Is there any software on the planet less useful than the Jolla browser? [subjective]

asked 2019-09-21 02:04:29 +0200

cfgardiner gravatar image

updated 2019-09-21 02:06:42 +0200

Just wondering, has anybody come across a piece of software (anywhere) less useful than the native Jolla browser? Jolla, your supporters and customers have had to live with this shitty software now for over five years! I mean all it does is warm up the device (which I suppose might be useful in winter), the latest version with Seitseminen actually causes the Jolla Tablet to overheat und stop functioning. Well, it also drains the battery very quickly. Can you imagine what would happen to this planet if everybody in China tried to load the same lousy page at the same time? I'm sure that would be good for another 0.08 degrees of global warming.

Just some of my frustrating observations again today, trying to load a page like the German newsticker spiegel.de/schlagzeilen (but many more pages are just as bad)

  • Page loads to about 87% and then just hangs, for several minutes (> 10 Mins)
  • Page doesn't render. At least most of it doesn't. The text remains completely fuzzy
  • Page becomes unresponsive. Moving up and down or sideways with your finger causes exactly nothing to happen

I thought Sailfish was supposed to do true multitasking. It certainly doesn't look like it. Otherwise loading a web-page wouldn't hang like that. To me it looks like something is exclusivle locking all Microprocessor cores until some event is recognised or a timeout of about 10 minutes happens.

Jolla, I am not familiar with your Software but am perfectly familiar with operating systems, device drivers and embedded software so here just a few random thoughts thrown into the pan:

  • Can't you break loading and rendering web-pages into multiple tasks?
  • If you have to have loops in these tasks give them sensible timeout values ( max 1s, in some small number of cases maybe 10s)
  • Have a supervisor monitoring the list of tasks
  • Any tasks running too long is interrupted and added to the bottom of the list for later completion, at the same time letting more successful ones complete more quickly
  • Detect problematic tasks and just cancel them, fixing maybe in a later OS release. A browser which reliably displays some (or preferbly most) of a web page is much better than one which just warms up the planet while displaying nothing

Exactly what use is any mobile operating system today without a functioning browser ? I don't care if your browser doesn't display peoples advertising properly or has problems with things like Flash, but just hanging there displaying nothing is completely unaccaptable.

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The question has been closed for the following reason "too subjective and argumentative" by bocephus
close date 2019-09-21 08:56:13.706939

Comments

11

dont get me wrong here but you could dial down with the attitude. that title gets a downvote from me.
yes, the browser is not up to par and at times is annoying to use.
i'd like to be able not to rely on Android for a good, usable browser too.

but A) you could have used search and tag filtering to find out that most of your problems have been ranted and discussed about at length in other questions and added your suggestions there.
B) have you noticed that Jolla has limited resources and everbody (including me) is worried and unsatisfied with the lack of resources they have on ironing out the various subjectively valued small or bigger problems SFOS has had for some time or developed recently?
C) are you aware that e.g. SPIEGEL and other sites of the like use heavy scripting and sideloading for ads, tracking and stuff? and that Mozilla is a company that virtually does nothing else but developing a good browser that can handle all the galore of good and badly implemented JS feature webpages?
since you seem to know about threading and task management you might also know porting and maintaining a fork of upstream Firefox to Jolla Browser is massive work

It's understandable you're annoyed, many are. But cut the Jolla devs some slack, you're not telling anybody anything new. they know about it and are working on it albeit slowly.

If you want to help out make constructive contibutions or open up a pull request at the Jolla Browser's GitHub repo.

But please don't rant and please do not expect from an OS that virtually costs no money (device plus small license price) and is not cashing in your data to be as agile and quick evolving as the big ones from Google or Apple.

rozgwi ( 2019-09-21 02:52:17 +0200 )edit
2

Yes...lets cut them some slack.maybe we'll wait another 5 years for the browser to become decent ..hell...maybe even another 10?! who knows?! I share this man's frustration.Its simple: if they want to take my money and support I should get something 'at the very least' decent in return.And here im referring to the whole OS not only the stupid browser that has been nothing but a joke since day 1.

babo ( 2019-09-21 03:53:33 +0200 )edit

I can load spiegel.de/schlagzeilen in my browser without any problems (Xperia X with SFOS 3.0.1.11), at least what it seems, I haven't compared with Firefox on a computer. But there are other pages that behave like the description above. And I share the frustration, and the point made: what is the point of a modern OS/mobile phone without a decent browser? On the whole, I'm getting more and more reluctant to tell people who are asking, what kind of alternative OS I have on my phone. Because I feel less and less inclined to recommend it. I'm sure Jolla does a great work with SFOS - as a solid ground for a company to polish and tweak and build a nice OS to put on a mobile device - but as a downloadable OS for me to install and use on a compatible device... Na, I'm looking more and more towards the Librem 5, thats most probably my next phone (at least I know what's going on in their camp), unless I go back to my Jolla 1. (Btw, why on earth did Jolla contunied support for Jolla 1 in SFOS 3? If they are such "a small team!" why not leave Jolla 1 with SFOS 2 and focus the resources on bringing SFOS to newer devices?)

Lars Maria ( 2019-09-21 10:27:25 +0200 )edit

I wonder what Librem will use, since they are also going with libhybris/wayland hopefully it can be either recompiled for Sailfish, or maybe even binary compatible?

szopin ( 2019-09-21 11:31:30 +0200 )edit
3

@Lars Maria: Cause many people still using a Jolla Phone including me. And I will use it as my only smart phone as long as it will work. It's also an environmental aspect for me.

Pohli ( 2019-09-21 11:44:53 +0200 )edit