make the browser a priority

asked 2019-01-02 20:28:50 +0300

This post is a wiki. Anyone with karma >75 is welcome to improve it.

updated 2019-01-02 20:30:22 +0300

carhelan
11 ●4 ●5 ●6

along with the sailfish3-events last year came the info that jolla doesn't consider the browser a priority. okay, safty first, but surfing second. the browser right now is unbearable. it's slow, buggy, can't handle websites (there is another entry that lists nonworking websites, and that entry is years old!) and leaves no way to customize behaviour. it does not suit an OS that the inbuild browser makes you remind you of the times when surfing was done via modem.

so, please, move the browser up the priority list and make it functional.

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Next meeting for open source collaboration is set on Thursday 10th of January 2019, someone should mark the topic in agenda, but from the last news it seems that jolla would like to rely on comm. partners/community to upgrade the browser. On the other hand, in one of the last entries in the blog comment section, James Noori wrote that jolla is expanding in 2019 and recruiting some workers dedicated to native apps and so the browser. THAT said, the state of the browser and store remains very poor... and it's a great pitty. #makejollagreatagain #buildthatbrowser

d ( 2019-01-02 20:54:38 +0300 )edit

As far as I have understood, the current Qt version is not suitable anymore. So after the Qt upgrade to 5.9 which should come in one of the next upgrades the browser should also be upgraded.

BonoNL ( 2019-01-02 22:51:59 +0300 )edit

bbubugbugsbugs? wwhwhawhatwhat bbubugbugabugasbugas? oononlonlyonly ttotootooktook mmeme 3 mmiminminuminutes ttoto llologlog iinin ttoto uupupvupvoupvotupvoteupvote

andersenep ( 2019-01-03 03:33:32 +0300 )edit

i wish i could upvote like 10 times.....

misc11 ( 2019-01-03 10:54:33 +0300 )edit

Simple and straightforward situation: I'm using a Sony XA2 with SFOS now. I don't have Android support. The native browser is old and slow and unresponsive. I could not find any working and/or maintained browsers on openrepos or Jolla store.

Simple and straightforward question: Are there any other native browsers?

(Bonus question: What would stand in the way of a firefox port? I'm no dev, if that isn't already obvious. ;-) )

laubblaeser ( 2019-01-03 18:58:58 +0300 )edit

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answered 2019-01-03 18:03:26 +0300

CLR64
1019 ●14 ●27 ●35

I can more than second all. For this reason I created the following question just 2 weeks ago ;)

https://together.jolla.com/question/195429/the-future-of-the-browser-in-sfos/

would be nice if we could have one place to collect many votes and arguments.

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better to have multiple places, so that seeing the same discussion many times, perhaps jolla will consider keeping in mind this priority; anyway, 100 votes here and more than 80 on your post... this is indeed relevant.

d ( 2019-01-04 15:06:18 +0300 )edit

@d I see your point but this is not the way a tool like this should work. Not from product nor community perspective.

CLR64 ( 2019-01-04 17:01:14 +0300 )edit

Most of the substantive 'questions' about the browser (which are not usually questions at all) concentrate on particular aspects of it and contain useful insights. For example:

Add support for mobile Firefox add-ons to the Sailfish browser:
https://together.jolla.com/question/901/proposal-add-support-for-mobile-firefox-add-ons-to-the-sailfish-browser/

Add support for Mozilla Sync service to the Sailfish browser:
https://together.jolla.com/question/903/add-support-for-mozilla-sync-service-to-the-sailfish-browser/

please port Firefox to SailfishOS to replace current browser
https://together.jolla.com/question/53594/please-port-firefox-to-sailfishos-to-replace-current-browser/

Support webRTC in native web browser
https://together.jolla.com/question/9514/request-support-webrtc-in-native-web-browser/

Those were raised years ago and the comments are still relevant. (And to my knowledge Jolla has never engaged with any of them.)

Perhaps create a tracking question (like a bugzilla tracking bug) which simply references all these suggestions but does not invite answers. The 'browser' tag doesn't work - there are 620 questions with that tag.

DaveRo ( 2019-01-04 18:23:19 +0300 )edit

@DaveRo Nice overview of suggested changes to the browser !
In my opinion you do wrong with the slight critic of those new browser "questions". While the listed old suggestions focus on specific aspects that should be improved is this duplicated question and the one I created trying to move the whole browser situation (browser engine) to a more aware level and to find a solution.

Also just because this askbot internally describes all topics as questions does not mean this is not meant for suggestons, improvements, bugs or some sort of community demand voting if you want to call it like this. ;)

CLR64 ( 2019-01-06 22:04:11 +0300 )edit

My opinion of Askbot in my comnents here
https://together.jolla.com/question/168694/update-askbot-running-tjc-to-a-more-recent-version/

DaveRo ( 2019-01-06 22:37:00 +0300 )edit

answered 2019-02-07 11:28:11 +0300

1206 ●24 ●41 ●42

It seems that a browser update is coming later this year ;)

[From today's mer meeting]

09:14:06 sledges #info Further, there will be a browser update coming later this spring but you can already help there if you like. [...].

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Can you post a bit more about it or give a link?

Spark ( 2019-02-07 12:21:42 +0300 )edit

http://merproject.org/meetings/mer-meeting/2019/mer-meeting.2019-02-07-09.00.log.html

leszek says everything, which has to be said about this topic. Conclusion: This is highly wasted energy and time.

michfu ( 2019-02-07 13:17:05 +0300 )edit

According to the discussion it looks like the next browser update will switch to a slightly newer Gecko web engine, based on Firefox 45. That is newer than the current Firefox 38 core, but also already pretty outdated (I'm writing this from Firefox 64) and likely not very secure.

Also apparently someone related to Mozilla showed up on the meeting on FOSDEM, suggesting to reach about to Mozilla about an actual Gecko embedding API. As far as I understand these matters, that could help a lot & would make web engine core regular updates much easier. Still, it is unclear if Mozilla would agree to that, how long it would take and if Jolla could actually have enough resources to take advantage of that.

That's how I understand things from the IRC meeting today.

MartinK ( 2019-02-07 18:24:07 +0300 )edit

just for the fun, i installed QtWebEngine and qml from http://repo.merproject.org/obs/home:/ysorochkin:/tua:/browser/sailfish_latest_armv7hl/armv7hl/ and modified webcat to use it. there are many qml code incompatabilities and many things do not work. I am, however, able to browse pages fast.... I think the path should be a QtWebEngine bases browser.

yoram ( 2019-02-07 19:13:41 +0300 )edit

Still we would have a browser based on an engine of 2017. We need a browser, which is always up to date!

michfu ( 2019-02-07 20:15:58 +0300 )edit

make the browser a priority

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