9 ms·

Basilisk web browser

71 points by bovermyer 8y ago

dotdi 8y ago
How does this differ from Pale Moon? Are the developers/maintainers now working on 2 different browsers?
- arayh 8y ago
  It's such a common question, they actually have a thread on this: https://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=18801 https://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=18801
  - severine 8y ago
    Thanks for the link, quote: > by adesh » Fri, 06 Apr 2018, 17:23 Okay. You know what Pale Moon is, right? It is a browser built from some old (how old? scour forum) Mozilla platform code which does not have latest shinies built-in. Note that old does not mean useless and insecure, you know that. It's because Moonchild makes sure important security fixes released by Mozilla are ported timely. Also, Pale Moon has many extra modifications done on top of Mozilla codebase, most notable of which is its classic UI. Now, Basilisk. Well, Basilisk is also a browser, just like Pale Moon (and Firefox), built from relatively newer (something around FF 52) Mozilla codebase. Again, this is built after making some substantial modifications to the codebase - e.g. after removing devilish pieces of code and putting in some necessary optimizations. However, Moonchild decided not to change the "look and feel" of this browser, so it is very similar to Firefox in look and feel (and feature set too). That means most of the changes are made under the hood.
    - Yoric 8y ago
      "putting in some necessary optimizations"? That sounds suspicious. If it's an optimization, it should be contributed upstream to benefit all the users of Gecko/Firefox. Or are these optimizations to XUL-only codepaths that are not present/executed in Firefox anymore?
      - dictum 8y ago
        The maintainer(s?) have some peculiar opinions: "We already have CSS table layouts... Why is this suddenly needed? why would sites switch to it? It makes no sense. It wasn't important enough to implement in any browser for the past 6 years so there's no real reason why websites would suddenly want to swap to it." (on the CSS Grid spec) https://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?t=15196 https://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?t=15196
        extra88 8y ago
        Yikes. At least Basilisk is a fork of Firefox after it made CSS Grid support public (I don't know how how long it was behind a flag or how much the code changed in that time). It doesn't bode well for support for other, newer standards, like variable fonts.
        mrnhmath 8y ago
        Maintainers. It isn't a one-man show. Their approach to development is to implement things when there's enough user demand e.g CSS Masking, which someone from the community is working in.
      - jcranmer 8y ago
        When one of these projects came out several years ago, what they touted as optimizations were a) releasing an x86-64 build instead of x86 build on Windows (at a time when the x86-64 JIT actually performed worse than x86, and this was known to the Mozilla team), and b) using manual compiler optimization flags a la Gentoo's -funroll-loops options.
- deelly 8y ago
  From https://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=18801 https://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=18801 Basilisk exists "to demonstrate and make use of the [UXP] platform," according to Basilisk's Github site. Moonchild and/or Tobin (can't remember the exact posts) said here in the forum that it will continue to exist, essentially as a perpetual beta, because it will continue to be used to demonstrate the capabilities of the platform. Pale Moon will continue to exist, and is currently in the process of being ported to UXP. That will eventually be released as Pale Moon version 28. Once this version of Pale Moon has been released, Basilisk will continue to exist as a separate browser. And Pale Moon will also continue to exist as a separate browser.
  - mrnhmath 8y ago
    Just a heads-up, Pale Moon 28.0 was released on August 16.
- amyjess 8y ago
  Basically, Pale Moon is a fork of pre-Australis Firefox, and Basilisk is a fork of post-Australis and pre-Quantum firefox.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
leadingthenet 8y ago
Why, though?
- na85 8y ago
  From the article: >Basilisk is primarily a reference application for development of the XUL platform it builds upon, and additionally a potential replacement for Firefox.
  - hawski 8y ago
    Now I would like to know more: why XUL? How is it different than the last time? I think that this site is not yet ready for wider consumption.
    - kreetx 8y ago
      This is hn -- software-in-development fits well here :) This site? You mean this software?
      - hawski 8y ago
        I mean this site about this software. Probably both are under development. But it's hard to discuss about the software when it's description is lacking.
    - sethhochberg 8y ago
      My interpretation is that this is mostly a project for the die-hard users who lost support for niche extensions they really liked when XUL left mainstream Firefox... it reads mostly like they intend to maintain it as a time capsule. "No different from last time" is exactly the main selling feature.
      - johannes1234321 8y ago
        XUL ist not only used in browser Add-ons. There are special purpose desktop applications written using it. This is a project my former employer did some 10+ years ago, but I have seen different other such things. For some time I also used XUL as an UI library inside the browser. Quite powerful and relatively close to native UI which is important for some. https://blog.mayflower.de/64-Is-XUL-the-next-hot-topic-after-AJAX.html https://blog.mayflower.de/64-Is-XUL-the-next-hot-topic-after...
