QtWebKit is very slow

[Jan Hoffmann]

Loading pages using the QWebView widget in a python script with PyQt is very slow. For example loading of http://heise.de/, the biggest german site for tech news takes between 2 and 3 minutes on my netbook running Ubuntu 9.10 with the latest Qt and PyQt versions and using the script that I've attached. The same script achieves results of 2 to 5 seconds in virtual machines with Windows XP and Windows 7 RC running on my desktop computer in Virtualbox. Loading the same page on my netbook with Firefox takes only about 2 to 3 seconds (Cache was cleared before).

QtWebKit is not only slow while loading pages, but also mouse over effects can be very slow. For example on http://cms-db.de/ there's a big background image and it takes about a second for the mouse over effect to appear on my netbook. Again, this is running as fast as in Firefox when opening the page on Windows.

[arky (arky)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. This bug did not have a package associated with it, which is important for ensuring that it gets looked at by the proper developers. You can learn more about finding the right package at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/FindRightPackage. I have classified this bug as a bug in python-qt4

When reporting bugs in the future please use apport, either via the appropriate application's "Help -> Report a Problem" menu or using 'ubuntu-bug' and the name of the package affected. You can learn more about this functionality at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ReportingBugs.

[Jan Hoffmann (jan-hoffmann)]

I didn't associate a package because I didn't know whether the big is in Qt or in PyQt. But as I just installed the Arora browser, which is written in C++ and does also use QtWebKit, I noticed that it has the same speed problems. So this bug can't be in PyQt. I assume that it is a bug in libqt4-webkit, but it could also be in libqt4-network.

[Jan Hoffmann (jan-hoffmann)]

I changed the package to libqt4-x11 now, as its the source package for both libqt4-webkit and libqt4-network.

[Jonathan Thomas (echidnaman)]

The script loads in a few seconds with Qt 4.6 in Kubuntu 10.04.