Ladybird: A new cross-platform browser project

[Andrei Z.]

Ladybird: A new cross-platform browser project – Andreas Kling
https://awesomekling.github.io/Ladybird-a-new-cross-platform-browser-project/

"This post describes the Ladybird browser, based on the LibWeb and LibJS
engines from SerenityOS."

Ladybird web browser
https://github.com/SerenityOS/ladybird

[Computer Nerd Kev]

Andrei Z. <no-e...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> Ladybird: A new cross-platform browser project - Andreas Kling

> https://awesomekling.github.io/Ladybird-a-new-cross-platform-browser-project/
>
> "This post describes the Ladybird browser, based on the LibWeb and LibJS
> engines from SerenityOS."

That's great. The only thing that I found interesting about
SerenityOS was the browser. As there's been no new release of Dillo
since 2015 and Netsurf since 2020, a new graphical browser engine
is very welcome.

--
__ __
#_ < |\| |< _#

[Marco Moock]

Am Dienstag, 13. September 2022, um 17:54:34 Uhr schrieb Andrei Z.:

> Ladybird: A new cross-platform browser project – Andreas Kling
> https://awesomekling.github.io/Ladybird-a-new-cross-platform-browser-project/

I tried to build it, but it failed:

m@ryz:~/ladybird$ ./Build/ladybird
FontDatabase::load_fonts: Datei oder Verzeichnis nicht gefunden
ladybird: /home/m/ladybird/Build/serenity/AK/Error.h:109: T AK::ErrorOr<T, ErrorType>::release_value_but_fixme_should_propagate_errors() [with T = AK::NonnullRefPtr<Gfx::Bitmap>; ErrorType = AK::Error]: Zusicherung »!is_error()« nicht erfüllt.
Abgebrochen
m@ryz:~/ladybird$

[Computer Nerd Kev]

Marco Moock <mo...@posteo.de> wrote:
> Am Dienstag, 13. September 2022, um 17:54:34 Uhr schrieb Andrei Z.:
>

>> Ladybird: A new cross-platform browser project ? Andreas Kling

>> https://awesomekling.github.io/Ladybird-a-new-cross-platform-browser-project/
>
> I tried to build it, but it failed:
>
> m@ryz:~/ladybird$ ./Build/ladybird
> FontDatabase::load_fonts: Datei oder Verzeichnis nicht gefunden

> ladybird: /home/m/ladybird/Build/serenity/AK/Error.h:109: T AK::ErrorOr<T, ErrorType>::release_value_but_fixme_should_propagate_errors() [with T = AK::NonnullRefPtr<Gfx::Bitmap>; ErrorType = AK::Error]: Zusicherung ?!is_error()? nicht erf?llt.
> Abgebrochen
> m@ryz:~/ladybird$

I tried this fork called Coccinellidae which supports Qt5 instead
of Qt6, because none of the Linux distro versions I have installed
have Qt6 packages:
https://github.com/Xexxa/coccinellidae

But it also fails, with an English version of the same error:

coccinellidae: [snip]/src/ladybird/serenity-master/AK/Error.h:109: T AK::ErrorOr<T, ErrorType>::release_value_but_fixme_should_propagate_errors() [with T = AK::NonnullRefPtr<Gfx::Bitmap>; ErrorType = AK::Error]: Assertion `!is_error()' failed.
Aborted

There's an Arch Linux package dated 2022-09-12:
https://archlinux.org/packages/community/x86_64/ladybird/

But the only real difference in their build process is using
"-D CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release" with cmake. Seems like a minor thing,
but maybe I'll try again with that later.
https://github.com/archlinux/svntogit-community/blob/packages/ladybird/trunk/PKGBUILD

[Computer Nerd Kev]

Computer Nerd Kev <n...@telling.you.invalid> wrote:
>
> I tried this fork called Coccinellidae which supports Qt5 instead
> of Qt6, because none of the Linux distro versions I have installed
> have Qt6 packages:
> https://github.com/Xexxa/coccinellidae
>
> But it also fails, with an English version of the same error:
>
> coccinellidae: [snip]/src/ladybird/serenity-master/AK/Error.h:109: T AK::ErrorOr<T, ErrorType>::release_value_but_fixme_should_propagate_errors() [with T = AK::NonnullRefPtr<Gfx::Bitmap>; ErrorType = AK::Error]: Assertion `!is_error()' failed.
> Aborted
>
> There's an Arch Linux package dated 2022-09-12:
> https://archlinux.org/packages/community/x86_64/ladybird/
>
> But the only real difference in their build process is using
> "-D CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release" with cmake. Seems like a minor thing,
> but maybe I'll try again with that later.
> https://github.com/archlinux/svntogit-community/blob/packages/ladybird/trunk/PKGBUILD

Well that possibly got me further, but then it just crashes with
"Illegal Instruction", so not far enough. I played with the build
settings but always got the same result after that (note that you
have to "rm Build/CMakeCache.txt" as well as "ninja -C Build clean"
before rebuilding to change the compiler flags).