projectramo 8y ago
My main question set for browsers these days is all privacy based: 1. Does this collect anything? 2. Does this prevent collection? -- does it have a vpn option? -- does it have ad blockers? -- does it prevent tabs from talking to each other? -- does it do something clever with cookies?
- JeremyBanks 8y ago
  “Does it have a VPN option?” Isn’t asking to be MITMed a contradiction of items 1 and 2? If you're using a VPN, it should be one you've carefully chosen and individually trust. We shouldn't be encouraging browser vendors to build a first-party mass-surveillance tool.
- michaelmrose 8y ago
  A VPN is appropriately for your entire connection not your browser.
AndrewStephens 8y ago
I first came across Basilisk when I noticed a stage user agent in my website's access log - my site gets so few hits that this stood out. I noticed that Basilisk didn't ping the beacon I use for my hacked-together visitor analytics system - I guess this could be considered bug or a feature depending on which side of the tracking divide you sit.
michaelmrose 8y ago
" This browser is created and maintained by the team behind Pale Moon..." These guys https://github.com/jasperla/openbsd-wip/issues/86 https://github.com/jasperla/openbsd-wip/issues/86 How about not.
- andai 8y ago
  Have you read any of Linus Torvalds' emails?
  - michaelmrose 8y ago
    Whataboutism is rarely a useful argument. Also even Linus now asserts that he was a bit of a jerk. Also linus only calls for you to be retroactively aborted he doesn't threaten lawsuits normally.
  - dotdi 8y ago
    Classical whatabout-ism. Linus was arrogant, condescending and abusive in his emails. Those guys were arrogant and condescending. Being as bad as Linus when dealing with other people is really not something worth striving for and not something worth defending.
- tree_of_item 8y ago
  Yeah, "those guys" who try to enforce their software's license. The nerve.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- jrs95 8y ago
  I don't think it's fair to cherry pick 1 github thread and use it as a moral condemnation of an entire software project.
  - Foxboron 8y ago
    It's hardly a cherry-pick. They have attempted to pull this of on AUR as well on two occasions.
jccalhoun 8y ago
I wish the creator and users of Pale Moon luck but I just see using this old version of Mozilla to be a loosing battle. As time goes on it will be harder and harder for basically a one person program to keep up with new features.
- mrnhmath 8y ago
  Its platform, UXP, isn't a merely old version of Mozilla-sourced code. It has its own development in the past 10 months, and if you're curious, do a diff between mozilla-esr52 and UXP.
jchw 8y ago
Why? Sorry but the page doesn't explain it and I can't imagine for the life of me why you would want pre-Servo Firefox.
- babypuncher 8y ago
  I've been asking the same question for about a year now. There are a number of browsers making a point of using pre-Servo forks of Gecko, which seems absolutely asinine. The project has had a tremendous impact on the usability of Firefox.
- lbj 8y ago
  Wanted to ask the same. It looks like a slower version of Firefox and when the first feature is "Javascript support" I didn't bother reading the rest.
- mike-cardwell 8y ago
  It's all about the change to extensions isn't it? Some people just couldn't let it go.
  - jchw 8y ago
    I still find that absurd. People actually want extensions and add-ons that get full access to their computer, can manipulate pretty much any of the browser functionality, and has been known in the past to be abused? (See noscript for example.) I will admit when I first began using Chrome some years ago I found extensions to be woefully incomplete. But even where integration is worse, I'm super glad about the approach taken with WebExtensions for exposing functionality. It gives a reasonable bound on what extensions can do, and it provides a nice API that is stable.
    - shabble 8y ago
      Has Noscript abused its capabilities as an extension in the past? I can't think of (or immediately find) any suggestion that has, but now I'm curious.
oscargrouch 8y ago
I know its off-topic, but this remind me about some things, now that Firefox is taking the heat and losing more and more market share.. First about that famous Joel Spolsky post warning about software rewrites using Netscape as an example. Then the fact that Firefox have waited too much to create a multi-process browser which was really a needed rewrite to really catch up to Chrome. If my memory doesnt fail me, Chrome was launched in 2008 and Firefox came up with the multi-process only 4 years later, in the end of 2012. And then theres this rewrite of core pieces in Rust, that i'm sure was great for Rust language and community growth, but i dont think it was a good move for Firefox, because it take a lot of effort to stabilize the core pieces, specially while at the same time refactoring a compiler in the middle. Rust turned out great, with a great performance, but what if it didn't? Or maybe i'm being a half empty glass kind of person, and Firefox were actually turning out to the same faith, and at least a good tech, Rust came out of all this mess?
- em-bee 8y ago
  rust was purposely created for the firefox rewrite. so yes, rust is the good thing that came out of the goal to improve firefox. also i seem to remember mozilla exploring multiprocess firefox earlier, but finding that it took more work to get ready. with all the complaints i have seen over the years about the firefox c++ codebase i am not surprised that this wasn't a trivial task.

