K-Meleon projects
A safe and efficient web browser is an essential component of any respectable portable software kit. The K-Meleon (a pun on "chameleon") browser fulfils such a role admirably. This page from Apps To Go describes the projects developed by Douglas McFadzean to enhance the K-Meleon browser, particularly its portability. K-Meleon is secure, extremely fast, highly customizable, relatively compact and runs on 32-bit Windows platforms. It is based on the Gecko layout engine, the same rendering engine used for Mozilla browser derivatives such as Firefox and SeaMonkey, and runs completely independently of Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser. K-Meleon is free, open source software released under the GNU General Public License. See the links below for more detailed information about the K-Meleon project and the further resources which are available.
You will find that K-Meleon loads significantly faster and is lighter on system resources than the better-known Firefox browser, while offering more immediately useful features for browsing. Portable K-Meleon is enabled by the projects shown below, which are ideal for running K-Meleon efficiently and safely from a USB flash drive or miniature hard drive, leaving no traces on the host computer.
| Project | K-Meleon versions | Portability | Profiles | |||
| Pocket K-Meleon | 1.x | any drive or folder | single | |||
| KMprof | 1.x | anywhere | multiple | |||
| KMVX | 1.0x, 0.9x, 0.8x | any drive | multiple | |||
| KMV | 0.9x, 0.8x | any drive, default profile any folder | multiple | |||
| KM@ | 0.9x, 0.8x | any drive or folder | special multiple |
Are you a C++ (MFC) programmer who would like the challenge of contributing to the development of K-Meleon? Opportunities are described in detail in the CodeGuru and Developer Fusion forums.
Note from Douglas: For some time now most of my development effort has been spent on Linux, rather than Windows, systems. Modern Linux desktop systems, including Arch Linux and MEPIS, my distributions of choice, have improved to the point where the excesses of Windows Vista hold little attraction for the future. Consequently, my work on K-Meleon is very much reduced, and though this webpage will continue, it may not be updated often and new versions of programs are doubtful.
Survey
Pocket K-Meleon
Pocket K-Meleon is a fully portable and compressed packaging of K-Meleon 1.x. No special launcher is needed and only a single profile is used. (If you want multiple profiles, use KMprof to launch Pocket K-Meleon.) By default, the size of the browser disk cache and length of history have been set to zero to extend the life of USB flash drives.
To install, simply unzip all folders and files to a folder of your choice on any read/write drive. Then run the browser via K-Meleon.exe.
Download Pocket K-Meleon 1.13 Tiny (in English, 5.5 MB 7zip archive). Please note that this version is produced and supported by Alain Aupeix from whom versions in other languages may also be downloaded.
Possible issue: If you encounter an error like "The application failed to initialize properly (0xc000000#)" running this version under Windows XP, please try Alain's version 1.13 Fast or version 1.02 (see below) instead.
Download Pocket K-Meleon 1.02 (in English, 5.5 MB zip archive; see full list of changes).
Note: K-Meleon 1.x needs to access some DLLs (such as msvcp71.dll and msvcr71.dll) which older versions of Windows do not install by default. However, these DLLs need only be present in the K-Meleon program folder for K-Meleon to run. DLL files can be searched for at www.dll-files.com or www.dlldump.com.
KMprof
KMprof runs K-Meleon 1.0 with multiple profiles which may be stored anywhere, including network locations. It is designed to be used only in conjunction with the portable kprofile.dll implemented instead of profile.dll in the K-Meleon components folder. Ideal for using with Pocket K-Meleon to provide the most comprehensive, fully portable K-Meleon solution to date.
For help information on installation and options, run the command KMprof /? from the K-Meleon program folder.
Download the latest graphical version of KMprof (version 2.01, 128 kB zip archive; includes compressed kprofile.dll).
Download the latest console version of KMprof (version 1.00, 28 kB zip archive; includes compressed kprofile.dll).
KMVX
Portable K-Meleon for all versions! KMVX (or K-Meleon On The Move Extended) is a launcher for standard installations of K-Meleon which allows K-Meleon to be run more portably and flexibly. KMVX:
- autodetects whether the profile registry is named registry.dat or profiles.dat.
- handles both relative and absolute paths when specifying the location of the profile registry.
