Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I'm fed up with it, so I'm writing a browser

adayinthelifeof.nl

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 501 posts

Re: I'm fed up with it, so I'm writing a browser

#181

Post by grishka »

ilaksh wrote: post #24

"Writing a browser" (from scratch) at this point basically means you are implementing a type of portable operating-system-in-a-box (the web platform) and that it will be compatible with whatever Google decides to add to theirs. The browser is so comprehensive in functionality and APIs, and such a challenge to keep up with Google's constant churn of new features and total dominance, that not even Microsoft could do it…

> The browser is so comprehensive in functionality and APIs

Not really. If you limit your scope by saying that you're building a hypertext document viewer, it suddenly becomes approachable. A lot of the functionality is all that PWA stuff no one asked for and no one is using for anything good anyway.

WebSQL? IndexedDB? Service workers? WebGL? WebGPU? WebBluetooth? WebRTC? Just act like it all doesn't exist. 99% of actual websites — not web "apps" — would not lose any functionality.

Re: I'm fed up with it, so I'm writing a browser

#182

Post by cxr »

prox wrote: post #6

It would be cool to see a browser being made in the Blender/Godot style of open source. Set milestones, encourage a friendly community to gather around, raise funds, manage it well, and back to step one again. I certainly would love to see more options of browsers.

One viable path would be starting a subproject to work on a "Godot Webview" (just a hobby, not supposed to be big and professional like Electron) and growing it from there.

Re: I'm fed up with it, so I'm writing a browser

#184

Post by pacifika »

nicce wrote: post #179
pacifika wrote: post #50

What an interesting article. For me I can relate to the central tenet of trying to exert control over the level and kind of content I consume on a daily basis. I’m sure that will help mental health. The Twitter clients of years past have shown how using filters and regexes, muting and blocking, it is somewhat possible to shape this content stream. Also I think local AI has some power to weed out content it can detect…

Unfortunately, everyone who provides these big feeds (Reddit, Twitter, et al.) don't like that their content is being filtered by third parties and clients. Because they want to keep their users on their platform as long as possible, and their algorithms are designed for it. So they actively make it very difficult to do so, by banning these clients. On Instagram, you can't even fast forward videos because of that. Th…

Well, we only need a directory of resequenced feed definitions + some kind of resequencing program that runs the definitions onto a page in a decentralised manner. With resequenced I mean that when applied to a page of markup it can create a feed from it.

So imagine it downloads the latest definitions periodically that fix compatibility for service X then everyone who creates feeds of X pages can do so again.

If you can specify the definition directory in the settings then even if a directory is no longer active another can take it's place.

That means it takes one person to fix, but the service would have to ban all instances to stop this way of consuming.

I think most of the puzzle pieces for this exist already.

Re: I'm fed up with it, so I'm writing a browser

#185

Post by amelius »

gumby wrote: post #170

> I didn’t want to hear the news anymore. ... In fact, I didn’t want to listen to the news like ever again! ... Why? I don’t know exactly, but I don’t think it’s a coincidence that this was also around the time my wife got pregnant So the news is contraceptive? I can easily believe that.

Watching the news probably also correlates with depression.

Re: I'm fed up with it, so I'm writing a browser

#186

Post by hobs »

lijok wrote: post #165
hobs wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yes, America is famously calm, Eastern Europe is doing fine, and there's no incoming global climate issue. Just because we're doing good in absolute terms compared to wars and plagues of the past doesn't mean we're doing great.

Eastern europe and the US make up a mere ~8% of the worlds population

And a decent percentage more of the world's military might and nuclear weapons, hence my comment about absolute terms.

Re: I'm fed up with it, so I'm writing a browser

#187

Post by hughw »

jaytaph wrote: post #59

OP here. Thanks for the pos/neg/neutral comments everybody. Some remarks: Yes, there are a lot of browsers out there where I can contribute to which would be more efficient. But that would result in just a few browsers instead of a lot of browsers. I'm all for the last one, as this would give people options. This IS a pet project. I never told anyone otherwise. I would start writing it even when I wasn't fed up with…

Idea -- pump the whatwg specs through chatgpt to generate the Rust code.

Re: I'm fed up with it, so I'm writing a browser

#188

Post by jwells89 »

phkahler wrote: post #156
nonrandomstring wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I get angry about not being able to do anything about anything. And this is my way of trying to do something about it. It's the best I can do. This attitude is gold, and it's what changes the whole world. What you said about the misery of "news" resonates with me. In psyops we call it "sapping". Propaganda designed to demoralise, dispirit and corrode resistance used to come from our enemies . The classic example wa…

>> As you do, I find the discourse around tech to be a pit of dismissiveness, avoidance, denial, resignation, and learned-helplessness. Do you think this is why people are abandoning the GPL license in favor of MIT/BSD? Something about the fight the GPL aims to win being a hopeless fantasy? In the face of the sentiment you and OP express, I'd think GPL usage would be widespread.

I think a lot of distaste towards GPL comes from devs with corporate day jobs who feel frustrated that anything GPL licensed is functionally off-limits at work because there’s no way legal would approve of using it, and certainly would not approve of open sourcing whatever project is built with the GPL thing. I can see where such an individual might think to themselves, “I don’t want to put other devs in my position in the same pickle, so I’m licensing my thing as MIT/BSD”.

Re: I'm fed up with it, so I'm writing a browser

#189

Post by [deleted] »

lijok wrote: post #138
Ensorceled wrote: post #136

The first part of this blog really resonated with me. Stuff is bad, fascism is on the rise, mega corporations control more and more wealth, those two things feed on each other, book banning in the US, war in Ukraine, my country is burning due to global warming, ... and all of this bad news damages the psyche. I've been thinking of how I can help, that I should stop reading so much negative news, for my own mental hea…

> Stuff is bad, fascism is on the rise, mega corporations control more and more wealth, those two things feed on each other, book banning in the US, war in Ukraine, my country is burning due to global warming, ... and all of this bad news damages the psyche. Turn off the news. We are living in unprecedentedly peaceful and prosperous times, and it's only getting better day by day. That is a fact. If you feel otherwise…

[deleted]

Re: I'm fed up with it, so I'm writing a browser

#190

Post by Aeolun »

nonrandomstring wrote: post #72
jaytaph wrote: post #59

OP here. Thanks for the pos/neg/neutral comments everybody. Some remarks: Yes, there are a lot of browsers out there where I can contribute to which would be more efficient. But that would result in just a few browsers instead of a lot of browsers. I'm all for the last one, as this would give people options. This IS a pet project. I never told anyone otherwise. I would start writing it even when I wasn't fed up with…

> I get angry about not being able to do anything about anything. And this is my way of trying to do something about it. It's the best I can do. This attitude is gold, and it's what changes the whole world. What you said about the misery of "news" resonates with me. In psyops we call it "sapping". Propaganda designed to demoralise, dispirit and corrode resistance used to come from our enemies . The classic example wa…

> [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Haw-Haw

Honestly, my biggest takeaway from this article is that the guy was hanged for treason against a country he wasn’t even a citizen of…

Post reply on HN