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by jdlshore 2256 days ago
I think you’re underestimating what browsers do. They have an incredibly performant and highly-tuned VM, an extremely flexible and powerful layout engine, a comprehensive set of media players, and that’s not even talking about networking, security, and UI.
1 comments
mrmonkeyman 2256 days ago
This seems to scream "separate me!". Why is it acceptable to put all this responsibility into one giant ugly ball? We desperately need separate layout engines, parsers, renderers, etc. Assemble-your-own-browser.
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snazz 2256 days ago
Because the entire advantage of the web from the perspective of the end user (as opposed to desktop applications) is that you can expect it to work the same everywhere. If everything were separated, it wouldn't make a difference, because Chrome and MobileSafari will continue shipping one integrated stack, even if they're forced to open up APIs for modularity.

What tangible advantage would this have? Having competing browsers seems possible, but since end-users wouldn't be choosing individual browser components anyway, it wouldn't actually improve anything.

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aspenmayer 2255 days ago
It sounds like a good idea to be implemented by a technical user, and a solution looking for a problem to every other kind of user. I thought dependency hell was bad but this sounds like a further circle of such hell. I like that I can tell a user to just update their browser and OS and be confident that most users will handle the operation thereof. I know how to tell a non-technical user how to update their web browser in words they can understand. I’m going to have to write a new script for how to explain the scope of the limitations of using a web browser as a compiled application versus the proposed modular architecture just so they can tell me they don’t want or need that.

Choice matters. Sometimes you have to make a choice on behalf of your users. I think that’s what the industry as a whole has done here. Nothing is preventing people from rolling their own modular web browser. Maybe things like Beaker Browser and TOR Browser are versions of that same idea but approached from a specific use case.

Thanks for this comment. I think your idea is good but not for the same reasons that a web browser suite is a good idea for most non-technical users.

https://beakerbrowser.com

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