5 ms·

Servo is now under the Linux Foundation umbrella. It's refreshing to finally see some more players in the browser engine space than the tri-opoly of Google (Bli

Servo is now under the Linux Foundation umbrella. It's refreshing to finally see some more players in the browser engine space than the tri-opoly of Google (Blink), Apple (WebKit) and Gecko (Mozilla). LibWeb (Ladybird Browser) is another browser engine, but also in very early days of development. Gecko is depressingly tied to Firefox and not easily embedded. Blink has somehow become the de facto browser engine thanks to Electron. Even Qt (QtWebEngine) is now based on Blink instead of WebKit. A lot of web apps like Teams only support Blink/Chromium, just like the dark old days of Internet Explorer. Chrome and Edge are basically spyware which people are most drawn to because of being somewhat default and/or well known for their phone/PC.

rektide 3y ago
Honestly why would anyone do anything other than Blink at this point? For one, there's so many examples to crib from about how to do it. But more generally, I just feel like every other player in the space has adopted an adversarial stance. For sure, sometimes Safari or less typically Firefox do lead, but it's rarely by much & usually the set of capabilities overall is far far less. I don't want a monoculture either, but until we get a other pro-web player who can web-forward their shit, who is aggressive about making the web better, there's just zero hope for this conversation. Blink plus two boat anchors isn't good. The IE comparison is so woefully out of touch & distasteful. Hard pass. Chrome tries. There wasn't the ecosystem of standards bodies back when IE was inventing stuff whenever they felt like, but today there are tons of expectations & reviews happening at multiple levels to try to refine & figure out what makes sense. In some ways it works great & a lot of review happens, but Moz + Apple hate any real power for the web & kick & scream & don't actually review what should be done if we did want to do the capability & reject on principle making a bigger web platform. There's no real debate because 2/3 players actively believe & push for a small web. It's a miserable rock & hard place situation, trying to figure out what to do when there's only one ayer who believes in a web platform at all. I love the new entrants, but I really worry they'll also be into their own jam & not excited or interested in making a broader better web platform, and just turn the 2 Vs 1 anti/pro web into a 3 Vs 1 battle.
- jpk 3y ago
  > There's no real debate because 2/3 players actively believe & push for a small web. It's a miserable rock & hard place situation, trying to figure out what to do when there's only one ayer who believes in a web platform at all. Not to say I don't believe you, I'm just curious. In what way(s) does Google uniquely believe in the web as a platform where Apple/Mozilla don't? Can you provide some examples of this?
  - rektide 3y ago
    Like 18 months ago Safari launched a "look at us we are so great, we don't support these long list of web apis; isn't chrome evil" and Moz joined in like two days latter repeating the exact same claims in an obviously coordinated negativity-campaign. Web USB, web Bluetooth, web midi, ambient light sensor, bunch of other sensors. I'm sorry I really want to find the links & show this off more. It was the most boldfaced & honest admission that basic useful interesting things were not welcome, profiteering off suspicion & hostility while telling users that the anti-feature was undecidedly the only acceptable way. One can also review moz's standards positions. It's a great effort & I applaud Moz for their transparency & don't want to hurt the effort. There's aot of good too. But there's such a long sordid history of Moz saying no absolutely not this is awful, then eventually having to circle back around & at least make some effort to not be a huge stick in the mud, to at least help figure out at some degree what would fit if this was a goal. And often deciding yeah, we will do it https://mozilla.github.io/standards-positions/ https://mozilla.github.io/standards-positions/ They just don't seem to have any ability to differentiate between what a privileged/permission-ed site should be granted versus what the baseline security model should be. Any potential information leak anywhere seems like cause to terminate effort.
    - zarzavat 3y ago
      I completely agree. The amount of FUD Mozilla spread about Web MIDI was truly distasteful. People say that Google is the enemy, and perhaps they are. But at least Google does not write off entire groups of users (like musicians) because of a swivel-eyed security paranoia. If I wanted a paternalistic entity telling me what I can and can’t do with my device, I’d use an iPad.
ksec 3y ago
> Even Qt (QtWebEngine) is now based on Blink instead of WebKit. This is news to me. When did that happen ?
- jenadine 3y ago
  QtWebEngine was part of Qt 5.4 released in 2014
- dikei 3y ago
  Almost a decade ago, when QtWebEngine replaced QtWebkit as the recommended way to embedded HTML capability in Qt apps.
- flohofwoe 3y ago
  IIRC QtWebEngine was introduced in Qt 5.4 and QtWebKit was removed in 5.6. (and it sucked, because suddenly a Qt application with a web view was several times larger)
its-summertime 3y ago
https://wiki.mozilla.org/Mobile/GeckoView https://wiki.mozilla.org/Mobile/GeckoView it is possible to pull just gecko/spidermonkey/et/al out of firefox. I do hope GeckoView gets wider support, but at the same time, the competition is already insanely entrenched. People arn't using Firefox because they prefer Gecko's rendering, after all.
- johnny22 3y ago
  even gtk uses webkit for their webview and not gecko. It'd be nice to see gecko as a possiblity there.
fanf2 3y ago
There is also the Flow browser by Ekioh https://www.ekioh.com/flow-browser/ https://www.ekioh.com/flow-browser/ which is closed source and marketed for use in set-top boxes and smart TVs.

