Safari on Linux
Apple would also like to boost their browser market share. Just last year Firefox made millions of dollars on user Google searches. If you are running Firefox right now, you’ll notice that in the upper right hand corner, there is a search box. Most of us thought that this was out of convenience for the user, but in reality, the Firefox team gets a cut every time a user does a search through their browser. It is no wonder that the default homepage in Firefox is a Google search box.
Firefox is offered across all 3 platforms, what is stopping Safari? There are plenty of Linux users out there that use the Google search box in Firefox, and I believe that apple could make millions of dollars by releasing Safari for Linux.
But wait, does Safari already work for Linux? I installed Ubuntu and the latest version of wine to find out.
The install process works like a charm:
However at the end of the process, it reports errors:
So how difficult would it be to get Safari running in Linux? Not very difficult at all. Apple released the base of it’s Safari browser to the open source community. It’s called webkit. I actually had the chance to install webkit, and create my very own browser with it. It’s very straight forward, and I’m pretty sure a smart Jr. high student could figure it out. Check out some of the simple programs you can make with webkit in Linux:
As shown above, Web kit has been ported to the QT environment. Making it easier than ever to create your own web browser in Linux, using the very same foundation that Apple uses for Safari. All of the performance comparisons that they show on their beta page apply not only to Windows / Mac Safari, but to the browsers made from Webkit in Linux as well.
The KDE project is taking advantage of this open source movement, and have already released the unity project. Which is a combination of Webkit and Konqueror (the file / web browser for KDE).
Clearly it’s possible to use Safari’s engine in Linux. Many open source companies have already jumped on that band wagon. Heck, even I programmed my very own webkit based browser. Apple only stands to gain capital by releasing the full fledged Safari for Linux through the use of the Google search bar.
If you have any information regarding Safari in Linux or if you have a webkit success story, please post in on our forums in the general discussion area. To access the forums, simply click on the forums button at the top of this screen, or click here.
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http://gtk-webcore.sourceforge.net/ - This is a port of webkit that I have used for testing for quite a while.
You state that WebKit has been open-sourced, ported to QT, etc. but make no mention that the source code has to be released because it began as the KHTML engine from Konqueror, which is licensed under the LGPL. You also go on to say “Clearly it’s possible to use Safari’s engine in Linux. Many open source companies have already jumped on that band wagon.” while they were already on said bandwagon, as the engine was available on Linux years before Apple began the Safari project.
Also, Apple isn’t quite the saint everyone seems to make them out to be. See articles such as this: http://www.kdedevelopers.org/node/1001
I appreciate the article, but I think some mention of the origins of WebKit and Safari being from the KDE community rather than Apple is integral to your description of the engine.
Fair enough John,
I’d be happy to write an article about it. I’ll check out that link you posted above.
Let it be known that Webkit originated from the KDE community and not Apple.
You might want to post a bigger image of the screenshot of WebKit on Linux. Hint: you’ve taken your image from here, and if you click on the image there you come to a larger version.
However, please, if you state you brought WebKit up and running on Linux, please show it with your screenshots, not with mine. Or be fair and link back to give credit.
Anyway, as John has pointed out, you quite missed the point around WebKit: WebKit is an engine, derived/forked from the KHMTL engine which is again the engine behind the browsing part of konqueror. Compare it with Firefox: Firefox is the browser - the engine is Gecko.
And WebKit is not Safari - just like Gecko is not Firefox. Therefore, Safari is not Open Source. But the most important component, WebKit, is. Again, this is because it comes from KDE’s KHTML.
And, btw., most of the KDE developers take part in the development of WebKit already.
hey liquidat,
Thank you for the image, it was much easier to use it, than to compile my program again on my other computer. I think it’s a great representation of what a simple gui using webkit should look like. I will link back on the screenshot, to tell you the truth, I thought I had when I added the link. I’ll fix that right now
In regards to your comments about webkit, I’m not sure if I have missed the point, as I stated above webkit “using the very same foundation that Apple uses for Safari.” I understand it is not the safari browser, but the engine or foundation. I’ve programmed using the kit, and I’m not quite sure what led you to believe otherwise. If you’d like, I can edit my site. Just let me know.
Cheers
Argh, you’re right, you didn’t miss the point, I simply misunderstood you. It was my fault, it was maybe just too late for me. Sorry about that!
Thanks for the link btw
Its all about market share. The more people they can get using apple software on windows the more windows users they feel they can switch to mac. I really wish Jobs would decide to start porting some real apps over! If i could get Final Cut for Linux I would never look at another OS again!
