qutebrowser

A keyboard-driven, vim-like browser based on Python and Qt.

website | blog | FAQ | contributing | releases | installing

qutebrowser is a keyboard-focused browser with a minimal GUI. It’s based on Python and Qt and free software, licensed under the GPL.

It was inspired by other browsers/addons like dwb and Vimperator/Pentadactyl.

qutebrowser’s primary maintainer, The-Compiler, is currently working part-time on qutebrowser, funded by donations. To sustain this for a long time, your help is needed! See the GitHub Sponsors page for more information. Depending on your sign-up date and how long you keep a certain level, you can get qutebrowser t-shirts, stickers and more!

Screenshots

Downloads

See the github releases page for available downloads and the INSTALL file for detailed instructions on how to get qutebrowser running on various platforms.

Documentation and getting help

Please see the help page for available documentation pages and support channels.

Contributions / Bugs

You want to contribute to qutebrowser? Awesome! Please read the contribution guidelines for details and useful hints.

If you found a bug or have a feature request, you can report it in several ways:

• Use the built-in :report command or the automatic crash dialog.

• Open an issue in the Github issue tracker.

• Write a mail to the mailinglist at [email protected].

For security bugs, please contact me directly at [email protected], GPG ID 0x916eb0c8fd55a072.

Requirements

The following software and libraries are required to run qutebrowser:

• Python 3.7 or newer

• Qt 5.12.0 or newer (5.12 LTS or 5.15 recommended, Qt 6 is not supported yet) with the following modules:

  • QtCore / qtbase

  • QtQuick (part of qtbase or qtdeclarative in some distributions)

  • QtSQL (part of qtbase in some distributions)

  • QtDBus (part of qtbase in some distributions; note that a connection to DBus at runtime is optional)

  • QtOpenGL

  • QtWebEngine, or

  • alternatively QtWebKit (5.212) - This is not recommended due to known security issues in QtWebKit, you most likely want to use qutebrowser with the default QtWebEngine backend (based on Chromium) instead. Quoting the QtWebKit releases page: [The latest QtWebKit] release is based on [an] old WebKit revision with known unpatched vulnerabilities. Please use it carefully and avoid visiting untrusted websites and using it for transmission of sensitive data.

• PyQt 5.12.0 or newer for Python 3

• jinja2

• PyYAML

On older Python versions (3.7/3.8), the following backports are also required:

• importlib_resources

The following libraries are optional:

• adblock (for improved adblocking using ABP syntax)

• pygments for syntax highlighting with :view-source on QtWebKit, or when using :view-source --pygments with the (default) QtWebEngine backend.

• On Windows, colorama for colored log output.

• importlib_metadata on Python 3.7, to improve QtWebEngine version detection when PyQtWebEngine is installed via pip (thus, this dependency usually isn’t relevant for packagers).

• asciidoc to generate the documentation for the :help command, when using the git repository (rather than a release).

See the documentation for directions on how to install qutebrowser and its dependencies.

Donating

qutebrowser’s primary maintainer, The-Compiler, is currently working part-time on qutebrowser, funded by donations. To sustain this for a long time, your help is needed! See the GitHub Sponsors page for more information. Depending on your sign-up date and how long you keep a certain level, you can get qutebrowser t-shirts, stickers and more!

GitHub Sponsors allows for one-time donations (using the buttons next to "Select a tier") as well as custom amounts. For currencies other than Euro or Swiss Francs, this is the preferred donation method. GitHub uses Stripe to accept payment via credit carts without any fees. Billing via PayPal is available as well, with less fees than a direct PayPal transaction.

Alternatively, the following donation methods are available — note that eligibility for swag (shirts/stickers/etc.) is handled on a case-by-case basis for those, please get in touch for details.

