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visurf-announcement.md (4393B)


  1. ---
  2. title: visurf, a web browser based on NetSurf
  3. date: 2021-09-11
  4. ---
  5. I've started a new side project that I would like to share with you:
  6. [visurf][0]. visurf, or nsvi, is a [NetSurf][1] frontend which provides
  7. vi-inspired key bindings and a lightweight Wayland UI with few dependencies.
  8. It's still a work-in-progress, and is not ready for general use yet. I'm
  9. letting you know about it today in case you find it interesting and want to
  10. help.
  11. [0]: https://sr.ht/~sircmpwn/visurf
  12. [1]: https://www.netsurf-browser.org
  13. NetSurf is a project which has been on my radar for some time. It is a small web
  14. browser engine, developed in C independently of the lineage of WebKit and Gecko
  15. which defines the modern web today. It mostly supports HTML4 and CSS2, plus only
  16. a small amount of HTML5 and CSS3. Its JavaScript support, while present, is very
  17. limited. Given the [epidemic of complexity in the modern web][2], I am pleased
  18. by the idea of a small browser, more limited in scope, which perhaps requires
  19. the cooperation of like-minded websites to support a pleasant experience.
  20. [2]: https://drewdevault.com/2020/03/18/Reckless-limitless-scope.html
  21. I was a [qutebrowser][qute] user for a long time, and I think it's a great
  22. project given the constraints that it's working in — namely, the modern
  23. web. But I reject the modern web, and qute is just as much a behemoth of
  24. complexity as the rest of its lot. Due to stability issues, I finally ended up
  25. abandoning it for Firefox several months ago.
  26. [qute]: https://qutebrowser.org
  27. The UI paradigm of qutebrowser's modal interface, inspired by vi, is quite nice.
  28. I tried to use Tridactyl, but it's a fundamentally crippled experience due to
  29. the limitations of Web Extensions on Firefox. Firefox has more problems besides
  30. — it may be somewhat more stable, but it's ultimately still an obscenely
  31. complex, monsterous codebase, owned by an organization which cares less and less
  32. about my needs with each passing day. A new solution is called for.
  33. Here's where visurf comes in. Here's a video of it in action:
  34. <video src="https://redacted.moe/f/5f0fb143.webm" controls>
  35. Your browser does not support HTML5 video, or webm. Here's a direct link:
  36. <a href="https://redacted.moe/f/5f0fb143.webm">Watch this video</a>
  37. </video>
  38. I hope that this project will achieve these goals:
  39. 1. Create a nice new web browser
  40. 2. Drive interest in the development of NetSurf
  41. 3. Encourage more websites to build with scope-constrained browsers in mind
  42. The first goal will involve fleshing out this web browser, and I could use
  43. your help. Please join #netsurf on irc.libera.chat, [browse the issue
  44. tracker][4], and [send patches][5] if you are able. Some features I have in mind
  45. for the future are things like interactive link selection, a built-in
  46. readability mode to simplify the HTML of articles around the web, and automatic
  47. redirects to take advantage of tools like [Nitter][6]. However, there's also
  48. more fundamental features to do, like clipboard support, command completion,
  49. even key repeat. There is much to do.
  50. [4]: https://todo.sr.ht/~sircmpwn/visurf
  51. [5]: https://lists.sr.ht/~sircmpwn/visurf-devel
  52. [6]: https://github.com/zedeus/nitter
  53. I also want to get people interested in improving NetSurf. I don't want to see
  54. it become a "modern" web browser, and frankly I think that's not even possible,
  55. but I would be pleased to see more people helping to improve its existing
  56. features, and expand them to include a reasonable subset of the modern web. I
  57. would also like to add Gemini support. I don't know if visurf will ever be taken
  58. upstream, but I have been keeping in touch with the NetSurf team while working
  59. on it and if they're interested it would be easy to see that through.
  60. Regardless, any improvements to visurf or to NetSurf will also improve the
  61. other.
  62. To support the third goal, I plan on overhauling [sourcehut's][3] frontend[^1],
  63. and in the course of that work we will be building a new HTML+CSS framework
  64. (think Bootstrap) which treats smaller browsers like NetSurf as a first-class
  65. target. The goal for this effort will be to provide a framework that allows for
  66. conservative use of newer browser features, with suitable fallbacks, with enough
  67. room for each website to express its own personality in a manner which is
  68. beautiful and useful on all manner of web browsers.
  69. [3]: https://sourcehut.org
  70. [^1]: Same interface, better code.