Will 3.x ever get a modern browser

[wawa]

i have told it for ages, but whoever wants to see how a comparatively modern browser might behave on an amiga can sipmly run aros owb on aros 68k. the engine is a ten years old version of webkit, but it is probably still most compatible alternative to todays internet standards, considered it has css, should be linked against current ssl and the like..


also odyssey compiles for m68k, but it would have to be debugged and i dobt it would actually be usable with the given resources sich as 128mb ram.

[wawa]

Originally Posted by Daedalus

the track record of A-EON shows

that they dont or probably simply cant do any much for the (genuine) amiga. at least i cant recall anything worthwhile. except a rather half spirited tiny update to a paintprogram, that probably made it worse and a hardware audio stream decoder, by an external developer, fans had to write drivers for anyway.


so considering the above, most of this could probably have been done without any company just with the community resources, if anyone really wanted.

[zipper]

Originally Posted by wawa

i have told it for ages, but whoever wants to see how a comparatively modern browser might behave on an amiga can sipmly run aros owb on aros 68k. the engine is a ten years old version of webkit, but it is probably still most compatible alternative to todays internet standards, considered it has css, should be linked against current ssl and the like..

I tried OWB on WinUAE PPC to get into my bank account - took about 10 mins to get in as on PC it takes about 5 secs. Quite a difference.

[Mr-Z]

Well we have the Voyager sources and that could be a nice start.
if CSS could be implemented, full HTML 4 implementation and SSL updated to use newest AmiSSL this already would bring us a lot.

On OS 3.x Netsurf has a similar feature set and it works or renders a lot of websites correct or almost correct.
Only downside is that the rendering engine is quite slow for 68K Amiga's (even on my Vampire some sites take their sweet time)

[eXeler0]

@nolunchman Check out this old thread... ;-)

http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=81166

[drHirudo]

Browsing on Amiga is not the best experience. I've used Internet with my Amigas extensively (daily for everything, including work) between 1997 and 2013 but it was getting harder and harder. Odyssey, IBrowse, AWeb, OWB, I've used them all, but it gets pretyy tiresome to switch between browsers for different webpages, and at the end I ended up using AWeb without graphics.

I recently used IBrowse to surf the web, and it was a hard experience, even if possible:

[ Show youtube player ]

P.S. modern browser on 68K is for very patient people.

[Daedalus]

Originally Posted by wawa

at least i cant recall anything worthwhile.

Your opinion of what's worthwhile doesn't necessarily tally with that of everyone else, or indeed, of anyone else.

so considering the above, most of this could probably have been done without any company just with the community resources, if anyone really wanted.

So they have released, or have directly caused the release of both hardware and software for classics. Anyway, I'm sure you get the point I was making.

[nolunchman]

Originally Posted by eXeler0

@nolunchman Check out this old thread... ;-)

http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=81166

good read! way back when people started accessing the internet with their flip phones a company a friend worked for developed server side parsing software to strip out all the images from web pages and send the links formatted for a tiny LCD screen. parsing HTML back then was a pain. hopefully now with XML and CSS things can be more tidy.

anyway, you had/have the same idea...so i'm not the only one who's crazy.

[utri007]

Originally Posted by Mr-Z

Well we have the Voyager sources and that could be a nice start.
if CSS could be implemented, full HTML 4 implementation and SSL updated to use newest AmiSSL this already would bring us a lot.

You makes this sound really easy, when it is ready?

On OS 3.x Netsurf has a similar feature set and it works or renders a lot of websites correct or almost correct.
Only downside is that the rendering engine is quite slow for 68K Amiga's (even on my Vampire some sites take their sweet time)

Have you actually tried Netsurf or did you try SDL/Frambuffer fork, wich renders pages 2x slower than actual Netsurf? Rendering engine is could be faster, but doubt that it is like 30%, not a 200%. Sources are open. Chris has been looking for a help to optimising Netsurf for ages. There is even a automated script to compile Netsurf, to make easier to coders contribute, but nobody has done it.

[wawa]

Originally Posted by zipper

I tried OWB on WinUAE PPC to get into my bank account - took about 10 mins to get in as on PC it takes about 5 secs. Quite a difference.

lets consider that ppc emulation on x86 introduces most likely considerable overhead. but even then 10 minutes sounds completely ridiculous. im pretty sure genuine 68k emu with jit is much faster in every respect. for comparison you might try the same site with aros 68k and aros owb under winuae. i would expect rather reasonable experience, even if surely not as fast as a native webkit engine on host cpu. emulation takes its toll, certainly.

[wawa]

Originally Posted by Mr-Z

Well we have the Voyager sources and that could be a nice start.

here again a pretty example of throwing around cheap ideas and assumptions without even bother to investigate the issue. lets say that i have actually downloaded the voyager source, looked at it and started work to get it compile for aros (including m68k, especially that i have already gathered some material that might help with that task). unfortunately the source lacks a number of dependencies, libraries and classes, that would have to be rewritten, because the sources have been lost (i have talked about it to the author). even then, if memory serves me well we would as result gain a browser that does support only outdated html standards, no css, and not even as stable as ibrowse (my experience with it was horrible).

updating the engine to get it stable or gain any of the desired features might easily be comparable to writing a new browser from the scratch. lets be honest, the only feasible approach is adopting some gui (best case mui/zune) front end to an existing engine sucha s webkit or netsurf. and there is both actively worked on.

