This may be one of those questions that might expose my half-baked knowledge in this field, so I thank the experts patiently explaining this to me in advance.
- What is the fuss about web browser engines?
As I can see, there have been many web browser engines in the past; most defunct / unmaintained and the three: blink, gecko and webkit being the only ones actively developed and maintained today (I am aware of Goanna, but some articles online say it isn’t being developed anymore – I could be wrong). What is stopping someone; say the FSF or some other group championing libre software from coming up with their own web engine completely different from the incumbent engines? I understand that not all web features will work with every engine, but surely we need more diversity than just the existing three to spur more development, right? Many software including the Linux kernel had humble beginnings and if enough people find it to be a suitable alternative, they might slowly jump ship to this new hypothetical web engine that was built using GPL3 from scratch.
- What is stopping web developers from simply shunning Google’s Manifest V3?
I haven’t seen or heard of one single good thing about Manifest V3 from any web developer (at least the six that I know personally), and have only read articles on why it is either unnecessary, or that the proposed advantages can easily be done is a less disruptive manner. While I appreciate that the internet today runs a lot on Google’s infrastructure and services, surely if Web Devs tell them to go pound sand, or intentionally break the site when using Google Chrome, and put a message saying, “Go to Firefox / Safari for a better experience”, that will make Google backtrack.
Once again, I apologise for these basic / daft questions. I appreciate any insight that you may have for me.
most defunct / unmaintained and the three: blink, gecko and webkit being the only ones actively developed and maintained today (I am aware of Goanna, but some articles online say it isn’t being developed anymore – I could be wrong).
The fourth most developed browser engine is Ladybird, spun off from the SerenityOS project. It’s very active. And then you have Mozilla’s Servo… kinda. And then Goanna is still maintained, but not too active.
What is stopping someone; say the FSF or some other group championing libre software from coming up with their own web engine completely different from the incumbent engines?
Seems you’re not aware of stuff like Servo, which some said was supposed to be the replacement of Gecko, and it’s being written in Rust. But Mozilla ditched it and gave it to the Linux Foundation where its development is reeeaaally sloooooooow.
Afaik The Linux Foundation gives next-to-nothing, if not nothing, to its development. But despite of all of that it seems it has increased its pace (compared to the time it was just given to TLF) and has got donations and stuff.
But a browser engine is an absurdly huge piece of software and it will be a miracle if projects like Rust (or Ladybird, which I just learned it’s targeting its first alpha for… 2026!) get backed by big corporations and their pace gets quicker.
Call me stupid or whatever (seeing the Reddit toxicity that has got into Lemmy I’d be surprised if this has no downvotes!) but I do think Servo has the potential to be a serious contender to the hegemony of Chrome/Chromium in the long haul. The Linux Foundation seems to have enough resources to propel its development and reach that goal, but they just choose not to nor seem to care at all. So yes, unless a miracle happens we normies can only choose between Chrome/Chromium, Firefox or something Webkit. Maybe even going absolutely radical and using Konqueror with its KHTML engine, if you can.
Building a full function browser is a huge project that can really only be done by a big organization. And it’s mostly for the benefit of advertisers and other hucksters, so not a satisfying thing to work on for purely charitable reasons. Basically the web sucks. We’d be better off with a privacy protecting fragment that was designed for end users rather than for upstream. See Rfc 8890 for more.
surely if Web Devs tell them to go pound sand, or intentionally break the site when using Google Chrome, and put a message saying, “Go to Firefox / Safari for a better experience”, that will make Google backtrack.
Riiight… User will surely do that instead of simply never visiting your site again.
Yep. If you don’t show me what I want without jumping through hoops. I’m gone.
but surely we need more diversity than just the existing three to spur more development, right?
Ideally, of course. In practice, to me, it looks like it’s a very hard thing to do.
Don’t let that discourage you from taking on the endeavour though! I too would like another option!
