Development :
K-Meleon Web Browser Forum
Well people, I love K-Meleon and have been using it for more than a decade, since the time of KM 1.54.
I know there is no developer here to upgrade/update our beloved browser since Dorian left.
But I am thinking what if we hire a dev/programmer to develop a "Modern K-Meleon" from its original source? I am willing to contribute if such a decision will be made. Is there any issue? OR are there some limits? I don't know about programing, but I need to know that whether a programmer can be hired to do so?
I hope I explained my point of view.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/17/2022 10:55PM by JohnHell.
This is my pessimistic opinion. So take it with a grain of salt.
You have my moral support (and/or forum administration, as long as this forum is used for the project, as it is all the powers I have; and as long as I'm around here) but is not an endeavour I would take part in. Specially with money, which I don't have to spare
But all my support to all who jump in the boat if this goes somewhere.
I already have thought about this several times and... has many flaws, starting from the money, that doesn't grow on trees... yet... (I barely remember there were european grants for software development long ago, but not anymore) Hiring a developer for one month (do you know how much would request a freelancer?), maybe two, will go nowhere, despite its costs. The project would need a dedicated developer, to adapt it and to maintain it.
And money isn't actually a problem if you find someone like roytam, but that is the exception to the rule. In the end, the voluntaries developers part away soon or later, for one reason or the other. And if that is not the problem the problem is, is there anyone to take the torch?
How large is the user base to [financially] support it? (I always ask myself where donations to the project go if Dorian is not there anymore :-?)
But, also, the "Modern K-Meleon" phrase catches my eyes.
K-meleon is a shell, it not a full featured browser that goes from the engine to the GUI (as Firefox). K-meleon is the GUI plus Macro Language with an embedded engine, Gecko on its origins and Goanna on roytam's builds.
The "old" on K-meleon that doesn't make it "modern", is just the web standards that supports the engine that embeds and the age of the support for a newer engine. Each engine is different and need different callbacks.
The GUI is... subjectively old, true, but that won't fix anything to make K-meleon modern (remember, this is my pessimistic opinion).
Also, I'm not a developer either, but from what I remember to read, it isn't as easy as it was the task to embed the Gecko engine on apps anymore. And Goanna would always lag behind standards (have a look how Palemoon struggles to render modern pages as well). Or maybe we want a Blink (Chrome) engine...
Would a hired developer give support to "old" systems (a core user base on old systems is there), or will it be directed to develop for just latests OSs (or not, because of new engines constrains will force it)? Would be directed to make K-meleon cross-platform too?
Anyway, enough of pessimistic opinion here, as I said above, you have my moral support, so if you, or anyone joining, have all the resources there, I just can say:
GO FOR IT
Don't let anyone say you can't, starting by me.
P.S.: I edited to subject of the topic from "How much will i cost?" to "How much will it cost?"
Am I wrong?
Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 12/17/2022 11:01PM by JohnHell.
Thank you for your kind reply JohnHell, actually your words are pearl for me. I am not a wealthy person either, but for K-Meleon, I will contribute.
Firstly I need to say that was a typo "How much will i cost" you are right to correct it.
Now, I also do not know about programming, and I am a very busy person working and traveling to earn for my family, otherwise sometimes I think I should start learning programming (a crazy thought, just to express how intensively I desire), that's not possible in real world.
As I understand from your words, that Gecko engine acnnot be updated, so it appears to me it is the bottle neck? A little bit same for Goanna?
I need to set my point that GUI doesn't make any browser "Modern", when I talk about Modern browser, I meant a browser that can cross all hurdles made by modern scripting and designing (css) and such things, like security etc. The "minimized" GUI offered by many browsers only makes my annoyed, like they think users are idiots? not to be able to adjust/set/edit or tweak it?
So, I also understand now that this isn't an easy task, and it explained me when you say how long a dev will work? a month or 2? hmm. you are right, it is not just a program, it is a project that needs devs to keep it updated as the time goes.
