Support Firefox instead

Posted Jun 7, 2024 21:07 UTC (Fri) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523)
Parent article: Ladybird browser spreads its wings

I don't believe new browsers make any sense today, except as research items.

It would be much better to work with Mozilla to improve Firefox. One thing that's sorely missing is the embedding API. It's dead easy to embed Chromium, and this gives it so much advantage.

Support Firefox instead

Posted Jun 8, 2024 8:40 UTC (Sat) by b7j0c (guest, #27559) [Link] (8 responses)

I don't know how Kling feels about Mozilla but it is also irrelevant; he is not obligated to support Firefox.

Mozilla as an organization is a spent force. They have jettisoned their primary means for making significant game-changing progress (Rust/Servo) and are instead just managing the inertia of their uncompetitive, aged, dying platform.

Mozilla squandered their future in exchange for shallow activism. Did any of their activist goals actually achieve anything other than me-too virtue signalling? I see a decade+ of superficial, low/zero impact activism while Chrome basically ate their entire market share.

Kling is doing us a favor by paving the way for a post-Mozilla future.

Support Firefox instead

Posted Jun 8, 2024 12:05 UTC (Sat) by roc (subscriber, #30627) [Link] (7 responses)

From a technical point of view Firefox is still very competitive with Chrome. Certainly far more competitive than Ladybird has any hope of ever being.

I just watched a video on a streaming service. That's basic functionality normal users require. To get that to work well you need a ton of stuff, including
-- <video> support, including the related DOM APIs
-- Integration with modern A/V codecs
-- Integration with hardware-accelerated decoding, where available
-- Support for Media Source Extensions
-- Support for EME
-- Reliable A/V sync
-- GPU-accelerated rendering
-- Off-main-thread compositing
-- Integration with the system compositor framework, where available (to minimize power usage)
(I'm sure I missed some stuff, it's been a while.)

To be competitive with modern browsers on security you need to have the site JS+CSS+HTML in its own sandboxed process. GPU rendering and A/V decoding need to be in separate sandboxed processes (could be the same process in a pinch).

Firefox does this all very well. It took many talented engineers (and me) years to build and a lot more work to maintain since then. Maybe Mozilla is a spent force --- I hope not --- but don't underestimate what they had and still have, and how difficult it will be for a new project to even catch up to where they are now.

Support Firefox instead

Posted Jun 8, 2024 13:10 UTC (Sat) by PengZheng (subscriber, #108006) [Link] (1 responses)

Agree.

> A user asked on June 6 what would determine whether a component would be developed in-house versus using a third-party library. Kling responded that if it implements a web standard, "i.e DOM, HTML, JavaScript, CSS, Wasm, etc. then we build it in house."

As a developer familiar with multimedia streaming, I would say even re-implementing WebRTC alone will be a huge challenge for the small team.

Seriously, calling Firefox a dying platform will not add one's own value, it just pisses out faithful users of Firefox (there are a LOT here on LWN).

Support Firefox instead

Posted Jun 22, 2024 15:55 UTC (Sat) by circl (guest, #172114) [Link]

> As a developer familiar with multimedia streaming, I would say even re-implementing WebRTC alone will be a huge challenge for the small team.

The project moves faster and is more active than most people expect, it has implemented a large amount of the standards required for web browsing, especially LibJS which is now mostly probed for performance and compliance. I'm sure an implementation will be started at some point. :^)

Support Firefox instead

Posted Jun 8, 2024 17:44 UTC (Sat) by cytochrome (subscriber, #58718) [Link]

I agree wholeheartedly. I find that Firefox (plus add-ons) satisfies all of my browsing and privacy needs. Thank you to @roc and the other talented software engineers for their hard work in developing and sustaining the application. I have tried to do my small part by donating to the cause several times.

Support Firefox instead

Posted Jun 9, 2024 8:55 UTC (Sun) by roc (subscriber, #30627) [Link] (3 responses)

This inspired me to write a blog post about building a new browser engine. https://robert.ocallahan.org/2024/06/browser-engine.html

Support Firefox instead

Posted Jun 15, 2024 2:06 UTC (Sat) by himi (subscriber, #340) [Link] (2 responses)

Not that I'm planning to build a browser engine (for profit or itch-scratching - I'm not insane), but that's a nice description of the complexity of the modern browser environment - it's easily the most complex single piece of software on human-focused general purpose devices, and it's probably the most critical piece of software on those devices. The fact that Mozilla have been able to keep Firefox genuinely competitive with Chrome is a real achievement, anyone targeting that level of functionality from scratch is facing a truly massive battle just to get to the starting line.

That said, something that targets the Electron niche (and does it well enough) likely has a lot of legs. Definitely still an uphill battle, but far less of one than targeting a full browser . . .

Support Firefox instead

Posted Jun 15, 2024 2:27 UTC (Sat) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]

There are projects in this area, like HTMLayout (now https://sciter.com/ ). It was done by a single person, and back in 2000-s quite a few widely used Windows programs had UI built using it.

Something like this would be extremely useful. Not a full browser engine, but a subset for UIs.

Support Firefox instead

Posted Jun 15, 2024 14:02 UTC (Sat) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

My immediate reaction to this is the web browser is trying to be the new Emacs - all it needs is some hardware to run on, it does everything else.

But seriously, to what extent is that the modern paradigm nowadays - the browser is the OS that runs your programs, and linux and Windows are just glorified hardware abstraction layers. For many people - especially at work - that is now not far from the reality ...

Cheers,
Wol