[HN Gopher] Show HN: Dillo 3.1.0 released after 9 years
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       Show HN: Dillo 3.1.0 released after 9 years
        
       As commented before[1], I've been working on the past months to get
       the Dillo back to life and today I'm happy to release the 3.1.0
       version, after almost 9 years since the last one.  [1]:
       https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38847613  During this time:  -
       A new mailing list was created[2] which is beginning to get some
       messages and patches. It is available in gmane via NNTP at
       gmane.comp.web.dillo.devel.  [2]:
       https://lists.mailman3.com/hyperkitty/list/dillo-dev@mailman...  -
       A LiberaPay page[3] which received the first donations (thanks!).
       [3]: https://liberapay.com/dillo/  - Some more bugs where fixed and
       new features where added (details in the release page and/or
       changelog).  Thanks to all the people that contributed with patches
       and tests. Now let's see if we can make it land in some distros!
        
       Author : rodarima
       Score  : 177 points
       Date   : 2024-05-04 20:22 UTC (2 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (dillo-browser.github.io)
 (TXT) w3m dump (dillo-browser.github.io)
        
       | thriftwy wrote:
       | Dillo just shows how fast the web without css, js and fonts is.
       | It loads before you even lift your finger from the keyboard.
        
         | anthk wrote:
         | Dillo supports a minimal amount of CSS. The issue it's mainly
         | JS.
        
           | kristopolous wrote:
           | It'd be interesting to make a "less ambitious" JS in the same
           | way that embedded chips have these less ambitious "dialects"
           | of c and c++.
           | 
           | Like a js-mini that doesn't have the bells and whistles like
           | opengl, bluetooth and midi support
        
             | cxr wrote:
             | That's a category error. JS is a programming language. All
             | the bells and whistles you mention are Web platform
             | gimmicks with APIs accessible to programs written by
             | website authors through JS-level bindings. The
             | language/dialect has little to do with it; you're
             | envisioning a different stack that would require a new
             | browser engine, not a language.
        
             | anthk wrote:
             | It exists, Duktape and Quickjs, but even on bigger browsers
             | the support it's subpar.
             | 
             | Shockingly, edbrowse parses JS pages _well enough_ to login
             | and post in some sites.
        
         | agumonkey wrote:
         | 20 tabs for less than 1MB of RAM. At one point I used it for
         | programming docs browsing.
        
           | cxr wrote:
           | People working on developer docs would do well to make them
           | work well in terminal-based browsers, too. This should be the
           | norm.
        
       | anthk wrote:
       | The coverage on CJK fonts it's still bad, even on supported
       | fonts. Also, a tip: <audio> and <video> tags should be able to be
       | redirected into a media player, or xdg-open.
        
         | rodarima wrote:
         | There are a _lot_ of features waiting to be included in Dillo.
         | We focused on solving bugs first and tried to get as few
         | features as posible to get the 3.1.0 out as soon as posible.
         | 
         | Apart from CJK, there are other issues with fonts that we have
         | to solve too. Feel free to open more issues:
         | https://github.com/dillo-browser/dillo/issues
        
       | goosedragons wrote:
       | Brings back memories. I used to use Dillo on Damn Small Linux on
       | my hand me down laptop with 32MB RAM which even then was a
       | pitiful amount for web browsing.
        
         | rodarima wrote:
         | Check out the gallery: https://dillo-
         | browser.github.io/gallery/index.html
        
       | krylon wrote:
       | Thank you very much!!!
        
       | rogeliodh wrote:
       | btw, "Dillo is a fast and small graphical web browser"
        
       | rodarima wrote:
       | By the way, there is a CSS bug in HackerNews that we discovered
       | today[1] that is causing most of the rules to be wrongly parsed.
       | I'm not sure if hn@ycombinator.com is the proper place to report
       | it.
       | 
       | https://lists.mailman3.com/hyperkitty/list/dillo-dev@mailman...
       | 
       | Here is the bad rule:                   input[type=\"submit\"] {
       | font-family:Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; }
        
         | philipkglass wrote:
         | Yes, email hn@ycombinator.com. Dang is very responsive.
        
         | dang wrote:
         | Should be fixed now. Thanks!
        
           | rodarima wrote:
           | Thanks!
        
           | fallingsquirrel wrote:
           | 5 minute bugfix, on a Saturday no less. Incredible
        
             | Sabinus wrote:
             | Dang is a treasure.
        
       | hanniabu wrote:
       | screenshots?
        
         | iamthejuan wrote:
         | Chuck Home.
        
         | iamthejuan wrote:
         | Click Home.
        
         | rodarima wrote:
         | In the main page: https://dillo-browser.github.io/
         | 
         | And here are more: https://dillo-
         | browser.github.io/gallery/index.html
        
       | floxy wrote:
       | Anyone ever compile a browser with emscripten to wasm? So that
       | you could try out a new browser without having to download and
       | install it? I think that could be genuinely useful in instances
       | like this (try-before-you-buy-browser-in-your-browser), instead
       | of just a recursive curiosity.
        
         | littlestymaar wrote:
         | Please bring a new step of "The birth and death of JavaScript"
         | [1] to the real world (but still not the nuclear war part of
         | it, thanks).
         | 
         | [1]: https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/the-birth-and-
         | death...
        
         | rodarima wrote:
         | This was already asked the last time[1], but I think it would
         | miss the point of Dillo.
         | 
         | [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38853053
        
           | yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
           | In some ways it would miss the _main_ use of dillo, but at
           | the same time if you were going to embed a browser like that
           | surely dillo is a great option precisely because of how light
           | it is.
        
         | bmacho wrote:
         | You probably can't try out a browser in the browser, because of
         | the CORS rules.
        