Surely that will not stop me trying and looking ways to support KM in any way.
Let me think and let some other users join and share their ideas.
Roytam1is the only one developer/programmer here but he is specialized in Goanna and other things.
So our only hope , so far, is Roytam1, my wish is that he could make his Goanna KM a modern one.
Why I like K-Meleon? and many others? the reasons are. macro. ad-dons. extensions, non-tracking non-spying no hidden agenda and many other things that I cannot recall at the moment.
And beside other things, I do not want to lose KM. So I will seek ways to support this. And what about github? aren't any free lancer developer there?
I understand now that it is not a one time project that a programmer can do, it is a project that needs developers in all ways.
My words are not organized because I just read your reply and cannot resist and started typing , although I am out and traveling.
I will come again and may be with some ore ideas. Lets see if we find some ways.
Probably it is a better hub, a more popular development hub than it is now SourceForge. Lots of programmers flew away long ago for reasons I can't recall that happened when SourceForge management was updated by some company or... I'm not sure. But this was free, and Dorian ketp here, or something similar were the reasons.
You (whoever starts the revival project) just need to copy/fork the code (or start over, whatever fits better to describe it) from SourceForge to GitHub. Maybe that gives more visibility for "outsiders" coders.
But, in the end, even if there might be more programmers, you still need to attract them to the project, here (SF) or there (GH).
But I forgot to say something.
What is clear is that no one here has the "keys" of the project hosted at SourceForge, so if someone wants to join a programming hub, SourceForge is not the site because no one can invite new developers. (At the top are who have the "keys" of the project and no one is around anymore: https://sourceforge.net/projects/kmeleon/ under the project title/description).
Aside that.
I'm not saying that embedding Gecko is impossible, but I remember reading something (while thinking the same motivated this thread) that now is not that easy as it was before. I might be wrong.
About the rest of your reply, I'm with you, we all love K-meleon, but.... you summarize the problems it has and could have.
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/18/2022 07:43PM by JohnHell.
I already did this: https://github.com/roytam1/kmeleon
Yes, forgive me.
I was thinking on a fork taking as a base the latest at SourceForge (the 76 RC2-whatever it ended).
But I guess your already forked branch could be used too as a starting point as well.
As I'm not a programmer I don't know if it would make a difference if you focused on Goanna or is still compatible with Gecko or whatever. That is totally beyond my knowledge, way over my head.
The drama is still to attract developers one or the other way (what in the end is the objective of this thread/project). As far as I can browse GitHub (barely loads things correctly on "old" browsers), and I know, the only one committing to that project is... you? I know there is a section on GitHub to see it but I can't find it now. Are the pulls?
That is the problem with K-meleon in the end, lack of human power
I'd wish I had 20 years less, time and programming knowledge to help
EDIT: what I see is that 15 people forked your K-meleon branch :-? weird
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/19/2022 04:42PM by JohnHell.
Lol, as one of those 15 weirdos I'll explain my personal reason. I saw K-Meleon as an open-source project that I would like to contribute to. Initially I guess I imagined myself submitting patches. In GitHub to submit a patch you "fork" the project and then submit your changes as a "pull request" from your personal fork. So then what happened is that I started to learn more about the complexity of a web browser and didn't feel comfortable submitting patches of any kind. So I put aside thoughts about writing code for KM and found other ways to contribute.
As for a modern K-Meleon? You've got both my support and my skepticism. KM originally started by embedding Gecko. Mozilla stopped offering embeddable Gecko a long time ago though. For v74, Dorian switched to XULRunner. I am not sure at which version Firefox dropped XULRunner. If it could be somehow set up for Roytam's New Moon, that would be the smoothest step forward but Pale Moon's current releases are beginning to both fall behind web standards and also run a good bit slower, especially on old hardware. SeaMonkey also made use of XULRunner and if you look into their development, they have really slowed down. I think they've been chipping away at an unstable build with the FF 60 engine for a few years now. I believe there is an embeddable version of Chromium's blink via Qt. The Qt native browser Falkon had a small volunteer development team which was possible because the toolkit offers an embeddable engine. I don't know if there would be any demand for a Chromium KM though. Falkon seems to have been largely ignored. The only other fully modern engine is Webkit, but there's no current development on Windows.