- dynamically updates all profile paths in the profile registry with the current drive letter, unless the profile registry resides on a different drive (enables profile storage on a network drive, for example).
- runs the K-Meleon executable with appropriate command line options for the nominated profile.
For help information on installation and options, run the command KMVX /?. The graphical and console versions operate similarly, but some options differ. The downloads also provide information on how to enable portable K-Meleon 1.x using KMVX.
Download the latest graphical version of KMVX (version 2.00, 180 kB zip archive).
Download the latest console version of KMVX (version 1.10, 27 kB zip archive).
KMV
The KMV (or K-Meleon On The Move) program allows you to run K-Meleon 0.8x or 0.9x from a portable read/write drive using the standard K-Meleon profile setup and command line options. When the portable drive gets assigned different drive letters on different computers, KMV automatically updates the paths of all K-Meleon profiles in the profile registry. If the K-Meleon program folder is changed, KMV prompts you to confirm that you want to run K-Meleon from a new profile registry which will contain only the default profile; other profiles will be orphaned regretably.
The accompanying KMVsetup program enables you 1) to clone an existing K-Meleon installation from (say) a hard drive to a portable drive, and/or 2) to install the KMV program to a K-Meleon folder on a portable drive and ensure paths in key configuration preferences are relative to the program folder. For help, run the commands KMV /? and KMVsetup /?
Download the latest K-Meleon On The Move (version 2.10, 149 kB zip archive).
KM@
The KM@ setup allows you to run K-Meleon 0.8x or 0.9x from any folder on any read/write drive for maximum portability. To achieve this it requires a special way of storing K-Meleon profiles. The KM@ program is used to start K-Meleon, and the KM@convert program is used initially to convert an existing K-Meleon installation (or a copy of one) to the KM@ setup. (And if you need to, you can easily revert to your original standard K-Meleon profile setup.) For help, run the commands KM@ /? and KM@convert /?
(Note: The KM@ and KM@convert programs superseded the old kmAnywhere and kmAnywhereConvert programs.)
Download the the latest KM@ and KM@convert programs and associated files (version 1.20, 144 kB zip archive).
KM@X
Please note this is an experimental release only
Portable K-Meleon 0.8x or 0.9x for power users only! KM@X allows the paths to K-Meleon's profile registry and a profile folder to be specified precisely, before loading the browser itself in a manner similar to KM@. For a little extra work, this allows the greatest flexibility in configuring older versions of K-Meleon.
Please run the command KM@X /? for installation and other help information.
Download the latest KM@X (version 1.00b3, 25 kB zip archive).
KMigrate
Helps to migrate a standard K-Meleon 0.8x or 0.9x installation (default profile only) to a different folder and/or drive. Additional profiles can be created after the migration. For a portable drive, use the KMVsetup program after the migration is complete to install the KMV program to run K-Meleon (see above). For help, run the command KMigrate /?
Download the latest KMigrate (version 1.20, 27 kB zip archive).
Source code
Programs in the projects are compiled and linked using either the lcc-win32 C compiler or the AutoIt v3 scripting language. Please report any bugs or improvements concerning the programs.
Download source code for all stable projects (35 kB zip archive).
K-Meleon development principles
- K-Meleon is a web browser based on the Gecko rendering engine and its upgrades.
- K-Meleon runs under the widest practicable range of Windows operating systems and supported hardware.
- K-Meleon requires no more system resources and storage space than absolutely necessary.
- K-Meleon is made as easy to install and as portable as possible.
- K-Meleon is made as secure, stable and bug-free as possible.
- Bug fixing takes priority over the introduction of new features.
- New features are added only if there is a compelling need for their presence in a modern browser.
- Adequate user-friendly documentation is provided.
- K-Meleon has sufficient flexibility to be easily customized and extended by those wanting additional features.
- Innovations to improve and develop K-Meleon in accordance with the previous principles are welcomed.
Tips
- Downloading files: If you cannot download directly from a file hosting site, you could try a proxy service such as DaveProxy to access it indirectly instead.
- How to run K-Meleon 0.9 from a local drive, but save its profiles in a network folder.
Links
K-Meleon project home
K-Meleon forums
K-Meleon ResourceLinks
Unofficial K-Meleon versions
Get this K-Meleon advert for your website