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Maintaining an Independent Browser Is Expensive

robert.ocallahan.org

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Re: Maintaining an Independent Browser Is Expensive

#281

Post by Jyaif »

inapis wrote: post #157
Jyaif wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A couple of things about native iOS apps. These are all a result of Apple controlling the walled garden and wanting to increase its revenue: -Apple limits what your app can do, e.g. apps can't spawn processes (FU Apple, this is bad for security/pricacy), can't do JIT compilation, can't download code, etc... -Apple rejects apps that compete with their own. -Apple removes apps that some governments want to have removed…

I really disagree with your argument - > -Apple limits what your app can do, e.g. apps can't spawn processes (FU Apple, this is bad for security/pricacy), What's the issue with that? Why would I want some random no-name devleoper randomly spawning processes on my device killing my battery life? How is it exclusively better for privacy? What prevents them from executing privacy-invading code as the separate process? >…

> What's the issue with that?

Processes (unlike threads) are for memory protection. There's no relation between the number of processes and battery life.

> What's the advantage when all the devices, your apps are supposed to be running on, share the same OS, platform, ABI etc? What's the point when the hardware is already limited in scope compared to alternative platforms

What if you want your users to be allowed to write code?

> Again, why would you want some random developer be able to download extra code?

Again, to allow users to share code (e.g. allow game mods).

> What prevents them from not misusing it for nefarious purposes?

The same thing that prevents them from having native code doing nefarious stuff: nothing.

> what prevents a third-party from compromising the developer's "update" servers and pushing malicious code?

Nothing, just like an native app can be compromised. That's why Native Apps are in a different process, and that's (one of the reasons) why Native Apps should be able to create their own processes (e.g. run a game mod in a separate process from the rest of the game).

> This is from a bygone era.

Okay, but this may happen again.

Re: Maintaining an Independent Browser Is Expensive

#282

Post by zaarn »

roca wrote: post #267
userbinator wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the alternative is a versioned document.

These documents are versioned in VCS. The core issue is that either you update the master document every time you have a fix, or you don't. If you do, it's a living standard. If you don't, then people have to cobble together the latest version from various sources.

Or alternatively, follow a strict release cycle, ie, once a year and publish that. Have all standards follow this cycle.

The choices aren't "commit everything to master" or "commit everything into various versions".

A strict release cycle also prevents having some hype extension which only a few people actually use since it takes more effort and dedication to get stuff into the standards.

Re: Maintaining an Independent Browser Is Expensive

#283

Post by chrismorgan »

bpicolo wrote: post #199
chrismorgan wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe Chrome has for a while been using much the same model as Firefox has recently taken up, not a new process for each tab. AMO’s lack of malware problem is simply because it’s not so popular—making addons was, before WebExtensions, decidedly harder, and the browser’s not as popular as Chrome, so why bother targeting it when there are bigger fish you can catch more easily?

Hmm. `ps -A | grep -i chrome | wc -l` adds +1 per tab for me on Mac OSX as long as I navigate off the home. Does it cap eventually?

My understanding is that it is capped at a higher figure than Firefox’s default. But I’m not a Chrome user.

Re: Maintaining an Independent Browser Is Expensive

#284

Post by tvararu »

tombert wrote: post #268
nnethercote wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You had a running CSS engine within a day?

Yeah, a really crappy one that parsed a CSS file using Bison, and could change text colors, background colors, and position things based on pixels (no em or %). I never got around to implementing class support, but I did allow targeting an element via ID. I did this in C++ for some reason, and used Xerces to parse the XML, and I used Allegro to render everything. If I were to try and make this now, I probably would n…

These kind of high-level overviews of prototype implementations are very useful, thank you for sharing.

Re: Maintaining an Independent Browser Is Expensive

#285

Post by bergie »

adventured wrote: post #125
baddox wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder: who could even feasibly introduce another browser today? The task seems almost impossible.

Amazon and Facebook could both launch entirely new browsers. Spotlight it constantly on Amazon.com or across Facebook's properties as with Chrome on Google.com. Facebook already has far more cash and profit than they know what to do with. $38 billion currently, rapidly climbing. They'll add ~$20 billion to that in 2018. They could do a new browser just for kicks if they wanted to, and they have the vast global reach…

Samsung actually has a browser: http://www.samsung.com/global/galaxy/apps/samsung-internet/

Quite similar to Chrome, but has support for ad blockers etc.

