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Otter Browser

otter-browser.org

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Re: Otter Browser

#61

Post by brnt »

spijdar wrote: post #31
brnt wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

QtWebkit has been deprecated for a long time, and removed from Qt6. If you use it, you'll run into 'not supported' messages on most Google websites.

Last time I used a QtWebKit browser, I could get around this easily by user agent spoofing. Not sure if the experience was totally perfect, but there were no glaring problems. Doesn't change the fact that it's been deprecated/removed upstream, though, unfortunately.

It was used by KDE for some oauth workflows, where changing the user agent string was not possible, and auth consequently impossible. They've switched to the external browser instead.

Who outside of Apple is using WebKit at this point? And how often do the tarballs drop?

Re: Otter Browser

#62

Post by alpaca128 »

fouc wrote: post #43
sMarsIntruder wrote: post #28

Really disappointed by the marketing of these projects. No information whatsoever regarding why I should both download and use the browser. I understand that's something related to Opera revamping, but I just don't understand why such projects don't invest 5 minutes of time explaining features in plain English, and relegate everything to a niche. What a pity.

the README.md is a bit more informative > A browser controlled by the user, not vice-versa > Otter Browser aims to recreate the best aspects of Opera 12 and to revive its spirit. We are focused on providing the powerful features power users want while keeping the browser fast and lightweight. We also learned from history and decided to release the browser under the GNU GPL v3.

That is nice, but it's little to go by. I used Opera once for a while, but no idea what version. What was that "spirit" of Opera 12? What are those features power users want, do I want them too?

Give me at least a screenshot and 1-2 sentences that I as the user of current Firefox or Chrome can say anything about. All I get is fast and lightweight, which seemingly 90% of software projects write somewhere on their homepage.

Nothing against this browser, it's just that there are more open source projects than I could ever try out in my free time, and if I have to take a second look to find a link to screenshots somewhere below the one to the changelog it's not too convincing. It doesn't have to, maybe I'm not the target audience, but that's my impression.

Re: Otter Browser

#63

Post by roenxi »

userbinator wrote: post #22
geocrasher wrote: post #6

I'm not well versed enough in the Browser Wars to say one thing or another about except this: I like the name. It lends it self to saying "I use the Otter browser" which is not just a great pun but the pun on 'other' defines what Otter is, the "other" browser. The web needs independent browsers. We need to get rid of the idea that websites are designed to work on any one technology. They should work on any browser th…

They should work on any browser that supports the standards. 10-15 years ago I would agree, but now I feel I must add something to that sentence: any browser that supports the standards before they became Google-ified because it is churning the standards so much that its weapon of monopoly is effectively change --- Firefox can barely keep up, and Microsoft already surrendered. What we really need to get rid of is the…

> ...its weapon of monopoly is effectively change...

Rather novel weapon. This won't work, rapid change will just leave the large base of web developers behind. Tutorials and practices based on the Old Way hang around for decades.

Google putting out a standard is only going to help them if it is (a) in demand by web devs and (b) competitive with the old way of doing things.

I don't particularly like web apps, but they are a new field and rapid change in the standards is not really a sign of monopoly.

Re: Otter Browser

#64

Post by tsimionescu »

sMarsIntruder wrote: post #28

Really disappointed by the marketing of these projects. No information whatsoever regarding why I should both download and use the browser. I understand that's something related to Opera revamping, but I just don't understand why such projects don't invest 5 minutes of time explaining features in plain English, and relegate everything to a niche. What a pity.

I think it's mostly because they don't really have much in terms of features to separate them from Chrome. It's almost always more a thing about just not wanting to use Google, and bundling some extension-level features into the core browser (ad block, mouse gestures, this sort of thing).

Re: Otter Browser

#65

Post by krzyk »

asddubs wrote: post #30
alessivs wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The web needs independent browsers...[websites] should work on any browser Unfortunately, independence ends with the choice between WebKit (QtWebKit) or Blink (QtWebEngine), albeit with a faithful Opera 12-like interface that's less resource hungry than Vivaldi. Otter is still in development and it shows in some rough spots and occasional crashes.

it would be cool if just one of those smaller browser projects was based on firefox/gecko

Or just a real browser not a repackaging of other browsers/engines.

Re: Otter Browser

#67

Post by ChoGGi »

userbinator wrote: post #22
geocrasher wrote: post #6

I'm not well versed enough in the Browser Wars to say one thing or another about except this: I like the name. It lends it self to saying "I use the Otter browser" which is not just a great pun but the pun on 'other' defines what Otter is, the "other" browser. The web needs independent browsers. We need to get rid of the idea that websites are designed to work on any one technology. They should work on any browser th…

They should work on any browser that supports the standards. 10-15 years ago I would agree, but now I feel I must add something to that sentence: any browser that supports the standards before they became Google-ified because it is churning the standards so much that its weapon of monopoly is effectively change --- Firefox can barely keep up, and Microsoft already surrendered. What we really need to get rid of is the…

"any browser that supports the standards before they became Google-ified because it is churning the standards so much that its weapon of monopoly is effectively change --- Firefox can barely keep up, and Microsoft already surrendered."