That was with GCC v11.2.0. It claims to also build with Clang, so I
tried that (v13.0.0), but it failed early in the build process
with:

clang-13: error: clang frontend command failed with exit code 134
(use -v to see invocation)

So GCC breaks Ladybird/Coccinellidae, and Ladybird/Coccinellidae
breaks Clang.

Though I'm not sure whether the illegal instruction springs from a
bug in GCC (I tried -mtune=generic in case it was confused about
what extensions my x86_64 CPU supported), or inline assembly
somewhere in the code which is only meant to run on the latest
CPUs. Either way, I give up.

[25B.Z969]

Look ... it's just not ready for prime time - that's
the fact. When it is it'll come in a nice .deb and .rpm
and will install easy and clean. For now it's 'beta-ware',
maybe 'gamma-ware'.

Oh, and do we really NEED another web browser ??? Everybody
is after a seriously de-junked FireFox or Chromium - but I'm
not sure that's a viable option anymore. People expect a LOT
of browsers now and too much de-junking means a serious lack
of desired capabilities. Any new product - there's be a huge
lobby demanding they ADD all those junky features.

SHOULD browsers do all Firefox/Chromium do ? Probably not, it's
an invite to the malicious. So is using Winders for that matter.
Are people going to drop all of those ? NO ! May as well tell
them to throw away the credit cards and start paying for
everything in person in gold dust. Ain't gonna happen.

[Charlie Gibbs]

On 2022-09-17, 25B.Z969 <25B....@noda.net> wrote:

> Oh, and do we really NEED another web browser ??? Everybody
> is after a seriously de-junked FireFox or Chromium - but I'm
> not sure that's a viable option anymore.

It sounds to me like Ladybird is an attempt to make it a viable option.

> People expect a LOT of browsers now and too much de-junking means
> a serious lack of desired capabilities.

I think the point of the exercise is to produce a browser that has
a serious lack of _undesired_ capabilities.

> Any new product - there's be a huge lobby demanding they ADD
> all those junky features.

Perhaps - but there's also a small lobby demanding that they
_don't_ do so.

> SHOULD browsers do all Firefox/Chromium do ? Probably not, it's
> an invite to the malicious. So is using Winders for that matter.
> Are people going to drop all of those ? NO ! May as well tell
> them to throw away the credit cards and start paying for
> everything in person in gold dust. Ain't gonna happen.

If the masses want a huge, awkward, insecure browser, fine.
Let them fill their boots. That doesn't mean, though, that
someone shouldn't try to satisfy the minority that neither
wants nor needs all those bells and whistles.

As for web sites that insist on using all these bells and
whistles whether they're necessary or not, maybe it's time
to complain to the companies that create them - and boycott
them if they refuse to cut back on the bloat.

There's room in the world for more than one web browser.

--
/~\ Charlie Gibbs | Microsoft is a dictatorship.
\ / <cgi...@kltpzyxm.invalid> | Apple is a cult.
X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | Linux is anarchy.
/ \ if you read it the right way. | Pick your poison.

[Eli the Bearded]

In comp.os.linux.misc, 25B.Z969 <25B....@noda.net> wrote:
> Look ... it's just not ready for prime time - that's
> the fact. When it is it'll come in a nice .deb and .rpm
> and will install easy and clean. For now it's 'beta-ware',
> maybe 'gamma-ware'.

If it's only going to be SerenityOS, that may be a forever wait.

https://github.com/SerenityOS/ladybird/issues/2#issuecomment-1177684116

SerenityOS is a project for developers, by developers. End users are
expected to be the developers themselves. I doubt the development
flow of the ladybird browser will be any different, especially if
(when?) it's folded back into the main serenity project monorepo.

We've discussed this on discord many times for things like nightly
ISOs of SerenityOS, and always come back to the fact that the build
steps serve as an intentional but (very) low barrier of entry to
ensure that the person running the code is at least capable of
contributing code back.

If someone wants to host their own builds of either Serenity or its
derived non-serenity applications on their own, I don't think anyone
will be upset, but please don't expect a community of developers who
are doing things because they're fun to develop to support an
extremely WIP project at the level of other existing browsers for
non-developer users.