Re: Maintaining an Independent Browser Is Expensive

#286

Post by Fnoord »

loup-vaillant wrote: post #213
csallen wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we should also encourage the use of the "lesser" browsers like Dillo, NetSurf, and all the text-based ones. They can't really run "web apps" and the like, but will be fine for viewing the "long tail" of content-focused sites out there Perhaps this is a knee-jerk reaction on my part, but I'm against initiatives that resist technological progress, including those that rail against modern web applications. Not only do…

> I'm against initiatives that resist technological progress I dispute the notion that the evolution of the web is at all progress. It has nice things, but so far the main effects are ever increasing bloat and centralisation. There are simpler ways to do this stuff, we're just too caught up in path dependence to see or invent possible alternatives. > we should be working on efforts to increase the abilities of indepe…

Progress is very subjective. Yes, its true that some "good" things have "bad" consequences. An example is that an average website in 2017 on an average computer + internet connection from 2007 is dog slow. But that doesn't mean these "good" things are not progressive. Rather, I'd describe it as 2 steps forward, 1 step backward. Take for example the smartphone/touchscreen phenomenon. It has its negative consequences. People are able to record anything (sound/video). They're using these things during traffic. But that doesn't mean there's no positive consequences. The end result is a nuanced list of + and - effects and there's no need to discount all the + or all the - with an extreme standpoint.

Re: Maintaining an Independent Browser Is Expensive

#287

Post by therealdrag0 »

hennsen wrote: post #107
Sylos wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's because there's so much competition for experienced people in Silicon Valley. If Mozilla wouldn't pay her that much, another company would.

Has anyone ever tried to hire someone requiring less than or up to max say 20k for such a job? I wonder which qualifications that are that you find only in people asking for >50 or even 100k/month. I am from Europe so i might miss something that’s different in US. But 20k USD would make for a very good living here. Ok you only can afford one house with that an no 1000sqm villa and no Ferrari... but i state you don’t…

I'm curious about this too. My impression is studies show high-level CEO salary don't correlate at all with company performance. Surely there are folks who have run small businesses that have just as many stress, meetings, communication, and forethought as running a large business. There might be a bit of a learning curve, but there's that for anything. Basically we need a Money-Ball approach to CEOs...

Re: Maintaining an Independent Browser Is Expensive

#288

Post by marpstar »

techsupporter wrote: post #66

I wish the Mozilla store hadn't gone away. I've used Firefox for a very long time but it's been three or four laptops ago that I was able to adorn my machine with Firefox (or Thunderbird!) stickers. Yes, it's a small thing, and I tout Firefox whenever I can, but I'm also a sucker for something I can slap on something that I carry around. (I suppose I could also just make my own or have someone print them up for me al…

I totally forgot about the Firefox shirts I owned in college until I read this. I can't believe they closed it.

Re: Maintaining an Independent Browser Is Expensive

#289

Post by loup-vaillant »

Fnoord wrote: post #286
loup-vaillant wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm against initiatives that resist technological progress I dispute the notion that the evolution of the web is at all progress. It has nice things, but so far the main effects are ever increasing bloat and centralisation. There are simpler ways to do this stuff, we're just too caught up in path dependence to see or invent possible alternatives. > we should be working on efforts to increase the abilities of indepe…

Progress is very subjective. Yes, its true that some "good" things have "bad" consequences. An example is that an average website in 2017 on an average computer + internet connection from 2007 is dog slow. But that doesn't mean these "good" things are not progressive. Rather, I'd describe it as 2 steps forward, 1 step backward. Take for example the smartphone/touchscreen phenomenon. It has its negative consequences.…

Let's weight the good and bad. First, what is possible today that wasn't then? I see only multimedia and games. Text forums like this one were totally possible in the 90's. They just weren't as pretty.

Then let's examine why stuff is so bloated now: is it because we have more features? For the most part we don't. It's just abstractions piled on top of each other, images, and ads.

I'm not even sure the costs are even related to the benefits.

Re: Maintaining an Independent Browser Is Expensive

#290

Post by hennsen »

rlanday wrote: post #271
hennsen wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do they contribute that no one else could for this „low“ amount?

It’s not that “no one else” could do their job, but there’s not an unlimited supply of people who can meet the hiring bar at Google/Facebook/Microsoft, and there are a number of employers with deep pockets trying to hire them. Google in particular is known to offer people with competing offers a lot of money to keep them from going to other companies.

If there are other people who are able to do the job, but not meet the hiring bar, what does that tell us about the bar?
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