Developer(s) | Christophe Thibault, Dorian Boissonnade, et al. |
---|---|
Initial release | August 21, 2000 |
Stable release | 75.1 (September 19, 2015 | )
Preview release | 76.0 RC (May 3, 2016 | )
Repository | sourceforge |
Operating system | Microsoft Windows |
Type |
Web browser Feed reader |
License | GPL |
Website | kmeleon |
K-Meleon is an open-source web browser for Microsoft Windows. Based on the same Gecko layout engine as Mozilla Firefox and SeaMonkey, K-Meleon's design goal is to provide a fast and reliable web browser while providing a highly customizable interface and using system resources efficiently. It is released under the GNU General Public License.
K-Meleon uses the native Windows application programming interface (API) to create its user interface instead of Mozilla's cross-platform XML User Interface Language (XUL) layer, and as a result, is tightly integrated into the look and feel of the Windows desktop. This approach is similar to that of Galeon and Epiphany (for the GNOME desktop), and Camino (for Mac OS X). Omitting XUL makes K-Meleon less resource-intensive than other Gecko-based browsers on Windows.
The first version, K-Meleon 0.1, was originally written by Christophe Thibault and released to the public on August 21, 2000. Dorian Boissonnade eventually took over as the primary developer of the project, and continues to maintain the project to date.
After many major release versions from 0.1 to 0.9.x, K-Meleon 1.0 introduced major modifications. The most notable change was the main K-Meleon code being updated to accommodate the Gecko 1.8.0.x rendering engine, as used in the latest releases of Mozilla Firefox and SeaMonkey. This update to the layout engine brought significant improvements to security and usability, including support for favicons and multi-user environments. Some themes and macros from version 0.9 were still compatible with 1.0, although the macro system was updated.