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ElectronJS alternative: SciterJS – HTML/CSS/JS in 4.5 MB executable

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Re: ElectronJS alternative: SciterJS – HTML/CSS/JS in 4.5 MB executable

#191

Post by c-smile »

webmaven wrote: post #189
c-smile wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For many reasons. Compact and manageable UI layer is the first. Full Sciter build for one platform/target is 50 seconds or less. Electron/Chromium builds are about tens of hours as I've been told. Yet this https://sciter.com/from-skeuomorph-to-flat-ui-evolution-of-o... is the same app that uses the same UI engine since 2007. UI maintenance all these years is the matter of updating CSS declarations. Yet you always kno…

> For many reasons. [snip reasons] But why AV companies specifically ?

> AV companies specifically ...

AV/security specific reasons:

First serious customer was Symantec with their Norton Antivirus. Norton AV 2007 was their first version that used Sciter (named HTMLayout then). And Norton AV was market leader at that time.

Symantec did first security audit of Sciter source code.

You (AV vendor) have UI engine that fits most of UI requirements (lightweight, supports i18n by nature, flexible to screen resolution, HTML/CSS is well known in UI) and, which is most valuable, secure. So decision is quite obvious.

Yet, psychological aspect.

AV product must look modern at any time. User may not trust AV app that looks outdated - that rises suspicion that it is not adequate to recent threats - so it must look modern. Therefore ability to modernize UI by CSS without touching anything else (happens at least once per year) is the key requirement. UI systems/frameworks that use designs nailed down to pixel grids are too expensive on the long run in such circumstances.

Re: ElectronJS alternative: SciterJS – HTML/CSS/JS in 4.5 MB executable

#192

Post by pwdisswordfish4 »

eitland wrote: post #186
pwdisswordfish4 wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well Mozilla spends over $50 million year-over-year on non-development costs that have generally proven to be completely ineffective: their marketing budget. So a one-time $100k cost is a fraction of a percent of what they already squander on at least one program they get next to no ROI from; pay the one-time cost for this, and the marketing they get out of being the one that made it happen comes along for free. And…

> Well Mozilla spends over $50 million year-over-year on non-development costs that have generally proven to be completely ineffective Warning: opinions and unresearced statements ahead Considering the contract they landed earlier this year many of us would be really happy to fail so successfully financially. That said: Of course on the technical side they've given away much of their previously huge edge on extensibi…

> Considering the contract they landed earlier this year many of us would be really happy to fail so successfully financially.

This is worded as if it's a retort to the previous comment, but... how is it supposed to be?

The claim is that Mozilla's marketing program is overbudgeted and useless, not that Mozilla is "financially [un]successful". Even if you subscribe to the philosophy that multi-million royalties -> success, there's no contradiction. The only way that would be a contradiction is if the marketing team is the one that "landed" that deal. (And that deal isn't even new. Mozilla and Google have had similar deals forever.)

Re: ElectronJS alternative: SciterJS – HTML/CSS/JS in 4.5 MB executable

#193

Post by eitland »

pwdisswordfish4 wrote: post #192
eitland wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Well Mozilla spends over $50 million year-over-year on non-development costs that have generally proven to be completely ineffective Warning: opinions and unresearced statements ahead Considering the contract they landed earlier this year many of us would be really happy to fail so successfully financially. That said: Of course on the technical side they've given away much of their previously huge edge on extensibi…

> Considering the contract they landed earlier this year many of us would be really happy to fail so successfully financially. This is worded as if it's a retort to the previous comment, but... how is it supposed to be? The claim is that Mozilla's marketing program is overbudgeted and useless, not that Mozilla is "financially [un]successful". Even if you subscribe to the philosophy that multi-million royalties -> suc…

> This is worded as if it's a retort to the previous comment, but... how is it supposed to be?

> The claim is that Mozilla's marketing program is overbudgeted and useless

My point was that maybe they are targeting their marketing at someone else than end users (Google? Regulators?).

And that I think it is frustrating and a bad idea in the long run.

Re: ElectronJS alternative: SciterJS – HTML/CSS/JS in 4.5 MB executable

#194

Post by luc4sdreyer »

c-smile wrote: post #116
luc4sdreyer wrote: post #71

Nitpick: > Note that transfer of 1GB of data produces 3kg of CO2. This is wrong, it's closer to 29 grams of CO2 for 1GB, on average. Of course it depends on the mix of power sources used. https://www.iea.org/commentaries/the-carbon-footprint-of-str... It doesn't change the point of the comparison, the smaller size is still good.

Data taken from : https://www.emergeinteractive.com/insights/detail/does-irres... > And according to the Department of Energy the average US power plant expends 600 grams of carbon dioxide for every kWh generated. That means that transferring 1GB of data produces 3kg of CO2.

Thanks, so we're actually in agreement then :)

If you look at your own source (the two Figure 3 inserts from 2017 and 2018 studies), they estimate that in 2020 the kWh/GB measure would be between 0.1 and 0.01. That equates to between 60 and 6 grams of CO2 per GB, smack bang in the middle of the International Energy Agency estimate I linked to (29 grams).

