3 ms·

I've wanted something more like Emacs for the web -- a bunch of fast primitives and hooks everywhere, with a good-enough language to allow me to modify everythi

by jfb 6y ago

I've wanted something more like Emacs for the web -- a bunch of fast primitives and hooks everywhere, with a good-enough language to allow me to modify everything about the browser as I see fit, without having to drop down into the C++ hex mines.

Certhas 6y ago
I think this is the honest answer. The people upset simply don't want a browser with measurable market share. In the Stack overflow survey Emacs has a market share of <5%. Non programmers have never heard of Emacs. If Firefox was targeting these users there would be no Firefox...
- anoncake 6y ago
  If the web wasn't so overly complicated a niche browser like that would be viable.
- jfb 6y ago
  Right. My old boss at Apple used to encourage me to rant about how our products should work, and then shake his head and with a Gallic chuckle say, "we'd go broke if we made products for you".
zeveb 6y ago
That's exactly what I want: an Emacs for the web. Or enough web-browsing capability built into Emacs to just browse every site in Emacs. Seriously, though, I want the software I run to obey me, not someone else: not Microsoft, not Apple, not some government on the other side of the world — and not Mozilla. I want to be able to modify its functionality in a straightforward manner, in a reasonably-sane garbage-collected language (so, not C, not C++, not Java and not JavaScript). I would like to be able to add pull data from sites I visit and plumb it through the rest of my system using something like Plan 9's plumber. I don't want a browser which says, 'sorry, I won't trust you to choose the extensions you like.'