop to review resources, I noticed the CPU
utilization bars moving around. After reading a few simple Yahoo Mail messages, I opened a tab and came into
the antiX forum to check notes and also comment on Badwolf. At that point, all seemed well. But then I started
hearing my fan ramp up, so I checked htop again, still noticing low memory utilization, but then I noticed the
very high CPU utilization on all four processors.

I decided to exit Badwolf to see if it was the culprit, and shortly afterward, CPU utilization relaxed to near
zero on all four processors, the fan quieted down and the system went back to normal.

I came back with Vivaldi and overall performance is back to normal. Vivaldi is using more memory than Badwolf
by a significant amount, but system performance is excellent. Considering that I have 8 GB of available memory
and even with a moderately active browser running, I’m hovering around 1 GB memory consumption; not great but
not a problem on this particular system.

As anticapitalista has previously mentioned, we have an older Palemoon 32-bit instance available for those really
old computers that don’t have the ability to use the features of the newer browsers.

Otherwise I have found several of the browsers to be good, but Vivaldi has been growing on me recently with good,
responsive performance. Like anything else, with different processors, different computing needs, different
interests, our experiences with browsers and other tools vary with the usage and experience. YMMV – Your Mileage
May Vary – is the common acronym for such variation in our interests. I’m quite happy that we have so many fine
options and choices available, and I certainly hope that this latest Badwolf Web browser finds the right spot
between memory efficiency and appropriate usage of other system resources. It’s a good start, but it’s also clear
that it still needs a lot of work. For those of us who are interested, let’s try to be helpful.

I’ll look up the resources and try to provide some constructive feedback.

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Brian Masinick

[Member ex_Koo]

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@Xecure

Thanks for your work with this your the first to build a .deb install that works.

I install it yesterday as per make / sudo make install way.

I can play youtube videos with sound I only use JS mode youtube locks up only if I change, say from 720 to 1080 or go from normal to theater mode and if I pause, the video stops but the sound still plays for a few seconds.

Some how I have the adblocker working today but not yesterday no idea why.

At the moment badwolf is just a play thing and I will remove the source version and use your .deb version.

This was sent from BadWolf and remember..Sorry, I do not value($$$) your privacy. :^)

[Member seaken64]

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Thank you Xecure for helping out with a .deb. That will make it easier for a lot of us to try out the Badwolf browser.

Seaken64

[Member seaken64]

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ModdIt wrote:

The person who wrote the post happens to be very intelligent but among other deficits dyslectic.
not his best language. And is writing in english.
That presents further difficulty for many users of both this and other forums who are frightened
of being critisized for lack of clarity or spelling mistakes.

FYI
dyslexic children have psychological manifestations, including anxiety, depression, and attention deficit.

Meant no offense. And I don’t question your intelligence. And criticism does not need to be feared. Only point was that we need to say and spell what we mean or the wrong message gets across. If we write it wrong we need to correct it as soon as we can. We’re writing for the record and those who come behind us will appreciate our care.

That’s all. I will retreat and stay quiet. I apologize if I brought offense.

Seaken64

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

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@ModdIt:
Please feel free to contribute whatever you are comfortable sharing.

This browser is certainly a significant contribution to the forum.

Your efforts (and also thanks to Xecure for building a.deb package) are appreciated very much.

This is how free software and sharing benefits others. Thank you for your contributions!

• This reply was modified 2 years, 8 months ago by Brian Masinick.

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Brian Masinick

[Member ModdIt]

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No worries all , @seaken64 and masinick, we understand your side too, problem is the distress when a person does his
or her best to communicate with others who have a different normal and is not just asked to please explain in some more detail.

We think at times a pm might help to keep threads cleaner, we could then just edit the problem post.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 8 months ago by ModdIt.
• This reply was modified 2 years, 8 months ago by ModdIt.
• This reply was modified 2 years, 8 months ago by Brian Masinick.

[Member ModdIt]

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Thanks xsecure, we really appreciate your building of a deb. Be nice to see the changes you made to get a build, maybe with the learning that provides we can one day follow in your footsteps.

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

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ModdIt wrote:

No worries all , @seaken 64 and masinik, we understand your side too, problem is the distress when a person does his
or her best to communicate with others who have a different normal and is not just asked to please explain in some more detail.

We think at times a pm might help to keep threads cleaner, we could then just edit the problem post.

I definitely appreciate the fact that in our user community there are people with a wide range of interests and skills. In addition to this, we are a worldwide community and we speak in a variety of native languages and use different ways to explain things. Tolerance and patience is necessary to accommodate everyone.

I help to moderate the forum and there are a few of us also helping. Some of us like me are retired professional software engineers, others are simply volunteers; that explains why there is very little time to do organization and editing. Like you, we simply have an interest. Even our leaders have additional responsibility in other jobs.

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Brian Masinick

[Member Xecure]

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Thanks, guys. Good to know this is useful to someone.
It took a bit longer to clean all my unwanted modifications (lots of testing before I got it right). It includes all original source (no modifications there except for MakeFile and README.md, which was updated to include .deb building instructions).
The link to the source: https://gitlab.com/nXecure/badwolf

Instructions:

Debian Packaging
This source has been modified for easy .deb package building.
Building has been tested on a Debian buster distro (antiX 19.2.1 base) and it seems to work.
Simple instructions below for personal use.

0. Download source
Download this source and unpack it (if not already) to a separate folder with easy access.
Example: unpack to ~/badwolf/ folder.

1. Install dependencies
Badwolf build dependencies: libsoup2.4-dev libwebkit2gtk-4.0-dev
Packaging prerequisites: build-essential fakeroot devscripts debhelper
One-liner:
sudo apt install build-essential fakeroot devscripts debhelper libsoup2.4-dev libwebkit2gtk-4.0-dev

2. Building .deb package
The easy way is navigating to the folder that contains the source, open a terminal there, and run:
debuild -b -uc -us
It will build the .deb package for your architecture and save it “outside” the folder (one level above).
Example: for 64 bits, it will create a badwolf_1.0.2-1_amd64.deb file
If you want to build for other architectures you will need to use other tools like sbuild or pbuilder, or use a virtual machine running your desired architecture.

3. Install
You can install using gdebi, your software-center program or from terminal. Example below:
sudo apt install /path/to/badwolf_1.0.2-1_amd64.deb

My experience:
I first tried to use pbuilder so it would be easy to package for all architectures on the same machine, but I couldn’t get to initialize the chroot for buster (a problem with me missing a public key). I didn’t know how to solve it, so I stopped.
Then I tried sbuild, and after some work I finally got to create a chroot configuration for buster amd64. I built the amd64 .deb with it. I tried setting up qemu with sbuild to create a chroot for i386 but I gave up after many tries. It was too challenging for me, so I started a 32 bits VM with antiX 19 and build the i386 .deb there.
Then I tried to add a gpg key but I gave up. I had a personal package built and that was enough for me.

The instructions on the readme file (the ones above) are for easy building, without any chroot configurations, so that anyone can follow them.
Once built, you can remove/purge all building dependencies (and autoremove) to clear your system from dev fat.

As I explained before, this was a personal project. I wanted to learn how to build .deb files from source and at the same time try to do something useful. This is not a professional work, and it only is a starting point for anyone trying to build an “official” .deb file. I am sure that there is still a LOT of work needed to get a proper .deb file and fix many of the problems I have created.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 8 months ago by Xecure. Reason: trying to fix format
• This reply was modified 2 years, 8 months ago by Xecure. Reason: giving up on formating

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

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