The reason for the big discrepancy is your source article was written in 2016, and it referenced a study from 2012 for its 5.12 kWh/GB number, and that 2012 study used bandwidth data from 2011.

Telecommunication systems are still getting exponentially more efficient over time (see the second Figure 3), so estimates get old very quickly.

Re: ElectronJS alternative: SciterJS – HTML/CSS/JS in 4.5 MB executable

#195

Post by luc4sdreyer »

cashsterling wrote: post #163
luc4sdreyer wrote: post #71

Nitpick: > Note that transfer of 1GB of data produces 3kg of CO2. This is wrong, it's closer to 29 grams of CO2 for 1GB, on average. Of course it depends on the mix of power sources used. https://www.iea.org/commentaries/the-carbon-footprint-of-str... It doesn't change the point of the comparison, the smaller size is still good.

Yeah... The "1GB of data transfer --> 3kg of CO2" is high by orders of magnitude. Computer systems and network equipment have a fixed install and fixed operational costs. I think the incremental energy cost of transferring 1GB across 5000km is on the order of 1000 Joules of energy. I think 10Gb optical transfer requires less than 10W per 100km... this probably a really high upper limit (equipment electrical power plu…

>The fixed upfront equipment costs and carbon footprint do need to the factored in as well but they are not going to amount to much.

In the source I gave they actually _do_ factor in the equipment costs, and turns out it does amount to more than you think.

You can't ignore the fixed operational costs, because we're not asking what's the cost of sending a single incremental gigabyte. We're asking what's the cost of transferring data, today. Total energy divided by total data volume.

Re: ElectronJS alternative: SciterJS – HTML/CSS/JS in 4.5 MB executable

#196

Post by CodesInChaos »

What's the security model behind this?

What rights are granted to the application's origin beyond what an ordinary website has in a browser? Obviously you want to grant some additional rights, but I'd prefer to grant it only the minimum necessary for my application.

Are third party origins granted special rights beyond what an ordinary website has in a browser? Embedding or redirecting to untrusted websites should be safe. Is it possible to block loading external content except from whitelisted origins?

Re: ElectronJS alternative: SciterJS – HTML/CSS/JS in 4.5 MB executable

#197

Post by pkphilip »

billylo wrote: post #106
franga2000 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously? Bellard is behind this too? Genius is definitely the right word here!

Wow. I had no idea that both ffmpeg and qemu was two of the things Bellard created. https://smartbear.com/blog/test-and-monitor/fabrice-bellard-...

He has developed a ton of stuff! What I found particularly impressive is the PC Emulator developed in Javascript which runs Linux within a browser!

https://bellard.org/jslinux/

You can actually run X-Windows, Windows 2000, FreeDOS etc in a browser using this.

His implementation of 4G LTE purely in software is also pretty amazing. https://bellard.org/lte/

His other projects: https://bellard.org/

Re: ElectronJS alternative: SciterJS – HTML/CSS/JS in 4.5 MB executable

#198

Post by webmaven »

thrownaway954 wrote: post #174

someone explain to why if this was a commercial product for all these years and the _numerous_ (my god that list is impressive) clients that are using it, they need $100K to make it open source? Last I heard github is free. am i missing things?

> someone explain to why if this was a commercial product for all these years and the _numerous_ (my god that list is impressive) clients that are using it, they need $100K to make it open source? Last I heard github is free. am i missing things?

Well, it is the author's source of income. Presumably, those customers will stop paying him if the code is released under a permissive license like MIT. I'm not certain what the financial impact would be of a GPL release.

Re: ElectronJS alternative: SciterJS – HTML/CSS/JS in 4.5 MB executable

#199

Post by webmaven »

c-smile wrote: post #191
webmaven wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For many reasons. [snip reasons] But why AV companies specifically ?

> AV companies specifically ... AV/security specific reasons: First serious customer was Symantec with their Norton Antivirus. Norton AV 2007 was their first version that used Sciter (named HTMLayout then). And Norton AV was market leader at that time. Symantec did first security audit of Sciter source code. You (AV vendor) have UI engine that fits most of UI requirements (lightweight, supports i18n by nature, flexib…

Interesting. Was this a market segment that you targeted deliberately from the outset, or was it a happy accident that you subsequently leveraged?

Re: ElectronJS alternative: SciterJS – HTML/CSS/JS in 4.5 MB executable

#200

Post by billylo »

pkphilip wrote: post #197
billylo wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. I had no idea that both ffmpeg and qemu was two of the things Bellard created. https://smartbear.com/blog/test-and-monitor/fabrice-bellard-...

He has developed a ton of stuff! What I found particularly impressive is the PC Emulator developed in Javascript which runs Linux within a browser! https://bellard.org/jslinux/ You can actually run X-Windows, Windows 2000, FreeDOS etc in a browser using this. His implementation of 4G LTE purely in software is also pretty amazing. https://bellard.org/lte/ His other projects: https://bellard.org/

Incredible is an appropriate word to describe these projects: A self-compiling C compiler in 2048 bytes of C source code.

https://bellard.org/otcc/

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