<strong>This document is licensed under the <acronymtitle="GNU Lesser General Public License">LGPL</acronym> 2.1.</strong>
</p>
<p>
This is a list of frequently asked questions about the Midori Web Browser. Anyone feel free to improve and/ or extend this page, but keep it clean and easy to read for other Xfce users.
This is a snapshot of Frequently Asked Questions designated for offline viewing. The most recent version of this document can be found <ahref="http://wiki.xfce.org/midori/faq">in the Xfce wiki</a>.
<h4><aname="what_is_midori_and_why_should_i_use_it"id="what_is_midori_and_why_should_i_use_it">What is "Midori" and why should I use it?</a></h4>
<divclass="level4">
<p>
Midori is a Web Browser, that aims to be lightweight and fast. It aligns well with the Xfce philosophy of making the most out of available resources.
</p>
</div>
<h4><aname="how_to_pronounce_midori_and_what_does_the_name_mean"id="how_to_pronounce_midori_and_what_does_the_name_mean">How to pronounce Midori and what does the name mean?</a></h4>
<divclass="level4">
<p>
Pronounce it “midoɺi”, with a Spanish/ Japanese “r” or “Mee-Doh-Ree” in English or read it Italian. The name comes from the Japanese word 緑 (みどり) for the colour “green”.
</p>
</div>
<h4><aname="what_does_the_logo_mean"id="what_does_the_logo_mean">What does the logo mean?</a></h4>
<divclass="level4">
<p>
The paw of a green cat. Obviously. Also it resembles the letter “M” in “Midori”. The curving is supposed to emphasize speed.
</p>
</div>
<h4><aname="on_which_platforms_does_midori_run_currently"id="on_which_platforms_does_midori_run_currently">On which platforms does Midori run currently?</a></h4>
<divclass="level4">
<p>
Midori is basically very portable and should run on all platforms that its dependencies support.
</p>
</div>
<h4><aname="under_which_license_is_midori_distributed"id="under_which_license_is_midori_distributed">Under which license is Midori distributed?</a></h4>
<divclass="level4">
<p>
Midori and all delivered artwork are licensed under the LGPL2.
<h4><aname="why_does_google_mailcalendarmaps_facebook_not_work_or_show_mobile_version"id="why_does_google_mailcalendarmaps_facebook_not_work_or_show_mobile_version">Why does Google Mail/ Calendar/ Maps, Facebook not work or show mobile version?</a></h4>
Many other websites use similar means of detecting the browser.
</p>
<p>
Ideally Google would follow <ahref="http://code.google.com/p/doctype/wiki/ArticleGoogleChromeCompatFAQ#UserAgent_Detection"class="urlextern"title="http://code.google.com/p/doctype/wiki/ArticleGoogleChromeCompatFAQ#UserAgent_Detection"rel="nofollow">their own recommendation</a> at some point.
</p>
</div>
<h4><aname="there_are_missing_iconswarnings"id="there_are_missing_iconswarnings">There are missing icons/ warnings</a></h4>
The set of themed icons Midori can use is very limited. For instance icons for a new tab or the throbber are not guaranteed to be available. To fix this, install a Freedesktop.org <acronymtitle="specification">spec</acronym> compliant icon theme, such as Elementary, Faenza, Buuf or GNOME.
<h4><aname="tweaking_midori_on_the_gtk_level"id="tweaking_midori_on_the_gtk_level">Tweaking Midori on the Gtk level</a></h4>
<divclass="level4">
<p>
If you don't have a desktop application that takes care of Gtk settings or if your interface doesn't support a particular feature, you can modify any settings easily manually by specifying them in a text file called ~/.gtkrc-2.0 or /etc/gtk-2.0/gtkrc:
Enable changing hotkeys while hovering menu items:
</p>
<preclass="code">gtk-can-change-accels = 1</pre>
</div>
<h4><aname="midori_crashes_shortly_before_pages_are_loaded"id="midori_crashes_shortly_before_pages_are_loaded">Midori crashes shortly before pages are loaded</a></h4>
<divclass="level4">
<p>
There appears to be an issue with Glib 2.16. The recommended solution is to upgrade your Glib package to 2.18.
<h4><aname="how_can_i_change_the_cache_folder_to_tmpfs"id="how_can_i_change_the_cache_folder_to_tmpfs">How can I change the cache folder (to tmpfs)?</a></h4>
<divclass="level4">
<p>
On Linux and BSD, you can set XDG_CACHE_HOME for all applications, or just Midori. Midori saves icons and cache files in that location. The default is ~/.cache.
