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I'm fed up with it, so I'm writing a browser (adayinthelifeof.nl)

submitted 1 year ago by dnzm@feddit.nl to c/foss

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This blogpost starts with me switching of my car radio, and ends with me writing a browser. There is some stuff in between as well.

Interesting take from the author; exactly the kind of thing that might start something big — or maybe it won't, and that's OK, too. Either way, I can appreciate the attitude!

(There's also a discussion on the orange site)

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[–] dog@suppo.fi 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

What we need isn't browsers. What we need is an universal way to write extensions cross-browser.

Browsers themselves are easy to make. The problem is convincing extension devs to work with yet another codebase.

E: Think of it this way. There's a lot of open source browsers out there.

Are you using any of them? Probably not.

Would you use one if it doesn't have for example Bitwarden, Ublock Origin, Sponsorblock, and such mandatory extensions?

Users follow extensions and ease of use; not what's good for them.

E2: A good project would be a builder extension for VSC for example, which compiles to all supported browsers.

Browser devs would then contribute to said extension via native-made plugins.

Cooperation of two fronts.

[–] biddy@feddit.nl 30 points 1 year ago

Browsers themselves are easy to make.

What makes you say this? There are only 2 fully featured browsers, Chromium and Firefox. Anything else isn't a viable alternative even if we compare stock to stock.

[–] elauso@feddit.de 24 points 1 year ago

There's a lot of open source browsers out there. Would you use one if it doesn't have [...] mandatory extensions?

There are literally only chromium-based browsers and Firefox (and its forks) with any meaningful market share. Developing a new browser engine is extremely complicated and time consuming, so there really is no danger of having "too many" browsers. And of course all browsers based on chromium (Google Chrome, Edge, Vivaldi, Brave, ...) support the same set of extensions, because they use the same engine. So extension compatibility is also not a problem.

Supporting the gazillion ever-changing web technologies and standards and layout systems for a completly new browser is a problem though.

[–] douglasg14b 16 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

browsers themselves are easy to make

That's ... a patently false statement.

They are among the most complex, difficult, resource hungry pieces of software out there along with actual operating systems.

There's a lot of open source browsers out there. Are you using them? Probably not

This is also essentially misinformation. I'm sure none of us have heard of Firefox before, or Chromium. Sure Chrome (closed source) is what most people use, but Firefox isn't exactly some esoteric browser.

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