No offence intended
I didn't pay much attention to the names, anyway .
I see, so forks are needed to contribute. I had no idea.
I guess this answer was for Wasi, but still...
I see the reasons for that, because, in the end, anyone to build a different browser/implementation, actually needs to build the engine, almost, from bottom to top... or use Blink... Mozilla move was overkill.
Build up an engine just with patches is overkill without human power.
To be fair, to me, at some point, where you can't have the Gecko/Gecko forks browsers engines..., it wouldn't matter. The other option would be to build a new engine from bottom to top and at this stage of living standard... is almost unviable, unless you have loads of money to pay developers.
This is similar to the poll that they did on PaleMoon forums, asking what user base wanted, standard compliant (aka web compatibility) or extensions, configurability, etc (and I don't remember the other options).
I'd answer web compliant.
After all, what makes K-meleon useful to me is the macro language, light interface and more control over browser/engine settings than other browsers setups, and that if they are not available, can be added by macros. EDITED
But, in the other hand, macro language would be useless as some functions are made towards Gecko-like preferences, so the K-meleon shell would need to be rebuilt too.
Anyway, human power.
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/24/2022 01:16AM by JohnHell.
And no offence taken :cool:
And regarding the human power, maybe we're on the same page. SeaMonkey (Frank-Rainer Grahl) and Pale Moon (MC Straver, Jeremy Andrews) both seem to have knowledgeable and skilled programmers pouring effort into the projects plus volunteers. But compare that to Mozilla's Gecko, Apple's Webkit, or Google's blink. Each has 100's of full-time employees. I don't think the small teams can make progress at the rate the web is changing.
Regarding the viability of making a new engine: Andreas Kling has started a new Unix and a new browser from the ground up. It's a kind of full-time programming as art project. He has a bunch of fan volunteers now. I'll listen to his videos sometimes. It's both cool to hear somebody taking a swing at such an ambitious project but it also gives a lot of insight into how massive our modern software ecosystem is. His Ladybird browser is nowhere near comparable with Chromium and each year Chromium is only getting more complex.
https://awesomekling.github.io/Ladybird-a-new-cross-platform-browser-project/
Sorry, the language barrier again :-? what did you mean there with "maybe we're on the same page"?, as Seamonkey and PaleMoon status?
No one can since the living standard exists.
I didn't bookmarked, but there is an article written long ago by one of the fathers of the W3C (if I'm right) about the different HTML versions development and the complains by vendors and the different implementations back around year 2000, etc, and, in the end, they have surrendered to browser vendors (they tried before by HTML 3 or so) and here we are.
Some say it is progress..., but like a bulldozer. Too quick, no option.
Sorry, this has been a rant.
My best wishes to the project :O
Now I/we have the answer, as Dorian came after a donor:
http://kmeleonbrowser.org/forum/read.php?1,156972,156972#msg-156980
Maybe with more donations, it joins K-meleon development again...
Hi!
Your answer is understandable considering your situation.
However users of PaleMoon are in a different situation. All of them are using an OS which permits them to (still) use any of the browsers out there.
Keep in mind that web standards are dictated by big corporations (Google a main driver) and those standards are user hostile to say the least.
Let me give an example by quoting from the PaleMoon forum:
Wonder if it is desirable to use such a "modern" browser all the time as long as you can easily switch browsers if you badly have to.
You focused it on my personal decisions (that are aside of being able to use other browsers; if I choose my environment is my fault and my pocket), but I'm not talking about my personal decisions, I'm talking about the user base of a browser that expect web compatibility (how many times have you read on this forum "this website doesn't work on K-meleon"?).
The only way for a browser to grow (or please, if you prefer) its user base is web compatibility.