WebKitGTK+ and thusly Midori on Windows doesn't support Flash or any other plugins. If WebKitGTK+ adds the feature in the future, we will support it. For now there's nothing we can do.
</p>
</div>
<h4><aname="netscape_plugins_on_linux_bsd_and_os_x"id="netscape_plugins_on_linux_bsd_and_os_x">Netscape plugins on Linux, BSD and OS X</a></h4>
The official Flash plugin is called libflashplayer.so .
</p>
<p>
You can either run that above line and run Midori in the same terminal afterwards or, for the long term, put it in ~/.bash_profile or /etc/profile.d or your respective distribution's place for this.
</p>
</div>
<h4><aname="flash_is_crashing_all_the_time"id="flash_is_crashing_all_the_time">Flash is crashing all the time</a></h4>
<divclass="level4">
<p>
Try searching for a package named nspluginwrapper or similar in your distribution repositories. It implements plugins in their own process so they can't drag down the whole browser.
<liclass="level1"><divclass="li"> You need plugins for Theora, gstreamer0.10-base and <acronymtitle="Moving Picture Experts Group">MPEG</acronym>-4 incluing aac (e.g. gst-plugins-faad), gstreamer0.10-bad. For WebM, you'll need plugins for vorbis (-base), matroska (-good), and vp8 (-bad). Have a look at <ahref="http://www.gstreamer.net/documentation/plugins.html"class="urlextern"title="http://www.gstreamer.net/documentation/plugins.html"rel="nofollow">http://www.gstreamer.net/documentation/plugins.html</a> for details.</div>
<liclass="level1"><divclass="li"> You can <ahref="http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/Graphics/VideoFormatSupport/Default.html"class="urlextern"title="http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/Graphics/VideoFormatSupport/Default.html"rel="nofollow">test your installed codecs here</a>..</div>
<h4><aname="java_doesn_t_work_applets_don_t_show_up"id="java_doesn_t_work_applets_don_t_show_up">Java doesn't work, applets don't show up</a></h4>
<divclass="level4">
<p>
Java is supported in WebKitGTK+ since 1.1.22. If you need Java, you need to upgrade to at least that version. Sun/ Oracle Java as well as IcedTea are known to work. Distribution specific setup might be required, such as setting LD_LIBRARY_PATH to include the location of libxul.so and making a symbolic link for libnpjp2.so to /usr/lib/mozilla.
</p>
<p>
icedtea6 version 1.8 and above has been known to crash midori. If this is the case for you, try sun-jre.
</p>
</div>
<h4><aname="how_do_i_get_rid_of_the_menubar"id="how_do_i_get_rid_of_the_menubar">How do I get rid of the menubar?</a></h4>
<divclass="level4">
<p>
In the menubar, go to View → Toolbars → Menubar, voilà the menubar is gone and a new icon appears at the right end of the toolbar. Click the icon to access functionality that otherwise sits in the menubar.
Midori 0.3.2 disables the menubar by default.
</p>
</div>
<h4><aname="why_can_t_i_use_periods_when_searching_from_the_location_bar"id="why_can_t_i_use_periods_when_searching_from_the_location_bar">Why can't I use periods when searching from the location bar?</a></h4>
<divclass="level4">
<p>
Midori tries to make a smart guess on whether you are searching for something or typing a valid address by hand. Yet there are ambiguous cases so it fails.
</p>
<p>
Try using 'g' in front of the search terms, like 'g Ms.Marple'. The 'g' is a token that tells the browser you want to use Google. See Tools > Manage Search Engines or right-click the location bar and select the menu item, to look at search engines and tokens.
</p>
</div>
<h4><aname="how_can_i_reload_and_bypass_the_cache"id="how_can_i_reload_and_bypass_the_cache">How can I reload and bypass the cache?</a></h4>
<divclass="level4">
<p>
Hold the Shift key while clicking Refresh in the toolbar (this works in Chromium, Mozilla, Opera and Safari, too).
Since Midori 0.3.2 you can use Ctrl+Shift+R.
</p>
</div>
<h4><aname="how_do_i_make_tabs_pinnedstickyminimized"id="how_do_i_make_tabs_pinnedstickyminimized">How do I make tabs pinned/ sticky/ minimized?</a></h4>
<h4><aname="why_doesn_t_google_live_search_work"id="why_doesn_t_google_live_search_work">Why doesn't Google "live search" work?</a></h4>
<divclass="level4">
<p>
You need to set Preferences > Network > Identify As to Firefox.
