6 ms·

You launched a version of chrome, not a new web browser :/

by xchip 4y ago

sofixa 4y ago
Eh. People say "a new OS" when talking about a new Linux based distro. A new Chromium based browser is apt. I think the ship has sailed and we won't have a new browser from scratch any time soon. If two of the richest companies in the world can't do it ( Apple's Safari is always late with features, has significant bugs; MS abandoned their Edge), who could and why? What would be the value add over just using Chromium? It'd be a massive undertaking which you can't profit off because the competition is free. PS: I'd like someone like the EU Commission ( for instance in the upcoming Digital Markets Act) to force Google to give away Chromium to an independent committee. It is the basis for Internet consumption, it shouldn't be in the hands of a single company.
- jefftk 4y ago
  > we won't have a new browser from scratch any time soon What about Flow? It's a a clean-slate closed-source browser and engine, designed to make effective use of parallelism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(web_browser) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(web_browser)
  - iforgotpassword 4y ago
    > closed-source Aaaand I'm out. Still not over Opera abandoning presto. With open source there's at least a chance it can be continued by someone else.
    - jefftk 4y ago
      I would also prefer to see it be open source, but I think in this context that's not the point? My parent was saying that they do not expect to see new browsers from scratch, and this is one. Aside: you could make the argument that both Chrome and Safari are only open source because they were not built from scratch.
      - Fnoord 4y ago
        If they weren't based on FOSS we would all be running Firefox and Opera now, not MSIE (Firefox was popular on desktop before Chrome existed, as was Opera on mobile). Or perhaps they'd have forked Firefox/Gecko instead, or collaborated the effort with these projects. Safari and Chrome are merely a wheel in the larger ecosystem of Apple and Google, a means to an end.
- dosshell 4y ago
  26 days a go this topped HN: SerenityOS Browser now passes the Acid3 test (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30853392 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30853392) That is a new browser from scratch, (well actually, it is a full OS from scratch). I got the impression this is developed by very few persons. So to answer your rhetorical questions: Q: who could? A: Andreas Kling, Linus Groh and Sam Atkins Q: why? A: Because they want to use it. "This is a system by us, for us, based on the things we like."
  - rvz 4y ago
    Can you answer this question? > What would be the value add over just using Chromium?
    - toper-centage 4y ago
      Not using Google is by itself value added.
      - thematrixturtle 4y ago
        Chromium is open source, not "Google", since all the bits that make it Google are in Chrome.
      - rvz 4y ago
        Not even the creators of the browser think that it is ready to use, inplying it is unusable. So it is immediately disqualified. Like what the sibling comment said: [0] Until it has achieved feature parity with at least Safari, then you can talk about 'value' or realistically using this browser over a Chromium one. I can use a Chromium-derived browser today like Brave or ungoogled-chromium and have no 'Google' in it. The SerenityOS browser doesn't even qualify to be compared with the rest on usability other than being 'built from scratch'. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31165497 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31165497
    - runako 4y ago
      There is inherent value in the Web being accessed a variety of clients, including a variety of rendering engines.
- hdjjhhvvhga 4y ago
  It depends. If you just want to support HTML, it's very easy. If you decide to support CSS, it's tedious but possible. If you decide to support JavaScript, it's theoretically possible, but you would need hundreds of millions of dollars, and you will be behind Chrome and Firefox anyway. On the top of that, there is the issue of DRM that is extremely difficult to solve for smaller vendors, and without it your browser will be crippled.
- marginalia_nu 4y ago
  > Eh. People say "a new OS" when talking about a new Linux based distro. A new Chromium based browser is apt. Really? Who are these people, and where are they saying this thing?
- dmitriid 4y ago
  > Apple's Safari is always late with features, has significant bugs While I agree on bugs, "late on features" is at least partly a lie. Features are pumped out by Chrome at a rate of ~400 new Web APIs per year [1]. And Chrome pretends they are standard even if often both Safari and Mozilla are against them (e.g., most hardware APIs, constructible stylesheets in their original form etc.) [1] https://web-confluence.appspot.com/#!/confluence https://web-confluence.appspot.com/#!/confluence
- dosshell 4y ago
  >> It is the basis for Internet consumption, it shouldn't be in the hands of a single company. Somehow I agree with you but this is a slippery path. Should we do the same with x86 ISA? Should we do the same with Windows? YouTube? Where should we draw the line?
  - doctorhandshake 4y ago
