Badwolf- a recent, standards compliant minimal Web Browser

[Member rayluo]

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Xecure wrote:

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.

……

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

Thanks Xecure! You already helped a lot. Without your effort, I might not bother to install and try out Badwolf at all.

And also thanks for your hint on “why apt install is better than Gdebi”. Is this their general behavior difference? I’ve long been wondering why some of the apps I installed using GUI do not come with its entry in menu. Is this the reason?

Xecure wrote:

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

Badwolf is believed to have lower memory consumption. In order to really have an apple-to-apple comparison of Badwolf VS Firefox ESR (or even VS Chromium, for that matter), the data would need to be with opening same web page(s), using exact same hardware specs, but using different browsers.

I did not go that far, though, because Badwolf is promising but not yet mature enough for my everyday usage. See below.

Xecure wrote:

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)

[Forum Admin anticapitalista]

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I uploaded badwolf debs (64 and 32 bit) to the antiX repos.
Xsecure did all the hard work; I just rebuilt them for the different architectures

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

antiX with runit - leaner and meaner.

[Member ex_Koo]

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Thanks anticapitalista & Xecure

Installed badwolf_1.0.2-1.0antix1_amd64.deb

Youtube and sound working fine plus blocker working..

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

[Anonymous]

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@rayluo
gdebi, vs dpkg -i, vs apt install should yield the same result for any given package.
You can (you probably must, to be certain) answer this for yourself by uninstalling a given “was installed via gdebi and icon (or menu entry) is missing” then reinstall same via one of the equivalent commands. If you discover a case where “aha, now its icon and/or menu entry is shown” then we can collectively attempt to track down “why so”.

[Anonymous]

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YahooMail not working? Yeah, the webkit devs are aware of this, as noted here:
https://trac.webkit.org/browser/webkit/trunk/Source/WebCore/page/Quirks.cpp
but, because badwolf trims the fat toward minimalistic, it declares a build configuration parameter to omit “developer features”
https://webkit.org/web-inspector/device-settings/#disable-toggles
which may be required in order to toggle/enable “quirks mode” (and other amenities, like “editable, custom user-agent string”).
MAY ~~ as in, I am speculating; I have not thoroughly researched this.

javascript and images are off by default for every new tab

Someone should research / inquire whether all webkit-based browsers check for a settings.ini (or somesuch) file at startup.
Possibly, the settings which govern these “features cherished by some users but unwanted by other users” can be overridden by placing a settings.ini containing preferred values for various settings.

[Anonymous]

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Even if webkit does not consider a settings.ini file, if present, badwolf (same is true for midori, surf, uzbl, eolie, xombrero, otterBrowser, et al webkit-powered browsers) can declare values for myriad webkit settings.

ref: https://webkitgtk.org/reference/webkit2gtk/stable/WebKitSettings.html

As is, in its current state badwolf declares only a few of these.
For all the non-declared settings, the implicit/default webkit value is applied.
ref: https://gitlab.com/lanodan/badWolf/-/blob/develop/config.h

FWIW, with an eye toward privacy, beginning with “enable-hyperlink-auditing” I would choose to override many of the implicit default values.

[Anonymous]

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Some websites (like reddit.com) don’t work properly with JS ON (at least for me on my testing machine).

I haven’t checked, what user-agent string does badwolf emit?
Possibly, spoofing a different user-agent would coerce reddit to send an alternate css, or enable browser-sniffing scripts within its pages to fallback to using non-quirky routines. Without developer tools enabled (or javascript console at least) it’s a stab in the dark guessing what’s awry.

On some websites, badwolf is a bit slow
Cannot play audio or video

The badwolf author is developing against ArchLinux. He may be unaware of, and unable to reproduce, problems specific to our use of {debian-stable} versions of webkit2gtk, webkit-core, gst-plugins-bad and other libraries in the stack. Also, is pulseaudio required (but, as an undelcared dependency, its absence does preclude package installation)?

[Member ModdIt]

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Hi all, @skidoo, glad you joined in.