</p>
</div>
<h4><aname="opening_html_email_with_mutt"id="opening_html_email_with_mutt">Opening html email with Mutt</a></h4>
<divclass="level4">
<p>
Place the following in ~/.mutt/mailcap or ~/.mailcap:
</p>
<preclass="code">text/html; midori -a '%s'; test=test -n "$DISPLAY"; nametemplate=%s.html</pre>
</div>
<h4><aname="scrolling_on_website_xyz_is_very_slow"id="scrolling_on_website_xyz_is_very_slow">Scrolling on website xyz is very slow</a></h4>
<divclass="level4">
<ol>
<liclass="level1"><divclass="li"> Go to Tools > Extensions</div>
</li>
<liclass="level1"><divclass="li"> Enable 'User Addons' if it's not yet enabled</div>
</li>
<liclass="level1"><divclass="li"> Create a text file .local/share/midori/styles/scrollfix.user.css</div>
</li>
<liclass="level1"><divclass="li"> Put this into the file: * {-webkit-box-shadow: none !important;}</div>
</li>
</ol>
</div>
<h4><aname="file_opening_doesn_t_workpdfs_are_opened_with_gimp"id="file_opening_doesn_t_workpdfs_are_opened_with_gimp">File opening doesn't work/ PDFs are opened with GIMP</a></h4>
<divclass="level4">
<p>
Midori opens files with GIO, and falls back to xdg-open, exo-open or gnome-open if these are available. All of this relies on freedesktop.org <acronymtitle="Multipurpose Internet Mail Extension">MIME</acronym> configuration. To tweak this there are multiple options:
</p>
<ol>
<liclass="level1"><divclass="li"> Use 'Open With' with a graphical file manager</div>
</li>
<liclass="level1"><divclass="li"> Edit ~/.local/share/applications/defaults.list with a text editor</div>
</li>
<liclass="level1"><divclass="li"> Run something like ‘xdg-mime default evince.desktop application/pdf’</div>
</li>
</ol>
<p>
xdg-open knows how to handle GNOME, KDE and Xfce.
LXDE is unfortunately not supported yet, see <ahref="https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=26058"class="urlextern"title="https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=26058"rel="nofollow">https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=26058</a>
</p>
</div>
<h4><aname="open_magnetircaptand_friends_with_an_application"id="open_magnetircaptand_friends_with_an_application">Open magnet:, irc:, apt: and friends with an application</a></h4>
<divclass="level4">
<p>
As of git 2011-03-05 02:40:00 UTC and Midori 0.3.3 you can
</p>
<p>
Add a line to ~/.local/share/applications/mimeapps.list:
Edit→Preferences→Behavior and check “Enable Spell Checking”.
</p>
<p>
Now while typing any errors should get underlined in red. To get suggestions, highlight the word and right-click. Should see a list of suggestions on the top of the menu.
The Advertisement Blocker can be activated under Extensions. It uses the same lists as Adblock Plus. URLs are blocked completely and never loaded. Lists can be added through the option button on the right side in the extension list.
There are two closely related features to open websites as dedicated windows of their own. You can do the following to use them:
</p>
<ol>
<liclass="level1"><divclass="li"> Right-click a hyperlink → Open as Web Application</div>
</li>
<liclass="level1"><divclass="li"> Add or Edit a bookmark → [x] Run as web application</div>
</li>
<liclass="level1"><divclass="li"> Type ‘midori -a <ahref="http://foo.bar"class="urlextern"title="http://foo.bar"rel="nofollow">http://foo.bar</a>’ on a command line</div>
</li>
</ol>
<p>
You can also add options such as ‘-e Fullscreen’, ‘-e Navigationbar’ or ‘-e Statusbar’ (as of Midori 0.2.9 ‘midori –help-execute will list all available commands’)
A private window is a separate process, so crashes don't affect the normal browser session. No sensitive data such as cookies, history or bookmarks are stored. No extensions are loaded. Panels are not available.
As of Midori 0.2.9 Private Browsing uses preferences, cookies, keyboard shortcuts and search engines from the normal session, but it won't save any changes. This behaviour can be emulated from the command line with ”-a” and ”-c”.
As of Midori 0.3.4 the –private command line switch opens a private browsing instance with normal preferences, cookies, shortcuts and search engines. But no changes will be saved.
<acronymtitle="Domain Name System">DNS</acronym> prefetching is disabled in this mode, also referrers are stripped down to the hostname when navigating between different websites.
There is no specific mode, instead you use several command line switches. A typical fullscreen setup with no toolbar that opens about:blank and resets the session after 2 minutes of inactivity for instance:
Available commands for -e can be listed with “midori –help-execute”.