A notice that "there's no support, build it and please contribute
back" will likely not be read by people who download the project,
try to visit their favorite website, find out it doesn't load, and
then clutter the issue tracker with "I went to website X and it
crashed" with no actionable backtrace or other bug triaging
information.

> Oh, and do we really NEED another web browser ??? Everybody
> is after a seriously de-junked FireFox or Chromium - but I'm
> not sure that's a viable option anymore. People expect a LOT
> of browsers now and too much de-junking means a serious lack
> of desired capabilities. Any new product - there's be a huge
> lobby demanding they ADD all those junky features.

I believe having a variety of web browsers is good for the Internet.

What's the current state of affairs? A bunch of things derived from
Konquerer (Safari, Chrome, Chromium, Edge), plus a small smattering
of Firefox and things derived from Firefox (mostly people trying to
stick to older versions through forks), and maybe some Opera.

(And us rare few who still use _text_ mode browsers. I'm in that 0.1% of
the 0.1% who has and uses lynx from a cellphone.)

Elijah
------
doesn't have a modern enough c++ pipeline to compile Ladybird now

[Joerg Lorenz]

Am 17.09.22 um 05:45 schrieb Charlie Gibbs:

> On 2022-09-17, 25B.Z969 <25B....@noda.net> wrote:
>
>> Oh, and do we really NEED another web browser ??? Everybody
>> is after a seriously de-junked FireFox or Chromium - but I'm
>> not sure that's a viable option anymore.
>
> It sounds to me like Ladybird is an attempt to make it a viable option.
>
>> People expect a LOT of browsers now and too much de-junking means
>> a serious lack of desired capabilities.
>
> I think the point of the exercise is to produce a browser that has
> a serious lack of _undesired_ capabilities.

What desired capabilities of other users are or not is outside your
judgment.

>> Any new product - there's be a huge lobby demanding they ADD
>> all those junky features.
>
> Perhaps - but there's also a small lobby demanding that they
> _don't_ do so.

The historic evidence is clearly against you.
Use a command line-browser.

>> SHOULD browsers do all Firefox/Chromium do ? Probably not, it's
>> an invite to the malicious. So is using Winders for that matter.
>> Are people going to drop all of those ? NO ! May as well tell
>> them to throw away the credit cards and start paying for
>> everything in person in gold dust. Ain't gonna happen.
>
> If the masses want a huge, awkward, insecure browser, fine.
> Let them fill their boots. That doesn't mean, though, that
> someone shouldn't try to satisfy the minority that neither
> wants nor needs all those bells and whistles.
>
> As for web sites that insist on using all these bells and
> whistles whether they're necessary or not, maybe it's time
> to complain to the companies that create them - and boycott
> them if they refuse to cut back on the bloat.
>
> There's room in the world for more than one web browser.

There are already very many.

--
Gutta cavat lapidem (Ovid)

[Computer Nerd Kev]

25B.Z969 <25B....@noda.net> wrote:
> On 9/16/22 6:12 AM, Computer Nerd Kev wrote:
>>
>> That was with GCC v11.2.0. It claims to also build with Clang, so I
>> tried that (v13.0.0), but it failed early in the build process
>> with:
>>
>> clang-13: error: clang frontend command failed with exit code 134
>> (use -v to see invocation)
>>
>> So GCC breaks Ladybird/Coccinellidae, and Ladybird/Coccinellidae
>> breaks Clang.
>>
>> Though I'm not sure whether the illegal instruction springs from a
>> bug in GCC (I tried -mtune=generic in case it was confused about
>> what extensions my x86_64 CPU supported), or inline assembly
>> somewhere in the code which is only meant to run on the latest
>> CPUs. Either way, I give up.
>
> Look ... it's just not ready for prime time - that's
> the fact.

Well I'm not entirely sure whether the problem is in the browser or
GCC. Clearly there's something wrong with Clang 13. _They're_
both supposed to be "prime time". "Illegal Instruction" isn't
something you're supposed to be dealing with even if you're
building code that's in development. Except that the SerenityOS
sources do have lots of assembly in them (as you'd expect for an
OS), but I'm not sure whether there's any in the libraries that are
used by the browser alone (working that out is beyond a quick run
of Grep).

> When it is it'll come in a nice .deb and .rpm
> and will install easy and clean. For now it's 'beta-ware',
> maybe 'gamma-ware'.

I expected a buggy and possibly useless browser, but I was hoping
to at least see where they were at. Clearly other people are
getting it to build in fairly similar environments, and I'm very
interested in an alternative to Gecko/WebKit (Firefox/Chrome) for
many reasons.