Yes, W3C surrendered to OSs/browsers vendors, specially Google and Apple, that push "standards" to their own needs (and better don't have a look to latests IETF RFCs authors), but the real guilt here aren't them, but web developers that use those "shadow" techniques to present simple webs to the visitors. There is the main problem for browsers that just follow the early-adopters webmasters products (like PaleMoon/K-meleon, despite I should have said engines).
I have a fully dynamic site just with CSS+HTML and a couple of JavaScript functions that would work on an almost 20 years browser. The tools are there. The decisions too.
But I don't blame them, they have their reasons to use shadow techniques. But, site that doesn't show the page without JavaScript, page that I don't visit (when seeking for information; banking, mainstream sites, etc, is another story). Since I learned the term, is almost my mantra for web standards: progressive enhancement. At most, I read the site through the source code.
In the other hand, those techniques aren't new.
To me is more dangerous web assembly. Build webpages as full binaries, or with binary code, to be accurate.
But this is just nonsense speech, after all. What is K-meleon with macro language, privacy setting, blah, blah, blah, if, in the end, can't render a webpage? (apply this to any browser/engine in the razor edge).
Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 01/27/2023 07:36PM by JohnHell.
K-Meleon development related discussions.
How much will it cost?
Posted by:
WasiFH
Date: December 17, 2022 04:08AM
Well people, I love K-Meleon and have been using it for more than a decade, since the time of KM 1.54.
I know there is no developer here to upgrade/update our beloved browser since Dorian left.
But I am thinking what if we hire a dev/programmer to develop a "Modern K-Meleon" from its original source? I am willing to contribute if such a decision will be made. Is there any issue? OR are there some limits? I don't know about programing, but I need to know that whether a programmer can be hired to do so?
I hope I explained my point of view.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/17/2022 10:55PM by JohnHell.
Re: How much will it cost?
Posted by:
JohnHell
Date: December 17, 2022 10:55PM
This is my pessimistic opinion. So take it with a grain of salt.
You have my moral support (and/or forum administration, as long as this forum is used for the project, as it is all the powers I have; and as long as I'm around here) but is not an endeavour I would take part in. Specially with money, which I don't have to spare
But all my support to all who jump in the boat if this goes somewhere.
I already have thought about this several times and... has many flaws, starting from the money, that doesn't grow on trees... yet... (I barely remember there were european grants for software development long ago, but not anymore) Hiring a developer for one month (do you know how much would request a freelancer?), maybe two, will go nowhere, despite its costs. The project would need a dedicated developer, to adapt it and to maintain it.
And money isn't actually a problem if you find someone like roytam, but that is the exception to the rule. In the end, the voluntaries developers part away soon or later, for one reason or the other. And if that is not the problem the problem is, is there anyone to take the torch?
How large is the user base to [financially] support it? (I always ask myself where donations to the project go if Dorian is not there anymore :-?)
But, also, the "Modern K-Meleon" phrase catches my eyes.
K-meleon is a shell, it not a full featured browser that goes from the engine to the GUI (as Firefox). K-meleon is the GUI plus Macro Language with an embedded engine, Gecko on its origins and Goanna on roytam's builds.
The "old" on K-meleon that doesn't make it "modern", is just the web standards that supports the engine that embeds and the age of the support for a newer engine. Each engine is different and need different callbacks.
The GUI is... subjectively old, true, but that won't fix anything to make K-meleon modern (remember, this is my pessimistic opinion).
Also, I'm not a developer either, but from what I remember to read, it isn't as easy as it was the task to embed the Gecko engine on apps anymore. And Goanna would always lag behind standards (have a look how Palemoon struggles to render modern pages as well). Or maybe we want a Blink (Chrome) engine...
Would a hired developer give support to "old" systems (a core user base on old systems is there), or will it be directed to develop for just latests OSs (or not, because of new engines constrains will force it)? Would be directed to make K-meleon cross-platform too?