</p>
<p>
If needed, a customized profile can be created with “midori -c /path/to/folder”. Using the shortcut editor extension, keyboard shortcuts can be removed as needed. Afterwards just append ”-c /path/to/folder” to the kiosk mode command line.
</p>
<p>
To restrict pages that can be opened, you can use a regular expression. The expression is a blacklist. To block undesirable sites you can do something like:
By running a local proxy you can modify web content even before it has reached Midori. That allows you to do things similar to what user scripts and user styles provide and even others that neither is suitable for.
</p>
</div>
<h4><aname="privoxy"id="privoxy">Privoxy</a></h4>
<divclass="level4">
<p>
Privoxy is a non-caching web proxy with filter capabilites and particular support for blocking advertisements before even loading them.
Currently only <acronymtitle="Hyper Text Transfer Protocol">HTTP</acronym> proxy servers are supported directly. A way to use SOCKS on Unix is to use tsocks with <acronymtitle="Secure Shell">SSH</acronym> as follows:
<liclass="level1"><divclass="li"> Open /etc/tsocks.conf in an editor</div>
</li>
<liclass="level1"><divclass="li"> Type something like this, you can choose the port freely: <preclass="code">server = 127.0.0.1
server_type = 5
server_port = 5555</pre>
</div>
</li>
<liclass="level1"><divclass="li"> Open an <acronymtitle="Secure Shell">SSH</acronym> connection with the same port: <preclass="code"> ssh -D localhost:5555 myhost.com </pre>
</div>
</li>
<liclass="level1"><divclass="li"> Run Midori with “tsocks” in front of it: <preclass="code"> tsocks midori </pre>
</div>
</li>
<liclass="level1"><divclass="li"> Now you can use for example <ahref="http://www.whatsmyip.org/"class="urlextern"title="http://www.whatsmyip.org/"rel="nofollow">http://www.whatsmyip.org/</a> to verify that you are using a SOCKS connection. The IP address should match the one of your <acronymtitle="Secure Shell">SSH</acronym> host. Remember to keep the <acronymtitle="Secure Shell">SSH</acronym> login running, and don't suspend it, otherwise it won't work.</div>
</li>
<liclass="level1"><divclass="li"> If the connection fails for some reason, you should see a connection error.</div>
To enable Hints in Midori [similar to those vimperator provides in Firefox], press .
</p>
<p>
With hints enabled, type the link number, and press Enter to open the link in the current tab, or Ctrl-Enter to open the link in a new tab. To clear a typed link number before pressing Enter or Ctrl-Enter, use Escape.
<h4><aname="use_ctrl_shift_tab_to_switch_between_pages"id="use_ctrl_shift_tab_to_switch_between_pages">Use Ctrl(+Shift)+Tab to switch between pages</a></h4>
When using Ctrl+f to bring up Find, use Ctrl+f again or ESC. When using ”/” or ”,” to bring up Find, the previous works here as well and by simply moving focus away from the Find box. For example: a Tab or a mouse click anywhere[besides links of course].
<liclass="level1"><divclass="li"> Create a text file ~/.config/midori/extensions/libmouse-gestures.so/config .</div>
</li>
<liclass="level1"><divclass="li"> Type the following in there:</div>
</li>
</ol>
<preclass="code"> [settings]
button=2</pre>
<p>
For a quick and dirty overview of the gestures in the current release take a look at the <ahref="http://www.matthiaskruk.de/midori/mouse-gestures.pdf"class="urlextern"title="http://www.matthiaskruk.de/midori/mouse-gestures.pdf"rel="nofollow">preliminary manual</a>.
Further information is available at the <ahref="http://www.matthiaskruk.de/midori"class="urlextern"title="http://www.matthiaskruk.de/midori"rel="nofollow">MGX website</a>.
</p>
<p>
Additionally, there are programs allowing mouse gestures system-wide, for example <ahref="http://easystroke.wiki.sourceforge.net/"class="urlextern"title="http://easystroke.wiki.sourceforge.net/"rel="nofollow">EasyStroke</a>.
UserScripts are scripts applied on some, or on all web pages. They can modify pages locally to add or alter functionality. That includes fixing bugs in web pages. User scripts are also available in other browsers, in the form of <ahref="http://www.greasespot.net"class="urlextern"title="http://www.greasespot.net"rel="nofollow">Mozilla's Greasemonkey</a> or <ahref="http://www.opera.com/support/tutorials/userjs/"class="urlextern"title="http://www.opera.com/support/tutorials/userjs/"rel="nofollow">Opera's User JavaScript</a>.
