Editing GNOME Web (section)

==== Galeon ====
{{main|Galeon}}
Marco Pesenti Gritti, the initiator of [[Galeon]], originally developed Epiphany in 2002 as a [[Fork (software development)|fork]] of Galeon. The fork occurred because of the disagreement between Gritti and the rest of Galeon developers about new features. Gritti regarded Galeon's monolithic design and the number of user-configurable features as factors that were limiting Galeon's maintainability and usability, but the rest of the Galeon developers wanted to add more features.{{Citation needed|date=March 2022}}

Around the same time, the GNOME project adopted a set of [[GNOME Human Interface Guidelines|human interface guidelines]], which promoted simplification of user interfaces. As Galeon was oriented towards [[power user]]s, most developers disapproved. As a result, Gritti created a new browser based on Galeon, with most of the non-critical features removed. He intended Epiphany to comply with the GNOME HIG. As such, Epiphany used the global GNOME theme and other settings from inception.<ref name="galeon-history_website" /><ref name="FSM" />

Gritti explained his motivations:

{{quote|While Mozilla has an excellent rendering engine, its default [[XUL]]-based interface is considered to be overcrowded and bloated. Furthermore, on slower processors even trivial tasks such as pulling down a menu is less than responsive.

Epiphany aims to utilize the simplest interface possible for a browser. Keep in mind that simple does not necessarily mean less powerful. We believe the commonly used browsers of today are too big, buggy, and bloated. Epiphany addresses simplicity with a small browser designed for the web—not mail, newsgroups, file management, instant messaging or coffee making. The [[Unix philosophy]] is to design small tools that do one thing, and do it well.

[..]

Epiphany's main goal is to be integrated with the gnome desktop. We don't aim to make Epiphany usable outside Gnome. If someone will like to use it anyway, it's just a plus. For example: Making people happy that don't have control center installed is not a good reason to have mime configuration in Epiphany itself.|Marco Pesenti Gritti<ref name="mozdev-home"/>}}

Galeon continued after the fork, but lost momentum due to the remaining developers' failure to keep up with changes in the Mozilla platform. Galeon development stalled and the developers decided to work on extensions to bring Galeon's advanced features to Epiphany.<ref name="FSM" />

Gritti ended his work on Epiphany and a GNOME team led by Xan Lopez, Christian Persch and Jean-François Rameau now direct the project.<ref name="webkit-announcement" /> Gritti died of cancer on May 23, 2015.<ref name=gritti />