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For the first time in years, someone is building a web browser from scratch:
For more than two decades, building a new web browser from scratch has been practically unheard of. But a small company called Ekioh has its reasons.
The Cambridge, U.K.-based company is developing a browser called Flow, and unlike the vast majority of browsers that have arrived in recent years, it's not based on Google's Chromium or Apple's WebKit open-source code. Instead, Flow is starting with a blank slate and building its own rendering engine. Its goal is to make web-based apps run smoothly even on cheap microcomputers such as the Raspberry Pi.
There's a reason companies don't do this anymore: Experts say building new browsers isn't worth the trouble when anyone can just modify the work that Apple and Google are doing. But if Flow succeeds, it could rethink the way we browse the web and open the door to cheaper gadgets. That at least seems like a goal worth pursuing.
"It's a huge task, but if you want something which is very small and very fast, you typically can't start with one of the other engines," says Stephen Reeder, Ekioh's commercial director.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Subsentient on Wednesday March 17 2021, @11:49AM (16 children)
Sadly I think I know how this story ends: They give up in a year or so.
I really, really hope they succeed. But, time will tell.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 17 2021, @12:10PM (1 child)
and if their name has any traction at the time it dies, its corpse will be injected with chromium by some asshat to monetise the few fans it has.
(Score: 2) by Subsentient on Wednesday March 17 2021, @12:44PM
Yep. Exactly. A-la-Opera.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Score: 2) by legont on Wednesday March 17 2021, @12:35PM (5 children)
Even if they are to succeed, Google or others will buy them off and kill.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 17 2021, @04:29PM (3 children)
If that doesn't work, they can encourage them to adopt a code-of-conduct, and watch them descend into death convulsions.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday March 17 2021, @06:10PM (2 children)
I don't need a code of conduct. I am a good person.
I can prove that I'm a good person. If you need to know, just ask me and I will tell you how good I am!
For no extra charge, you can also ask and I will tell you about how amazingly humble I am! More humble than anyone else. Ever!
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 17 2021, @08:42PM (1 child)
Always cracks me up when people complain about CoCs. Muh dudes, everywhere you go, every country you visit has codes of conduct. Apparently the patent trolls were right, reality truly is different when *on a computer*. I don't recall the same outrage when religious nutters have done similar things, I don't see anyone lining up to make selling alcohol legal in dry counties. etc. etc. etc.
buncha whiny snowflakes, weird knowing now that 9/10 insults conservatives/libertarians use is actually something they are guilty of
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 18 2021, @01:31AM
The objection isn't about having CoCs, but to their abuse. There have been multiple organized hostile takeovers of open source projects over the years using deliberately vague and unevenly enforced CoCs to drive out the original team resulting in stagnation of the project while the coffers are pilfered by the newcomers. It is the non-profit equivalent of vampire capitalism. Mozilla hasn't been sucked dry yet but Gnome only exists because Redhat took over the project after it went bankrupt.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Thursday March 18 2021, @07:02PM
Especially if they succeed.
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Wednesday March 17 2021, @07:57PM (7 children)
This. Sadly, the abomination that is CSS/3 makes this nearly impossible. Crazy quantities of Javascript libraries also cripple attempts at speed and efficiency.
Somehow, there needs to be a real, serious incentive for every site to work without CSS and without JS. Ugly? Fine, but all functionality should be present.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 17 2021, @08:25PM (1 child)
Personally, I'd be happy with a browser that doesn't support JS, CSS, WASM, or any similar garbage. It'd save me from having to disable, block and install add-ons to manage all of that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 17 2021, @10:15PM
howsabout lynx? [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 17 2021, @08:51PM
Precisely, while plugins suck, there's far too many things included in the specifications and much of it just gets used by advertisers to spy on users.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 18 2021, @01:37AM
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Pino P on Thursday March 18 2021, @12:39PM (1 child)
How would the functionality of, say, a chat site like Slack or Discord or Teams be present without script? Would the user need to click a button every 30 seconds to refresh the list of messages? Or would these become native applications, having read-write access to your entire home directory provided they are even compatible with your device's operating system?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 19 2021, @12:58AM
The way we used to do it, framesets/iframes, chunked transfer encoding, and other tricks.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday March 18 2021, @01:42PM
Why the hate for CSS?
I would think CSS is a good thing. It enables an amazing amount of styling but is NOT an executable format.
You say ugly fine but functional. Part, and only part of function is that it has a good presentation.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.