That’s a great idea Richard, but that’s exactly why you won’t see Final Cut for Linux. They might sell one more copy of Final Cut, but one less copy of osX, more comments like yours and we’ll likely never see Safari on linux either.
this is so stupid that means that linux users are gonna b stuk with netscape and fire fox…
What do you mean by that, there’s Opera for Linux, IMO, it blows away any browser at the market at the moment.
sometimes as a web developer I have to using different browsers, to test pages on other browsers, I like it because of open source community and not for the company owners, it helps to web to be more independent and more powerful.
Thanks to all of my friends in Open Source Community !!!!
>>stuck with netscape and fire fox…
SQUEEZE me???
1) Firefox is by far and away the most robust and compliant browser on any platform you’d like to throw it at (Just try learning any web technology standard… run it it in Firefox… feel happy that you’ve mastered it… then spend a day figuring out why IE cant handle buttons, javascript, forms yada yada yada properly - or at all.
2) Opera is a stonking web browser (especially it’s mobile java port which blows other mobile ports out of the water) And the linux version oddly still renders old java applets that other browsers have forgotten about.
3) I currently have 6 browsers running on my linux system, nay tell a lie, I have two more console based ones too.
Not being funny, but I really don’t feel stuck!
@Felix
Whats wrong with Firefox anyway? And if you do want some other, use Koqueror.
Or make your own browser with the web-kit
Just wanted to let you know that Safari can, indeed, work under Wine in Linux.
I tried and installed it just now — if you choose not to install Bonjour or the Apple Software Update utility, it installs and works fine.
The browser itself looks a bit ugly, but works well nonetheless. It identifies itself as Windows 2000 (NT 5.0, whereas XP is 5.1), which I think was a tad weird.
Ben
If i were the Free Software Foundation I would have the right mind to forbid the selling of products based on gpl code. Companies are making millions off the open source projects and they don’t even sponsor them. It’s not just a matter of safari here. The problem is the big software companies which use such marketing strategies.
Just a little list of examples:
msdos is in my opinion a ripoff of pcdos introduced to IBM by we know who’s mother who happened to be a bigshot there.
They cloned netscape only to make it incompatible with the original product and take their market share.
They took word perfect ideas and put it in office.
Vista is clearly original and far superior to compiz and such others. They did not force me to use vista when buying this laptop :). Just because i don’t have proper wifi and soud drivers cause the producer won’t code them for linux/bsd/winXP.
And yes apple is not a white angel either but i think they are forced to resort sometimes to such measures.
I say let’s try at least to do something about ie7 and other such products. Ie7 hasn’t got one bug. Bugs are accidental. I have spent too many hours and upset my employer too many times trying to get ie7/ie6 to behave. I say it is perfectly legal to add banners on sites such as ie7 is not the best choice as it is not standards compliant. Even tkhtml alpha works better then it.
Oh and in safari js engine there are such incompatibility tries as well whereas in konqueror there are none.
And i say i offer to make a site where ppl can post info on hardware producers that won’t write drivers for other os’es but vista.
Cheers! Andrei
Wanted to point out something. iPhone. That is the reason for Safari for Windows. Develop apps for the iPhone from the massive Windows based developer pool. There you have it.
@andre:
It’s a well documented fact that PC-DOS began as the IBM rebranding of MS-DOS. MS-DOS itself began life as a “hacking project” by a single programmer armed with a CP/M reference manual. MS bought it from the company that produced it and changed the name from “QD-DOS” (the “Quick&Dirty DOS”) to MS-DOS.
Internet Explorer started as a rebranding of the NCSA Mosaic source that had been licensed to them by Spyglass, Inc. Netscape Navigator was started by a group of people that had worked on Mosaic and was written from scratch by them.
The interchange of ideas between Word and WordPerfect are easy to see, however. But I wouldn’t call that interchange theft - the ideas were all things that both customer bases were asking for. If MS hadn’t implemented them, they would have lost market share and money - potentially costing people their jobs.
And the same holds true for Vista’s features. Not only were they things people had been asking for back in the Windows 2000 days, competitors were implementing them. And those competitors were (and are) poised to “steal” market-share from MS. Loss of market-share equals loss of money. Loss of money means people lose their jobs.
Now, rather than just ranting in the typical anti-MS attitude of the “Linux Fanboy”, try using your brain and actually doing some research. Mis-informed ranting and frothing-at-the-mouth like yours is one of the biggest points against Linux these days. The technically inclined that are looking at Linux see these rants and don’t bother switching - or they switch to a *BSD or Mac. (basically the same thing these days, I know…)
And before you go screaming about me being an MS mouthpiece, I’ve been using Linux almost exclusively for a decade. I’ve got my family all using Linux (when they can) and have convinced a large number of friends to switch - including one 60 year old Ham.