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> a lighter browser (without canvas, webgl, webrtc etc.) Please do not do this. Webgl and Webrtc are fundamental technologies needed to efficiently do basic ac

> a lighter browser (without canvas, webgl, webrtc etc.) Please do not do this. Webgl and Webrtc are fundamental technologies needed to efficiently do basic activities like process an image or send sound data to another user. I am all for a "lighter" browser, by removing UI, removing dev tools, etc. Get rid of the stuff that's not required to make a web page work well. But WebGL and WebRTC are cornerstone technologies for the web to thrive. WebRTC is critical for allowing open source software to thrive in particular (allows apps that don't need a central server) and WebGL is critical in particular for web software to compete in the AR/VR age. We need 100% browser support on these two APIs, and we need it yesterday. I realize these technologies are not currently doing anything for you. I sympathize. But we need them in browsers now so that we can use them in 10 years. Please, please, please jetsam other parts of the ship before you cut those features.

eriknstr 10y ago
>removing dev tools Hold your horses! The introduction of dev tools was one of the best things to happen to browsers. Removing them would take away opportunity from a lot of people in learning web development, and would also lead to websites having more bugs.
- Skunkleton 10y ago
  My mom doesn't need dev tools preinstalled in her browser. Though I doubt removing them would make the browser faster/leaner.
  - kevhito 10y ago
    Is there something particular about your mom I should take away here? Or moms in general? Or women? Or older people? My mom, like yours, would have no use for dev tools -- because she's just not interested. And neither would my brother, but my grandma would have loved learning about this stuff if she had lived long enough, and my kids have discovered this "secret hacker mode" all on their own and are delighted.
    - Skunkleton 10y ago
      Chill out. My mom is the most common non-technical person I deal with. No need or reason to assume sexism, ageism, motherism, or any other isms. The only take away from my comment should have been "Hey, non technical people don't need developer extensions".
  - ccanassa 10y ago
    Yeah, but you will need it when your mom calls you asking for help with some broken website she is trying to use :)
    - Skunkleton 10y ago
      Really? Do you commonly debug random websites for your mom?
      - ccanassa 10y ago
        Yes, I do that more often than not. Specially during that time of the year when you need to do the tax declaration and use the utterly broken government websites. One common problem that I have to fix is that the Brazilian government likes to issue their own SSL certificates which are not accepted by any browser, therefore I keep the requests tab open and look for any Ajax requests that was blocked due to SSL errors.
- rplnt 10y ago
  You can hardly see source in Chrome without the dev tools. The Ctrl+U "functionality" just generates huge HTML document (a table filled with spans to highlight syntax) and it is very slow on large websites (both generating it and rendering I'd assume).
  - lanterk 10y ago
    The CTRL-U is just the HTML part of the page. Not the CSS, images, or the other stuff.
    - rplnt 10y ago
      Source HTML even, so whatever javascript changed is not there. But for fun and laughs I saved js-generated source of a pretty big web page, opened it, and then pressed CTRL-U. It took 50 seconds to generate and render the source view. No wonder... > document.getElementsByTagName('*').length < 956632 (should be fun to go deeper and save this html, and then go ctrl+u on that) edit: Tried it and it's been choking on the next "level" for the past 9 minutes. The tab is at over 1.5GB memory, I'm going to kill it.
  - witty_username 10y ago
    That's nothing to do with Chrome though, that's how the HTML is.
    - rplnt 10y ago
      But the idea to generate that huge HTML by javascript to display source is weird. Especially when it takes half a minute for a big web page.
  - vardump 10y ago
    I'm using Chrome and pressed Ctrl-U. Nothing happened. What was supposed to happen?
    - justratsinacoat 10y ago
wcummings 10y ago
>Please do not do this. Webgl and Webrtc are fundamental technologies needed to efficiently do basic activities like process an image or send sound data to another user. >fundamental technologies >basic activities >process an image or send sound data to another user. We must live in different worlds, those are not "basic" or "fundamental" to me. I'm not sure I've ever used either. >the AR/VR age You're overstating how important these technologies are. Maybe in 10 years but only time will tell.
- odbol_ 10y ago
  IPFS already has a peer-to-peer chat room that can share messages, files, and streaming videos without a central server. This means users have a way to share content without worrying that it could fall into the wrong hands or be censored by big entities like corporations or governments. And it all depends on tech like WebRTC. That kind of infrastructure is crucial to the freedom of information and therefore the freedom of global citizens. You will not realize we need it until it's too late. The revolution will not be televised, it will not be in your news feed, it will happen in the streets and in the minds of citizens, and we need to prepare ourselves with the proper tools for that time, because it is coming sooner than you think.
  - swsieber 10y ago
    I would be interesting to make a browser where these things are by default unloaded plugins with the ability to detect when they are needed. Then the best of both worlds are present... no? Some people wish they didn't have to pay the costs for these things because they never use them.
    - matthewmacleod 10y ago
      What cost do you think is being paid that would be mitigated by the complexity of a plugin system?
    - diggan 10y ago
      I think you would like Beaker Browser (https://github.com/pfrazee/beaker https://github.com/pfrazee/beaker) that comes with out-of-the-box support for normal HTTP, Dat and IPFS
drivingmenuts 10y ago
I don't see a problem with this - most browsers with "other" or reduced functionality are niche products at best. They're relative cheap to provide and they don't affect the greater web itself. If you get right down to it, what you need to make a web page work is HTML. That's it - WebGL and WebRTC are interesting, but the web isn't going to die if one browser doesn't include them. Lynx still works fine without them, after all. I'm seeing a lot of alarmism from people who I'm guessing have vested interest in those products, completely forgetting that Chrome, Firefox, Explorer and Safari (in no particular order) are what drive the current state of the modern browser.
type0 10y ago
> I realize these technologies are not currently doing anything for you. I sympathize. But we need them in browsers now so that we can use them in 10 years. 6 years ago many people didn't even knew what web browsers were (What is a Browser? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4MwTvtyrUQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4MwTvtyrUQ)
boterock 10y ago
I'd actually like a 'light' web browser, made for nothing else than 'web browsing'... Some time ago I tried Lynx and I liked the idea, It was waay simpler that I'd like, but in the other hand I feel that interfaces made for web are always crippled compared with desktop interfaces (from G docs vs MS office, up to clara.io compared to blender). For web browsing I think that something between a browser and Lynx is something that I would use, most of the time I am interested in the content more than the aesthetics or the pixel perfect alignment of visuals... and if I was interested in an application (that requires the newest tech in browsers) most of the time there is a better tool for desktop.

