Konqueror
Introduction
Konqueror is KDE's general-purpose browser. It can also be installed and run on Linux distributions that do not use KDE (Note: this still requires the kdelib and kdebase packages).
Konqueror's name is something of a pun: First was the Navigator, then the Explorer, and then the Konqueror...
As a web browser, it is a standards-based application that uses the khtml rendering engine (as opposed to gecko for Mozilla). This engine is also used by Apple in their Safari browser. It is also capable of using Mozilla plugins and has AdBlock built into it.
As a file manager, it handles local and remote files, the latter of which it can access via a range of networking protocols such as FTP, SMB (Windows networking), NFS and SSH/SFTP.
Konqueror has a side panel that displays an expandable file directory tree. Clicking on a directory in the tree displays the contents of the directory in the main panel. Directories displayed in the main panel are also expandable, to display subdirectories and files.
Additionally, Konqueror can display almost any kind of content using kparts.
All in all, Konqueror on the web gives a light-weight, integrated, yet complete, browsing experience. One feature worthy of note is the automatic spell checker in forms.
Konqueror contains a great deal of functionality beyond basic web/file browsing.
In Web Browser mode:
- Tools -> Translate Web Page. This option uses Babelfish to translate the text of a webpage between arbitrary languages.
In File Manager Mode:
- Tools -> Open Terminal. This will open a terminal at the bottom of the screen which follows your file navigation (ie: as you change directories, the terminal will 'cd' along with you.
- Tools -> Create Image Gallery. Choose this to create an HTML thumbnail page of all images in the current directory.
- Tools -> Execute Shell Command. This will allow you to run any shell command and show the output in a small window.