    I know you weren’t asking me but Yes Yes Yes Infrastructure should as well not rest in the hands of a single company, so somewhere past that?
- gwbas1c 4y ago
  > I think the ship has sailed and we won't have a new browser from scratch any time soon. I think the big mistake is that we let the HTML spec get so complicated that it's essentially become Google's platform. Although it's technically open, it certainly looks and smells like a monopoly. How do we fix it? Maybe someone could make alternate rendering engines that use Canvas and WASM?
  - ilaksh 4y ago
    https://github.com/runvnc/tersenet https://github.com/runvnc/tersenet
  - mike_hearn 4y ago
    This is a topic dear to my heart. Actually, I'm working on a first-step project to help address this very issue. It's worth reflecting on a few important points. 1. "We" didn't "let" HTML5 become anything. HTML5 reflects whatever browser makers choose to ship, which is why it's un-versioned. The attempt at an industry wide consensus building effort around what HTML should be failed (W3C), largely because it spent most of its political capital on implementation-independent academic dreams rather than incremental improvements. But if you're shipping a browser then what you want is incremental improvemetns. 2. I think by alternative rendering engines you mean different approaches to rendering UI and documents, that aren't HTML. But then you describe something that would have to fit entirely within the constraints of whatever browser makers impose. You'd be trying to build a competitor to browsers on top of browsers. The industry has a history of that and it doesn't work - browser makers always find reasons to kill them off. Flash, Java, Shockwave, ActiveX. Some were more secure than others but in the end, browsers killed them all. They won't tolerate competing platforms that ride inside the browser. That means to make a competitor to HTML5 you need to go outside the browser and build new kinds of browser and document/app technology. 3. To do (2) it really helps to have a good, easy to use deployment technology. Watch this space.
    - ilaksh 4y ago
      Seems really interesting so I have been Googling to try to figure out what you are talking about. Is the Hydraulic product a way to easily deploy GraalVM software? And maybe by adding some type of search and document browsing capability, it can become a new type of web browser? Could you take a look at my comment in this thread and also at https://github.com/runvnc/tersenet https://github.com/runvnc/tersenet I have not totally updated that but my current thinking is that we really want to finish deconstructing the overlay operating system that the "web browser" has become. For example, we should actually not bundle the information browsing program and application VM together, but rather have a simple standard for them to work together. Such as, the info browser can save the list of the application binaries to a file or directory that the VM system knows to watch. We also actually want to further decompose this into a multilevel window manager concept. On the first level, just a rule that applications save and reload window layouts when the user adjusts them. I really think it should be a goal to standardize on some web assembly extension with simple UI features like canvas or framebuffer and keyboard events.
- ilaksh 4y ago
  You can get a bunch of new browsers from scratch. You just have to completely redefine what a browser is. Heh. The issue is that "browser" now is code for a specific type of complex operating system that runs inside of another. That should be split up again, and also reset to content-centric networking (such as IPFS). - View information: just need something like markdown or RST. The Info browser - Simple applications: web assembly with framebuffer, audio and mouse/keyboard input. Media browser - Complex applications: Web assembly plus every device I can think of. Web assembly plus a flexible pluggable and granularly permissioned device driver system. Extended media browsers. https://github.com/runvnc/tersenet https://github.com/runvnc/tersenet
- Ajedi32 4y ago
  Still, I wish more "browser distros" like this would base themselves off Firefox rather than Chromium. Chrome doesn't exactly need the help at this point, and Firefox is the only fully independent browser left that isn't beholden to a major corporation. A hard fork of Chrome would also be nice; would be a great way to create another fully independent browser without needing to do all the work of building a browser from scratch (though maintaining it would still require a lot of resources). This is just a generic gripe with the overall state of the web though; obviously it's not up to OP specifically to solve it if that's not the goal of this project.
nudpiedo 4y ago
I would say a browser is much more than its rendering engine, look at weebkit and all its forks and variations (like a programming language is much more than its compiler)
exodontist 4y ago
Edge is chrome.
- mrweasel 4y ago
  Exactly… I see the point people are trying to make, but new browsers aren’t that interesting. New browser rendering engines are. It great to have Edge, Brave and other, but they provide very little of interest.
- remram 4y ago
  Edge didn't use to be Chrome, and people would probably have made the same comment if Microsoft had launched a new browser that was just Chrome.

