GNOME Web (Epiphany)

2002 – present Active

60

GNOME's official browser, simple and well integrated. A fork of Galeon that moved from Gecko to WebKitGTK.

Facts

Developer

GNOME Project

Website

apps.gnome.org

Current engines

WebKit (WebKitGTK)

Former engines

Gecko

Derived from

Galeon

Platforms

LinuxBSDBeOS/Haiku

Popularity

60/100

Key versions

1. Dec. 25, 2002
   0.4GeckoFirst Epiphany release, a Galeon fork created by Marco Pesenti Gritti.
2. Sept. 8, 2003
   1.0Version 1.0, shipped with GNOME 2.4.
3. Mar. 9, 2005
   1.6Adds an extensions manager.
4. Mar. 12, 2006
   2.14Version numbering synced to GNOME; XULRunner backend supported.
5. Sept. 19, 2007
   2.20Start of the migration from Gecko to WebKit.
6. Mar. 31, 2009
   2.26Last Gecko-based version.
7. Sept. 24, 2009
   2.28WebKit (WebKitGTK)Full switch to WebKit; Gecko backends and Python extensions removed.
8. Apr. 6, 2011
   3.0Migration to GTK 3 and GNOME 3, with reduced interface chrome.
9. Sept. 28, 2011
   3.2Web Applications mode introduced.
10. Mar. 28, 2012
    3.4Renamed from “Epiphany” to “Web”; major interface overhaul.
11. Mar. 27, 2013
    3.8Plug-ins via WebKit2, a private browsing mode and a new-tab button.
12. Mar. 25, 2014
    3.12One process per tab.
13. Sept. 12, 2019
    3.34Web process sandboxing, new ad blocker; plug-in support removed.
14. Sept. 16, 2020
    3.38Intelligent Tracking Prevention enabled by default.
15. Mar. 26, 2021
    40Revamped tabs; Google Safe Browsing disabled by default.
16. Sept. 15, 2022
    43WebExtensions support largely rearchitected; libsoup 3.
17. Mar. 17, 2023
    44WebKitGTK 6.0Interface overhaul moving to GTK 4 and libadwaita.
18. Sept. 12, 2024
    47Form autofill and a bookmarks sidebar.
19. Sept. 11, 2025
    49Redesigned address bar and a kiosk mode.

Version sources: GNOME Web (Wikipedia en) · Full history →

Sources

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNOME_Web