eriknstr 10y ago

>removing dev tools Hold your horses! The introduction of dev tools was one of the best things to happen to browsers. Removing them would take away opportunity from a lot of people in learning web development, and would also lead to websites having more bugs.

Skunkleton 10y ago
My mom doesn't need dev tools preinstalled in her browser. Though I doubt removing them would make the browser faster/leaner.
- kevhito 10y ago
  Is there something particular about your mom I should take away here? Or moms in general? Or women? Or older people? My mom, like yours, would have no use for dev tools -- because she's just not interested. And neither would my brother, but my grandma would have loved learning about this stuff if she had lived long enough, and my kids have discovered this "secret hacker mode" all on their own and are delighted.
  - Skunkleton 10y ago
    Chill out. My mom is the most common non-technical person I deal with. No need or reason to assume sexism, ageism, motherism, or any other isms. The only take away from my comment should have been "Hey, non technical people don't need developer extensions".
- ccanassa 10y ago
  Yeah, but you will need it when your mom calls you asking for help with some broken website she is trying to use :)
  - Skunkleton 10y ago
    Really? Do you commonly debug random websites for your mom?
    - ccanassa 10y ago
      Yes, I do that more often than not. Specially during that time of the year when you need to do the tax declaration and use the utterly broken government websites. One common problem that I have to fix is that the Brazilian government likes to issue their own SSL certificates which are not accepted by any browser, therefore I keep the requests tab open and look for any Ajax requests that was blocked due to SSL errors.
rplnt 10y ago
You can hardly see source in Chrome without the dev tools. The Ctrl+U "functionality" just generates huge HTML document (a table filled with spans to highlight syntax) and it is very slow on large websites (both generating it and rendering I'd assume).
- lanterk 10y ago
  The CTRL-U is just the HTML part of the page. Not the CSS, images, or the other stuff.
  - rplnt 10y ago
    Source HTML even, so whatever javascript changed is not there. But for fun and laughs I saved js-generated source of a pretty big web page, opened it, and then pressed CTRL-U. It took 50 seconds to generate and render the source view. No wonder... > document.getElementsByTagName('*').length < 956632 (should be fun to go deeper and save this html, and then go ctrl+u on that) edit: Tried it and it's been choking on the next "level" for the past 9 minutes. The tab is at over 1.5GB memory, I'm going to kill it.
- witty_username 10y ago
  That's nothing to do with Chrome though, that's how the HTML is.
  - rplnt 10y ago
    But the idea to generate that huge HTML by javascript to display source is weird. Especially when it takes half a minute for a big web page.
- vardump 10y ago
  I'm using Chrome and pressed Ctrl-U. Nothing happened. What was supposed to happen?
  - justratsinacoat 10y ago

