Dillo, the GTK Web Browser

The purpose of this article is to introduce Dillo, a web browser written by a group of programmers led by Jorge Arellano Cid. Although the version reviewed (0.6.4) is still alpha code, it has some features that already make it useful.

Screenshot of Dillo's Welcome Page

Dillo is a very small and fast web browser written completely in C. The uncompressed source code tarball is approximately 1.2MB and the resulting executable file is 1.1MB. While Dillo is based on GTK+ (GTK version 1.2.0 or higher is required), GNOME isn't required to run it. Dillo uses the HTML parser from the gzilla project, so Mozilla doesn't have to be installed either, as is the case with Galeon.

Basic functionality is provided, such as forward and backward histories, home, along with reload, abort and save buttons. A handy feature is a button that clears the URL textbox, allowing you to paste URLs from the clipboard without having to manually clear the textbox first.

Dillo can open files from the local disk either by clicking on the underlined F in the toolbar or by typing its full name preceded by file: in the URL textbox.

The configuration is handled by manipulating the ~/.dillo/dillorc file with a text editor. A sample dillorc file is found in the source code directory.

Dillo can display PNG and JPEG pictures, and it does a decent job of displaying tables. Since frames aren't supported yet, Dillo displays a link to each frame on the page that allows the user to display them one at a time. Dillo has correctly displayed sites such as Freshmeat, NewsForge and Linux Journal.

Right now Dillo can download files via HTTP by right-clicking on the link and selecting Save Link As. To download a file via FTP you need a program such as WebDownloader for X. Copy the link to the clipboard by right-clicking on it and selecting Copy Link Location, then paste the link into the external download program.

A Find dialog is accessed by pressing CTRL-F. When a match is found, Dillo tries to scroll the page so it is at the top of the window. One thing to note is that the matching word is not highlighted, which can make it difficult to find.

Keyboard shortcuts include ALT+, and ALT+. to navigate forward and backward through your history. Double-clicking on the browser toggles the toolbar between visible and invisible, freeing up some more viewing space.

Dillo currently isn't capable of handling things such as JavaScript, cookies and secure web sites. A patch is available, however, that provides Dillo with SSL and cookie capabilities. I have been able to compile the patch only against a specific CVS snapshot of the source code. Instructions for downloading the patch and building the patched version of Dillo are below.

In order to use the SSL-Cookies patch for Dillo, you need OpenSSL installed, and you have to get the Dillo source code dated Jan. 14, 2002 from the CVS archive. This is accomplished by the following steps:

To determine which cookies Dillo accepts and rejects, create a cookie_controls file in your ~/.dillo directory. The Cookies.txt file placed in the doc directory by the patch contains information on using the cookie_controls file. Saved cookies are stored in the ~/.dollo/cookies file.