71 points by bovermyer 8y ago

dotdi 8y ago

How does this differ from Pale Moon? Are the developers/maintainers now working on 2 different browsers?

arayh 8y ago
It's such a common question, they actually have a thread on this: https://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=18801 https://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=18801
- severine 8y ago
  Thanks for the link, quote: > by adesh » Fri, 06 Apr 2018, 17:23 Okay. You know what Pale Moon is, right? It is a browser built from some old (how old? scour forum) Mozilla platform code which does not have latest shinies built-in. Note that old does not mean useless and insecure, you know that. It's because Moonchild makes sure important security fixes released by Mozilla are ported timely. Also, Pale Moon has many extra modifications done on top of Mozilla codebase, most notable of which is its classic UI. Now, Basilisk. Well, Basilisk is also a browser, just like Pale Moon (and Firefox), built from relatively newer (something around FF 52) Mozilla codebase. Again, this is built after making some substantial modifications to the codebase - e.g. after removing devilish pieces of code and putting in some necessary optimizations. However, Moonchild decided not to change the "look and feel" of this browser, so it is very similar to Firefox in look and feel (and feature set too). That means most of the changes are made under the hood.
  - Yoric 8y ago
    "putting in some necessary optimizations"? That sounds suspicious. If it's an optimization, it should be contributed upstream to benefit all the users of Gecko/Firefox. Or are these optimizations to XUL-only codepaths that are not present/executed in Firefox anymore?
    - dictum 8y ago
      The maintainer(s?) have some peculiar opinions: "We already have CSS table layouts... Why is this suddenly needed? why would sites switch to it? It makes no sense. It wasn't important enough to implement in any browser for the past 6 years so there's no real reason why websites would suddenly want to swap to it." (on the CSS Grid spec) https://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?t=15196 https://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?t=15196
      - extra88 8y ago
        Yikes. At least Basilisk is a fork of Firefox after it made CSS Grid support public (I don't know how how long it was behind a flag or how much the code changed in that time). It doesn't bode well for support for other, newer standards, like variable fonts.
      - mrnhmath 8y ago
        Maintainers. It isn't a one-man show. Their approach to development is to implement things when there's enough user demand e.g CSS Masking, which someone from the community is working in.
    - jcranmer 8y ago
      When one of these projects came out several years ago, what they touted as optimizations were a) releasing an x86-64 build instead of x86 build on Windows (at a time when the x86-64 JIT actually performed worse than x86, and this was known to the Mozilla team), and b) using manual compiler optimization flags a la Gentoo's -funroll-loops options.
deelly 8y ago
From https://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=18801 https://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=18801 Basilisk exists "to demonstrate and make use of the [UXP] platform," according to Basilisk's Github site. Moonchild and/or Tobin (can't remember the exact posts) said here in the forum that it will continue to exist, essentially as a perpetual beta, because it will continue to be used to demonstrate the capabilities of the platform. Pale Moon will continue to exist, and is currently in the process of being ported to UXP. That will eventually be released as Pale Moon version 28. Once this version of Pale Moon has been released, Basilisk will continue to exist as a separate browser. And Pale Moon will also continue to exist as a separate browser.
- mrnhmath 8y ago
  Just a heads-up, Pale Moon 28.0 was released on August 16.
amyjess 8y ago
Basically, Pale Moon is a fork of pre-Australis Firefox, and Basilisk is a fork of post-Australis and pre-Quantum firefox.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

leadingthenet 8y ago

Why, though?

na85 8y ago
From the article: >Basilisk is primarily a reference application for development of the XUL platform it builds upon, and additionally a potential replacement for Firefox.
- hawski 8y ago
  Now I would like to know more: why XUL? How is it different than the last time? I think that this site is not yet ready for wider consumption.
  - kreetx 8y ago
    This is hn -- software-in-development fits well here :) This site? You mean this software?
    - hawski 8y ago
      I mean this site about this software. Probably both are under development. But it's hard to discuss about the software when it's description is lacking.
  - sethhochberg 8y ago
    My interpretation is that this is mostly a project for the die-hard users who lost support for niche extensions they really liked when XUL left mainstream Firefox... it reads mostly like they intend to maintain it as a time capsule. "No different from last time" is exactly the main selling feature.
    - johannes1234321 8y ago
      XUL ist not only used in browser Add-ons. There are special purpose desktop applications written using it. This is a project my former employer did some 10+ years ago, but I have seen different other such things. For some time I also used XUL as an UI library inside the browser. Quite powerful and relatively close to native UI which is important for some. https://blog.mayflower.de/64-Is-XUL-the-next-hot-topic-after-AJAX.html https://blog.mayflower.de/64-Is-XUL-the-next-hot-topic-after...

projectramo 8y ago

My main question set for browsers these days is all privacy based: 1. Does this collect anything? 2. Does this prevent collection? -- does it have a vpn option? -- does it have ad blockers? -- does it prevent tabs from talking to each other? -- does it do something clever with cookies?