Anyway, enough of pessimistic opinion here, as I said above, you have my moral support, so if you, or anyone joining, have all the resources there, I just can say:
GO FOR IT
Don't let anyone say you can't, starting by me.
P.S.: I edited to subject of the topic from "How much will i cost?" to "How much will it cost?"
Am I wrong?
Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 12/17/2022 11:01PM by JohnHell.
Re: How much will it cost?
Posted by:
WasiFH
Date: December 18, 2022 04:00AM
Thank you for your kind reply JohnHell, actually your words are pearl for me. I am not a wealthy person either, but for K-Meleon, I will contribute.
Firstly I need to say that was a typo "How much will i cost" you are right to correct it.
Now, I also do not know about programming, and I am a very busy person working and traveling to earn for my family, otherwise sometimes I think I should start learning programming (a crazy thought, just to express how intensively I desire), that's not possible in real world.
As I understand from your words, that Gecko engine acnnot be updated, so it appears to me it is the bottle neck? A little bit same for Goanna?
I need to set my point that GUI doesn't make any browser "Modern", when I talk about Modern browser, I meant a browser that can cross all hurdles made by modern scripting and designing (css) and such things, like security etc. The "minimized" GUI offered by many browsers only makes my annoyed, like they think users are idiots? not to be able to adjust/set/edit or tweak it?
So, I also understand now that this isn't an easy task, and it explained me when you say how long a dev will work? a month or 2? hmm. you are right, it is not just a program, it is a project that needs devs to keep it updated as the time goes.
Surely that will not stop me trying and looking ways to support KM in any way.
Let me think and let some other users join and share their ideas.
Roytam1is the only one developer/programmer here but he is specialized in Goanna and other things.
So our only hope , so far, is Roytam1, my wish is that he could make his Goanna KM a modern one.
Why I like K-Meleon? and many others? the reasons are. macro. ad-dons. extensions, non-tracking non-spying no hidden agenda and many other things that I cannot recall at the moment.
And beside other things, I do not want to lose KM. So I will seek ways to support this. And what about github? aren't any free lancer developer there?
I understand now that it is not a one time project that a programmer can do, it is a project that needs developers in all ways.
My words are not organized because I just read your reply and cannot resist and started typing , although I am out and traveling.
I will come again and may be with some ore ideas. Lets see if we find some ways.
Re: How much will it cost?
Posted by:
JohnHell
Date: December 18, 2022 07:37PM
Quote
WasiFH
And what about github? aren't any free lancer developer there?
Probably it is a better hub, a more popular development hub than it is now SourceForge. Lots of programmers flew away long ago for reasons I can't recall that happened when SourceForge management was updated by some company or... I'm not sure. But this was free, and Dorian ketp here, or something similar were the reasons.
You (whoever starts the revival project) just need to copy/fork the code (or start over, whatever fits better to describe it) from SourceForge to GitHub. Maybe that gives more visibility for "outsiders" coders.
But, in the end, even if there might be more programmers, you still need to attract them to the project, here (SF) or there (GH).
But I forgot to say something.
What is clear is that no one here has the "keys" of the project hosted at SourceForge, so if someone wants to join a programming hub, SourceForge is not the site because no one can invite new developers. (At the top are who have the "keys" of the project and no one is around anymore: https://sourceforge.net/projects/kmeleon/ under the project title/description).
Aside that.
I'm not saying that embedding Gecko is impossible, but I remember reading something (while thinking the same motivated this thread) that now is not that easy as it was before. I might be wrong.
About the rest of your reply, I'm with you, we all love K-meleon, but.... you summarize the problems it has and could have.
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/18/2022 07:43PM by JohnHell.
Re: How much will it cost?
Posted by:
roytam1
Date: December 19, 2022 10:01AM
Quote
JohnHell
Quote
WasiFH
And what about github? aren't any free lancer developer there?
Probably it is a better hub, a more popular development hub than it is now SourceForge. Lots of programmers flew away long ago for reasons I can't recall that happened when SourceForge management was updated by some company or... I'm not sure. But this was free, and Dorian ketp here, or something similar were the reasons.
