Dillo
Encyclopedia
Dillo is a minimalistic web browser
particularly intended for older or slower computers and embedded system
s. It supports only plain HTML
/XHTML
(with basic CSS
rendering) and images over HTTP; scripting is ignored entirely. Dillo is available for Linux
, BSD
, Solaris and Mac OS X
. Due to its small size, it is the browser of choice in several space-conscious Linux distribution
s. Released under the GNU General Public License
, Dillo is free software
.
Chilean software engineer Jorge Arellano Cid conceived of the Dillo project in late 1999, publishing the first version of Dillo in December of that year. His primary goal in creating Dillo was to democratize access to information. Arellano Cid believed that no one should have to buy a new computer or pay for broadband in order to enjoy the World Wide Web
. To this end, he designed Dillo to be small, fast, and efficient, capable of performing well even on an Intel 486 processor with a dial-up Internet connection.
with the GTK+
GUI toolkit. The first versions were based on an earlier browser called Armadillo, hence the name. Dillo 2, written with both C and C++
components and the Fast Light Toolkit (FLTK), was released on October 14, 2008. Text antialiasing, support for character sets other than Latin-1, HTTP compression
capability, and improved page rendering were all added. The move to FLTK from GTK also removed many of the project's dependencies and reduced Dillo's memory footprint
by 50%.
Recently, Dillo-3.x has been released, using FLTK-1.3. Apparently (see Changelog) this change was prompted in part by the lack of an offical release of FLTK-2, which stopped Dillo-2's inclusion in lightweight distributions for which it would otherwise have been suitable.
Jorge Arellano Cid is still Dillo's lead developer today. Dillo is funded by private donations; efforts to obtain public grants and corporate sponsors have been unsuccessful. Lack of funding led to a slowdown in development in 2006, and a complete stop in 2007. The project restarted again in 2008 and two months later received a €115 donation from DistroWatch
.
, PNG (including alpha transparency), and GIF
images. Partial support for CSS
was introduced in release 2.1. Settings such as the default fonts, background color, downloads folder, and home page are customizable through configuration files. Cookies
are supported but disabled by default due to privacy concerns. While most web browsers retain the web cache
and history after the program is closed, Dillo automatically clears them to improve both privacy and performance.
A developer tool called the "bug meter" is provided in the lower-right corner. When clicked, it displays information about validation problems, such as unclosed tags, that Dillo found in the web page. Unlike most browsers, Dillo does not have a quirks mode
to improve compatibility with web pages that use invalid HTML. Instead, Dillo processes all web pages according to the published web standards
.
In 2003, two Linux enthusiasts successfully ran Dillo on an Intel 486 processor and demonstrated that even with such meager hardware, Dillo could render http://news.bbc.co.uk/ in 10-15 seconds. Furthermore, Dillo can run on a variety of software platforms, including Linux
, BSD
, Solaris, Mac OS X
, and some handheld device
s. However, Dillo's developers have made little effort to make the browser work on Microsoft Windows
. Arellano Cid stated that Windows goes against Dillo's goal of democratization by artificially increasing hardware requirements and software costs. Nevertheless, Dillo has been reported to work on Windows via Cygwin
. Additionally, Dillo-Win32 is a project to port Dillo to Windows and is currently under active development.
Dillo does not support JavaScript
, Java
, Flash
, right-to-left
text, complex text layout
. Support for frames
is also very limited; Dillo presents a link to each frame to allow the user to view them one at a time. A plug-in to add HTTPS
support is likewise under development.
commented that Dillo's utilitarian user interface may be "intimidating" for new users as well, and pointed out the scarcity of plug-ins for Dillo. In all, Dillo's global usage share is less than one hundredth of one percent.
Dillo is, however, the browser of choice in several space-conscious Linux distribution
s, such as Damn Small Linux
, Feather Linux
, VectorLinux, antiX
and Mustang Linux.
Web browser
A web browser is a software application for retrieving, presenting, and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web. An information resource is identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier and may be a web page, image, video, or other piece of content...
particularly intended for older or slower computers and embedded system
Embedded system
An embedded system is a computer system designed for specific control functions within a larger system. often with real-time computing constraints. It is embedded as part of a complete device often including hardware and mechanical parts. By contrast, a general-purpose computer, such as a personal...
s. It supports only plain HTML
HTML
HyperText Markup Language is the predominant markup language for web pages. HTML elements are the basic building-blocks of webpages....
/XHTML
XHTML
XHTML is a family of XML markup languages that mirror or extend versions of the widely-used Hypertext Markup Language , the language in which web pages are written....
(with basic CSS
Cascading Style Sheets
Cascading Style Sheets is a style sheet language used to describe the presentation semantics of a document written in a markup language...
rendering) and images over HTTP; scripting is ignored entirely. Dillo is available for Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
, BSD
Berkeley Software Distribution
Berkeley Software Distribution is a Unix operating system derivative developed and distributed by the Computer Systems Research Group of the University of California, Berkeley, from 1977 to 1995...