• SEPA bank transfer inside Europe (no fees):

  • Account holder: Florian Bruhin

  • Country: Switzerland

  • IBAN (EUR): CH13 0900 0000 9160 4094 6

  • IBAN (other): CH80 0900 0000 8711 8587 3

  • Bank: PostFinance AG, Mingerstrasse 20, 3030 Bern, Switzerland (BIC: POFICHBEXXX)

  • If you need any other information: Contact me at [email protected].

• PayPal: CHF, EUR, USD. Note: Fees can be very high (around 5-40%, depending on the donated amounts) - consider using GitHub Sponsors (accepts credit cards or PayPal!) or SEPA bank transfers instead.

• Cryptocurrencies:

  • Bitcoin: bc1q3ptyw8hxrcfz6ucfgmglphfvhqpy8xr6k25p00

  • Bitcoin Cash: 1BnxUbnJ5MrEPeh5nuUMx83tbiRAvqJV3N

  • Ethereum: 0x10c2425856F7a8799EBCaac4943026803b1089c6

  • Litecoin: MDt3YQciuCh6QyFmr8TiWNxB94PVzbnPm2

  • Others: Please get in touch, I’d happily set up anything supported by Ledger Live

Sponsors

Thanks a lot to MacStadium for supporting qutebrowser with a free hosted Mac Mini via their Open Source Project.

(They don’t require including this here - I’ve just been very happy with their offer, and without them, no macOS releases or tests would exist)

Thanks to the HSR Hochschule für Technik Rapperswil, which made it possible to work on qutebrowser extensions as a student research project.

Authors

qutebrowser’s primary author is Florian Bruhin (The Compiler), but qutebrowser wouldn’t be what it is without the help of hundreds of contributors!

Additionally, the following people have contributed graphics:

• Jad/yelo (new icon)

• WOFall (original icon)

• regines (key binding cheatsheet)

Also, thanks to everyone who contributed to one of qutebrowser’s crowdfunding campaigns!

Similar projects

Various projects with a similar goal like qutebrowser exist. Many of them were inspirations for qutebrowser in some way, thanks for that!

Active

• vimb (C, GTK+ with WebKit2)

• luakit (C/Lua, GTK+ with WebKit2)

• Nyxt browser (formerly "Next browser", Lisp, Emacs-like but also offers Vim bindings, QtWebEngine or GTK+/WebKit2 - note there was a critical remote code execution in 2019 which was handled quite badly)

• Vieb (JavaScript, Electron)

• surf (C, GTK+ with WebKit1/WebKit2)

• Chrome/Chromium addons: Vimium

• Firefox addons (based on WebExtensions): Tridactyl, Vimium-FF

• Addons for Firefox and Chrome: Surfingkeys, Link Hints (hinting only)

• Addons for Safari: Vimari

Inactive

• dwb (C, GTK+ with WebKit1, unmaintained - main inspiration for qutebrowser)

• webmacs (Python, Emacs-like with QtWebEngine, unmaintained)

• vimprobable (C, GTK+ with WebKit1)

• jumanji (C, GTK+ with WebKit1)

• conkeror (Javascript, Emacs-like, XULRunner/Gecko)

• uzbl (C, GTK+ with WebKit1/WebKit2)

• xombrero (C, GTK+ with WebKit1)

• Cream Browser (C, GTK+ with WebKit1)

• wyeb (C, GTK+ with WebKit2)

• Firefox addons (not based on WebExtensions or no recent activity): Vimperator, Pentadactyl, VimFx (seems to offer a hack to run on modern Firefox releases), QuantumVim, Vim Vixen (ESR only), VVimpulation, Krabby

• Chrome/Chromium addons: ViChrome, Vrome, Saka Key (unmaintained), cVim, vb4c (fork of cVim, unmaintained), GleeBox

License

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If not, see https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.txt.

pdf.js

qutebrowser optionally uses pdf.js to display PDF files in the browser. Windows releases come with a bundled pdf.js.

pdf.js is distributed under the terms of the Apache License. You can find a copy of the license in qutebrowser/3rdparty/pdfjs/LICENSE (in the Windows release or after running scripts/dev/update_3rdparty.py), or online here.