NetSurf 3.10 web browser released

[utri007]

Copy from Amiga.org

NetSurf 3.10 features many fixes, better performance and improved functionality. In particular, handling of authentication, certificates and fetch errors have been updated and unified. We recommend all users upgrade to NetSurf 3.10.

A new feature is the page info display which may look familiar to users of mainstream browsers!


Download (AmigaOS 4) http://aminet.net/package/comm/www/netsurf
Download (AmigaOS 3 beta) http://aminet.net/package/comm/www/netsurf_os3

For Amiga OS3

Requirements are AmigaOS 3.5 or 3.9, 32MB RAM.

THIS IS EARLY BETA QUALITY SOFTWARE FOR TESTING ONLY.
ALL USE IS AT YOUR OWN RISK. IT *WILL* CRASH!

Please report bugs to chris at unsatisfactorysoftware.co.uk,
or on the amigans.net/amiga.org forums.

Changelog:

NetSurf 3.10
------------

### Core / All platforms

* Improved handling of NetSurf generated queries and errors, including:
- Timeouts.
- Authentication requests.
- Certificate problems.
* Created consistent visual style for NetSurf Core generated content.
* HTML layout fix for {min|max}-width on replaced elements.
* Improved keyboard navigation.
* Improved local history with keyboard navigation and improved display.
* Fixed mouse interaction issue when entire document had visibility:hidden.
* Refactoring of the browser window handling.
* Refactoring of the HTML content handler.
* Refactoring of SSL certificate handling.
* Refactoring of HTML, text search and selection code.
* Many improvements to JavaScript robustness.
* Many new and improved Duktape JavaScript bindings.
* Improved core/front end interface for content scaling.
* Much improved content caching, both in memory and disc caching.
* Added a generic hashmap, used by the disc cache code.
* Fetcher improvements for robustness and performance.
* Updated JavaScript engine to Duktape 2.4.0.
* Improved handling of aborted fetches.
* Improved integration testing with framework built around monkey front end.
* Improvements to monkey front end to make testing more extensive and reliable.
* Minor HTML form improvements.
* Minor HTML handler optimisations.
* Fixes to HTML handler for robustness.
* Refactoring generation of about: pages.
* Fixed save complete not to save multiple copies of the same files.
* Change how animated GIFs are rate-limited to be in line with other browsers.
* Added a page info core window.
* Clamping screen DPI to a sensible range.
* Initial work towards supporting HTML5 canvas element.
* Various treeview fixes.

* Hubbub library 0.3.7 (HTML parser):
- Minor code quality improvements.
- Fixes for some HTML5 element handling.

* LibCSS library 0.9.1 (CSS parser and selection engine):
- Fixed a problem in the parsing of invalid media blocks.
- Minor code quality improvements.

* LibDOM library 0.4.1 (Document Object Model):
- Improved HTML TextArea element handling.
- Fix SubtreeModified event to be fired after updating attribute values.
- Support finalising the namespace strings.
- Basic support for keypress events.
- Improvements to event dispatch event lifetime handling.
- Support for InnerHTML.
- Added support for HTMLCanvasElement.
- Minor code quality improvements.
- Fixed HTMLElement property setters.
- Fixed HTMLTitleElement text getter/setter.

* LibNSBMP library 0.1.6 (BMP support):
- Minor code quality improvements.

* LibNSLog library 0.1.3 (Filterable logging):
- Added support for short log level names.

* LibWapcaplet library 0.4.3 (String internment):
- Free global context if no strings leak.
- Enabled build with toolchains that don't support statement expressions.

### AmigaOS-specific

* Added Page Info icon and window.
* Updated to improved core content scaling interface.
* Add support for scrolling core windows in response to core requests.
* Allow running JavaScript from ARexx.
* Removed login window because it's now handled by the core.

Also included are many smaller bug fixes, improvements and
documentation enhancements.

[jdryyz]

[Weaselrama]

For 68k users, I would like to suggest the following version published back on September 7, 2019:

http://ami-soft.blogspot.com/2019/09...rf-310dev.html

This version, at least when installed in OS 3.9/Boing Bags 1-4, is stable enough to be able to test many of the features of Netsurf, including a Javascript implementation, without an immediate crash. While it features TTFs with font-smoothing, it does not feature a menu system.

The 68k version published on Aminet above, posted on 25 May, 2020, appears to be very similar to the last Nightly Build. It may come up with an error output window immediately as it did on my setup and might not let you proceed. The last nightly build featured a menu system but no TTFs on startup and would not run long enough before crashing for me to try to change fonts, or test anything else. The version posted to AmiSoft in September is stable enough to test on a variety of websites but would not incorporate any changes/improvements made since then.

While iBrowse 2.5.2 is a wonderfully complete browser solution, Netsurf allows 68k users to enjoy a more modern CSS-formatted browsing experience and I always look forward to the opportunity to test drive it.

