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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=3

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.
sofixa 4y ago
> Andreas Kling Mar 30 > There's still a long way to go before it's usable for daily browsing. For example we need to improve support for flexbox, grid and table layouts. Performance also needs work. > Our JavaScript engine is decently mature, test262 score tracked here: https://libjs.dev/test262/ https://libjs.dev/test262/ In a few years when they have achieved feature parity with Chromium or at least Safari we can discuss this again, but for now it's not ready for real life use.
- mariusor 4y ago
  Hahaha, I don't think a project as monumental as a browser deserves such dismissiveness. Let's not forget that Mozilla's full rust browser has not achieved (and never will) feature parity with safari or chrome either, and they invested far more man power and time into it. The lone effort of a handful of developers that got equally far is worthy of a mention as a "new browser" even if it's not fit for human consumption yet.
  - hdjjhhvvhga 4y ago
    Yeah I remember the first Mozilla builds in the early 2000s. They were awful. Everything crashed constantly. It was such a memory hog. fast forward twenty years and I use it on a daily basis, and I'm so happy I'm not forced to use Chrome (not to mention some abominations from the past like IE with ActiveX - and at some point such setups were mandatory in order to access some services).
    - Fnoord 4y ago
      Ah yes, the Mozilla Milestones of what came to be known as SeaMonkey. If the competition was flawless I'd agree. However, Netscape and MSIE also crashed constantly. Opera might've been the most stable, also in the sense it was the first to have proper session management and recovery (plus it had unique features like MDI long before tabs were a thing). It took ages till Firefox once again had certain features Netscape used to have (like sharing profile over network which Netscape could with LDAP). But such was abstracted on filesystem level in the Microsoft world. An OS or browser needs a reasonable unique selling point, standards compatibility, and stability and security. Feature-wise one can slack, as long as these aspects are strong enough.

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.

sofixa 4y ago

> Andreas Kling Mar 30 > There's still a long way to go before it's usable for daily browsing. For example we need to improve support for flexbox, grid and table layouts. Performance also needs work. > Our JavaScript engine is decently mature, test262 score tracked here: https://libjs.dev/test262/ https://libjs.dev/test262/ In a few years when they have achieved feature parity with Chromium or at least Safari we can discuss this again, but for now it's not ready for real life use.

mariusor 4y ago
Hahaha, I don't think a project as monumental as a browser deserves such dismissiveness. Let's not forget that Mozilla's full rust browser has not achieved (and never will) feature parity with safari or chrome either, and they invested far more man power and time into it. The lone effort of a handful of developers that got equally far is worthy of a mention as a "new browser" even if it's not fit for human consumption yet.
- hdjjhhvvhga 4y ago
  Yeah I remember the first Mozilla builds in the early 2000s. They were awful. Everything crashed constantly. It was such a memory hog. fast forward twenty years and I use it on a daily basis, and I'm so happy I'm not forced to use Chrome (not to mention some abominations from the past like IE with ActiveX - and at some point such setups were mandatory in order to access some services).
  - Fnoord 4y ago
    Ah yes, the Mozilla Milestones of what came to be known as SeaMonkey. If the competition was flawless I'd agree. However, Netscape and MSIE also crashed constantly. Opera might've been the most stable, also in the sense it was the first to have proper session management and recovery (plus it had unique features like MDI long before tabs were a thing). It took ages till Firefox once again had certain features Netscape used to have (like sharing profile over network which Netscape could with LDAP). But such was abstracted on filesystem level in the Microsoft world. An OS or browser needs a reasonable unique selling point, standards compatibility, and stability and security. Feature-wise one can slack, as long as these aspects are strong enough.