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

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

#41

Post by imoreno »

There is certainly more than one person who wants to reinvent browsers, even among web pioneers, I'm sure :-)

Some things I'd like to see in the next generation of browsers:

- Modular design. Many things like rendering engine, history/cookie/cache mechanism, configuration framework, UI, sync system, download manager, privacy enhancements, ad blocking/request filtering, extensions should be separate programs (with independent authorship) that follow some common, compatible interface. Advanced users can mix and match these components to assemble their own "browser", or even develop their own components. "Browser distributions" can be created for less technical users that are plug and play.

- Ad blocking, request filtering and cosmetic filters as core functionality, rather than some exotic thing for the adventurous that is best left to extension developers. These require low level access to the browser's internal workings, they don't work well as regular extensions because those usually have security restrictions. They also need a solid UX that can provide enough granularity to be useful. Probably a good system for crowdsourcing the filter rules as well.

- The browser shouldn't treat the server as incontrovertible gospel. It shouldn't necessarily run every script the server sends over, or provide a full inventory of capabilities (fonts, filetypes, etc.) unless there is a good reason for it. Rather than server as master and browser as worker, the connection should be treated as a contract where the browser is concerned with protecting the user's interest (privacy, usability) rather than slavishly obeying the server's whims.

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

#43

Post by Latty »

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…

My instant thought is that this is an accessibility nightmare of an idea.

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

#44

Post by incomplete »

yrgulation wrote: post #25
flakiness wrote: post #2

I'm glad to see Darin working solely on the browser, and excited to see him in the SWE role! When I was working on Chrome I had a strange leftover 1:1 with him (was a VP at that point.) He always impressed me with the deep understanding of the Chromium code stack and he did unblock my work as a SWE with that - An example: At at time I was struggling with an extra latency some callback incurred. He rightly pointed out…

> My problem was solved, by a VP, in the code! Thats proper tech leadership right there. Thanks for sharing, shame this is not the norm.

/agreemsg. i had the privilege of giving a preso to mark russinovich ~6w ago, and came away from w/the exact reaction: a good tech leader should truly understand the deepest crevasses and be able to spin that back in to context when meeting w/technical people. and yes, shame this isn't the norm.

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

#45

Post by joshuamorton »

Vermeulen wrote: post #40
caslon wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Same reason cross origin caching is limited today, it's a stuffed channel that can harm privacy and allow tracking.

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

#46

Post by Egrodo »

userbinator wrote: post #12

New rendering engine? Or yet-another-Chrom(e/ium)-clone with a different UI? Honestly, even the latter might be better if it's closer to what older browsers had, with a lot of options to configure and not the dumbed-down useless-UI trend that seems to be gradually infecting everything. That's one of the reasons I use Firefox, although it seems to be slowly going down the same path too.

Have you checked out Vivaldi? Incredibly customizable UI over Chromium, if you do make the switch from FF.

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

#47

Post by drowning-secs »

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

No post body was provided.

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

#48

Post by lolinder »

moron4hire wrote: post #13

I've been using "install this webpage as an app" in Edge for about a year now for the vast majority of sites I visit on a regular basis. The site doesn't need to have an app manifest or service worker to use the feature, you can just use it with any site. I also develop a Web-based VR app at work, have been doing WebXR and VR development for a while now. The two experiences together have me about convinced that tabs…

> If what we think of as the "browser" used more of what is available in the operating system, and operating systems were more closely involved in web standardization (rather than treating it as a completely siloed project) I think we could have better standards for web apps that integrate seamlessly with the user's desktop.

As a web developer, I do not want this. Currently, I can install Chrome and Firefox on my Linux machine and between the two I can test and get the same experience as 95% of my users. Safari is the only browser I can't directly install on my machine, but it's not hard to test that too, at which point 99% of users are covered.

If what you propose came about, all of the sudden OS (and OS version!) becomes a major variable that has to be accounted for in testing and troubleshooting, which eliminates one of the biggest advantages Web development has over Native.

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

#49

Post by pcmaffey »

aliqot wrote: post #39
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?

Not currently, but will be sharing early experiments here as soon as ready.

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

#50

Post by dang »

Related:

Optimizing for Feelings - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31654751 - June 2022 (41 comments)

Arc Browser Company: Chrome and Safari face a new challenger - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31544988 - May 2022 (125 comments)

One startup's quest to take on Chrome and reinvent the web browser - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27347388 - May 2021 (5 comments)

Others?

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