, Solaris and Mac OS X
Mac OS X
Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
. Due to its small size, it is the browser of choice in several space-conscious Linux distribution
Linux distribution
A Linux distribution is a member of the family of Unix-like operating systems built on top of the Linux kernel. Such distributions are operating systems including a large collection of software applications such as word processors, spreadsheets, media players, and database applications...
s. Released under the GNU General Public License
GNU General Public License
The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....
, Dillo is free software
Free software
Free software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions that only ensure that further recipients can also do...
.
Chilean software engineer Jorge Arellano Cid conceived of the Dillo project in late 1999, publishing the first version of Dillo in December of that year. His primary goal in creating Dillo was to democratize access to information. Arellano Cid believed that no one should have to buy a new computer or pay for broadband in order to enjoy the World Wide Web
World Wide Web
The World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet...
. To this end, he designed Dillo to be small, fast, and efficient, capable of performing well even on an Intel 486 processor with a dial-up Internet connection.
Development
Dillo was originally written in the C programming languageC (programming language)
C is a general-purpose computer programming language developed between 1969 and 1973 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system....
with the GTK+
GTK+
GTK+ is a cross-platform widget toolkit for creating graphical user interfaces. It is licensed under the terms of the GNU LGPL, allowing both free and proprietary software to use it. It is one of the most popular toolkits for the X Window System, along with Qt.The name GTK+ originates from GTK;...
GUI toolkit. The first versions were based on an earlier browser called Armadillo, hence the name. Dillo 2, written with both C and C++
C++
C++ is a statically typed, free-form, multi-paradigm, compiled, general-purpose programming language. It is regarded as an intermediate-level language, as it comprises a combination of both high-level and low-level language features. It was developed by Bjarne Stroustrup starting in 1979 at Bell...
components and the Fast Light Toolkit (FLTK), was released on October 14, 2008. Text antialiasing, support for character sets other than Latin-1, HTTP compression
Http compression
HTTP compression is a capability that can be built into web servers and web clients to make better use of available bandwidth , and provide faster transmission speeds between both...
capability, and improved page rendering were all added. The move to FLTK from GTK also removed many of the project's dependencies and reduced Dillo's memory footprint
Memory footprint
Memory footprint refers to the amount of main memory that a program uses or references while running.This includes all sorts of active memory regions like code, static data sections , heap, as well as all the stacks, plus memory required to hold any additional data structures, such as symbol...
by 50%.
Recently, Dillo-3.x has been released, using FLTK-1.3. Apparently (see Changelog) this change was prompted in part by the lack of an offical release of FLTK-2, which stopped Dillo-2's inclusion in lightweight distributions for which it would otherwise have been suitable.
Jorge Arellano Cid is still Dillo's lead developer today. Dillo is funded by private donations; efforts to obtain public grants and corporate sponsors have been unsuccessful. Lack of funding led to a slowdown in development in 2006, and a complete stop in 2007. The project restarted again in 2008 and two months later received a €115 donation from DistroWatch
DistroWatch
DistroWatch is a website which provides news, popularity rankings, and other general information about various Linux distributions as well as other free software/open source Unix-like operating systems such as OpenSolaris, MINIX and BSD. It now contains information on several hundred distributions...
.
Features
Features of Dillo include bookmarks, tabbed browsing, and support for JPEGJPEG
In computing, JPEG . The degree of compression can be adjusted, allowing a selectable tradeoff between storage size and image quality. JPEG typically achieves 10:1 compression with little perceptible loss in image quality....
, PNG (including alpha transparency), and GIF
GIF
The Graphics Interchange Format is a bitmap image format that was introduced by CompuServe in 1987 and has since come into widespread usage on the World Wide Web due to its wide support and portability....
images. Partial support for CSS
Cascading Style Sheets
Cascading Style Sheets is a style sheet language used to describe the presentation semantics of a document written in a markup language...
was introduced in release 2.1. Settings such as the default fonts, background color, downloads folder, and home page are customizable through configuration files. Cookies
HTTP cookie
A cookie, also known as an HTTP cookie, web cookie, or browser cookie, is used for an origin website to send state information to a user's browser and for the browser to return the state information to the origin site...
are supported but disabled by default due to privacy concerns. While most web browsers retain the web cache
Web cache
A web cache is a mechanism for the temporary storage of web documents, such as HTML pages and images, to reduce bandwidth usage, server load, and perceived lag...
and history after the program is closed, Dillo automatically clears them to improve both privacy and performance.