You (whoever starts the revival project) just need to copy/fork the code (or start over, whatever fits better to describe it) from SourceForge to GitHub. Maybe that gives more visibility for "outsiders" coders.
I already did this: https://github.com/roytam1/kmeleon
Re: How much will it cost?
Posted by:
JohnHell
Date: December 19, 2022 04:38PM
Yes, forgive me.
I was thinking on a fork taking as a base the latest at SourceForge (the 76 RC2-whatever it ended).
But I guess your already forked branch could be used too as a starting point as well.
As I'm not a programmer I don't know if it would make a difference if you focused on Goanna or is still compatible with Gecko or whatever. That is totally beyond my knowledge, way over my head.
The drama is still to attract developers one or the other way (what in the end is the objective of this thread/project). As far as I can browse GitHub (barely loads things correctly on "old" browsers), and I know, the only one committing to that project is... you?
I know there is a section on GitHub to see it but I can't find it now. Are the pulls?
That is the problem with K-meleon in the end, lack of human power
I'd wish I had 20 years less, time and programming knowledge to help
EDIT: what I see is that 15 people forked your K-meleon branch :-? weird
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/19/2022 04:42PM by JohnHell.
Re: How much will it cost?
Posted by:
RJJIII
Date: December 20, 2022 08:15AM
Lol, as one of those 15 weirdos I'll explain my personal reason. I saw K-Meleon as an open-source project that I would like to contribute to. Initially I guess I imagined myself submitting patches. In GitHub to submit a patch you "fork" the project and then submit your changes as a "pull request" from your personal fork. So then what happened is that I started to learn more about the complexity of a web browser and didn't feel comfortable submitting patches of any kind. So I put aside thoughts about writing code for KM and found other ways to contribute.
As for a modern K-Meleon? You've got both my support and my skepticism. KM originally started by embedding Gecko. Mozilla stopped offering embeddable Gecko a long time ago though. For v74, Dorian switched to XULRunner. I am not sure at which version Firefox dropped XULRunner. If it could be somehow set up for Roytam's New Moon, that would be the smoothest step forward but Pale Moon's current releases are beginning to both fall behind web standards and also run a good bit slower, especially on old hardware. SeaMonkey also made use of XULRunner and if you look into their development, they have really slowed down. I think they've been chipping away at an unstable build with the FF 60 engine for a few years now. I believe there is an embeddable version of Chromium's blink via Qt. The Qt native browser Falkon had a small volunteer development team which was possible because the toolkit offers an embeddable engine. I don't know if there would be any demand for a Chromium KM though. Falkon seems to have been largely ignored. The only other fully modern engine is Webkit, but there's no current development on Windows.
Re: How much will it cost?
Posted by:
JohnHell
Date: December 20, 2022 09:51PM
Quote
RJJIII
Lol, as one of those 15 weirdos I'll explain my personal reason. I saw K-Meleon as an open-source project that I would like to contribute to. Initially I guess I imagined myself submitting patches. In GitHub to submit a patch you "fork" the project and then submit your changes as a "pull request" from your personal fork. So then what happened is that I started to learn more about the complexity of a web browser and didn't feel comfortable submitting patches of any kind. So I put aside thoughts about writing code for KM and found other ways to contribute.
No offence intended
I didn't pay much attention to the names, anyway .
I see, so forks are needed to contribute. I had no idea.
Quote
RJJIII
As for a modern K-Meleon? You've got both my support and my skepticism.
I guess this answer was for Wasi, but still...
Quote
RJJIII
KM originally started by embedding Gecko. Mozilla stopped offering embeddable Gecko a long time ago though. [...] but Pale Moon's current releases are beginning to both fall behind web standards and also run a good bit slower, especially on old hardware. SeaMonkey also made use of XULRunner and if you look into their development, they have really slowed down. I think they've been chipping away at an unstable build with the FF 60 engine for a few years now.
