[HN Gopher] Vox: Alpha open-source browser engine in V
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Vox: Alpha open-source browser engine in V
Author : freediver
Score : 50 points
Date : 2024-01-04 20:00 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (vox.sx)
(TXT) w3m dump (vox.sx)
| thewafflelord wrote:
| Comparing Browser speed with JS disabled is like comparing car
| speed without tyres.
| Scaevolus wrote:
| V's main draw is absurd vaporware claims.
| karmakaze wrote:
| > Vox: Upcoming open-source...
|
| So no source yet, only the HN demo render. I might pay
| attention when the open _source_ is published and can at
| least pass Acid3 tests and works on _all_ the site I visit,
| not only the simplest one.
| pityJuke wrote:
| It is surprising the amount of claims (well, future promises)
| on here for a project that is clearly getting off the ground.
|
| Compare it to Ladybird's [0], where it is nice and simple.
| They're building a browser, but they're not ready yet.
| There's no claims as to the future.
|
| It should already be cool enough that you're building a brand
| new web engine. There is no need for claims about
| performance, ad blocking or vertical tabs, when you're
| nowhere near there.
|
| [0]: https://ladybird.dev/
| Y_Y wrote:
| What a beautiful car analogy.
|
| Anyway it uses V8 just like all the other Chrome-alikes, so it
| should have the same performance there.
| freediver wrote:
| > What a beautiful car analogy.
|
| Almost but not quite.
|
| Web worked just fine without JS and to some extent still does
| (this site for example). So a better analogy would be
| something cars were fine without, but now have it and it
| improves experience (and sometimes bloats it eg one more
| thing to break).
|
| Electric windows, seat heaters, GPS, come to mind.
| debugnik wrote:
| But you can drive on any road without those, while you
| simply can't use much of the web without JS. I don't think
| there's a good car analogy.
| nkali wrote:
| Things are more complicated than that, I'm afraid. Lots of
| CPU time (and browser complexity) is spent on DOM/CSSOM
| bindings and the way browser engine handles updates/redraws.
| ehsankia wrote:
| Not only that, but from the screenshot of Hackernews (which
| itself is an extremely simple website), it seems like it can't
| even do very basic HTML/CSS rendering either yet. It probably
| doesn't even pass ACID 1.
| rvz wrote:
| My goodness, calm down. The author just said it is in
| 'alpha'.
|
| What did the author ever do to you?
| klyrs wrote:
| > What did the author ever do to you?
|
| Made incredible claims, did not fulfil them. Ergo,
| heightened scrutiny.
| yboris wrote:
| Built in V: https://github.com/vlang/v
|
| > [the V language is a] simple, fast, safe, compiled language for
| developing maintainable software. Compiles itself in <1s with
| zero library dependencies.
| raquelmir wrote:
| So it's an another Chrome-based browser?
| garciasn wrote:
| Not according to the link. But I didn't look at the code.
| pwg wrote:
| Per the bottom of the article, there is not yet any code that
| anyone (besides the current author) can look at:
|
| > Source code release in 2024.
| ehsankia wrote:
| It's not a browser, it's a browser engine. So it would be a
| replacement for Chrome's engine (Blink) or Firefox's (Quantum).
| iamthirsty wrote:
| > Using Hacker News as a test (JS disabled):
| 20x faster rendering than Chrome (3ms vs 60ms) 4x less
| RAM usage than FireFox 40% less CPU usage than FireFox
|
| I would hope that the browsers tested against also had JS
| disabled.
|
| Although regardless, I don't think it's an amazing comparison
| tool, being that most of the web uses JS.
| cornedor wrote:
| > Although regardless, I don't think it's an amazing comparison
| tool, being that most of the web uses JS.
|
| Add to that that most features to render Hacker News correctly
| are not implemented.
| jefftk wrote:
| Nice to see another browser engine project!
|
| For all the apparent diversity in full-featured browsers, right
| now they're all running on one of Gecko, WebKit, or Blink. And
| Blink started as a WebKit fork. If this succeeds we'll be up to
| four!
|
| (Possibly you could also count Flow, though I haven't heard
| anything from them recently.)
| pakyr wrote:
| There's also SerenityOS LibWeb/Ladybird[0], which is very
| active, though I wouldn't say they've made it to being daily
| drivable yet.
|
| [0]https://ladybird.dev/
| hypeatei wrote:
| > source code releases in 2024
|
| Can anyone from the Vox team provide a rough date?
| munificent wrote:
| Looks [1] like it's created by Alexander Medvednikov, who is also
| the creator of V.
|
| I have no dog in this fight, but V and its author have a somewhat
| storied history because the language's documentation made very
| strong claims around performance, safety, and the state of the
| language that may or may not have reflected reality.