rektide 3y ago

Honestly why would anyone do anything other than Blink at this point? For one, there's so many examples to crib from about how to do it. But more generally, I just feel like every other player in the space has adopted an adversarial stance. For sure, sometimes Safari or less typically Firefox do lead, but it's rarely by much & usually the set of capabilities overall is far far less. I don't want a monoculture either, but until we get a other pro-web player who can web-forward their shit, who is aggressive about making the web better, there's just zero hope for this conversation. Blink plus two boat anchors isn't good. The IE comparison is so woefully out of touch & distasteful. Hard pass. Chrome tries. There wasn't the ecosystem of standards bodies back when IE was inventing stuff whenever they felt like, but today there are tons of expectations & reviews happening at multiple levels to try to refine & figure out what makes sense. In some ways it works great & a lot of review happens, but Moz + Apple hate any real power for the web & kick & scream & don't actually review what should be done if we did want to do the capability & reject on principle making a bigger web platform. There's no real debate because 2/3 players actively believe & push for a small web. It's a miserable rock & hard place situation, trying to figure out what to do when there's only one ayer who believes in a web platform at all. I love the new entrants, but I really worry they'll also be into their own jam & not excited or interested in making a broader better web platform, and just turn the 2 Vs 1 anti/pro web into a 3 Vs 1 battle.

jpk 3y ago
> There's no real debate because 2/3 players actively believe & push for a small web. It's a miserable rock & hard place situation, trying to figure out what to do when there's only one ayer who believes in a web platform at all. Not to say I don't believe you, I'm just curious. In what way(s) does Google uniquely believe in the web as a platform where Apple/Mozilla don't? Can you provide some examples of this?
- rektide 3y ago
  Like 18 months ago Safari launched a "look at us we are so great, we don't support these long list of web apis; isn't chrome evil" and Moz joined in like two days latter repeating the exact same claims in an obviously coordinated negativity-campaign. Web USB, web Bluetooth, web midi, ambient light sensor, bunch of other sensors. I'm sorry I really want to find the links & show this off more. It was the most boldfaced & honest admission that basic useful interesting things were not welcome, profiteering off suspicion & hostility while telling users that the anti-feature was undecidedly the only acceptable way. One can also review moz's standards positions. It's a great effort & I applaud Moz for their transparency & don't want to hurt the effort. There's aot of good too. But there's such a long sordid history of Moz saying no absolutely not this is awful, then eventually having to circle back around & at least make some effort to not be a huge stick in the mud, to at least help figure out at some degree what would fit if this was a goal. And often deciding yeah, we will do it https://mozilla.github.io/standards-positions/ https://mozilla.github.io/standards-positions/ They just don't seem to have any ability to differentiate between what a privileged/permission-ed site should be granted versus what the baseline security model should be. Any potential information leak anywhere seems like cause to terminate effort.
  - zarzavat 3y ago
    I completely agree. The amount of FUD Mozilla spread about Web MIDI was truly distasteful. People say that Google is the enemy, and perhaps they are. But at least Google does not write off entire groups of users (like musicians) because of a swivel-eyed security paranoia. If I wanted a paternalistic entity telling me what I can and can’t do with my device, I’d use an iPad.

ksec 3y ago

> Even Qt (QtWebEngine) is now based on Blink instead of WebKit. This is news to me. When did that happen ?

jenadine 3y ago
QtWebEngine was part of Qt 5.4 released in 2014
dikei 3y ago
Almost a decade ago, when QtWebEngine replaced QtWebkit as the recommended way to embedded HTML capability in Qt apps.
flohofwoe 3y ago
IIRC QtWebEngine was introduced in Qt 5.4 and QtWebKit was removed in 5.6. (and it sucked, because suddenly a Qt application with a web view was several times larger)

its-summertime 3y ago

https://wiki.mozilla.org/Mobile/GeckoView https://wiki.mozilla.org/Mobile/GeckoView it is possible to pull just gecko/spidermonkey/et/al out of firefox. I do hope GeckoView gets wider support, but at the same time, the competition is already insanely entrenched. People arn't using Firefox because they prefer Gecko's rendering, after all.

johnny22 3y ago
even gtk uses webkit for their webview and not gecko. It'd be nice to see gecko as a possiblity there.

fanf2 3y ago

There is also the Flow browser by Ekioh https://www.ekioh.com/flow-browser/ https://www.ekioh.com/flow-browser/ which is closed source and marketed for use in set-top boxes and smart TVs.