> Oh, and do we really NEED another web browser ??? Everybody
> is after a seriously de-junked FireFox or Chromium - but I'm
> not sure that's a viable option anymore. People expect a LOT
> of browsers now and too much de-junking means a serious lack
> of desired capabilities. Any new product - there's be a huge
> lobby demanding they ADD all those junky features.

Maybe that's the case. I'd be happy browsing everything in Dillo if
websites hadn't broken compatibility with Javascriptless browsers
to the point that you can't even view the navigation links or
lazy-loaded images, not to mention often even plain text. My
problem is undoubtably not a lack of available browsers, but the
lack of available web content for browsers not based on Gecko or
WebKit.

But it's likely possible for a browser to exist with many of the
features that I like about the likes of Dillo, and for it to
have more websites "available" to it than existing offerings. I
wish that were acheived by continued development of browsers like
Dillo and NetSurf which did/do aspire to the same thing, but
failing that then I welcome the effort of developers who decide to
start from scratch.

Actually I don't really care about the browser, but the
scratch-built Javascript and Web rendering libraries from the
SerenityOS project that are behind it.

> SHOULD browsers do all Firefox/Chromium do ? Probably not, it's
> an invite to the malicious. So is using Winders for that matter.
> Are people going to drop all of those ? NO ! May as well tell
> them to throw away the credit cards and start paying for
> everything in person in gold dust. Ain't gonna happen.

Yeah but I already try to drop Firefox/Chromium wherever possible,
so I'm very interested if a new browser makes it possible for me
to drop them more often (if not always). I don't care about
"people" - they're the damn things that wrecked all their websites
and made them unviewable with Dillo in the first place!

[Computer Nerd Kev]

Unfortunately only if you count all the different wrappers around
the Firefox and Chrome web engines.

The others are the ones without enough "bells and whistles" for
many websites. I doubt that complaining to the creators of such
websites would make much difference (though occasionally I've
tried anyway), because if you're using an honest User-Agent header
then you're already telling them what browser you want supported in
a very clear way. I have been with Dillo, but of course updates to
many websites that I frequently visited broke compatibility with it
anyway.

[Charlie Gibbs]

On 2022-09-17, Computer Nerd Kev <n...@telling.you.invalid> wrote:

> Joerg Lorenz <hugy...@gmx.ch> wrote:
>
>> Am 17.09.22 um 05:45 schrieb Charlie Gibbs:
>>

>>> There's room in the world for more than one web browser.
>>
>> There are already very many.
>
> Unfortunately only if you count all the different wrappers around
> the Firefox and Chrome web engines.
>
> The others are the ones without enough "bells and whistles" for
> many websites. I doubt that complaining to the creators of such
> websites would make much difference (though occasionally I've
> tried anyway), because if you're using an honest User-Agent header
> then you're already telling them what browser you want supported in
> a very clear way.

On the other hand, you might be spoofing a more "socially acceptable"
browser so that the digital racists out there don't send you to the
back of the bus.

[25B.Z969]

On 9/16/22 11:45 PM, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
> On 2022-09-17, 25B.Z969 <25B....@noda.net> wrote:
>
>> Oh, and do we really NEED another web browser ??? Everybody
>> is after a seriously de-junked FireFox or Chromium - but I'm
>> not sure that's a viable option anymore.
>
> It sounds to me like Ladybird is an attempt to make it a viable option.
>
>> People expect a LOT of browsers now and too much de-junking means
>> a serious lack of desired capabilities.
>
> I think the point of the exercise is to produce a browser that has
> a serious lack of _undesired_ capabilities.

Undesired by WHOM ??? That's the nasty bit. What YOU see
as "undesired" many other may want very badly.

Mozilla caters to the mass audience. So does Chromium.

>> Any new product - there's be a huge lobby demanding they ADD
>> all those junky features.
>
> Perhaps - but there's also a small lobby demanding that they
> _don't_ do so.
>
>> SHOULD browsers do all Firefox/Chromium do ? Probably not, it's
>> an invite to the malicious. So is using Winders for that matter.
>> Are people going to drop all of those ? NO ! May as well tell
>> them to throw away the credit cards and start paying for
>> everything in person in gold dust. Ain't gonna happen.
>
> If the masses want a huge, awkward, insecure browser, fine.
> Let them fill their boots. That doesn't mean, though, that
> someone shouldn't try to satisfy the minority that neither
> wants nor needs all those bells and whistles.
>
> As for web sites that insist on using all these bells and
> whistles whether they're necessary or not, maybe it's time
> to complain to the companies that create them - and boycott
> them if they refuse to cut back on the bloat.

They paid good money for consumer surveys. That's why
they added all the eye-candy and "helpers" and other crap.
There will be NO cut-backs, increases instead. You won't
be able to use their sites otherwise. They'll sacrifice
the one or two wiser percent to gorge on the 98%.