Without developer tools enabled (or javascript console at least) it’s a stab in the dark guessing what’s awry.

F12 shows the browser script inspector, if that is your meaning.

Using an internet service to read user agent returned.

Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/605.1.15 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/13.0 Safari/605.1.15

koo posted in this thread:
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.

Pretty sure he uses an asound,conf in home and alsa. He told me how to fix sound a long time back.
As he also says he compiled himself maybe he made some config changes.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 8 months ago by ModdIt. Reason: clarity

[Member Xecure]

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anticapitalista wrote:

I uploaded badwolf debs (64 and 32 bit) to the antiX repos.
Xsecure did all the hard work; I just rebuilt them for the different architectures

I will check them out when I have time today. I want to learn how to properly format/configure a source file for “proper” debian package building.
I may be asking too much, but could you mention what tools do you use for packiging for multiple architectures? I tried pbuilder but wasn’t able to set chroot configuration, and sbuild only let me build for current hardware. Is there a better tool you recommend?
Thanks for your time.

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

[Forum Admin anticapitalista]

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@Xecure – I use debhelper in frugal installs of antiX.
I used to use pbuilder, which mostly worked well, but I did have some issues at times.

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

antiX with runit - leaner and meaner.

[Member PPC]

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Thanks to Xecure’s efforts, I installed the 64 bits deb file and it runs fine. Video does play in my OS!
Other html5 streaming video plays fine, including video controls. Youtube video plays, but as soon as I click anything there, even the skip add button, it freezes…
Even the first version I compiled and tried out ran gmail fine…
So video does play, I have no clue why, other users can’t replicate that… Maybe it’s something to do with having previouly manually installed the dependencies?
Other than that I find no flaws in this browser- it’s light, seems safe, and it allows me to run almost any web service I want (excpetions: youtube, and of course, any streaming video that requires DRM, like Netflix, HBO, etc)
It’s a pretty decent alternative browser, specially for users with very low system resources- you can use it to access webmail, even on systems with 500MB of RAM or less… (running one tab at a time, of course).

Tips: if you miss having favourites: just create a favourites.txt file on your home, and copy and paste the web links using it- not very handy but it’s a perfectly doable work around… As for a start page, you can edit the .desktop file to run any page you want (like this “badwolf duckduckgo.com”)
You can use the print button to save the page’s content as a pdf file…

P.

[Member Xecure]

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@anticapitalista
Thanks for the info. I have much to learn on building .deb packages.
And thank you very much for the official package. Many will enjoy and apreciate it being in the official antiX repo.

@PPC
I wasn’t able to play any youtube video, and they don’t autoplay for me. I enter the youtube link with JS on, hit the play button, and the tab freezes.
Do you perhaps have other webkit based browsers (like surf or midori) installed? Maybe they installed other packages that are necessary for playing video/audio on webkit browsers (or maybe I have some package missing from vanilla antiX installation; I will have to check).

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

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

[Forum Admin anticapitalista]

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The youtube video embedded in the main antiX site plays in badwolf.
Does it work for you?

https://antixlinux.com/

This also works for me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUicofUy3Bk&

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

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

antiX with runit - leaner and meaner.

[Member Xecure]

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You are all right. I tested on a vanilla live-USB on real hardware and it works without any other extra package. I had tested on my main computer, which has lots of dev packages and too much bloat installed (I asumed it worked because of all the other extra packages that video worked) and I wanted to test in on vanilla antiX, but only did so on a few VMs. Now I know it only fails on my VMs.

Sorry for the false alarm. I must have configured something wrong on my end. Video playback works without any problem on real hardware.

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

[Member Xecure]

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Anonymous wrote:

gdebi, vs dpkg -i, vs apt install should yield the same result for any given package.

The only difference is that antiX has set up a hook for apt to update slim and the different WM menus (see /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/ 99-update-menus and 99-update-slim), which gdebi or dpkg don’t have (or maybe I am wrong). That is why I recommend the apt approach.

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

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