Apart from the usual top dogs, Firefox and Chromium, an overwhelming number of web browsers exist for Linux. Some of them satisfy rather unusual needs, such as pure text representation of sites, which is what Lynx and ELinks are all about. If you find Firefox too bloated and Chrome too intrusive, however, give the newcomer QupZilla a whirl.

Although the QupZilla project is a mere three years old, binary packages are already available in many software repositories. You can install the browser with a few clicks in Mageia, Fedora, openSUSE, Debian, Ubuntu, and Arch Linux from the official software repository. The current version is available precompiled on the project website.

After a successful install, you can launch the browser from the HUD. QupZilla starts up quickly and leads you to an unobtrusive startup screen reminiscent of Firefox (Figure 1); however, it relies on the DuckDuckGo search engine instead of NSA-friendly Google.

Figure 1: QupZilla opens up with its default settings.

The enormous speed of the browser derives from the Webkit rendering engine that allows fluid surfing even on less powerful hardware and eliminates stuttering when scrolling.

QupZilla's external look and user experience are closely modeled on Firefox, and it fits seamlessly into any existing work surface because of its Qt library base. Newcomers require no further training (Figure 1).

QupZilla integrates and activates the Adblock ad blocker that needs to be configured in a somewhat unusual dialog. QupZilla then sets the browser into a private mode, when a new window opens while the original one remains. QupZilla also uses the well-known tile (here called Speed Dial ) view of Opera and Firefox that presents the recently visited web pages as miniatures on new tabs so that you can quickly visit them again.

Settings

Despite its similarities to Firefox, QupZilla has a settings menu that deviate from Firefox quite a bit. You get to the settings from the horizontal menu bar with Edit | Preferences . A new window appears with several options in the left pane to customize your browser.

In the larger pane on the right, you can actualize the settings. QupZilla then partially groups the setting options in the right pane into horizontally arranged tabs (Figure 2).

Figure 2: You can configure your browser in one clearly arranged window.

The basic browser settings – such as home page, web configuration with JavaScript, cache size, download and password management, and privacy options – are made in the various subgroups of the settings menu. The options provided are similar to those in Firefox.

In QupZilla, the subgroup Appearance includes a selection of five themes with which to customize the browser. To activate one of them, click it and confirm your choice with the Use button at the lower right. QupZilla then changes the browser appearance immediately without a restart.

With the Other preferences, you can freely configure the icon and menu bars so that the browser can be in more of a kiosk mode with limited controls visible. Additionally, you can set the tab and address bar configurations just as freely from the Tab submenu.

Content

QupZilla allows you to hide certain resource-demanding content, especially for slower computers, such as Flash animation. In the Preferences | Other window, go to the WebKit Plug-ins tab and enable the Allow Quick to Flash , where you can define a whitelist of unblocked Flash addresses.

Similar to Firefox's widely used Flashblock add-on, QupZilla then shows only Flash videos in a frame from websites with the Flash icon. To view the contents, click the icon in the frame and only then will QupZilla load the data.

If QupZilla happens to crash during a session, it tries to recover all the previous tabs. You'll get a message with a list of recently opened tabs, and you can choose the ones you want to recover by entering a check mark.

Under a Pseudonym

If you notice that what QupZilla displays on a website varies from what you have seen using another browser, you can change the browser's user agent header. A single user agent header ensures a uniform content display for the web server. In the Preferences | Other menu, click the User Agent Manager tab.

In the ensuing window, add a check mark in front of Change Global Settings option. You open a list of predefined headers when you click the small triangle icon. From this list, you can choose a matching user agent parameter that the browser then sends to visited web pages (Figure 3).

Figure 3: Using a single user agent header ensures uniform content display.

To give separate web pages different user agent strings when calling them up, combine the web page and user agents in the entry field underneath, which ensures optimal viewing results. You only need to activate the Use different user agents for certain websites option with a check mark and enter the desired combination.

Bookmarks

QupZilla handles bookmarks for speeding up access to frequently visited web pages. You can also import previously defined bookmarks from Firefox. From the Bookmarks | Edit bookmarks menu, click the Import Bookmarks link on the lower right. In the ensuing window, choose whether you want to import the bookmarks from Opera, Firefox, Chromium, or an HTML file.

Next, enter the path to the original bookmark file, after which QupZilla pops up a notification depending on the browser. If you get an error message on an import that points to problems with reading in the bookmark database, it generally means that the original browser is still running and locking the database.

After successfully integrating the bookmarks, they now appear as usual in the Bookmarks menu (Figure 4).

Figure 4: You can import bookmarks from other browsers.

Security

Unlike Firefox, QupZilla has not yet reached a level of security that covers all conceivable areas. But, thanks to its modular design with expansion capabilities via plugins, it's probably only a matter of time that currently open, albeit unknown, vulnerabilities get patched.

QupZilla blocks advertising by default and provides powerful certificate and cookie management. It also sends do-not-track headers on request. Still missing are extensions for blocking web bugs and deleting so-called "local shared object" (LSO) cookies. Adobe Flashplayer stores user-specific data in such Flash cookies for later retrieval by a restored website or application.

To block undesired content from the outset, QupZilla provides the option of an upstream proxy server. The corresponding dialog is in Preferences | Browsing | Proxy Configuration so that you can set the proxy service such as you would, for example, in Firefox.

Conclusion

QupZilla is a promising newcomer to join the ranks of the established web browsers. Externally similar to Firefox, it is stable, standards-compliant, and also very fast.

Thanks to its modular design, QupZilla can be upgraded with enhancements. Only in terms of safety is there some catching up to do. Extensions for blocking web bugs and removing Flash cookies are still missing.