Kubuntu Documentation

Internet

Contents

  1. Internet
    1. Browsers
    2. Email Clients
    3. Chat Clients
    4. Voice over IP (VOIP)
  2. Back Home

Internet

Kubuntu is set up to get you online; to the Internet, via chat protocols, and even voice (VOIP) and other new voice applications. This page describes software installed by default, and the best and most popular available alternatives.

Browsers

The default browser for Kubuntu is Rekonq, and there many additional web browsers located in the Ubuntu Repositories. From text-based browsers to the famous Firefox and Chromium browsers, Kubuntu has web-browsing covered.

Rekonq

This is the default browser shipped with Kubuntu, with a minimal look and advanced features; pre-installed. For more information see Rekonq site and Manual.

Firefox

Installing Firefox is made easy with the Kubuntu-Firefox-Installer.

How-to: 1. Open the Kickoff Launcher. 2. Search for 'Kubuntu-Firefox-Installer'. 3. Follow the on-screen instructions.

For more infomation on how to use Firefox see Firefox Getting Started.

Chrome/Chromium

Chrome is a freeware browser developed by Google; all Chrome releases have been based on the open source version called Chromium. For more information see Features and Chrome on Wikipedia.

How-to: 1. Open the 'Muon Software Center', then search for 'chromium'. 2. Select Chromium on the search list and click 'Install'

Email Clients

There are many options when it comes to email clients. In Kubuntu, Kmail is presented by default, either as a stand-alone client or as part of the Kontact personal information manager (PIM). Other popular email clients include Mozilla Thunderbird, Evolution, and the new Trojitá and Geary as well as old favorites such as Claws Mail and Sylpheed.

Kmail

Kmail is the pre-installed email component of Kontact, the KDE personal information manager (PIM). Kmail by itself is similar in functionality to other popular email programs, while Kontact is as full-featured as the fanciest personal information managers (PIMs), as it can be configured with calendars, address books, notes, an RSS reader, time tracking, journals and simple project planning. The following are just some of the features of Kmail:

  • IMAP, POP3, SMTP support
  • SSL, TLS, and Digest-md5 secure logon support
  • PGP and GNUPG signatures and encryption support
  • HTML reading, spam filtering, internal character sets, search and filter functions, spell checking, and robust searching. More information on Kmail can be found in the Kmail documentation.

Chat Clients

Chatting with friends and family is a popular use of the internet, and Kubuntu provides the necessary applications. There are two default chat clients in Kubuntu - KDE Telepathy for instant messaging, and Quassel for chatting on IRC (Internet Relay Chat). The popular Pidgin, Kopete, Gnome's Empathy and BitlBee are available. The KDE IRC client Konversation is available in the repositories as well.

KDE Telepathy

KDE Telepathy is in active development, and already works well for daily use. You will find it already installed and ready to configure.

Quassel

Quassel is the IRC (Internet Relay Chat) client pre-installed in Kubuntu. Not only does it provide functions similar to those of other popular IRC clients such as Konversation, or X-chat, its design emphasizes ease of use. Quassel includes tabbed browsing and notification of messages and other events. Also, it can be connected to a Quassel-core for storage and search of IRC channel logs.

Konversation

Konversation is KDE's IRC client; very user-friendly with the advanced features you'd expect.

Voice over IP (VOIP)

Voice applications are not installed by default. However not only the well-known (but not libre) Skype, there are other great free and open choices as well.

  • QuteCom (formerly !WengoPhone)is a free software SIP* compliant (VoIP) client.
  • Ekiga (formerly !GnomeMeeting) is an open source VoIP and video conferencing application for GNOME. Ekiga uses both the H.323 and SIP protocols.
  • Linphone is a web phone: with voice, video, and text instant messaging; SIP-compatible.
  • Mumble is a low-latency, high quality voice chat software.
  • Skype, while not open source, is free, and can be installed. See Skype on Ubuntu for more information.

KDE software connects you to the world. See Internet, Networking, & Communication for more.

Back Home

Back to Kubuntu Docs.

The material on this wiki is available under a free license, see Copyright / License for details.