Let’s go back in time, ladies and gentlemen. The year is 2000. KDE is on their way to release KDE 2, the one famously known to be the one needed to be patched for FreeBSD. Based on Qt 2, which has finally been released under a reasonable license, KDE was there to fly.
KDE wanted to be a bit like Windows. Not only in terms of UI, which it… well, did, and the UI still resembles Windows in default configuration today. Microsoft had something nobody else wanted to do for good reasons. You see, since Internet Explorer 4 Desktop Update, and since Windows 98 by default, Internet Explorer wasn’t just the browser – it was also the default file manager in Windows. It was also mostly responsible for the desktop, as Active Desktop allowed people to set an HTML file as a desktop wallpaper, or render HTML widgets on the desktop. Cool – but in the long term, nobody asked.
Anyway, KDE did the same thing – minus the Active Desktop. They developed Konqueror. It was the new browser AND file manager for KDE. Not gonna lie, it was pretty impressive – sporting the new KHTML and KJS engines it was pretty damn fast, and pretty damn compliant (unlike IE). It was so good Apple forked WebKit and JavaScriptCore out of it. Konqueror was also modular, and supported many things Windows Explorer still lacks today, like split panes, terminal in a pane and other stuff.
Time passed. Microsoft started stripping Windows Explorer out of IE. Windows XP still featured Active Desktop, but it was getting more and more hidden with every service pack. Vista split IE and Explorer even more. Around the same time, KDE followed, releasing a new file manager called Dolphin – still there and loved today. But Konqueror stayed, just like IE stayed.
Sometime after that, WebKit was so great Google built Chrome and Chromium upon it. Some time after that, they forked the fork, and we got Blink out of WebKit. They passed on JavaScriptCore tho – they wrote V8 instead.
KHTML gathered dust. Some time later, somebody wrote QtWebkit and plugged it into Konqueror – getting the fork of the holy engine to be the heart of the holy browser. Later on, somebody made QWebEngine, which integrated Blink. And somebody plugged the fork of the fork of the holy engine into the holy browser.
Some time after that, somebody built a new browser on QWebEngine. They called it QupZilla. KDE took it under its umbrella, calling it Falkon (gotta have the K). It became the new chosen one. Although Konqueror didn’t die.
KHTML died tho. Its last release was in 2024, and it was never ported to KDE Frameworks 6. I guess it’s understandable knowing how wild the web landscape looks like today, although it’s kinda sad we lost the daddy. And we have one rendering engine less.
Fast forward to today. The year is 2026. The world has changed. Microsoft separated the browser from the file manager, although they somehow wanted to make the desktop the browser again – but maybe on a smaller scale. Even IE was dropped entirely, instead we got another reskin of Chromium, but worse. When somebody gets a fresh install of a distro with KDE, they usually get Falkon as well.
Yet, in this wicked world, in the times where nothing makes sense anymore…
…somebody is still updating the fucking Konqueror.
I mean, really. This cursed browser / file manager hybrid, slightly younger than me, slightly younger than Windows Me, is still getting updates. This means somebody still cares. On Flathub, it is said that Konqueror is deprecated and you should use Falkon instead – or at least it did, a few days ago. It’s completely gone by now. And then you go to KDE Gitlab, and you see this.
I mean, okay, there is plenty of bot commits in there. But there is one soul who is still trying to keep Konqueror good. It’s this guy – Stefano Crocco.
And seems like it’s running on Qt 6 somehow. And all this guy does is updates Konqueror.
They still are updating the Konqueror. They do not want to let Konqueror die.
Arch, and by extension CachyOS (my distro of choice, at least right now) still packages Konqueror. Debian is still packaging Konqueror as well. <insert the yo_mama_so_old joke>. The world needs the Konqueror apparently.
Fine, you got me. Let’s get the Konqueror.
So I got the Konqueror. With its inbuilt pages still in their fullest KDE4 glory. I can get to choose the HTML engine, but looks like all I get is QWebEngine and… Okular. I do not get why would anyone want to choose Okular there. Maybe this is an option for people who prefer their web printed instead of viewed. Like a nice trip for your balls on a roll of sandpaper.
Okay, let’s see what we have underneath.
Yup, QtWebEngine. We got Chromium. In a browser that is I think the closest to IE it gets nowadays. I wanted to see the Okular backend, but I still got QtWebEngine. But this means we really just get a modern browser, just in a geriatric package.
Konqueror was a completely capable browser, and it still is. I mean, it’s not getting as much traction as Falkon does (I do not see an ad blocker for example, Falkon has one), although it is still pretty nice. It even allows you to spoof your user agent, NATIVELY. Checkmate, literally every other browser
And it still works very well as a file manager. And it has the terminal emulator integrated (Konsole, that is), just like Dolphin does. Although it does feel a bit like you’re using Windows Explorer on Windows 98.
The only annoying bug I found (and I do remember from the past, oh I do) is when you type in localhost in the address bar, instead of going to localhost, it searches for it in DDG by default. I mean, I can live with that, if I can Konquer along.
So, should you go for a Konquer? I think you should. Give the grandpa a go, it will show you the new Toyota Corolla he bought (QWebEngine) and show you that it can still cruise on the highway just like your new SUV, or even better. I might keep it as a spare browser, and I love that its 26-year-old heart still beats.
I love the Konqueror. Never take away my Konqueror.
And thank you, Stefano Crocco, for keeping my Konqueror alive.