[utri007]

Originally Posted by Weaselrama

For 68k users, I would like to suggest the following version published back on September 7, 2019:

http://ami-soft.blogspot.com/2019/09...rf-310dev.html

Version you advertise here, has few problems. It is based to SDL and framebuffer version of Netsurf, wich is meant to be used for debugging and no GUI system (DOS). Netsurf team doesn't like what Arti has done with it and they has asked him to rename it to something else, that it wouldn't be possible to confuse it to Netsurf. Arti has also failed to load sources to same place where he publish his browser, like license terms requires.

This version is based true desktop version of Netsurf.

The 68k version published on Aminet above, posted on 25 May, 2020, appears to be very similar to the last Nightly Build. It may come up with an error output window immediately as it did on my setup and might not let you proceed. The last nightly build featured a menu system but no TTFs on startup and would not run long enough before crashing for me to try to change fonts,

have you send bugreport to Chris? Sources of this browser is available to to everyone, so any one can develop it to better and faster.

[Weaselrama]

Hello,

Yes, I sent a bugreport to Chris and noted I've experienced the same behavior with several nightlies over the past few months. I sent him a screenshot of the error messages.

Thanks for the information on the version posted to Ami-Soft. Curiously, it is the only version those of us who discuss Netsurf on Amiga Social Media groups have ever run, save for occasionally testing the nightlies. That explains the remarkable difference between the builds. It is also the first version which comes up in a Google search.

I am happy to delete my previous message if it misrepresents the Netsurf project.

[utri007]

Have you read requirements? OS3.5/9, render and guigfx libraries? As far I know it works (at least start) with every sytem wich fullfills requirements. Amiga.org one vampire use just said that it works well.

[Weaselrama]

My setup meets all the requirements, yes, as I indicated earlier. However, Chris got back to me - he was very gracious. This is likely an issue with UAE and specifically with FPU use with particular versions of *either* the guigfx or render libraries. It happens to him as well and he hasn't figured out how to fix it. He went on to say that debugging in OS3 was literally impossible. However, he did explain how to set Disk Caching in the config file.

[Weaselrama]

Chris further informed me that the Netsurf team's issue with Arti was resolved "years ago" and that Arti provides a link to the source on Github, which fulfills the licensing requirements.

[utri007]

Originally Posted by Weaselrama

Chris further informed me that the Netsurf team's issue with Arti was resolved "years ago" and that Arti provides a link to the source on Github, which fulfills the licensing requirements.

Good to know.

[Weaselrama]

It's good to have a working alternative on UAE. Arti's 3.9 and 3.10 builds eventually crash with continued use, but at least I can use 3.10 long enough to edit or write a long comment on mobile Facebook which is maddening in iBrowse. The external editor isn't always available in the text window on the non-CSS version of the site depending on where you're trying to write (or edit) a comment. EAB and Pouet are certainly more pleasant experiences with CSS but otherwise I use iBrowse 98% of the time.

[drHirudo]

Here is a video of NetSurf 3.10 running on AmigaOne X1000:

[ Show youtube player ]

Unfortunately, it doesn't do very well job on today's Internet. And there was some memory allocation bug, but it worked for some pages pretty well. But currently I prefer Odyssey, OWB and even AWeb to it.

[E-Penguin]

Originally Posted by drHirudo

Unfortunately, it doesn't do very well job on today's Internet.

Modern webpages can happily consume hundreds of megabytes of RAM with css and javascript. Even Microsoft couldn't construct a browser that handled it all very well and have reverted to something based on Chromium for their Edge browser.

[Weaselrama]

Even with iBrowse 2.5.2, Javascript off, you learn pretty quickly where you can go and where you need to avoid. Since it ignores CSS, it's much faster but some pages like mobile Facebook are pretty limited in what you can do and entering text for a comment sometimes requires an external editor. Even EAB is limited in iBrowse, such as the Advanced entry for text and graphics. I've tried navigating EAB with Netsurf and sometimes it's just a question as to when Netsurf will crash when doing so. Pouet isn't too bad in Netsurf at all. In iBrowse, I maintain my bookmarks pretty well so that I know which News sites I can browse without running out of RAM on graphic content.

Which reminds me: Amiga OS3 now has a WebP datatype! It's new and it's up on Aminet. iBrowse and most Amiga apps which process graphics via its datatypes rather than say, Hollywood plug-ins, can take advantage. WebP graphics are much smaller but are PNG quality. We can do what Safari can't. Browsers that can't process WebP get an alternate JPEG or PNG sent if it's available.

[coldacid]

Originally Posted by E-Penguin

Modern webpages can happily consume hundreds of megabytes of RAM with css and javascript. Even Microsoft couldn't construct a browser that handled it all very well and have reverted to something based on Chromium for their Edge browser.

Edge worked pretty well, it's just that the pace of changes with Chromium and the number of sites that sniffed browser agent instead of features lead them to switch over to the latter (with the unfortunate consequence that the web is even more of a monoculture now, in the agricultural/genetic sense).

[Jax]

Nice, thanks