> There's room in the world for more than one web browser.

As we've noticed - there's a LOT of them. Firefox/Chrom(ium)
and to a small percent Edge and Opera ... 99% use THEM.
Go ahead, write web browsers ... only a handful will use them.
Consumers WANT all the eye-candy and "personalized experience"
and "helpful suggestions" and convenient history and the rest -
the crap I spend ten or fifteen minutes turning OFF every time
I install FFox and ADDING script-controls and such. I know
better - Joe User does NOT. Sure, tell him to use Dillo2 ...
it's out there, it's free - Joe WON'T.

Just tellin' it like it is.

LadyBird will go down in flames of disinterest.

[Charlie Gibbs]

Maybe. Or maybe not. But at least it offers the hope of an
alternative to the bloatware which has become so fashionable.
It beats the "tyranny of the majority" that John Stuart Mill
wrote about in 1859.

Personally, I use Seamonkey, a Firefox fork that retains the
good old user interface that FF turned its back on in release 29.
(I also have a flip phone, and a watch which does little more
than tell me the time - but does it simply and well.)

And if a web site becomes too obnoxious, I go away and don't
come back.

Why should a minority cohort of web browser users (or any other
cohort, for that matter) be considered inferior to the masses?
After all, it's our collective reluctance to drink the Apple
kool-aid or bow and pray in the direction of Redmond five times
a day that is the reason this newsgroup - and OS - exists at all.

[25B.Z969]

I understand what you're saying ... but I'm still talking
about 95+ percent of real-world users. Having a very popular
browser makes money in various ways. Few users, few $$$, the
development/debugging falls off and sooner or later ....

MS has tried to ensure that a number of important system
features/updates/etc ONLY work right through Edge. I tend
to stay away from Apple, but if it doesn't do that yet
with it's brand browser then it soon will. That's control
and, indirectly, screwing the competition.

As for FFox ... I really don't have much AGAINST the current
interface. The huge spyware tilt for searches/settings is
what peeves me the most. No, I do NOT want "suggestions" as
I proceed, I do NOT want them scanning my history/buffers
for said "helpful suggestions", I don't want them checking
every word against Google/etc either to provide such "help",
I do not want them to fill in my forms or passwords or to
remember CCard numbers. I'll tell 'em what they can stick
in their 'Pocket' too. Gotta turn all that OFF first thing,
then go into the config settings and do MORE damage just
to be sure. I shouldn't have to wreck an important bit of
software just to use it.

[Charlie Gibbs]

On 2022-09-19, 25B.Z969 <25B....@noda.net> wrote:

> On 9/19/22 1:12 AM, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
>
>> Why should a minority cohort of web browser users (or any other
>> cohort, for that matter) be considered inferior to the masses?
>> After all, it's our collective reluctance to drink the Apple
>> kool-aid or bow and pray in the direction of Redmond five times
>> a day that is the reason this newsgroup - and OS - exists at all.
>
> I understand what you're saying ... but I'm still talking
> about 95+ percent of real-world users. Having a very popular
> browser makes money in various ways. Few users, few $$$, the
> development/debugging falls off and sooner or later ....

True, but for us die-hards there are a number of alternative still
available, especially if we don't insist on having all the latest
bells and whistles as dictated by the fashion of the day. There are
LibreOffice and xpdf for documents, gimp for picture editing, sox
for sound editing, etc. Not the prettiest, perhaps, but functional -
and free, not only in price but also in not being a prison.

> MS has tried to ensure that a number of important system
> features/updates/etc ONLY work right through Edge.

Ah yes, I remember the days where so many web sites said, "Best
viewed with Internet Explorer." That attitude is still prevalent,
but it's more subtle now. (And that's why I'm in favour of any
efforts to create alternative browsers.)

> I tend to stay away from Apple, but if it doesn't do that yet
> with it's brand browser then it soon will. That's control
> and, indirectly, screwing the competition.

The few times I use Apple products, I get the impression that
it's not so much that I'm using them, but that they're using me.

> As for FFox ... I really don't have much AGAINST the current
> interface. The huge spyware tilt for searches/settings is
> what peeves me the most. No, I do NOT want "suggestions" as
> I proceed, I do NOT want them scanning my history/buffers
> for said "helpful suggestions", I don't want them checking
> every word against Google/etc either to provide such "help",
> I do not want them to fill in my forms or passwords or to
> remember CCard numbers. I'll tell 'em what they can stick
> in their 'Pocket' too. Gotta turn all that OFF first thing,
> then go into the config settings and do MORE damage just
> to be sure. I shouldn't have to wreck an important bit of
> software just to use it.

