New Gecko-Based Browser Debuts

A Boston-based group on Monday posted the second post-beta version of a Firefox knock-off browser that promises to start faster and consume fewer PC resources.

The Windows-only K-Meleon 1.01 browser is based on the same Gecko engine as Firefox (and the also-open-source SeaMonkey suite), the product's release notes state. The code base, Mozilla 1.8.0.5, is the same as that used by the most up-to-date Firefox, version 1.5.0.6.

K-Meleon 1.01 includes tabs -- though it dubs them "layers" -- a find bar, auto-complete for URLs typed in the address bar, and new preference dialogs.

Although its developers tout K-Meleon as "an extremely fast, customizable, lightweight browser," in TechWeb's tests, it consumed slightly more memory than Firefox 2.0 Beta 1 when both were loaded with a three-page group of sites (approximately 37MB compared to Firefox's 33MB). It did, however, start faster than Firefox.

The browser has been a work-in-progress for 6 years, and only existed beta last month. The update issued Monday to 1.01 was the browser's first upgrade.K-Meleon runs on Windows 2000, XP, and Server 2003, but should also work on older editions including Windows 98, and NT 4.0 with updated Microsoft libraries, said its developers. It can be downloaded from several different mirror sites available via this SourceForge page.