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Webkit.js

trevorlinton.github.io

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Re: Webkit.js

#91

Post by anon1385 »

ndesaulniers wrote: post #32
anon1385 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>competition in the browser market is vital to keep the web platform progressing and to prevent a single party from controlling web standards I don't see much difference between a single party and a cartel of 3-4 parties. They are all mega corporations that don't share my interests and even when there are several parties any one effectively has veto power over any changes to standards. The push for browser-as-OS is o…

> You don't get any browser choice at all when your hardware is running ChromeOS or FirefoxOS Both browser based OS's are still in their early phases. What if the hardware could run both, just as easily as you could put whatever flavor distro of linux on your desktop? There's too much closed source OS specific drivers to really allow you to run whatever OS you want on whatever hardware you want; and everyone is disin…

>Both browser based OS's are still in their early phases. What if the hardware could run both, just as easily as you could put whatever flavor distro of linux on your desktop?

This isn't a valid replacement for just being able to run multiple browsers. Switching OS has a large cost. Your FirefoxOS local apps won't run on ChromeOS (and vice versa). You have to work out how to get your files from one to the other and so on. If you want to just try another browser out you have to go through a process that is very intimidating and complicated for most people. The average user is not going to do it (or if they are persuaded to do it many will get angry and complain that all their apps are gone).

Making the cost of switching browsers much higher is an attempt to lock people in to a single browser.

Re: Webkit.js

#92

Post by anon1385 »

fabrice_d wrote: post #50
anon1385 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>competition in the browser market is vital to keep the web platform progressing and to prevent a single party from controlling web standards I don't see much difference between a single party and a cartel of 3-4 parties. They are all mega corporations that don't share my interests and even when there are several parties any one effectively has veto power over any changes to standards. The push for browser-as-OS is o…

That's true that we don't let other web runtimes be used on FirefoxOS so far. There are good technical reasons for that, not just "mozilla is evil". Doing while preserving security would mean that such a runtime would run sandboxed (in the same way we render web pages with gecko in sandboxed processes). For that to work, the sandboxed process need to delegate some functionality to the "main" trusted process, like net…

'It's more work to be open' is an excuse we have heard for many years now from the likes of Microsoft. Often it was valid from a business point of view, but it's pretty amusing to see Mozilla using it now after years of PR campaigning about the importance of openness.

Perhaps you are starting to realise that running an open platform isn't as easy as you supposed, and a lot of Microsofts actions were not just "Microsoft is evil" either.

Re: Webkit.js

#93

Post by userbinator »

notastartup wrote: post #38

this is pretty cool but network requests and javascript support would make it even more crazier. I viewed the html source for this page and pasted it. I was quite impressed. It looks like this is supposed to be a browser engine written in Javascript? So essentially we would have a sandbox browser within a browser? That would be awesome.

this is pretty cool but network requests and javascript support would make it even more crazier.

The first thought that comes to mind would be to try to nest the things... a browser inside a browser inside a browser.

Re: Webkit.js

#94

Post by shayief »

wildpeaks wrote: post #71

That reminds me of the hilarious talk "The Birth & Death of Javascript" where everything get converted to asm.js , even operating systems. https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/the-birth-and-death...

Check out this kernel built on V8 engine, designed to run JavaScript code https://github.com/runtimejs/runtime

Re: Webkit.js

#95

Post by cwyers »

nnnnni wrote: post #56
thefreeman wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe he is referring to the fact that iOS Chrome is the only version still using WebKit

Yes, that's exactly what I meant. I think that a few people may have missed that due to the fact that my comment is currently at -2.

That's because Apple's TOS only allows their system build of WebKit in approved apps, so Google can either use approved WebKit or they can go sit on their thumbs and spin. It's not a voluntary act on Google's part; they would use Blink if Apple allowed it.

Re: Webkit.js

#96

Post by reubenmorais »

i_am_ralpht wrote: post #37

In Chrome (for me, on 64bit Linux) it consumes 176MB of RAM -- for all of WebKit + Cairo + FreeType/HarfBuzz/etc -- it's most of an OS right there. GMail, a webapp email reader, is currently taking 368MB of RAM. Insane!

"Web browsers have never been more memory efficient, and web pages have never had more memory bloat." - someone on Twitter a couple days ago

Re: Webkit.js

#97

Post by theon144 »

anon1385 wrote: post #91
ndesaulniers wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You don't get any browser choice at all when your hardware is running ChromeOS or FirefoxOS Both browser based OS's are still in their early phases. What if the hardware could run both, just as easily as you could put whatever flavor distro of linux on your desktop? There's too much closed source OS specific drivers to really allow you to run whatever OS you want on whatever hardware you want; and everyone is disin…

>Both browser based OS's are still in their early phases. What if the hardware could run both, just as easily as you could put whatever flavor distro of linux on your desktop? This isn't a valid replacement for just being able to run multiple browsers. Switching OS has a large cost. Your FirefoxOS local apps won't run on ChromeOS (and vice versa). You have to work out how to get your files from one to the other and s…

>This isn't a valid replacement for just being able to run multiple browsers. Switching OS has a large cost.

When your OS is no more than a browser, what is the difference?

Re: Webkit.js

#98

Post by anon1385 »

theon144 wrote: post #97
anon1385 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Both browser based OS's are still in their early phases. What if the hardware could run both, just as easily as you could put whatever flavor distro of linux on your desktop? This isn't a valid replacement for just being able to run multiple browsers. Switching OS has a large cost. Your FirefoxOS local apps won't run on ChromeOS (and vice versa). You have to work out how to get your files from one to the other and s…

>This isn't a valid replacement for just being able to run multiple browsers. Switching OS has a large cost. When your OS is no more than a browser, what is the difference?

FirefoxOS and ChromeOS are more than just browsers. They have a set of (currently) non-standard APIs for doing various things because the current browser standards don't cover many of the things you need to build a usable mobile OS. They are designed to run locally stored 'apps', not just browser web pages. Some proportion of apps will not be portable. Even if they were the user is going to have to manually reinstall them. Another way of looking at it: if FirefoxOS is functionally identical to ChromeOS (ie.e. the user won't notice switching) then why does it even exist at all? What is the point of a close if from day one you rule out the possibility of ever doing anything better or differently than the competition?

It really doesn't matter if it's possible to work around these hurdles to changing OS, it's still a massive amount of effort to think about all these things rather than just being able to install a different browser alongside. Normal users will not be re-imaging their phones to different OSs just to try a different web browser. It just won't happen in any great numbers. After a hard fought battle over many years to get people over the relatively small hurdle of installing Firefox on open platforms, I would expect Mozilla of all people to appreciate how difficult it would be to get people to try out different browsers in a world.

Also, I know it's kind of taboo to talk about this around here, but it's worth also mentioning what web apps mean for user privacy and data security. You seem to be suggesting that people only use web apps where their data is never stored locally, only in the cloud. In data centres where governments can mine it (often without warrants or any kind of due process), where it can be mined to build profiles on users for advertising or insurance purposes. That kind of app also leaves user vulnerable to all their data disappearing when the web service they use runs out of money or gets bought out or just decides to ditch a feature.

Re: Webkit.js

#100

Post by tlinton »

atomical wrote: post #79

I've been watching this project hoping that eventually PDFs could be rendered on the client.

Is this a big needed feature? It's actually really easy to pull of, cairo's backend can be switched from using images to svg, to pdf's. It's just switching the backend and once the renderer is done just spit out the results.

Add it as a feature request on github and i'll add it to the api.

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