wcummings 10y ago

>Please do not do this. Webgl and Webrtc are fundamental technologies needed to efficiently do basic activities like process an image or send sound data to another user. >fundamental technologies >basic activities >process an image or send sound data to another user. We must live in different worlds, those are not "basic" or "fundamental" to me. I'm not sure I've ever used either. >the AR/VR age You're overstating how important these technologies are. Maybe in 10 years but only time will tell.

odbol_ 10y ago
IPFS already has a peer-to-peer chat room that can share messages, files, and streaming videos without a central server. This means users have a way to share content without worrying that it could fall into the wrong hands or be censored by big entities like corporations or governments. And it all depends on tech like WebRTC. That kind of infrastructure is crucial to the freedom of information and therefore the freedom of global citizens. You will not realize we need it until it's too late. The revolution will not be televised, it will not be in your news feed, it will happen in the streets and in the minds of citizens, and we need to prepare ourselves with the proper tools for that time, because it is coming sooner than you think.
- swsieber 10y ago
  I would be interesting to make a browser where these things are by default unloaded plugins with the ability to detect when they are needed. Then the best of both worlds are present... no? Some people wish they didn't have to pay the costs for these things because they never use them.
  - matthewmacleod 10y ago
    What cost do you think is being paid that would be mitigated by the complexity of a plugin system?
  - diggan 10y ago
    I think you would like Beaker Browser (https://github.com/pfrazee/beaker https://github.com/pfrazee/beaker) that comes with out-of-the-box support for normal HTTP, Dat and IPFS

drivingmenuts 10y ago

I don't see a problem with this - most browsers with "other" or reduced functionality are niche products at best. They're relative cheap to provide and they don't affect the greater web itself. If you get right down to it, what you need to make a web page work is HTML. That's it - WebGL and WebRTC are interesting, but the web isn't going to die if one browser doesn't include them. Lynx still works fine without them, after all. I'm seeing a lot of alarmism from people who I'm guessing have vested interest in those products, completely forgetting that Chrome, Firefox, Explorer and Safari (in no particular order) are what drive the current state of the modern browser.

type0 10y ago

> I realize these technologies are not currently doing anything for you. I sympathize. But we need them in browsers now so that we can use them in 10 years. 6 years ago many people didn't even knew what web browsers were (What is a Browser? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4MwTvtyrUQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4MwTvtyrUQ)

boterock 10y ago

I'd actually like a 'light' web browser, made for nothing else than 'web browsing'... Some time ago I tried Lynx and I liked the idea, It was waay simpler that I'd like, but in the other hand I feel that interfaces made for web are always crippled compared with desktop interfaces (from G docs vs MS office, up to clara.io compared to blender). For web browsing I think that something between a browser and Lynx is something that I would use, most of the time I am interested in the content more than the aesthetics or the pixel perfect alignment of visuals... and if I was interested in an application (that requires the newest tech in browsers) most of the time there is a better tool for desktop.