You launched a version of chrome, not a new web browser :/

by xchip 4y ago

You launched a version of chrome, not a new web browser :/

Eh. People say "a new OS" when talking about a new Linux based distro. A new Chromium based browser is apt. I think the ship has sailed and we won't have a new browser from scratch any time soon. If two of the richest companies in the world can't do it ( Apple's Safari is always late with features, has significant bugs; MS abandoned their Edge), who could and why? What would be the value add over just using Chromium? It'd be a massive undertaking which you can't profit off because the competition is free. PS: I'd like someone like the EU Commission ( for instance in the upcoming Digital Markets Act) to force Google to give away Chromium to an independent committee. It is the basis for Internet consumption, it shouldn't be in the hands of a single company.

jefftk 4y ago
> we won't have a new browser from scratch any time soon What about Flow? It's a a clean-slate closed-source browser and engine, designed to make effective use of parallelism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(web_browser) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(web_browser)
- iforgotpassword 4y ago
  > closed-source Aaaand I'm out. Still not over Opera abandoning presto. With open source there's at least a chance it can be continued by someone else.
  - jefftk 4y ago
    I would also prefer to see it be open source, but I think in this context that's not the point? My parent was saying that they do not expect to see new browsers from scratch, and this is one. Aside: you could make the argument that both Chrome and Safari are only open source because they were not built from scratch.
    - Fnoord 4y ago
      If they weren't based on FOSS we would all be running Firefox and Opera now, not MSIE (Firefox was popular on desktop before Chrome existed, as was Opera on mobile). Or perhaps they'd have forked Firefox/Gecko instead, or collaborated the effort with these projects. Safari and Chrome are merely a wheel in the larger ecosystem of Apple and Google, a means to an end.
dosshell 4y ago
26 days a go this topped HN: SerenityOS Browser now passes the Acid3 test (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30853392 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30853392) That is a new browser from scratch, (well actually, it is a full OS from scratch). I got the impression this is developed by very few persons. So to answer your rhetorical questions: Q: who could? A: Andreas Kling, Linus Groh and Sam Atkins Q: why? A: Because they want to use it. "This is a system by us, for us, based on the things we like."
- rvz 4y ago
  Can you answer this question? > What would be the value add over just using Chromium?
  - toper-centage 4y ago
    Not using Google is by itself value added.
    - thematrixturtle 4y ago
      Chromium is open source, not "Google", since all the bits that make it Google are in Chrome.
    - rvz 4y ago
      Not even the creators of the browser think that it is ready to use, inplying it is unusable. So it is immediately disqualified. Like what the sibling comment said: [0] Until it has achieved feature parity with at least Safari, then you can talk about 'value' or realistically using this browser over a Chromium one. I can use a Chromium-derived browser today like Brave or ungoogled-chromium and have no 'Google' in it. The SerenityOS browser doesn't even qualify to be compared with the rest on usability other than being 'built from scratch'. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31165497 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31165497
  - runako 4y ago
    There is inherent value in the Web being accessed a variety of clients, including a variety of rendering engines.
hdjjhhvvhga 4y ago
It depends. If you just want to support HTML, it's very easy. If you decide to support CSS, it's tedious but possible. If you decide to support JavaScript, it's theoretically possible, but you would need hundreds of millions of dollars, and you will be behind Chrome and Firefox anyway. On the top of that, there is the issue of DRM that is extremely difficult to solve for smaller vendors, and without it your browser will be crippled.
marginalia_nu 4y ago
> Eh. People say "a new OS" when talking about a new Linux based distro. A new Chromium based browser is apt. Really? Who are these people, and where are they saying this thing?
dmitriid 4y ago
> Apple's Safari is always late with features, has significant bugs While I agree on bugs, "late on features" is at least partly a lie. Features are pumped out by Chrome at a rate of ~400 new Web APIs per year [1]. And Chrome pretends they are standard even if often both Safari and Mozilla are against them (e.g., most hardware APIs, constructible stylesheets in their original form etc.) [1] https://web-confluence.appspot.com/#!/confluence https://web-confluence.appspot.com/#!/confluence
dosshell 4y ago
>> It is the basis for Internet consumption, it shouldn't be in the hands of a single company. Somehow I agree with you but this is a slippery path. Should we do the same with x86 ISA? Should we do the same with Windows? YouTube? Where should we draw the line?
- doctorhandshake 4y ago