I see the reasons for that, because, in the end, anyone to build a different browser/implementation, actually needs to build the engine, almost, from bottom to top... or use Blink... Mozilla move was overkill.
Build up an engine just with patches is overkill without human power.
Quote
RJJIII
I don't know if there would be any demand for a Chromium KM though.
To be fair, to me, at some point, where you can't have the Gecko/Gecko forks browsers engines..., it wouldn't matter. The other option would be to build a new engine from bottom to top and at this stage of living standard... is almost unviable, unless you have loads of money to pay developers.
This is similar to the poll that they did on PaleMoon forums, asking what user base wanted, standard compliant (aka web compatibility) or extensions, configurability, etc (and I don't remember the other options).
I'd answer web compliant.
After all, what makes K-meleon useful to me is the macro language, light interface and more control over browser/engine settings than other browsers setups, and that if they are not available, can be added by macros. EDITED
But, in the other hand, macro language would be useless as some functions are made towards Gecko-like preferences, so the K-meleon shell would need to be rebuilt too.
Anyway, human power.
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/24/2022 01:16AM by JohnHell.
Re: How much will it cost?
Posted by:
RJJIII
Date: December 21, 2022 02:15AM
And no offence taken :cool:
And regarding the human power, maybe we're on the same page. SeaMonkey (Frank-Rainer Grahl) and Pale Moon (MC Straver, Jeremy Andrews) both seem to have knowledgeable and skilled programmers pouring effort into the projects plus volunteers. But compare that to Mozilla's Gecko, Apple's Webkit, or Google's blink. Each has 100's of full-time employees. I don't think the small teams can make progress at the rate the web is changing.
Regarding the viability of making a new engine: Andreas Kling has started a new Unix and a new browser from the ground up. It's a kind of full-time programming as art project. He has a bunch of fan volunteers now. I'll listen to his videos sometimes. It's both cool to hear somebody taking a swing at such an ambitious project but it also gives a lot of insight into how massive our modern software ecosystem is. His Ladybird browser is nowhere near comparable with Chromium and each year Chromium is only getting more complex.
https://awesomekling.github.io/Ladybird-a-new-cross-platform-browser-project/
Re: How much will it cost?
Posted by:
JohnHell
Date: December 21, 2022 02:40AM
Quote
RJJIII
And regarding the human power, maybe we're on the same page.
Sorry, the language barrier again :-? what did you mean there with "maybe we're on the same page"?, as Seamonkey and PaleMoon status?
Quote
RJJIII
I don't think the small teams can make progress at the rate the web is changing.
No one can since the living standard exists.
I didn't bookmarked, but there is an article written long ago by one of the fathers of the W3C (if I'm right) about the different HTML versions development and the complains by vendors and the different implementations back around year 2000, etc, and, in the end, they have surrendered to browser vendors (they tried before by HTML 3 or so) and here we are.
Some say it is progress..., but like a bulldozer. Too quick, no option.
Sorry, this has been a rant.
Quote
RJJIII
Regarding the viability of making a new engine: Andreas Kling has started a new Unix and a new browser from the ground up. It's a kind of full-time programming as art project. He has a bunch of fan volunteers now. I'll listen to his videos sometimes. It's both cool to hear somebody taking a swing at such an ambitious project but it also gives a lot of insight into how massive our modern software ecosystem is. His Ladybird browser is nowhere near comparable with Chromium and each year Chromium is only getting more complex.
https://awesomekling.github.io/Ladybird-a-new-cross-platform-browser-project/
My best wishes to the project :O
Re: How much will it cost?
Posted by:
RJJIII
Date: December 21, 2022 03:40AM
I meant that I think you and I agree about the difficulty.Quote
JohnHell
Quote
RJJIII
And regarding the human power, maybe we're on the same page.
Sorry, the language barrier again :-? what did you mean there with "maybe we're on the same page"?, as Seamonkey and PaleMoon status?
