SliTaz Web Browser

TazWeb is a radically simple and very light web browser providing a single window with a small toolbar and a contextual menu, but without any menubar or tabs. Navigation is done with a right click anywhere in the browser window or from the toolbar. It can also handle bookmarks in a personal home page, provide a source view mode and zoom and printing functions. TazWeb lets you quickly search the web through a search entry and Google. This documentation file is always accessible from the right-hand side of the toolbar.

The browser fast, very fast and small, the binary is about 24 Kb and uses the Webkit engine for page rendering and therefore supports all the latest web standards as well as Javascript and Flash animations or videos.

History

The SliTaz Web Browser was created for the needs of TazPanel which is the SliTaz administration and packages manager panel and made with the latest technologies such as xHTML 5 and CSS 3 for the graphical user interface. The content is powered by CGI scripts and the preferred web server is Busybox httpd.

Security and personal data

TazWeb is a very secure browser and doesn't store any personal data, therefore no sessions, cookies or history files are created. So your websites settings will not be saved and you will have to enter login information each time you restart the browser (by the way websites can track you with cookies!).

Kiosk mode

TazWeb provides a Kiosk mode useful for computers in public areas. The Kiosk mode will start TazWeb in fullscreen. It will not allow users to bookmark a page, download anything or open a URL in a new window. 

$ tazweb --kiosk

Home Page and bookmarks

TazWeb handles a home page located in your system wide standard configuration directory, the path is: /usr/share/webhome.

The bookmark.txt file is a simple text document with, by default, a list of links. You can edit this file with you favorite editor and add bookmark entries or use the Tazweb right click menu. At first start TazWeb will create and copy your personal bookmarks file to your config directory.

Bookmarks can be handled by TazWeb and you can easily add a bookmark to your home page with the right click menu item: "Add a bookmark". Tazweb also lets you manage your bookmarks via a nifty CGI web interface.

Note: You will find the default bookmarks.txt in: /usr/share/tazweb or you can get an original copy with the following command in a terminal: 

$ cp -f /usr/share/tazweb/bookmarks.html $HOME/.config/tazweb

Start page and url in argument

The default start page has been defined in the source code and can't be changed and is the default SliTaz WebHome, but TazWeb accepts an URL as a first argument, you can for example execute: 

$ tazweb http://www.slitaz.org/

In this way you can for example create your own and custom home page in a pretty xHTML document and start tazweb with a standard desktop file or from the command line: tazweb file://$HOME/.config/tazweb/home.html.

If you want a custom start page for your Live system or all system users, you can create your own slitaz-configs package or edit the xHTML file located in /usr/share/webhome/index.html. If you modify it, make sure to block slitaz-configs or make a backup because it will be overwritten with a slitaz-configs package update.

When you start TazWeb from the cmdline with an URL in the argument you don’t have to put http:// since TazWeb will transform URLs for you.

URL and search entry

The URL entry in the toolbar lets you enter a website address and shows the current website location. You can use selection, copy and paste in the URL entry and don't have to put http:// before a location, Tazweb will transform URLs for you. To activate a new URL you must press ENTER.

The search entry lets you search the web at anytime using Google. Just enter your query and press ENTER or click on the entry icon to validate your request.

Web applications

TazWeb browser is perfect to launch web applications via a simple desktop file. Once created with a simple text editor, the desktop file can stand on the desktop with a nice icon or in the standard SliTaz menu. Example of a web application launcher that you could name scn.desktop: 

[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Name=SliTaz SCN
Icon=slitaz-menu
Exec=tazweb http://scn.slitaz.org/

Bugs and development

TazWeb is an open-source project under a BSD license and all resources are provided by SliTaz GNU/Linux, we use a Mercurial repository for code management, discussion and support is done through the SliTaz community forum. If you're missing any features in TazWeb or find any bugs ? Please post an issue on our Roundup bug tracker at: bugs.slitaz.org

If you want to help and get involved in development, you can start by cloning the TazWeb repository and then submit your patch, improved documentation or artwork to the SliTaz mailing list or on the SCN. To clone or browse the TazWeb Hg repository: 

$ hg clone http://hg.slitaz.org/tazweb