Almost all if they're abusing their search monopoly to force their preferred web "standards" on the rest of us?

Re: Otter Browser

#68

Post by lucideer »

roenxi wrote: post #63
userbinator wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They should work on any browser that supports the standards. 10-15 years ago I would agree, but now I feel I must add something to that sentence: any browser that supports the standards before they became Google-ified because it is churning the standards so much that its weapon of monopoly is effectively change --- Firefox can barely keep up, and Microsoft already surrendered. What we really need to get rid of is the…

> ...its weapon of monopoly is effectively change... Rather novel weapon. This won't work, rapid change will just leave the large base of web developers behind. Tutorials and practices based on the Old Way hang around for decades. Google putting out a standard is only going to help them if it is (a) in demand by web devs and (b) competitive with the old way of doing things. I don't particularly like web apps, but the…

Unfortunately, this isn't how (web?) devs work. For a whole host of reasons, devs always prefer the new thing. This is likely a combination of factors: fashion (the same general social tendencies that make fashion a thing in any other industry), youth (new people are continuously joining the profession) but probably most of all: curiosity and a desire to learn new things.

You can try and model things on the idea of rational experienced senior devs all making tech decisions based purely on hard evidence-based demonstrations of material benefit of new tech over old tech, but reality is much softer than that.

Another factor is that Google's hold over SEO allows them to drive change through SEO requirements. E.g. there's always been a lot of overlap between new tech introduced and Chrome and requirements for Google search indexing, and that stands to increase with things like Core Web Vitals,

> rapid change in the standards is not really a sign of monopoly

Your statement here seems to be just picked from the ether and not actually based on anything in reality: there's no reason rapid change cannot be associated with monopoly.

There are many differences between how Google is approaching tech and how Microsoft did in the late 90s / early 00s but the its worth noting that second E in their infamous Embrace, Extend, Extinguish strategy most certainly involves rapid change in standards. This is hardly the only example, but it's notable I didn't even have to pick a different industry to find one.

Re: Otter Browser

#69

Post by bmn__ »

alpaca128 wrote: post #62
fouc wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the README.md is a bit more informative > A browser controlled by the user, not vice-versa > Otter Browser aims to recreate the best aspects of Opera 12 and to revive its spirit. We are focused on providing the powerful features power users want while keeping the browser fast and lightweight. We also learned from history and decided to release the browser under the GNU GPL v3.

That is nice, but it's little to go by. I used Opera once for a while, but no idea what version. What was that "spirit" of Opera 12? What are those features power users want, do I want them too? Give me at least a screenshot and 1-2 sentences that I as the user of current Firefox or Chrome can say anything about. All I get is fast and lightweight, which seemingly 90% of software projects write somewhere on their home…

> What was that "spirit" of Opera 12?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19615411

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23733577 (plus parent for context)

Maybe I can summarise that as "lots of features and customisability".

Re: Otter Browser

#70

Post by spijdar »

brnt wrote: post #61
spijdar wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last time I used a QtWebKit browser, I could get around this easily by user agent spoofing. Not sure if the experience was totally perfect, but there were no glaring problems. Doesn't change the fact that it's been deprecated/removed upstream, though, unfortunately.

It was used by KDE for some oauth workflows, where changing the user agent string was not possible, and auth consequently impossible. They've switched to the external browser instead. Who outside of Apple is using WebKit at this point? And how often do the tarballs drop?

> Who outside of Apple is using WebKit at this point?

Gnome/GTK, at least. The one bundled with Gnome (previously called Epiphany) still uses it. I was going to say Midori, but apparently it's recently-ish switched to Electron, which is understandable, but a little disappointing.

There are other niche browsers using WebKitGTK, but with the loss of Midori (?) and Qt's WebKit interface its definitely got a really small presence now.

> And how often do the tarballs drop?

Unlike most open source projects inside Apple, WebKit is developed basically in the open, with a dedicated website at https://webkit.org/ and an SVN repo at https://svn.webkit.org/repository/webkit/. They also link directly to the WebKitGTK project, and provide instructions for building for/on Linux (and Windows).

It's kind of a shame it's not more widely used -- I understand why most people so inclined would prefer Gecko/Firefox, but there may come a time when the only valid choices are a rendering engine backed by Google's dollars, or one by Apple's dollars. And unlike Mozilla, which is still mostly relying on Google's dollars, Apple has a vested financial interest in keeping a separate and at least adequate web stack.

Edit: Worth mentioning one problem with WebKitGTK adoption in linux has been API deprecation. I haven't done any dev work with it, but I know a lot of projects just gave up after the WebKit -> WebKit2 port, and GTK itself can be a PITA. The tooling outside Darwin/OS X is more cumbersome, too.

JavaScriptCore is easier to embed/better documented than SpiderMonkey, though (IMO). And it can even run headless, although getting it to build headless can be, uh, finicky...

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