Konqueror is a web browser and file manager that provides file-viewer functionality up to a wide variety of things: local files, files on a remote ftp server and files in a disk image. It is designed as a core part of the KDE desktop environment and developed by volunteers so it can run on most Unix-like operating systems and on Windows systems as well. Konqueror, along with the rest of the components in the KDEBase package, is licensed and distributed under the GNU General Public License version 2.
Konqueror came with the version 2 of KDE, released on October 23, 2000. It replaces its predecessor, KFM (KDE file manager). With the release of KDE4, Konqueror was replaced as a file manager by Dolphin.
Konqueror has been developed as an autonomous web browser project. It uses KHTML as its layout engine, which is compliant with HTML and supports JavaScript, Java applets, CSS, SSL, and other relevant open standards.
While KHTML is its default web-rendering engine, Konqueror is a modular application and other rendering engines are and have been available. Especially the WebKitPart that uses the KHTML-derived WebKit engine has seen a lot of support in the KDE 4 series.
Konqueror integrates several customizable search services which can be accessed by entering the service's abbreviation code (for example, gg: for Google) followed by the search term(s). One can add their own search service; for instance, to retrieve Wikipedia articles, a shortcut may be added with the URL http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=\{@}&go=Go. Alternatively, you can right-click on any search field and click, "Create Web Shortcut" in the context menu, which will fill in the above URL automatically and prompt you for a shortcut or shortcuts.
KHTMLs rendering speed is on par with that of competing browsers, but sites with customized JavaScript are often problematic due to KHTMLs much smaller mind- and market-share.