Installation

How to get Epiphany?

Epiphany packages can be obtained from repositories of almost all GNU/Linux/Unix/*BSD distributions that offer the GNOME desktop environment, so see your package management software. Other options: download Epiphany as binary package or source code.

How to compile Epiphany

In case there is no precompiled package for your distribution available, or if you want to build a newer version that available, or if you want to contribute a patch, you need to compile Epiphany from source yourself.

See the Technical Guide section of wiki:GnomeLove and especially this document for more information about how to build a GNOME package from source.

What's the recommended way to compile Mozilla?

We recommend you use your distribution's package. The package is usually called "firefox-dev", "xulrunner-dev", "mozilla-dev" or variations of these.

If you absolutely want to compile mozilla from source, please refer to the build instructions on mozilla.org.

How to disable compile warnings?

Add the following flag when you ./configure ephy: --enable-compile-warnings=no.

I've installed Epiphany in my Debian system, but I can't see it!

You probably installed the other epiphany boulder-dash clone. Try apt-get install epiphany-browser. This also applies to Debian-based distributions like Ubuntu.

Configuration

Changing proxy settings

Epiphany uses the GNOME default proxies. They can be modified (session wide) by using gnome-network-preferences. The corresponding gconf keys are  /system/http_proxy/host, /system/http_proxy/port, /system/http_proxy/use_http_proxy and /system/proxy/mode (set to manual).

Bypassing the proxy for some sites

Use gconf-editor to add this; edit the key /system/http_proxy/ignore_hosts.

Loading the clipboard url on middle-click like Mozilla

Yes. Use gconf-editor to enable it; the key is  /apps/epiphany/general/middle_click_open_url . Or use this command on a shell prompt:

gconftool-2 --set /apps/epiphany/general/middle_click_open_url --type bool true

Setting the search URL for the location bar

By default, Epiphany executes a Google keyword search when you enter text in the location bar. You can change the search engine by editing the keyword.URL value in about:config. NOTE: This trick no longer works with Epiphany 2.28 and later.

Making Backspace the accelerator key for Back

This is not the default accelerator to go backward because of scenarios where this would lead to data loss. However you can change accelerator keys by enabling menu accelerator editing in the GNOME control center, then opening the Go menu, highlighting the Back item, pressing Backspace (Alt+left disappears) and Backspace again.

Enabling smooth scroll

• Go to the about:config location

• Find general.smoothScroll and set it to true

• Done!

How to open links from external applications in a new tab

This option is currently not implemented within Epiphany, see bug #337725. However, it is possible to achieve this behavior from most Gnome applications (and many non-Gnome as well)

• From your Gnome panel, go to System > Preferences > Preferred Applications

• From the Internet tab, you can choose how your preferred browser should open new links. Choose Open link in new tab

• If one of your applications doesn't respect this option, it probably has it's own web browser setting. From your application's preferences you can set it to call epiphany --new-tab.

Epiphany features

Bookmark management

The traditional way of organizing bookmarks is too unnatural, so Epiphany organizes bookmarks by topic, which causes differences with traditional bookmarks systems:

• Bookmarks can be associated with multiple topics.
• The recommended way to access bookmarks is the bookmarks window, not the bookmarks menu. If you remember the title of the bookmark you're looking for, type the first few characters of it in the location bar, and matching bookmarks will be shown in a drop down menu.
• For now, bookmarks are not organized in a multiple level hierarchy.

Smart bookmarks

Smart Bookmarks will appear in a dropdown menu if you enter some text in the address bar. Add a Smart Bookmark to a toolbar by checking the "Show in bookmarks bar" box in the bookmark's properties window. If you do so, you will see its name and a text box. See Smart Bookmarks in Epiphany.

Mouse gestures

Add mouse gestures to Epiphany through the epiphany-extensions package.

Does Epiphany remember the pages I was visiting before closing its last window?

Yes. If Epiphany crashes, or if you restart your GNOME session while Epiphany was open, it will offer to restore the previous state. Be aware that if you exit the application with the Close action in the File menu, or through the window manager's close window action, the state won't be saved.

Users better versed in the UNIX tools that, for some reason, need to restart Epiphany without closing their session can send Epiphany a SIGTERM with the kill command (e.g., killall epiphany, or kill pidof epiphany).

Troubleshooting

Where is the spinner / the Epiphany icon?

Both are part of the default GNOME icon theme. So make sure you have a recent gnome-icon-theme package installed; you need version 1.0.6 or later. If the problem still persists, it is a bug in your theme, not in Epiphany.

Epiphany doesn't load plugins I installed!

For Epiphany versions up to 1.4.1: Some distributions install plugins in /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins (instead of /usr/lib/mozilla-version/plugins). For Epiphany to find them, you have to set the MOZ_PLUGIN_PATH environment variable to the plugin directory.

For Epiphany versions since 1.4.2, this shouldn't be needed anymore; Epiphany now automatically searches for plugins in /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins.

Epiphany doesn't open my favourite email application when I click a mailto: link!

You should assign a handler (Evolution, Kmail, Mozilla Mail, etc.) for the mailto: format using the System -> Preferences -> Preferred Applications. You can check the existing handlers for other protocols/services in that configuration program for the exact syntax.

Is there a way to close all open windows at once?

Not at this moment. The underlying idea is that Epiphany strives to be document-oriented, not application-oriented. However, an extension that adds a Quit menu item can be found on the Epiphany/ThirdPartyExtensions page.

How to export bookmarks to use them with Mozilla?

For Epiphany versions up to 1.5.2: to export your bookmarks into the format used by Mozilla, you need to save this XSL stylesheet as ephy2moz.xsl, and issue the following command on a shell prompt:

xsltproc -o bookmarks.html ephy2moz.xsl ~/.gnome2/epiphany/bookmarks.rdf

Since version 1.5.3, you can use "Export Bookmarks..." from the "File" menu in the bookmarks editor.

Where's the SSL certificate manager in Epiphany?

If you have the Certificates extension from Epiphany Extensions package installed, you can access the certificates manager from Tools->Manage Certificates. Alternatively, you can just type the url  chrome://pippki/content/certManager.xul  in the location entry in Epiphany.

Scrolling with the keyboard doesn't work, and instead there's a cursor moving around!

You activated "caret browsing" mode. Press the F7 key to disable it.

The context menu doesn't work as expected on some web sites

Some web sites try to replace the browser's context menu with their own context menu. However, when you right-click, you will get the browser's context menu. This is because Epiphany does not allow web sites to take away the browser's context menu.

Context menus became broken

You recently upgraded your mozilla package, without upgrading or recompiling Epiphany afterwards. This bug is known to occur when epiphany was compiled against a different mozilla version than the one you're running it with. Solution: Upgrade the Epiphany package, or recompile Epiphany if you compile from source.

After opening a new tab or window, the location bar isn't focused

This is a longstanding Mozilla bug. (bug 105153), but Epiphany works around the problem in versions since 1.4.9, 1.6.5 and 1.8.0.

To have focus on the location bar in newly opened tabs, you need to set an empty startpage in Epiphany preferences. Alternatively press ctrl+L to focus location bar, type or paste an URL and press ctrl+enter to open that URL in a new tab.

Why can I not drag tabs to other windows anymore?

This was disabled because of a bug in the gecko backend, moz#296002