True, but as you said above, real world...

[26C.Z968]

On 9/19/22 12:58 PM, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
> On 2022-09-19, 25B.Z969 <25B....@noda.net> wrote:
>
>> On 9/19/22 1:12 AM, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
>>
>>> Why should a minority cohort of web browser users (or any other
>>> cohort, for that matter) be considered inferior to the masses?
>>> After all, it's our collective reluctance to drink the Apple
>>> kool-aid or bow and pray in the direction of Redmond five times
>>> a day that is the reason this newsgroup - and OS - exists at all.
>>
>> I understand what you're saying ... but I'm still talking
>> about 95+ percent of real-world users. Having a very popular
>> browser makes money in various ways. Few users, few $$$, the
>> development/debugging falls off and sooner or later ....
>
> True, but for us die-hards there are a number of alternative still
> available, especially if we don't insist on having all the latest
> bells and whistles as dictated by the fashion of the day. There are
> LibreOffice and xpdf for documents, gimp for picture editing, sox
> for sound editing, etc. Not the prettiest, perhaps, but functional -
> and free, not only in price but also in not being a prison.

Yes, but you're still talking a serious minority. I always
use LibreOffice - but there's a new boss on the scene who
is convinced that if it ain't M$ then it ain't no good -
and is very keen to purge everything non-M$. I won't be
able to work for that place much longer. They hire IT
people because we're supposed to know shit and then go
with whatever they saw in some management mag or site
even if it's brain-damaged. "Everyone Else uses M$
therefore we CAN'T be weird - might be CRITICIZED - if
we don't do it too. Pure Dilbert.

>> MS has tried to ensure that a number of important system
>> features/updates/etc ONLY work right through Edge.
>
> Ah yes, I remember the days where so many web sites said, "Best
> viewed with Internet Explorer." That attitude is still prevalent,
> but it's more subtle now. (And that's why I'm in favour of any
> efforts to create alternative browsers.)

Edge, like IE before it, is HEAVILY integrated into Winders
at every level. More heavily. Winders is barely Winders
anymore, it's all an Edge app.

>> I tend to stay away from Apple, but if it doesn't do that yet
>> with it's brand browser then it soon will. That's control
>> and, indirectly, screwing the competition.
>
> The few times I use Apple products, I get the impression that
> it's not so much that I'm using them, but that they're using me.

I remember the anti-BigBro Superbowl ad Apple ran - and
now it's BECOME BigBro through and through. "Snob-ware"
is the most generous description. There are other
descriptions .......

Odd how that pattern tends to repeat in politics too -
now the 'liberals' are the most anti-liberal people
around :-)

Must be one of those Human Things ...

>> As for FFox ... I really don't have much AGAINST the current
>> interface. The huge spyware tilt for searches/settings is
>> what peeves me the most. No, I do NOT want "suggestions" as
>> I proceed, I do NOT want them scanning my history/buffers
>> for said "helpful suggestions", I don't want them checking
>> every word against Google/etc either to provide such "help",
>> I do not want them to fill in my forms or passwords or to
>> remember CCard numbers. I'll tell 'em what they can stick
>> in their 'Pocket' too. Gotta turn all that OFF first thing,
>> then go into the config settings and do MORE damage just
>> to be sure. I shouldn't have to wreck an important bit of
>> software just to use it.
>
> True, but as you said above, real world...

Yep :-)

Joe Public WANTS all that (and Joe DataMiner BADLY wants it) -
so there it is.

BUT ... too many valuable sites simply REQUIRE a lot of that
crap to serve us properly. We're kinda STUCK with a few
specific browsers these days. That IS Joe DataMiner's plan
after all.

All hail NoScript :-)

Anyway, I see a very limited future for LadyBug (shoulda
picked a more macho name, BTW).

Hmm ... is there a path for an InterNet-II - something
different ? Dunno how it could be implemented though.
Muon-Net ? MoonBounceComm ?

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 20/09/2022 05:26, 26C.Z968 wrote:
> They hire IT
>   people because we're supposed to know shit and then go
>   with whatever they saw in some management mag or site

Ah. Yes.'Lotus Notes is the coming thing'...


--
Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have
guns, why should we let them have ideas?