[wawa]

Originally Posted by Daedalus

Your opinion of what's worthwhile doesn't necessarily tally with that of everyone else, or indeed, of anyone else.

you can read opinions on these releases all over the web, lately even a known amiga cartoonist wrote an article about it. my point is, that aeon doesnt even have any staff that could take up task like that. the only developers there i have heard of are os4 fans delivering their work more or less voluntarily. same, i doubt the writers of prisma megamix drivers (they frequent this very forum) have received any payment for their work.

so my point is:
if we want to have something done and we have resources to do it, we dont need to wait for aeon or any other company with it, because it wont make any difference. if you are inclined to dedicate your work, do it now.

[wawa]

Originally Posted by utri007

There is even a automated script to compile Netsurf, to make easier to coders contribute, but nobody has done it.

im not a developer, but i am trying to help with a number of (open) projects, i wont though lose time contributing to a web browser that addresses only a fraction of amiga setups, because it requires reaction, which is a non standard toolkit except os4 and os3.9 (im not sure if class act will do).

i have started some work towards geting netsurf compiled with aros toolchain and have been able to build some support libraries, as well as we have a source for mui front end by itix available on aminet, which certainly would need an update. but i doubt i can do all that myself, for lack of time and abilities, not to speak of motivation.

[comraider]

Unless the Vampire reaches some insane performance level 5x-10x of where it is now, I think we would need a "browser-on-a-chip" type deal--where a separate card or board is responsible for taking raw HTML + JavaScript, parsing the DOM and rendering the viewport, and then you have a browser window on the Amiga that acts as the graphical output. I guess that sounds almost like a Bridgeboard doesn't it?

[utri007]

Originally Posted by comraider

Unless the Vampire reaches some insane performance level 5x-10x of where it is now, I think we would need a "browser-on-a-chip" type deal--where a separate card or board is responsible for taking raw HTML + JavaScript, parsing the DOM and rendering the viewport, and then you have a browser window on the Amiga that acts as the graphical output. I guess that sounds almost like a Bridgeboard doesn't it?

Do you really think that it would happen?

I think that Netsurf would be really good start. With some help it will be useable with Vampire and semi useable with 68040/68060. Currently pages like this renders about 20 sec with 68060.

It wount be a browser wich people uses to pay bill etc. But it is just fine for browsing amiga sites and downloading stuf.

[comraider]

Originally Posted by utri007

Do you really think that it would happen?

I think that Netsurf would be really good start. With some help it will be useable with Vampire and semi useable with 68040/68060. Currently pages like this renders about 20 sec with 68060.

It wount be a browser wich people uses to pay bill etc. But it is just fine for browsing amiga sites and downloading stuf.

No, I don't think it would ever happen because the demand isn't there to warrant the cost and time that would go into it. I always used my Amigas as daily driver computers for productivity, internet, etc and almost never gamed on it--which is probably opposite of what most people want out of their Amigas these days (and for good reason).

I would love to use a 68k Amiga as my daily driver again. But I don't see a path forward. Even Vampire is way too slow, and even if Netsurf is optimized, it is crippled with not nearly enough RAM for modern websites. You might as well just VNC into another computer and run Chrome or something.

[Dynamic_Computi]

I use my Amiga 4000 in the web all the time - but I just go where I know it will work fine with iBrowse 2.4 - Aminet works great with it, and even Gmail is functional. I just live with the limitations. I tried Netsurf with my 40 MHz 040 and 80 MB of RAM and it was unuseable. To be honest, I tried Netsurf on my Quad Core PC with 8 gigs of RAM and it was still hardly useable.
IBrowse 2.5 will probably go a long way towards being able to display current 2018 web pages, but considering it won't be released until 2035, and you won't be able to register it until 2050, it may be a moot point.

[Nickman1200]

Better use something like this on an raspberrypi zero hidden inside your miggy.
https://virtuallyfun.com/wordpress/2...-proxy-update/

[saimon69]

Let's one moment take a break and consider what is a "modern" browser:

Darn Chrome that am using right now is a memory hog and am in Win XP due to not having cash to upgrade to a newer machine, so as long as web sites till use TLS v1 am safe, however consider that a "modern" browser might need:
- a DOM (Document Object Model, that is required to drive pages and scripts handling)
-some kind of javascript support (lately not even gmail basic runs without)
-CSS
-vector capabilities somehow either via CSS 3 or SVG
-SSL updated to modern levels (TLS v1.1 or higher)
a bunch of RAM (and no, 2 gigabyte RAM is lately NOT enough for modern browsing unless you keep only three or four tabs open, but still... due to a good amount of modern sites using lot of backend in React and Angular - and having no virtual memory is a problem)
and less necessary but useful:
-video
-audio

the task is near impossible; even with an obsolete browser like K-Meleon or opera 11 you could have a better experience than what is actually feasible on an Amiga even accelerated with Vampire - is not only the power of the machine but the OS sorely lacks a lot of API and tools that modern GUI have.

this is my observation as i used to be Web Developer - now looking for a new job while working part-time in retail: still those are hard times

[comraider]

Originally Posted by Nickman1200

Better use something like this on an raspberrypi zero hidden inside your miggy.
https://virtuallyfun.com/wordpress/2...-proxy-update/

Yep, WRP is decent but probably can't handle most webapps that make heavy use of JS frameworks like Angular. Opera Mini had a good model back in the early 2000s to basically do server-side rendering on their end--a similar story to WRP, but that probably would fail for modern webapps too.

I can definitely envision a souped up WRP that would run a headless Chrome in the background, and we could proxy all click events / mouse-overs from the "slave" browser to the headless Chrome and update the view. But it's hardly worth the effort tbh.