  I know you weren’t asking me but Yes Yes Yes Infrastructure should as well not rest in the hands of a single company, so somewhere past that?
gwbas1c 4y ago
> I think the ship has sailed and we won't have a new browser from scratch any time soon. I think the big mistake is that we let the HTML spec get so complicated that it's essentially become Google's platform. Although it's technically open, it certainly looks and smells like a monopoly. How do we fix it? Maybe someone could make alternate rendering engines that use Canvas and WASM?
- ilaksh 4y ago
  https://github.com/runvnc/tersenet https://github.com/runvnc/tersenet
- mike_hearn 4y ago
  This is a topic dear to my heart. Actually, I'm working on a first-step project to help address this very issue. It's worth reflecting on a few important points. 1. "We" didn't "let" HTML5 become anything. HTML5 reflects whatever browser makers choose to ship, which is why it's un-versioned. The attempt at an industry wide consensus building effort around what HTML should be failed (W3C), largely because it spent most of its political capital on implementation-independent academic dreams rather than incremental improvements. But if you're shipping a browser then what you want is incremental improvemetns. 2. I think by alternative rendering engines you mean different approaches to rendering UI and documents, that aren't HTML. But then you describe something that would have to fit entirely within the constraints of whatever browser makers impose. You'd be trying to build a competitor to browsers on top of browsers. The industry has a history of that and it doesn't work - browser makers always find reasons to kill them off. Flash, Java, Shockwave, ActiveX. Some were more secure than others but in the end, browsers killed them all. They won't tolerate competing platforms that ride inside the browser. That means to make a competitor to HTML5 you need to go outside the browser and build new kinds of browser and document/app technology. 3. To do (2) it really helps to have a good, easy to use deployment technology. Watch this space.
  - ilaksh 4y ago
    Seems really interesting so I have been Googling to try to figure out what you are talking about. Is the Hydraulic product a way to easily deploy GraalVM software? And maybe by adding some type of search and document browsing capability, it can become a new type of web browser? Could you take a look at my comment in this thread and also at https://github.com/runvnc/tersenet https://github.com/runvnc/tersenet I have not totally updated that but my current thinking is that we really want to finish deconstructing the overlay operating system that the "web browser" has become. For example, we should actually not bundle the information browsing program and application VM together, but rather have a simple standard for them to work together. Such as, the info browser can save the list of the application binaries to a file or directory that the VM system knows to watch. We also actually want to further decompose this into a multilevel window manager concept. On the first level, just a rule that applications save and reload window layouts when the user adjusts them. I really think it should be a goal to standardize on some web assembly extension with simple UI features like canvas or framebuffer and keyboard events.
ilaksh 4y ago
You can get a bunch of new browsers from scratch. You just have to completely redefine what a browser is. Heh. The issue is that "browser" now is code for a specific type of complex operating system that runs inside of another. That should be split up again, and also reset to content-centric networking (such as IPFS). - View information: just need something like markdown or RST. The Info browser - Simple applications: web assembly with framebuffer, audio and mouse/keyboard input. Media browser - Complex applications: Web assembly plus every device I can think of. Web assembly plus a flexible pluggable and granularly permissioned device driver system. Extended media browsers. https://github.com/runvnc/tersenet https://github.com/runvnc/tersenet
Ajedi32 4y ago
Still, I wish more "browser distros" like this would base themselves off Firefox rather than Chromium. Chrome doesn't exactly need the help at this point, and Firefox is the only fully independent browser left that isn't beholden to a major corporation. A hard fork of Chrome would also be nice; would be a great way to create another fully independent browser without needing to do all the work of building a browser from scratch (though maintaining it would still require a lot of resources). This is just a generic gripe with the overall state of the web though; obviously it's not up to OP specifically to solve it if that's not the goal of this project.

nudpiedo 4y ago

I would say a browser is much more than its rendering engine, look at weebkit and all its forks and variations (like a programming language is much more than its compiler)

exodontist 4y ago

Edge is chrome.

mrweasel 4y ago
Exactly… I see the point people are trying to make, but new browsers aren’t that interesting. New browser rendering engines are. It great to have Edge, Brave and other, but they provide very little of interest.
remram 4y ago
Edge didn't use to be Chrome, and people would probably have made the same comment if Microsoft had launched a new browser that was just Chrome.