Browser idea - stop chasing the system rabbit, embrace other projects? <-forget it even pureOS guys abandoned FF

idea

asked 2019-09-22 19:19:23 +0300

szopin
2933 ●57 ●85 ●80

updated 2019-12-14 19:43:57 +0300

Browser is lacking, we all know that, but as long as you are running alien-dalvik supported device you can always fall back on firefox mobile and access anything. Problem is when you are running community edition, it's jolla browser, which sucks, webcat which is tied to system libraries that are also updated and always in the chase the rabbit scenario. Any chance jolla gives up on that and embraces gnome that are supposedly devoted to supporting pureOS? If jolla can at least catch up to gtk we would have an up to date browser borrowing their gtk gnome web app? Put the browser developers on something more useful and capitalize on gnome devs working on their project? They are already putting the hard work on getting it all arm-compatible and wayland ready, why not use that?

EDIT: forget it, PureOS guys just announced they are unable to get FF working on arm and will use Epiphany kek, mozilla is just way ahead of any mobile curve, no arm can catch up https://puri.sm/posts/an-epiphany-regarding-purebrowser/

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you're certainly welcome to pioneer such a thing, if you can get all the requirements built

r0kk3rz ( 2019-09-22 19:52:51 +0300 )edit

The whole gnome project dev resources are already on wayland and arm? They commited to PureOS, whole fsf was behind them which means more manpower, why not use what they built?
edit: and that's not even taking into consideration the whole communication stack integrated into matrix, which would be also a cool addition ala n900

szopin ( 2019-09-22 19:54:43 +0300 )edit

If we had Qt5.9 and decent version of QtWebEngine the browser issue would fix itself with third party browsers, that's the only thing stopping me.

Allstar12345 ( 2019-09-22 20:15:47 +0300 )edit

Wouldn't browser issues just be delayed until 5.12? Having gtk and gnome devs working on having their toolkit fully arm and wayland compatible would take a lot of baggage from jolla devs, just port gtk and their browser will be up to date, no matter which Qt version ships on the phone?

szopin ( 2019-09-22 20:20:32 +0300 )edit

Delayed until Qt6 at the current rate of progress :sigh: Don't get me wrong it may help Jolla but I don't see it happening any time soon

Allstar12345 ( 2019-09-22 20:24:19 +0300 )edit

answered 2019-09-22 20:43:39 +0300

tortoisedoc

11414 ●172 ●269 ●287

http://kastlunger.blogspo...

updated 2019-09-22 20:44:33 +0300

Gecko was supposed to be replaced by Servo, but Mozilla realized it is something that they can't take in one bite; also there's the Quantum architecture which is implemented (i don't think Servo is relying on this).

Anyways, the "Only" problem for servo is rust, really. Building servo in the build env or the sb2 is a total PITA; see here https://kastlunger.blogspot.com/2019/04/lets-do-time-warp-again-or-compile-llvm.html for my attempt at getting a rust compiler to run (albeit on x86 sdm vm).

Servo as such is meant to be fully embeddable; which makes a good candidate to replace the embedded outdated gecko engine (at least on paper).

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How does this impact being able to run gtk webkit browser that is up to date vs qt webkit which is by definition out-of-date by the time jolla catches up on Qt? Btw that move to rust is happening since before jolla even existed, so not sure they will ever get there

szopin ( 2019-09-22 20:48:56 +0300 )edit

@szopin Opening up SailfishOS for GTK would lead to more divergence and harder to maintain code

leszek ( 2019-09-22 20:53:18 +0300 )edit

@leszek not officially open sfos to gtk, just have a couple of guys who are now working on browser that is super old spend their time getting gtk compiled and puerOS browser running, as a 'hobby' project, should be doable and much easier to get a proper current webrendering than spending resources on web engine (and definitely less than QT system library updates which are taking place anyway, but are bound to be always behind)

szopin ( 2019-09-22 20:55:43 +0300 )edit

@szopin I have my doubts that this is a solution. Getting GTK running is a much bigger task than just compiling qtwebengine.

leszek ( 2019-09-22 21:03:24 +0300 )edit

@leszek maybe it's all just purism PR but gnome is supposedly fully supporting librem 5, if so, it means arm/wayland bugs will be ironed out upstream much quicker and should be easier to port, we'll see, hopefully it's not all just PR and actually a mobile friendly move, if that happens, jolla should capitalize on it, is all I'm saying

szopin ( 2019-09-22 21:07:06 +0300 )edit

Browser idea - stop chasing the system rabbit, embrace other projects? <-forget it even pureOS guys abandoned FF

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