Vimb - the Vim-like browser

Vimb is a Vim-like web browser that is inspired by Pentadactyl and Vimprobable. The goal of Vimb is to build a completely keyboard-driven, efficient and pleasurable browsing-experience with low memory and CPU usage that is intuitive to use for Vim users.

More information and some screenshots of Vimb browser in action can be found on the project page of Vimb.

Features

• it's modal like Vim
• Vim like keybindings - assignable for each browser mode
• nearly every configuration can be changed at runtime with Vim like set syntax
• history for ex commands, search queries, URLs
• completions for: commands, URLs, bookmarked URLs, variable names of settings, search-queries
• hinting - marks links, form fields and other clickable elements to be clicked, opened or inspected
• SSL validation against ca-certificate file
• user defined URL-shortcuts with placeholders
• read it later queue to collect URIs for later use
• multiple yank/paste registers
• Vim like autocmd - execute commands automatically after an event on specific URIs

Packages

• Arch Linux: extra/vimb, aur/vimb-git, aur/vimb-gtk2
• Debian: trixie/vimb, sid/vimb
• Fedora: fedora/vimb,
• Gentoo: tharvik overlay, jjakob overlay
• openSUSE: network/vimb
• pkgsrc: pkgsrc/www/vimb, pkgsrc/wip/vimb-git
• Slackware: slackbuild/vimb

dependencies

• gtk4
• webkitgtk-6.0
• gst-libav, gst-plugins-good (optional, for media decoding among other things)

Note: Vimb has been migrated from GTK3/WebKit2GTK-4.1 to GTK4/WebKitGTK-6.0. This is a major version change that requires GTK4 and WebKitGTK 6.0 or later.

Native Tab Support

Vimb now has native tab support using GTK4's GtkNotebook. All tabs share a single window with a shared command input at the bottom.

Tab Commands:

• :tabopen [uri] or :tabo [uri] - Open URI in new tab
• :tabclose - Close current tab
• :tabnext or :tabn - Switch to next tab
• :tabprev or :tabp - Switch to previous tab
• :tabfirst - Go to first tab
• :tablast - Go to last tab

Keyboard Shortcuts (Normal Mode):

• gt - Go to next tab
• gT - Go to previous tab
• g0 - Go to first tab
• g$ - Go to last tab

Note: GTK4 has removed XEmbed support (GtkPlug/GtkSocket). The -e, --embed flag is no longer functional. Native tabs replace the need for external tools like tabbed.

Install

Edit config.mk to match your local setup. You might need to do this if you use another compiler, like tcc. Most people, however, will almost never need to do this on systems like Ubuntu or Debian.

Edit src/config.h to match your personal preferences, like changing the characters used in the loading bar, or the font.

The default Makefile will not overwrite your customised config.h with the contents of config.def.h, even if it was updated in the latest git pull. Therefore, you should always compare your customised config.h with config.def.h and make sure you include any changes to the latter in your config.h.

Run the following commands to compile and install Vimb (if necessary, the last one as root). If you want to change the PREFIX, note that it's required to give it on both stages, build and install.

make PREFIX=/usr
make PREFIX=/usr install

To run vimb without installation for testing it out use the 'runsandbox' make target.

make runsandbox

Mailing list

• feature requests, issues and patches can be discussed on the mailing list (list archive)

Similar projects

• luakit
• qutebrowser
• surf
• uzbl
• wyeb

license

Information about the license are found in the file LICENSE.

about

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vimb
• http://thedarnedestthing.com/vimb
• https://blog.jeaye.com/2015/08/23/vimb/