What makes it exciting?

Some thoughts on the things that we get excited about, or don't - and why.

Hey, check this out...

That's Igalia's website running in Google Chrome in kiosk mode. In kiosk mode there is no surrounding "chrome" and so no rendered controls. It has none of that stuff that we normally associate with "browsers" (tabs, back/forward/refresh buttons, a URL bar, etc)

In fact, while I say that that's Google Chrome running in kiosk mode, it could just as well be embedded browser, like WPEWebKit which has no built in controls. Is it?

I'm not telling 😏.

But, it doesn't really matter: I'm just using it to set up the question of whether you feel like that is a browser? And perhaps whether WPEWebKit excites you as a browser? There's no "right" answer.

Ok, hold that thought, and look at this...

This is the webkit.org site running in WebKit mini-browser. It isn't Safari, it is just... er... WebKit. Is it a browser?

On the one hand, it's right there in the name, right? It's a Mini...browser. And, it does have the most important controls.

Still, you can't download it as a finished product, you have to build it. And no one thinks you should use this as your daily browser. Does it capture your attention as a browser?

Probably not?

Ok, now what about this:

That's ladybird. Yes, that's exciting, right?

I mean, I totally agree...

But the reason it's exciting has almost nothing to do with it being a browser. The Ladybird browser is hardly more than the mini-browser, in fact. It's purpose it the same and how you get it is the same. What makes it exciting is that it's based on a novel engine.

That said, excitement isn't currently (or probably for the foreseeable future) of the form "because we can actually use that browser day to day". Unlike in the mini-browsers of the others, there is a lot left to do here and the long tail and tricky bits of the web that are needed are... well, a lot, and tricky. They also have this pesky issue where the more people use your browser, the more bugs and unwritten rules you find you have to manage, all without breaking something else. So, Ladybird's got a long way to get to a place where you can practically use it -- but it is exciting.

Anyway, I asked some people a while back if they were as excited about Servo and they said "well, but it's not a browser".

And, indeed, recently someone from the Servo community created a GitHub repo which will be a browser based on Servo (named Verso - great name!) and the crowd seemingly did go wild on that (double the points of almost any other Servo related post on the orange website), despite the fact that at the time, it was effectively still a mostly-not-function repo.

So, anyway... I just wanted to step back and say...

Are you not entertained?

That's the Servo mini-browser running 3 tabs. And you know how I got it? I went to servo.org, downloaded it, installed it and launched it. I can currently use keyboard commands to launch and close tabs. It's also open source, so anyone could in theory have a better downstream one (maybe Verso?) or help grow a browser in Servo itself (more like Firefox, I guess).

So... Is Servo a browser?

I mean... no. But also... yes and it's super exciting.

You should be excited about it, I think.

You can help support it with some funding through GitHub or Open Collective (wealthy donors and business support is welcome too :)). How to choose and prioritize the work funded by donations is decided through collective discussions on the public monthly calls of the Servo Technical Steering Committee.