Josef Stalin

[Charlie Gibbs]

On 2022-09-20, 26C.Z968 <26C....@noada.net> wrote:

> All hail NoScript :-)

I wish. More and more sites won't run with JavaScript disabled.
Some of them are polite enough to tell you this, while the rest
just go catatonic. I have to tell NoScript to "Temporarily
allow all this page" so often that I'm starting to wonder
whether it's time to give up on NoScript completely. :-(

[Charlie Gibbs]

On 2022-09-20, The Natural Philosopher <t...@invalid.invalid> wrote:

> On 20/09/2022 05:26, 26C.Z968 wrote:
>
>> They hire IT
>>   people because we're supposed to know shit and then go
>>   with whatever they saw in some management mag or site
>
> Ah. Yes.'Lotus Notes is the coming thing'...

"DOS ain't done 'till Lotus won't run."

[Computer Nerd Kev]

26C.Z968 <26C....@noada.net> wrote:
> Yep :-)
>
> Joe Public WANTS all that (and Joe DataMiner BADLY wants it) -
> so there it is.
>
> BUT ... too many valuable sites simply REQUIRE a lot of that
> crap to serve us properly. We're kinda STUCK with a few
> specific browsers these days. That IS Joe DataMiner's plan
> after all.
>
> All hail NoScript :-)
>
> Anyway, I see a very limited future for LadyBug

I don't know where you're getting the idea that it's intended for
anything beyond a limited audience. It's a part of the Serenity OS
project, which describes their goal as:

"Roughly speaking, the goal is a marriage between the aesthetic of
late-1990s productivity software and the power-user accessibility
of late-2000s *nix." ...
http://www.serenityos.org/

I flat out fail to understand why a new OS is required to achieve
that. Besides the web browser, I feel it can be acheived with many
well established OSs and their existing software. But it does seem
obvious to me that they're not aiming at winning over "Joe Public".

Maybe it's just that you're only interested in running one web
browser. Indeed then Ladybird is unlikely to ever become a complete
replacement for browsers based on the Firefox or Chrome engines
because website authors won't test with it. But there's a decent
number of people out there who will use one or more browsers that
they prefer to FF/Chrome, and only switch over as required by
website incompatibilities. Hell I'll often even manually pull
lazy-loaded image URLs out from the page source in Dillo, out of
reluctance to load a webpage in Firefox in order to view them
inline with the text.

It is possible for a small project to build a better "second
browser" that fills that role for people like me. Hv3, built on the
Tkhtml 3 rendering engine, actually had better HTML and CSS
rendering than Netsurf or Dillo in my opinion, while being
more lightweight and responsive than Firefox (even Firefox of the
time). Unfortunately it crashed frequently and HTTPS support never
worked for me, plus it's been abandoned for more than a decade.

http://tkhtml.tcl.tk/hv3.html

Links is still actively developed and recently got support for WebP
images. Its developer seems to willfully ignore CSS and Javascript,
which may be why he still has the will to work on it. But
Ladybrid's developer seems keen on complex features and is
apparantly funded, so I'd like to believe that they can make a
browser engine that's able to improve upon the prior efforts of
alternative browser projects.

> Hmm ... is there a path for an InterNet-II - something
> different ? Dunno how it could be implemented though.
> Muon-Net ? MoonBounceComm ?

There are lots of paths for that, but they wander all over the
place and only seem to occasionally cross with the common desires
of people who prefer lightweight web browsers.

[26C.Z968]

On 9/20/22 1:55 PM, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
> On 2022-09-20, 26C.Z968 <26C....@noada.net> wrote:
>
>> All hail NoScript :-)
>
> I wish. More and more sites won't run with JavaScript disabled.
> Some of them are polite enough to tell you this, while the rest
> just go catatonic. I have to tell NoScript to "Temporarily
> allow all this page" so often that I'm starting to wonder
> whether it's time to give up on NoScript completely. :-(
>

It's time to NOT use those scriptototaltiarian sites - and
let 'em KNOW it.

[26C.Z968]

On 9/20/22 1:55 PM, Charlie Gibbs wrote:

> On 2022-09-20, The Natural Philosopher <t...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>
>> On 20/09/2022 05:26, 26C.Z968 wrote:
>>
>>> They hire IT
>>>   people because we're supposed to know shit and then go
>>>   with whatever they saw in some management mag or site
>>
>> Ah. Yes.'Lotus Notes is the coming thing'...
>
> "DOS ain't done 'till Lotus won't run."

Pentium Core-2-Quad ... last best chip that'd still
run 8/16-bit. Have two of those boards and STILL use
them for stuff.

You can still run Lotus in a VM on an "improved" Pentium :-)

Lotus really wasn't bad at all ... got it done.