Quirks mode
In computing, quirks mode refers to a technique used by some web browsers for the sake of maintaining backward compatibility with web pages designed for older browsers, instead of strictly complying with W3C and IETF standards in standards mode....
to improve compatibility with web pages that use invalid HTML. Instead, Dillo processes all web pages according to the published web standards
Web standards
Web standards is a general term for the formal standards and other technical specifications that define and describe aspects of the World Wide Web. In recent years, the term has been more frequently associated with the trend of endorsing a set of standardized best practices for building web sites,...
.
In 2003, two Linux enthusiasts successfully ran Dillo on an Intel 486 processor and demonstrated that even with such meager hardware, Dillo could render http://news.bbc.co.uk/ in 10-15 seconds. Furthermore, Dillo can run on a variety of software platforms, including Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
, BSD
Berkeley Software Distribution
Berkeley Software Distribution is a Unix operating system derivative developed and distributed by the Computer Systems Research Group of the University of California, Berkeley, from 1977 to 1995...
, Solaris, Mac OS X
Mac OS X
Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
, and some handheld device
Handheld device
A mobile device is a small, hand-held computing device, typically having a display screen with touch input and/or a miniature keyboard and less than . Early pocket sized ones were joined in the late 2000s by larger but otherwise similar tablet computers...
s. However, Dillo's developers have made little effort to make the browser work on Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
. Arellano Cid stated that Windows goes against Dillo's goal of democratization by artificially increasing hardware requirements and software costs. Nevertheless, Dillo has been reported to work on Windows via Cygwin
Cygwin
Cygwin is a Unix-like environment and command-line interface for Microsoft Windows. Cygwin provides native integration of Windows-based applications, data, and other system resources with applications, software tools, and data of the Unix-like environment...
. Additionally, Dillo-Win32 is a project to port Dillo to Windows and is currently under active development.
Dillo does not support JavaScript
JavaScript
JavaScript is a prototype-based scripting language that is dynamic, weakly typed and has first-class functions. It is a multi-paradigm language, supporting object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles....
, Java
Java (programming language)
Java is a programming language originally developed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems and released in 1995 as a core component of Sun Microsystems' Java platform. The language derives much of its syntax from C and C++ but has a simpler object model and fewer low-level facilities...
, Flash
Adobe Flash
Adobe Flash is a multimedia platform used to add animation, video, and interactivity to web pages. Flash is frequently used for advertisements, games and flash animations for broadcast...
, right-to-left
Right-to-left
A language is described as right-to-left if writing starts from the right of the page, and continues to the left. Right to left scripts are:* Arabic alphabet - used for Arabic, Persian, Urdu and many other languages....
text, complex text layout
Complex Text Layout
Complex text layout or complex text rendering refers to the typesetting of writing systems which require complex transformations between text input and text display for proper rendering on the screen or the printed page...
. Support for frames
Framing (World Wide Web)
When using web browsers, the terms frames or frameset refer to the display of two or more web pages or media elements displayed side-by-side within the same browser window...
is also very limited; Dillo presents a link to each frame to allow the user to view them one at a time. A plug-in to add HTTPS
Https
Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure is a combination of the Hypertext Transfer Protocol with SSL/TLS protocol to provide encrypted communication and secure identification of a network web server...
support is likewise under development.
Reception
Reviews of Dillo have praised its extraordinary speed, but noted that this speed comes at a price. The most visible cost is Dillo's inability to display complex web pages as they were meant to be. A 2008 review by Linux.comLinux.com
Linux.com is the name of a website owned by the Linux Foundation. The site is currently a central source for Linux information, software, documentation and answers across the server, desktop/netbook, mobile, and embedded areas. Linux.com offers free Linux tutorials, news and blogs, discussion...
commented that Dillo's utilitarian user interface may be "intimidating" for new users as well, and pointed out the scarcity of plug-ins for Dillo. In all, Dillo's global usage share is less than one hundredth of one percent.
Dillo is, however, the browser of choice in several space-conscious Linux distribution
Linux distribution
A Linux distribution is a member of the family of Unix-like operating systems built on top of the Linux kernel. Such distributions are operating systems including a large collection of software applications such as word processors, spreadsheets, media players, and database applications...
s, such as Damn Small Linux
Damn Small Linux
Damn Small Linux or DSL is a computer operating system for the x86 family of personal computers. It is free and open source software under the terms of GNU GPL and other free and open source licenses. It was designed to run graphical applications on older PC hardware—for example, machines with...
, Feather Linux
Feather Linux
Feather Linux, created by Robert Sullivan, is a Knoppix-based operating system which fits in under 128 MB . It boots from either a CD or a USB flash drive, into a Fluxbox desktop environment. It has a wide range of desktop and rescue software, and can load entirely into RAM or be installed to a...
, VectorLinux, antiX
AntiX
antiX is a Linux distribution based on MEPIS which itself is based on the Debian testing distribution. It replaces the Mepis KDE desktop environment with the Fluxbox and IceWM window managers, making it suitable for older, less powerful x86 based systems...
and Mustang Linux.