</p>
</div>
<h4><aname="how_to_install_a_userscript"id="how_to_install_a_userscript">How to install a UserScript</a></h4>
First enable the “User Addons” extension. It will show up as a “User Scripts” panel (and it also provides “User Styles”).
</p>
<p>
Now you need to find some scripts. You can find some at <ahref="http://userscripts.org/"class="urlextern"title="http://userscripts.org/"rel="nofollow">userscripts.org</a>. Most scripts work fine, some may be written specifically for other browsers.
</p>
<p>
If you have Midori 0.3.0 or newer, you will be offered to install scripts as soon as you see them on the page.
</p>
<p>
To manually install a userscript, you have to download the script as a file, and put it in the folder <strong>~/.local/share/midori/scripts</strong>. You need to create that folder if it doesn't exist yet. Midori will automatically see and use it, which you can also see in the user scripts panel.
If the script is only shown as source code on the page, you first have to create a new text file in a text editor, copy the source code into the new file, and save it as my-user-script.js where ”.js” is the extension.
As previously mentioned, Midori can use most scripts you will find. Midori supports Greasemonkey's <em>@include</em> and <em>@exclude</em> metadata so that scripts are only loaded on appropriate pages. Midori doesn't support advanced metadata, such as @require and @resource, so user scripts can't define dependencies on other scripts - most of the time this isn't a problem. Midori also does not support <ahref="http://wiki.greasespot.net/API_reference"class="urlextern"title="http://wiki.greasespot.net/API_reference"rel="nofollow">Greasemonkey API</a>. Scripts must also be compatible with Webkit, since Midori is based on WebKit. A Greasemonkey script that makes use of functionality of Gecko/ Firefox will not work in Midori.
<h4><aname="flash_blocking_via_a_user_script"id="flash_blocking_via_a_user_script">Flash blocking via a User script</a></h4>
<divclass="level4">
<p>
You can use <ahref="http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/45343"class="urlextern"title="http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/45343"rel="nofollow">BlockFlash2</a> as a user script which replaces all Flash elements with a button that says “Play Flash”.
</p>
</div>
<h4><aname="flash_blocking_via_a_user_style"id="flash_blocking_via_a_user_style">Flash blocking via a User style</a></h4>
<divclass="level4">
<p>
You can also use <ahref="http://rightfootin.blogspot.com/2009/04/flashblock-wannabe.html"class="urlextern"title="http://rightfootin.blogspot.com/2009/04/flashblock-wannabe.html"rel="nofollow">FlashBlock WannaBe</a> as a user script in order to replace Flash elements with placeholders and load them on click. The script is pretty advanced compared to most Flash blockers found on the web.
User styles are <acronymtitle="Cascading Style Sheets">CSS</acronym> Cascading Style sheets that are loaded locally and applied on top of web pages, similar to User scripts, in order to add or alter functionality and also fix bugs.
</p>
</div>
<h4><aname="how_to_install_a_user_style"id="how_to_install_a_user_style">How to install a user style</a></h4>
<divclass="level4">
<p>
First, you need to find some styles (or write your own). You can find some at <ahref="http://userstyles.org/"class="urlextern"title="http://userstyles.org/"rel="nofollow">userstyles.org</a>. Many styles may or may not work, depending on whether the author decided to use browser specific features.
</p>
<p>
To install a user style, you have to download the style as a file, and put it in the following directory <strong>~/.local/share/midori/styles</strong> (you may need to create that directory if it does not exist). Midori will automatically see and use it, which you can also see in the user styles panel.
</p>
<p>
Note, if the style is only shown as source code on the page, you first have to create a new text file in a text editor, copy the source code into the new file, and save it as my-user-style.css where ”.css” is the extension.
</p>
</div>
<h4><aname="how_to_install_a_user_style_before_midori_0020"id="how_to_install_a_user_style_before_midori_0020">How to install a user style before Midori 0.0.20</a></h4>
<divclass="level4">
<p>
Open up the Preferences and use the file chooser button beside User Stylesheet to choose a style sheet file. The style sheet will from now on be applied to all sites automatically.
</p>
</div>
<h4><aname="a_user_css_to_display_the_url_when_a_link_is_hovered"id="a_user_css_to_display_the_url_when_a_link_is_hovered">A user css to display the url when a link is hovered</a></h4>
<divclass="level4">
<p>
This user css is used to display the corresponding url when a link is hovered. This is similar to what chromium/chrome provides when hovering over a link, shown on the bottom left of the page. Add the following to <strong>~/.local/share/midori/styles</strong>, then restart Midori and make sure that it is enabled Tools → Userstyles.
