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Maintaining an Independent Browser Is Expensive

robert.ocallahan.org

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Re: Maintaining an Independent Browser Is Expensive

#81

Post by BerislavLopac »

pcwalton wrote: post #74
Endy wrote: post #72

Question: Is there actually a good Independent browser for Windows at this time? That is, not Firefox, not Chrome, not Chrome-Opera, not Vivaldi (alias Chrome-Opera-2), and also not based on Chromium, WebKit, Blink, Gecko, Trident, or any of the major bits of one of the corporate browsers? The closest that I can see is Pale Moon, but even they are just a "better" fork of Firefox.

There are exactly four major engines, each of which has a flagship browser: Blink/Chrome, WebKit/Safari, Gecko/Firefox, and EdgeHTML/Edge.

Wouldn't introduction of Servo make it five? Gecko is not going away yet, IIRC it's used in some browsers, like Pale Moon. https://www.palemoon.org/

Re: Maintaining an Independent Browser Is Expensive

#82

Post by yorwba »

linopolus wrote: post #77
kitsunesoba wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The iOS version is a WebKit wrapper by necessity (Apple mandates that all alternative browsers use the system-bundled WebKit for user experience reasons), and while it’s possible they’ve ported Edge’s engine to Android I’d bet that Edge for Android either wraps WebKit or Blink/Chromium. The primary value proposition for Edge on mobile is syncing of tabs/bookmarks/history/etc, not its engine.

> Apple mandates that all alternative browsers use the system-bundled WebKit for user experience reasons Not entirely true: Every browser developer is free to use whatever engine they like on iOS. Mozilla could use Gecko, Google could use Blink. They just don’t do it, because what’s not allowed is JITs (because security), thus 3rd-party JS-engines would always be slow. So the reason everybody uses WebKit on iOS is no…

Would it be possible to use WebKit for JavaScript execution, but still do rendering in a different engine?

Re: Maintaining an Independent Browser Is Expensive

#83

Post by agumonkey »

userbinator wrote: post #5
Santosh83 wrote: post #2

A reminder that, as article points out, a healthy web needs multiple independent client implementations and we're already down to less than a handful major ones. Ideally they should hold equivalent usage share which implies that as currently usage is heavily tilted towards Google Chrome, the best way in which you can help Mozilla is to use their browser and get your friends and family to use it too, unless there's a…

...and ideally, we should also encourage the use of the "lesser" browsers like Dillo, NetSurf, and all the text-based ones. They can't really run "web apps" and the like, but will be fine for viewing the "long tail" of content-focused sites out there (including this one.) What has become quite obvious to me within the past few years is that the whole "move the Web forward" thing seems to be really about coming up wit…

dillo for static documentation is neat, you can have twenty tabs and still using only 32MB total.

Re: Maintaining an Independent Browser Is Expensive

#85

Post by krapp »

captainmuon wrote: post #76
baddox wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder: who could even feasibly introduce another browser today? The task seems almost impossible.

I would first target a subset of HTML, for example static documents instead of web apps. You would have a specification like AMP which restricts what elements you can use. If a document used the full spec, I would fallback to another engine (e.g. WebKit). You could have full documents in iframes inside limited documents (but cross-frame scripting might be hard to get right in that case). Also, I would try to make it…

The difference between static web documents and web apps isn't the set of HTML they use, it's just that the latter are designed to deeply integrate javascript (and/or, to futureproof this comment, WebAssembly) into their UI, rather than do all of the logic on the server between requests.

The only way to ship a browser that doesn't render "web apps" would be to simply not support scripting of any kind. That would permanently break much of the web unless you offered a way to opt in to scripting the way current browser users who run script blockers can. But then you just have a regular browser with script blocking turned on by default.

Having different engines for "static" and "web app" documents, and defining a proprietary standard for the former as a restrictive subset of HTML would be unnecessarily complex and hostile to web developers.

Re: Maintaining an Independent Browser Is Expensive

#86

Post by jimnotgym »

moz23 wrote: post #39
rtpg wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I'm a heavy Firefox for Android user and I _really_ want to use it but the performance is really rough. I wish I had the sort of skills to help contribute to performance, but the whole thing is so huge I wouldn't even know where to begin. At this point if Chrome implemented the "open tab in background" feature (when I click on a link in an e-mail I don't want to switch directly to the browser) I would probably…

Mozilla don't really care about mobile. The (too) small mobile teams do care, but the company as a whole doesn't - which mostly explains why it's so rough.

Firefox Focus is my go to browser on Android for 'just looking things up'. It's perfect for Wikipedia and IMDB (when someone points at the film you are watching and asks who the actor is). I only use another browser if I want up keep the page. No cookies, no bookmarks, no trackers

Re: Maintaining an Independent Browser Is Expensive

#87

Post by Vinnl »

jstewartmobile wrote: post #55
Vinnl wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently, this one, as they were doing it. What helps think about it is that the 'dependence' was a business transaction: Google paid Mozilla, and got something in return. Much like a startup being dependent on a single large customer yet still wanting to diversify.

Until they have actually diversified, they are by definition dependent on whichever search engine they are currently contracted to.

Yes, but you implied they couldn't strive for independence while doing so.

Furthermore, it's good to note that they have actually diversified: https://blog.mozilla.org/press/2014/11/new-search-strategy-f...

Re: Maintaining an Independent Browser Is Expensive

#88

Post by dtech »

chungy wrote: post #60
Sylos wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the Android-version is also just a Blink wrapper. It's almost impossible for Microsoft to port Trident/EdgeHTML to other operating systems, because it's so deeply integrated into Windows.

Way back when, there were versions of IE 4, 5, and 6 for non-Windows OSes such as HP-UX, AIX, Solaris, and Mac OS (Classic and X both). It is not unreasonable that they could do it again.

Those were basically just independent pieces of software, and had their own set of features and bugs (IE5.5 on mac was notoriously buggy)

Re: Maintaining an Independent Browser Is Expensive

#89

Post by adrianN »

rlv-dan wrote: post #40

This begs the question: Is it healthy that one of the most important technologies today (web) is also very complicated (=expensive) and thus effectively limiting number of players.

All of the most important technologies today are very complicated. Anything that has to do with computers, cars, airplanes, trains, almost every industrial process. Being complicated is basically one of the prerequisites for being "high" tech.

Re: Maintaining an Independent Browser Is Expensive

#90

Post by roca »

edejong wrote: post #69
roca wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not healthy, but unfortunately maintaining compatibility and staying abreast of modern platform features (so that apps and content don't fully migrate to the single-vendor platforms) just mandates a lot of complexity.

The reason why it’s expensive is that no HTML5 proposals are taking into account the cost of development and maintenance. “Anything goes” as long as it competes with the walled-garden platforms. Spending without budgeting nor cost evaluation is similar to going to a casino spending your life savings thinking you’re the lucky one.

Deciding just to cede applications and content to single-vendor platforms isn't that appealing for the open Web.
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