SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Software developer Drew DeVault has written a post at his blog about the reckless, infinite scope of today's web browsers. His conclusion is that, given decades of feature creep, it is now impossible to build a new web browser due to the obscene complexity of the web.
I conclude that it is impossible to build a new web browser. The complexity of the web is obscene. The creation of a new web browser would be comparable in effort to the Apollo program or the Manhattan project.
It is impossible to:
- Implement the web correctly
- Implement the web securely
- Implement the web at all
Starting a bespoke browser engine with the intention of competing with Google or Mozilla is a fool's errand. The last serious attempt to make a new browser, Servo, has become one part incubator for Firefox refactoring, one part playground for bored Mozilla engineers to mess with technology no one wants, and zero parts viable modern web browser. But WebVR is cool, right? Right?
The consequences of this are obvious. Browsers are the most expensive piece of software a typical consumer computer runs. They're infamous for using all of your RAM, pinning CPU and I/O, draining your battery, etc. Web browsers are responsible for more than 8,000 CVEs.3
The browser duopoly of Firefox and Chrome/Chromium has clearly harmed the World-Wide Web. However, a closer look at the membership of the W3C committes also reveals representation by classic villains which, perhaps coincidentally, showed up around the time the problems noted by Drew began to grow.
Previously:
An Open Letter to Web Developers (2020)
Google Now Bans Some Linux Web Browsers from their Services (2019)
HTML is the Web (2019)
The Future of Browsers (2019)
One Year Since the W3C Sold Out the Web with EME (2018)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 24 2020, @01:04PM (1 child)
Whatever gave you the idea that there is such a thing?
Browsers have been breaking compatability with new features since NCSA sued Mark Anderseen for improving his own product.
I think what you are trying to say here is that browsers are no longer communications technology, but have instead become a system for aggregating marketing channels. We really should all just accept it and move on. That happens when things are successful. The point is that eventually it becomes more productive to cut loose and start from scratch.
And people are doing that if you look around. It isn't just the browser. The whole OSI model is broken.
The Internet is in a contracting stage right now, and will continue to be for a while. In some ways this is good, because it is going to take a lot more broken-ness to get to a point where people start adopting the next generation of technology.
In any case. Yeah, http is fucked. But it has been since 1.0. Part of this is becuase it was perhaps too extensible. Multiplexing has the advantage of being able to authenticate at layer 3 or 4. A lot of the security problems derive from doing things at layer 7, that should be done at lower layers. And that derives from the ease with which one can develop one-off solutions for the web.
The OSI stack is a rickety ladder to be sure. It would be nice if all the profit didn't derive from hanging anvils at the very top.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 24 2020, @04:26PM
Somewhat my sentiment, this.
The need to implement everything exists only in the minds of people.
Choose the subset of features (from 0 to everything), implement it, use it.
Call it a browser or don't, if it has a function it will be used.
Who cares what standard it follows, as long as its protocol level compatible and features can be removed.
Following standards of people who can't program/don't like programming and would rather prefer fashion if anyone let them, is a terrible idea.
OSI model... its an abstraction, it was somewhat useful sometime, but reality is a bit messy and its all bits anyway on the inside, so imo not a terrible loss, it has outlived its usefulness.
Yea, http's fucked. Human nature wasn't accounted for in its design.
Yup, profit. There was a reason Ixous threw the marketeers out of the Temple.
If only someone would throw them out of the Internet too... :)