[dev][surf] Is there any suckless webkit?

[Robert Winkler]

Maybe I am a bit naiv, or technically not informed enough,
BUT:

Is there any webkit/browser that:
- Does not consume most of the computer resources (!!!).
- Is compatible with Java script.
- Displays modern websites without getting stalled?

Ideally there would be a vim-style keybinding available, and, of course,
it should be OS/ hackable.

E.g. I'm running dietpi on a Raspberry Pi 0 W, and up to now I cannot
find a satisfactory answer (512 Mb RAM seem insufficient for running a
'modern' web browser). The only things that more or less run, are the
text browsers (but we are in 2022...) and NetSurf (with Java issues).

I just don't understand that, because I want to only display 2D (!) web
pages. And our flight simulations in the late '90s provided a lot more
graphics with much less CPU/RAM (or do I just not remember right?).

Best regards,
Robert

[LM]

On Mon, May 2, 2022 at 3:44 PM Robert Winkler
<robert....@bioprocess.org> wrote:
>
> Maybe I am a bit naiv, or technically not informed enough,
> BUT:
>
> Is there any webkit/browser that:
> - Does not consume most of the computer resources (!!!).
> - Is compatible with Java script.
> - Displays modern websites without getting stalled?
>
> Ideally there would be a vim-style keybinding available, and, of course,
> it should be OS/ hackable.

I wish. I think when you put "webkit" based browser in the mix you'll
have issues with finding something that doesn't consume a lot of
computer resources. surf is the first webkit browser that comes to
mind for what you're looking for. I'm guessing you've already looked
at that?

Since you mentioned the text browsers and netsurf, I'll add links and
dillo/D+ to that list. links is similar to lynx but with some
graphics support. Don't remember the standard dependencies but I
believe I used a fork or version that used SDL in framebuffer mode.
It's been a while since I tried it. I haven't used dillo, but I have
used the D+ fork of dillo and it ports to an impressive number of
operating systems including FreeDOS. Unfortunately, there's no
JavaScript support and CSS is limited, but it can be a step up from a
text based browser.

The most lightweight webkit based browsers I've been able to find are
netrider (at Sourceforge) and Fifth used by TinyCore Linux. They're
FLTK based so that means C++ instead of C, but some of the webkit code
is C++ based anyway. Would love to find a GUI that's lightweight like
FLTK but C based like GTK. Options are very limited in that area.

I thought uzbl offered vi like key handling:
https://www.uzbl.org/
There's also a list of software supporting vim like keyboard handling here:
https://reversed.top/2016-08-13/big-list-of-vim-like-software/#browsers
My guess is one of those browsers would be the closest to what you're
looking for.

I've also been reading some interesting things about browsing Gemini
servers instead of the web. There are some nice Gemini browsers out
there. I personally liked nemini: https://github.com/neonmoe/nemini
but there are several Gemini browsers and I've seen a lot of
recommendations for Lagrange: https://github.com/skyjake/lagrange If
you want something that does a much better job with computer
resources, you may want to look into Gemini instead of the World Wide
Web.

[Giovanni Lostumbo]

I installed FLWM on the RPi0 with DietPi and Dillo runs quite well (even though it is not modern): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4_v_CW-WSc 
 https://packages.debian.org/stretch/www-browser UZBL and Fifth seem interesting.  https://fifth-browser.sourceforge.net/propaganda.html links2 also works good on other distros. I also recommend Gemini browsers, although their limitations are intentional.