JeremyBanks 8y ago
“Does it have a VPN option?” Isn’t asking to be MITMed a contradiction of items 1 and 2? If you're using a VPN, it should be one you've carefully chosen and individually trust. We shouldn't be encouraging browser vendors to build a first-party mass-surveillance tool.
michaelmrose 8y ago
A VPN is appropriately for your entire connection not your browser.

AndrewStephens 8y ago

I first came across Basilisk when I noticed a stage user agent in my website's access log - my site gets so few hits that this stood out. I noticed that Basilisk didn't ping the beacon I use for my hacked-together visitor analytics system - I guess this could be considered bug or a feature depending on which side of the tracking divide you sit.

michaelmrose 8y ago

" This browser is created and maintained by the team behind Pale Moon..." These guys https://github.com/jasperla/openbsd-wip/issues/86 https://github.com/jasperla/openbsd-wip/issues/86 How about not.

andai 8y ago
Have you read any of Linus Torvalds' emails?
- michaelmrose 8y ago
  Whataboutism is rarely a useful argument. Also even Linus now asserts that he was a bit of a jerk. Also linus only calls for you to be retroactively aborted he doesn't threaten lawsuits normally.
- dotdi 8y ago
  Classical whatabout-ism. Linus was arrogant, condescending and abusive in his emails. Those guys were arrogant and condescending. Being as bad as Linus when dealing with other people is really not something worth striving for and not something worth defending.
tree_of_item 8y ago
Yeah, "those guys" who try to enforce their software's license. The nerve.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
jrs95 8y ago
I don't think it's fair to cherry pick 1 github thread and use it as a moral condemnation of an entire software project.
- Foxboron 8y ago
  It's hardly a cherry-pick. They have attempted to pull this of on AUR as well on two occasions.

jccalhoun 8y ago

I wish the creator and users of Pale Moon luck but I just see using this old version of Mozilla to be a loosing battle. As time goes on it will be harder and harder for basically a one person program to keep up with new features.

mrnhmath 8y ago
Its platform, UXP, isn't a merely old version of Mozilla-sourced code. It has its own development in the past 10 months, and if you're curious, do a diff between mozilla-esr52 and UXP.

jchw 8y ago

Why? Sorry but the page doesn't explain it and I can't imagine for the life of me why you would want pre-Servo Firefox.

babypuncher 8y ago
I've been asking the same question for about a year now. There are a number of browsers making a point of using pre-Servo forks of Gecko, which seems absolutely asinine. The project has had a tremendous impact on the usability of Firefox.
lbj 8y ago
Wanted to ask the same. It looks like a slower version of Firefox and when the first feature is "Javascript support" I didn't bother reading the rest.
mike-cardwell 8y ago
It's all about the change to extensions isn't it? Some people just couldn't let it go.
- jchw 8y ago
  I still find that absurd. People actually want extensions and add-ons that get full access to their computer, can manipulate pretty much any of the browser functionality, and has been known in the past to be abused? (See noscript for example.) I will admit when I first began using Chrome some years ago I found extensions to be woefully incomplete. But even where integration is worse, I'm super glad about the approach taken with WebExtensions for exposing functionality. It gives a reasonable bound on what extensions can do, and it provides a nice API that is stable.
  - shabble 8y ago
    Has Noscript abused its capabilities as an extension in the past? I can't think of (or immediately find) any suggestion that has, but now I'm curious.

oscargrouch 8y ago

I know its off-topic, but this remind me about some things, now that Firefox is taking the heat and losing more and more market share.. First about that famous Joel Spolsky post warning about software rewrites using Netscape as an example. Then the fact that Firefox have waited too much to create a multi-process browser which was really a needed rewrite to really catch up to Chrome. If my memory doesnt fail me, Chrome was launched in 2008 and Firefox came up with the multi-process only 4 years later, in the end of 2012. And then theres this rewrite of core pieces in Rust, that i'm sure was great for Rust language and community growth, but i dont think it was a good move for Firefox, because it take a lot of effort to stabilize the core pieces, specially while at the same time refactoring a compiler in the middle. Rust turned out great, with a great performance, but what if it didn't? Or maybe i'm being a half empty glass kind of person, and Firefox were actually turning out to the same faith, and at least a good tech, Rust came out of all this mess?

em-bee 8y ago
rust was purposely created for the firefox rewrite. so yes, rust is the good thing that came out of the goal to improve firefox. also i seem to remember mozilla exploring multiprocess firefox earlier, but finding that it took more work to get ready. with all the complaints i have seen over the years about the firefox c++ codebase i am not surprised that this wasn't a trivial task.