It's all good. I'll hold back my own opinions on the "living standard" before I totally derail WasiFH's thread.Quote
JohnHell
Quote
RJJIII
I don't think the small teams can make progress at the rate the web is changing.
No one can since the living standard exists.
I didn't bookmarked, but there is an article written long ago by one of the fathers of the W3C (if I'm right) about the different HTML versions development and the complains by vendors and the different implementations back around year 2000, etc, and, in the end, they have surrendered to browser vendors (they tried before by HTML 3 or so) and here we are.
Some say it is progress..., but like a bulldozer. Too quick, no option.
Sorry, this has been a rant.
Re: How much will it cost?
Posted by:
JohnHell
Date: January 25, 2023 02:51AM
Quote
JohnHell
How large is the user base to [financially] support it? (I always ask myself where donations to the project go if Dorian is not there anymore :-?)
Now I/we have the answer, as Dorian came after a donor:
http://kmeleonbrowser.org/forum/read.php?1,156972,156972#msg-156980
Maybe with more donations, it joins K-meleon development again...
Re: How much will it cost?
Posted by:
Yogi
Date: January 27, 2023 03:11PM
Hi!
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JohnHell
This is similar to the poll that they did on PaleMoon forums, asking what user base wanted, standard compliant (aka web compatibility) or extensions, configurability, etc (and I don't remember the other options).
I'd answer web compliant.
Your answer is understandable considering your situation.
However users of PaleMoon are in a different situation. All of them are using an OS which permits them to (still) use any of the browsers out there.
Keep in mind that web standards are dictated by big corporations (Google a main driver) and those standards are user hostile to say the least.
Let me give an example by quoting from the PaleMoon forum:
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Personal opinion, but I hope it's not implemented. Custom Elements and Shadow DOM is downright dangerous. It keeps part of the website's code and activity completely hidden from the user, treating server-provided scripts like internal browser elements.
Actually it's worse. It keeps part of the website's content completely hidden from the rest of the page it is part of, not just the user. There has always been and is a big risk of abuse since the hidden code can still interact with other content. This is the perfect setup for spy scripts.
I honestly hope that some black hat hacker group massively abuses Shadow DOM.
You can't separate CustomElements from Shadow DOM or the scoped CSS (or the other involved parts, for that matter).
Wonder if it is desirable to use such a "modern" browser all the time as long as you can easily switch browsers if you badly have to.
Re: How much will it cost?
Posted by:
JohnHell
Date: January 27, 2023 07:30PM
You focused it on my personal decisions (that are aside of being able to use other browsers; if I choose my environment is my fault and my pocket), but I'm not talking about my personal decisions, I'm talking about the user base of a browser that expect web compatibility (how many times have you read on this forum "this website doesn't work on K-meleon"?).
The only way for a browser to grow (or please, if you prefer) its user base is web compatibility.
Yes, W3C surrendered to OSs/browsers vendors, specially Google and Apple, that push "standards" to their own needs (and better don't have a look to latests IETF RFCs authors), but the real guilt here aren't them, but web developers that use those "shadow" techniques to present simple webs to the visitors. There is the main problem for browsers that just follow the early-adopters webmasters products (like PaleMoon/K-meleon, despite I should have said engines).
I have a fully dynamic site just with CSS+HTML and a couple of JavaScript functions that would work on an almost 20 years browser. The tools are there. The decisions too.
But I don't blame them, they have their reasons to use shadow techniques. But, site that doesn't show the page without JavaScript, page that I don't visit (when seeking for information; banking, mainstream sites, etc, is another story). Since I learned the term, is almost my mantra for web standards: progressive enhancement. At most, I read the site through the source code.
In the other hand, those techniques aren't new.
To me is more dangerous web assembly. Build webpages as full binaries, or with binary code, to be accurate.
But this is just nonsense speech, after all. What is K-meleon with macro language, privacy setting, blah, blah, blah, if, in the end, can't render a webpage? (apply this to any browser/engine in the razor edge).
Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 01/27/2023 07:36PM by JohnHell.
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