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The Browser Company’s Darin Fisher thinks it’s time to reinvent the browser

theverge.com

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Re: The Browser Company’s Darin Fisher thinks it’s time to reinvent the browser

#31

Post by wruza »

Vermeulen wrote: post #17

Reinventing the browser should be simplifying it to only what it needs to be: executing + rendering remote code in a sandboxed window. Make a new browser that is just WebGPU + WebAssembly, no more DOM. Would already run the next wave of games that will come targeting that. Then for regular websites, have them deliver a HTML rendering engine written in Webassembly for how they want to be rendered. No more need to test…

I don’t think this is a good idea. We’ll run into a situation with many different not-dom guis having the same set of problems that existing not-dom guis had for all these years. Think gnome-like drama for the half of the internet. Dom/css is no doubt a mountain of something stinky, but at least it is a slow moving standard and never had any politics or bdfl opinions involved. Also it has a set of features (e.g. accessibility, ad blocking) which would be hard to implement everywhere in the same way. Maybe something more low-level than dom but still integratable with higher-level apis and features could be built into a new browser paradigm.

Re: The Browser Company’s Darin Fisher thinks it’s time to reinvent the browser

#33

Post by phailhaus »

enos_feedler wrote: post #29
phailhaus wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Then for regular websites, have them deliver a HTML rendering engine I think this is a dealbreaker, that is simply too much data to have to send over every time you want to load a webpage. It kills mobile immediately since most users have data caps.

The idea is you cache a rendering engine. It just isn’t core in the system layer

Having to store all the different versions of rendering engines out there doesn't really solve the problem, because space isn't unlimited either. Imagine: Facebook just upgraded to v1.3.2 of PopularEngine but Google still lags at v1.3.0, now you have to store both!

Re: The Browser Company’s Darin Fisher thinks it’s time to reinvent the browser

#34

Post by pcmaffey »

I’m working on reinventing a browser around reader mode. —Optimized for reading comprehension and the joy of discovery (instead of engagement / ad-metrics). This wouldn’t be the only browser you’d use, but hopefully, it’ll be the best way to read online. ama.

Re: The Browser Company’s Darin Fisher thinks it’s time to reinvent the browser

#35

Post by xnx »

Vermeulen wrote: post #17

Reinventing the browser should be simplifying it to only what it needs to be: executing + rendering remote code in a sandboxed window. Make a new browser that is just WebGPU + WebAssembly, no more DOM. Would already run the next wave of games that will come targeting that. Then for regular websites, have them deliver a HTML rendering engine written in Webassembly for how they want to be rendered. No more need to test…

Sounds like you're advocating turning browsers into something like a dumb terminal or television. Websites will soon do this anyway in an attempt to lock down content and avoid ad blocking.

Re: The Browser Company’s Darin Fisher thinks it’s time to reinvent the browser

#36

Post by wwweston »

phailhaus wrote: post #27
Vermeulen wrote: post #17

Reinventing the browser should be simplifying it to only what it needs to be: executing + rendering remote code in a sandboxed window. Make a new browser that is just WebGPU + WebAssembly, no more DOM. Would already run the next wave of games that will come targeting that. Then for regular websites, have them deliver a HTML rendering engine written in Webassembly for how they want to be rendered. No more need to test…

> Then for regular websites, have them deliver a HTML rendering engine I think this is a dealbreaker, that is simply too much data to have to send over every time you want to load a webpage. It kills mobile immediately since most users have data caps.

As if that isn't enough, it isn't really the web if you can't "view source" and get roughly useful semantics for documents.

The browser didn't beat out a handful of VMs because it was just another VM.

Re: The Browser Company’s Darin Fisher thinks it’s time to reinvent the browser

#38

Post by bogomipz »

Vermeulen wrote: post #17

Reinventing the browser should be simplifying it to only what it needs to be: executing + rendering remote code in a sandboxed window. Make a new browser that is just WebGPU + WebAssembly, no more DOM. Would already run the next wave of games that will come targeting that. Then for regular websites, have them deliver a HTML rendering engine written in Webassembly for how they want to be rendered. No more need to test…

>"Make a new browser that is just WebGPU + WebAssembly, no more DOM."

I'm not familiar with WebGPU and WebAssembly, can you say is there something in that combination that replaces the DOM? I'd also be curious to hear what's the issue with the DOM.

Re: The Browser Company’s Darin Fisher thinks it’s time to reinvent the browser

#39

Post by aliqot »

pcmaffey wrote: post #34

I’m working on reinventing a browser around reader mode. —Optimized for reading comprehension and the joy of discovery (instead of engagement / ad-metrics). This wouldn’t be the only browser you’d use, but hopefully, it’ll be the best way to read online. ama.

Thanks for the AMA.

Is there a link to a git repo of current progress?

Re: The Browser Company’s Darin Fisher thinks it’s time to reinvent the browser

#40

Post by Vermeulen »

caslon wrote: post #26
Vermeulen wrote: post #17

Reinventing the browser should be simplifying it to only what it needs to be: executing + rendering remote code in a sandboxed window. Make a new browser that is just WebGPU + WebAssembly, no more DOM. Would already run the next wave of games that will come targeting that. Then for regular websites, have them deliver a HTML rendering engine written in Webassembly for how they want to be rendered. No more need to test…

That sounds genuinely awful and detestable. "Oh, you're bored of a tenth of a gigabyte of React and TypeScript every time you load a web page? Here, we're going to ship you the entire browser every time you reload!"

Why couldn't it cache?
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