|
| Some previous discussions:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20229632
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20250990
|
| https://mawfig.github.io/2022/06/18/v-lang-in-2022.html
|
| https://github.com/vlang/v/issues/35
|
| https://christine.website/blog/v-vaporware-2019-06-23/
|
| https://christine.website/blog/v-vvork-in-progress-2020-01-0...
|
| Again, I'm not taking a side one way or the other, nor am I
| endorsing any particular interpretation, but I think it's
| relevant history.
|
| [1]: https://github.com/vlang/vox-browser
| lylejantzi3rd wrote:
| I'd love it if we could have a single story that's even
| somewhat tangentially related to V not devolve into rehashing
| the past. Let it go.
| debo_ wrote:
| V is for Vendetta, I've been told.
| nulld3v wrote:
| I think if VLang was indeed stable or if it delivered on some
| of its promises it would be justified to stop nitpicking
| flaws.
|
| But the language unfortunately remains unstable to this day.
| There are memory leaks with very basic things (e.g. readline,
| reading from maps) that are still being fixed as recently as
| half a year ago: https://github.com/vlang/v/issues/18009,
| https://github.com/vlang/v/issues/19454
| mtlynch wrote:
| The creator of V repeatedly appears on HN with incredible
| claims about a new thing they're going to supposedly release
| soon.
|
| I don't think it's "rehashing the past" to point out that a
| person's new incredible claim is suspect, given a history of
| making incredible claims in the past without actually
| delivering.
| lylejantzi3rd wrote:
| > I don't think it's "rehashing the past" to point out that
| a person's new incredible claim is suspect, given a history
| of making incredible claims in the past without actually
| delivering.
|
| Yes, it is. You literally used the words "in the past." If
| you don't like his new browser engine, fine, but repeating
| this two minutes hate every time one of his projects gets
| posted on HN is self defeating and toxic.
| mtlynch wrote:
| I would agree that people are giving Medvednikov an
| unreasonably hard time if he learned from his mistakes,
| but everyone kept bringing up his past anyway.
|
| But it just seems like Medvednikov keeps repeating the
| same patterns over and over. He's making dubious claims
| about software without sharing how he arrived at those
| claims, and he's calling something open-source when he
| hasn't released the source.
|
| Why should people who know about this pattern stay silent
| and allow others to be misled by the same patterns?
| lylejantzi3rd wrote:
| > He's making dubious claims
|
| That's your opinion. I don't agree with that
| characterization of him or his projects at all. It's a
| convenient way to give yourself some cover for attacking
| a creator you don't like.
| unclad5968 wrote:
| Well considering he's still making wild claims like rendering
| 20x faster than chrome, it doesn't seem like it's in the past
| unfortunately.
| Gualdrapo wrote:
| > A settings option to have vertical tabs.
|
| How come it's the browser engine who deals with that and not the
| browser itself?
| pakyr wrote:
| They also say things like "Efficient built-in ad blocker Based
| on Ublock Origin" and "Keyboard navigation Vim bindings", so I
| think they're developing both a new browser and a new engine
| for the browser to use, and kind of conflating the two when
| discussing features on their home page.
| gumballindie wrote:
| If this browser does what it claims it will spread like fire.
| Congrats on the initiative!
|
| Edit: Tried it in Proton on Linux. Renders 20x at least slower
| than any other browser.
| Frajedo wrote:
| Won't have a lot of Spanish users (Vox is a far right Spanish
| political group...)
| eggy wrote:
| That would be ridiculous. Vox is Latin for "voice" and has been
| used widely for a lot more than your reference. I am fluent in
| Spanish and lived there in the late 80s, but I have been out of
| touch, so this is the first I've heard of it. People use the
| word 'trump' all the time. Context and intelligence are needed
| in discourse.
| smalu wrote:
| And its also the name of American news site (vox.com), Polish
| furniture company (vox.pl)...for every major gtld, the vox.* is
| taken for something...Do not event start with the fruit nammed
| _apple_.
|
| Context is the King, like @eggy said.
| cp9 wrote:
| well, the V hello world example still leaks memory like a sieve
| so, that's probably bad news for a browser engine
| pityJuke wrote:
| I wonder the developers' chat app from what feels like 5 years
| ago will ever come out [0]. (edit: it's 6 years, according to the
| HN thread I found it on! [1]).
|
| By the way, you should really close that Patreon (which in
| fairness isn't generating much income), considering Volt is
| clearly never coming out or being developed on, and you have
| another Patreon for your language!
|
| [0]: https://volt-app.com/
|
| [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14778263
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(page generated 2024-01-04 23:01 UTC)