K-Meleon is an extremely fast, customizable, lightweight web browser for the win32 (Windows) platform based on the Gecko layout engine (the rendering engine of Mozilla). K-Meleon is free, open source software released under the GNU General Public License.
The design idea for K-Meleon is to be small and easy to use and configure. New features are added if they improve the performance and usefulness of the browser; not simply because they are "cool" to have. Whenever possible the extra funcitonality is added through plugins, which means that it will not be a burden for those who rather stay without. The modular design of K-Meleon is one of its strengths.
K-Meleon is not a stripped down version of Netscape or Mozilla. It utilizes the same machinery to turn web pages into graphical views, but the rest is original work of the K-Meleon developers. Since K-Meleon implements a native Windows user interface it is lighter and faster (more responsive) than the Mozilla/Netscape/AOL browser, but it can only run on Microsoft Windows systems. This makes it a good choice for Windows computers close to, or even below, the minimum requirements for Mozilla. Those who find the big browsers too big and that the other alternative browsers lack too much in standards complience are the intended audience for K-Meleon. People happy with their current browser seldom make good K-Meleon converts, as the gain from a lighter interface is much less with huge monster machines. No harm done if K-Meleon is not for you (or your friends). There is a browser for everyone.
The, so called, "Browser War" is fought between big applications filled with features that require the very latest computer systems to run smoothly. It is flattering when people compare K-Meleon with those applications, but it is not needed. K-Meleon is not at war. The K-Meleon developers do not aim for world domination. If you wish for all those add-ons, only remotedly related to HTML and Internet, you need more than a browser. K-Meleon has never been intended to become yet another "Internet Communication Suite". Just a mean and lean browsing machine.
Download: K-Meleon 74 Beta 4 | 17.1 MB (Open Source)
View: K-Meleon Website | Release Notes