How to run Epiphany (Web) Browser in Windows 10 with WSL

Epiphany (Web) is a lightweight Linux-only web browser based on the modern WebKit engine, and it is the default web browser in GNOME desktop environment. However, now you can run it natively in Windows 10, thanks to the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) and the Xming X server for Windows.

Here is how to install Epiphany 3.12 in Windows 10:

1. Install Windows Subsystem for Linux and reboot the computer
2. Install Xming X server for Windows
3. Open Windows Command Prompt and run: bash
4. Run these commands in bash:
   sudo apt-get install software-properties-common
   sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gnome3-team/gnome3
   sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gnome3-team/gnome3-staging
   sudo apt-get update
   sudo apt-get upgrade
   sudo apt-get install epiphany-browser gnome-keyring gnome-themes-standard
   sudo sed -i 's/<listen>.*<\/listen>/<listen>tcp:host=localhost,port=0<\/listen>/' /etc/dbus-1/session.conf
   sudo sed -i 's/Ambiance/Adwaita/' /etc/gtk-3.0/settings.ini
5. Right-click on your desktop and create a new shortcut for the following item:
   bash -c "DISPLAY=:0 NO_AT_BRIDGE=1 epiphany-browser"
   with the following icon (click it to download the ico file):
   
6. Check if Xming is running in the system tray and double-click the newly created shortcut. Epiphany window should appear:

Epiphany (Web) browser 3.12 on Windows 10 is using WebKitGTK+ 2.4, which scores 318 points in HTML5 Test.

UPDATE: By upgrading the WSL from Ubuntu 14.04 to 16.04, you can have the latest Epiphany 3.20 using WebKitGTK+ 2.14 on Windows 10, which scores 386 points in HTML5 Test:

K-Meleon vs QupZilla vs Otter Browser vs Midori - comparison of lightweight web browsers

Apart from the most popular web browsers for Windows - Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, IE and Edge - there are also more lightweight open source web browsers, which deserve more recognition. This time I am testing the latest versions of four of them: K-Meleon 76.0 beta 3 (based on Gecko), Otter Browser 0.9.10 (based both on QtWebKit and on QtWebEngine), QupZilla 1.8.9 (based on QtWebKit) and Midori 0.5.11 (based on WebKitGTK+), on a PC with Windows 8 and 2 GB RAM. In the comparison test I am focusing on HTML5 features, performance and RAM usage at startup and after loading four big websites in tabs.

Here are the results:

	K-Meleon	Otter QtWebKit	Otter QtWebEngine	QupZilla	Midori
HTML5 Test	467 pts	399 pts	525 pts	400 pts	341 pts
Octane Benchmark	5915 pts	1222 pts	6653 pts	1285 pts	806 pts
BrowserMark	1590 pts	1165 pts	1926 pts	1052 pts	149 pts
RAM at startup	35 MB	12 MB	54 MB	40 MB	40 MB
RAM at 4 tabs	151 MB	335 MB	236 MB	395 MB	271 MB

The best alternative web browser is Otter Browser with QtWebEngine (based on Chromium), made by a Polish developer Emdek. This is the only multi-process web browser out of them and has a really good performance. The second place goes to K-Meleon. That said, QtWebEngine is still in the works, so it may be buggy, and it uses more memory than Gecko engine used in K-Meleon.

Run desktop apps, WebKit and Chromium web browser on Firefox OS!

Firefox OS is a fully open source mobile platform, but it lacks many full-featured apps. Starting from today, RollApp provides full desktop apps for Firefox OS, including LibreOffice, OpenOffice.org, Tomboy, KeePassX and File Roller. The apps are loaded on RollApp cloud servers and are streamed using WebSockets, which make them run smoothly.

You can even run the Web browser, powered by WebKit, which you can start by typing any URL in Tomboy and clicking on it.

The Web browser is really fast, it gets 6568 points in the Octane benchmark.

UPDATE: Now you can run Chromium web browser in Firefox OS! It scores 9677 points in the Octane benchmark.

All RollApp apps can be found in the Firefox Marketplace.

How to update Safari for Windows to the latest version of WebKit

If you are still using Safari 5.1 for Windows (e.g. for the excellent font smoothing), you can keep up with modern web browsers by upgrading its WebKit engine to the latest version released by Apple. Just follow these steps:

1. If you have iTunes already installed, go to step 5.
2. Download the latest release of iTunes for Windows.
3. Open the downloaded file iTunesSetup.exe in an archive manager, like 7-Zip or WinRAR.
4. Extract the file AppleApplicationSupport.msi and run it. Complete the installation.
5. Copy the folder C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Apple\Apple Application Support (or without (x86) when on 32-bit system) to C:\Program Files (x86)\Safari and merge with the existing Apple Application Support folder.

When you restart Safari, you will notice much better HTML5 & CSS3 support (319 -> 342 points in HTML5 Test) and JavaScript performance. Enjoy!