[26C.Z968]

On 9/20/22 7:17 PM, Computer Nerd Kev wrote:
> 26C.Z968 <26C....@noada.net> wrote:
>> Yep :-)
>>
>> Joe Public WANTS all that (and Joe DataMiner BADLY wants it) -
>> so there it is.
>>
>> BUT ... too many valuable sites simply REQUIRE a lot of that
>> crap to serve us properly. We're kinda STUCK with a few
>> specific browsers these days. That IS Joe DataMiner's plan
>> after all.
>>
>> All hail NoScript :-)
>>
>> Anyway, I see a very limited future for LadyBug
>
> I don't know where you're getting the idea that it's intended for
> anything beyond a limited audience. It's a part of the Serenity OS
> project, which describes their goal as:
>
> "Roughly speaking, the goal is a marriage between the aesthetic of
> late-1990s productivity software and the power-user accessibility
> of late-2000s *nix." ...
> http://www.serenityos.org/

It was PRESENTED here as a FFox/Chromium competitor.

It isn't.

Nearest oddball is Opera.

> I flat out fail to understand why a new OS is required to achieve
> that. Besides the web browser, I feel it can be acheived with many
> well established OSs and their existing software. But it does seem
> obvious to me that they're not aiming at winning over "Joe Public".

Which guarentees poverty and obscurity.

I've nothing against "special audience" software, just
don't hype it as The Coming Thing.

> Maybe it's just that you're only interested in running one web
> browser.

I've got everything from Lynx on up. Think I still have
Mosaic and Netscape in a VM ....

But not a LOT of people. Ergo the problem ...

[Joerg Lorenz]

Am 20.09.22 um 19:55 schrieb Charlie Gibbs:

> On 2022-09-20, 26C.Z968 <26C....@noada.net> wrote:
>
>> All hail NoScript :-)
>
> I wish. More and more sites won't run with JavaScript disabled.
> Some of them are polite enough to tell you this, while the rest
> just go catatonic. I have to tell NoScript to "Temporarily
> allow all this page" so often that I'm starting to wonder
> whether it's time to give up on NoScript completely. :-(

No way!
A little bit of fine tuning and it works very well. The most important
thing is to kill the scripts that try to track you or to send ads and
not the primary site.

For various purposes I have a second less stringent Firefox-profile
without NoScript.

[The Natural Philosopher]

The problem is that in order to present a uniform appearance across
multiple device types and screen resolutions it is necessary to use more
smarts than CSS can achieve.

I wrote my own media centre. It wouldn't be possible without JavaScript.


--
A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on
its shoes.

[Bobbie Sellers]

On 9/21/22 09:16, Bud Frede wrote:

> n...@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) writes:
>
>> 26C.Z968 <26C....@noada.net> wrote:
>>> Yep :-)
>>>
>>> Joe Public WANTS all that (and Joe DataMiner BADLY wants it) -
>>> so there it is.
>>>
>>> BUT ... too many valuable sites simply REQUIRE a lot of that
>>> crap to serve us properly. We're kinda STUCK with a few
>>> specific browsers these days. That IS Joe DataMiner's plan
>>> after all.
>>>
>>> All hail NoScript :-)
>>>
>>> Anyway, I see a very limited future for LadyBug
>>
>> I don't know where you're getting the idea that it's intended for
>> anything beyond a limited audience. It's a part of the Serenity OS
>> project, which describes their goal as:
>>
>> "Roughly speaking, the goal is a marriage between the aesthetic of
>> late-1990s productivity software and the power-user accessibility
>> of late-2000s *nix." ...
>> http://www.serenityos.org/
>>
>> I flat out fail to understand why a new OS is required to achieve
>> that. Besides the web browser, I feel it can be acheived with many
>> well established OSs and their existing software. But it does seem
>> obvious to me that they're not aiming at winning over "Joe Public".
>>
>
>

> What I understood was that they work on SerenityOS solely because they
> like working on it. It doesn't matter if it ever becomes widely used, or
> popular, or whatever. I don't think they approach it as some sort of
> problem that needs to be solved, or think that they have a better way of
> doing things than anyone else. It exists, they enjoy working on it, and
> if anyone else likes using it or working on it that's just gravy.
>
> It's kind of like 20+ years ago when I used Linux or FreeBSD as my
> desktop. People would tell me I'm missing out, or these OSes will never
> go anywhere, or they'll never be widely used on the desktop, etc. I
> didn't care what other people thought because I liked using what I was
> using and they were perfectly fine for me. (Several of my friends used
> to get the same kind of comments about their Macs.) I also got the same
> kind of thing back when I used OS/2.
>
> If SerenityOS is something you find cool, that's wonderful. If not,
> not.
>
> I do think that it's pretty cool that they've done all of this on their
> own and that they've created an OS. I accept it as it is and
> congratulate them for what they've done.


I already have found a cool Linux OS.Now the commercial for it.


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