WebApp

Minimal C web browser launcher. Downloads the site favicon as the app/taskbar icon. Two compile-time backends: Qt6 WebEngine (default) or WebKit2GTK.

Quick start

make                              # Qt6 WebEngine (default)
make USE_WEBENGINE=0              # WebKit2GTK
sudo make install                 # install to /usr/local/bin

Usage

./WebApp [OPTIONS] <URL> [TITLE]

Option	Description
--cache	Cache favicon + title in ~/.cache/<app>/. On subsequent runs, loads from cache instead of scraping.
--desktop	Create a .desktop launcher on the user's app menu. Requires a title (from scraping, cache, or [TITLE] arg). Warns but does not fail if no icon is found.

The application name is autodetected from argv[0]. To change it, rename the source file — the Makefile derives TARGET automatically, and all banners / usage / titles follow.

Examples

# Open a site with scraped favicon and title
./WebApp 192.168.3.194:8080

# Force a custom title
./WebApp 192.168.3.194:8080 "Open WebUI"

# Cache the favicon for faster subsequent launches
./WebApp --cache 192.168.3.194:8080

# Generate a desktop launcher
./WebApp --cache --desktop 192.168.3.194:8080

Build targets

Target	Command
Qt6 WebEngine (default)	make or make webengine
WebKit2GTK	make USE_WEBENGINE=0 or make webkit
WebEngine with sandbox	make sandbox
WebEngine without sandbox	make nosandbox (default)
WebEngine with GPU	make gpu or make USE_GPU=1
WebEngine with GPU + no sandbox	make gpu DISABLE_SANDBOX=1
Clean	make clean
Install	sudo make install
Uninstall	sudo make uninstall

Dependencies

Qt6 WebEngine path

sudo apt install qt6-webengine-dev libcurl4-openssl-dev g++

WebKit2GTK path

sudo apt install libgtk-3-dev libwebkit2gtk-4.1-dev libcurl4-openssl-dev

Session persistence (Qt6 WebEngine)

Login sessions, cookies, and localStorage persist across restarts under:

~/.local/share/WebApp/WebApp/

How it works:

• A custom QWebEngineProfile (not defaultProfile) is created with an explicit setPersistentStoragePath. Qt6 only guarantees persistence paths on explicitly created profiles.
• Cookies are forced persistent via ForcePersistentCookies.
• On window close, the view/page is destroyed first, then a 2.5 s flush delay gives Chromium's IO thread time to sync the Cookies SQLite file and IndexedDB to disk before the process exits.

If sessions are not persisting, clear the profile directory and rebuild:

rm -rf ~/.local/share/WebApp/WebApp
make clean && make USE_WEBENGINE=1

Notes

• Bare-IP URLs (e.g. 192.168.3.194:8080) are auto-normalized with http:// prefix.
• The sandbox is disabled by default (DISABLE_SANDBOX=1) for compatibility on many systems. Re-enable with make sandbox.
• GPU acceleration is disabled by default (USE_GPU=0) for headless/VM compatibility. Enable with make USE_GPU=1. Sandbox and GPU flags are independent — combine freely (e.g. make USE_GPU=1 DISABLE_SANDBOX=0).
• WebKit2GTK renders via GTK's software stack — no GPU toggle applies.
• Single source file, zero config. Just edit WebApp.c and run make.