       | vouaobrasil wrote:
       | I love these minimal browsers. Much better than the modern-style
       | web for sure.
        
       | LAC-Tech wrote:
       | Really cool. Will grab it when it hits the arch repos. Might make
       | a comfy set up where I bookmark some low resource websites and
       | use dillo to browse them. Fond memories from tiny linux distros
       | that ran entirely in a few MB of ram using dillo.
        
         | rodarima wrote:
         | It is orphan in Arch, but I will check tomorrow if I can apply
         | for maintainer. In the meanwhile I have the AUR package[1]
         | dillo-git:
         | 
         | [1]: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/dillo-git
        
       | h4sh wrote:
       | the best dillo experience on macos is probably with
       | https://github.com/crossbowerbt/dillo-plus/ ( I couldn't get
       | dillo to compile easily on macos, it doesn't seem to detect ssl
       | libraries installed on the system)
       | 
       | you can do this to compile it on macos (tested on M1):
       | 
       | install https://www.xquartz.org/ to have X11
       | 
       | brew install fltk libjpeg #you might also need openssl@3 but
       | unsure
       | 
       | git clone https://github.com/crossbowerbt/dillo-plus/; cd dillo-
       | plus
       | 
       | # update the 1.3.8_1 fltk version sed 's/1.3.8_1/1.3.9/g'
       | Makefile.options.MacOS > Makefile.options
       | 
       | make -j8
       | 
       | # find binary in ./src/dillo
       | 
       | maybe someone should make a brew package (for both this and
       | dillo-plus)..?
        
       | rodarima wrote:
       | Forgot to mention that we are also on Fedi:
       | https://fosstodon.org/@dillo
       | 
       | Here are some cherry picks:
       | 
       | - Dillo on the Kindle:
       | https://fosstodon.org/@dillo/112181258739093008
       | 
       | - Dillo on an old Samsung phone:
       | https://fosstodon.org/@dillo/112327798958777998
        
         | mikae1 wrote:
         | Stupid (and unthankful) question perhaps, but have you
         | considered working on https://ladybird.dev instead? Kling and
         | the small team seem to be making great progress.
        
           | rodarima wrote:
           | AFAIK, Ladybird goal is to build an independent web browser
           | from scratch that can render the "modern" web.
           | 
           | Dillo original goal[1] is to provide access to the web to
           | places with very bad internet speed or latency as well as old
           | or resource constrained computers.
           | 
           | [1]: https://dillo-browser.github.io/old/interview.html
           | 
           | I don't think we will ever implement JS support, as that
           | would increase a lot the minimum requirements to run Dillo
           | and make the attack surface on the browser much bigger.
        
       | kome wrote:
       | I loved Dillo! great to see new activity
        
       | 627467 wrote:
       | TIL of Spartan Protocol. I love Dillon, how is it handling modern
       | security features like new versions of TLS or SSL?
        
         | rodarima wrote:
         | > TIL of Spartan Protocol
         | 
         | You can browse spartan pages with a Dillo plugin[1], as well as
         | Gopher, Gemini and others.
         | 
         | [1]: https://dillo-browser.github.io/#plugins
         | 
         | > how is it handling modern security features like new versions
         | of TLS or SSL
         | 
         | We support OpenSSL 1.1 and 3 (and any other API-compatible),
         | LibreSSL and mbedTLS 2 and 3. You can choose the one you
         | like/trust more at link time.
        
         | Whitespace wrote:
         | It's in the changelog summary:
         | 
         | > Add support for OpenSSL, LibreSSL and mbed TLS for HTTPS,
         | which is now enabled by default.
        
       | Palomides wrote:
       | how does dillo compare with netsurf? I've been considering
       | porting netsurf to an unusual platform, but if dillo has
       | substantially better handling of modern pages, I might use it
       | instead
        
         | rodarima wrote:
         | What prevents you from doing some tests? We have seen Dillo
         | running in a lot of old and not very common machines (Atari),
         | so you may have some work already done.
        
         | SahAssar wrote:
         | Are you also considering ladybird?
        
       | cxr wrote:
       | From <https://dillo-browser.github.io/dillo.org.html>
       | 
       | > we have setup a new website based on GitHub pages (so hopefully
       | it won't dissapear soon)
       | 
       | Why cede control of your namespace to GitHub, though? You can
       | host stuff on GitHub Pages without having to go through github.io
       | to get there. Just grab another (cheap) domain and set up a CNAME
       | record to point to GitHub Pages.
        
         | rodarima wrote:
         | Because I considered it a good starting point as I can place a
         | redirect notice there if we move to another place, without
         | worrying we will lose the DNS again. If you want to help, feel
         | free to do so :-)
        
         | fn-mote wrote:
         | > Just grab another (cheap) domain
         | 
         | The post explains how they lost their long-held domain name. At
         | least GitHub won't dry up and blow away if you miss a payment.
         | 
         | They're all cheap at the start... and do not necessarily stay
         | that way.
         | 
         | The very end of the post makes it clear this is a temporary
         | situation.
        
       | riffic wrote:
       | Again I love how posts like these have no context what a Dillo
       | is. While it's not hard to find that info out on my own, it could
       | have also been done by the poster.
       | 
       | kudos on shipping code I guess.
        
         | bckr wrote:
         | You could have used this comment to tell us what it is.
         | 
         | It's a minimalistic web browser that works on low powered
         | machines
         | 
         | https://dillo.org/
        
           | rodarima wrote:
           | Please don't link to dillo dot org, see: https://dillo-
           | browser.github.io/dillo.org.html
        
         | rodarima wrote:
         | TLDR: Dillo is a fast and small graphical web browser. It kind
         | of died in 2017 and this is the first release after 9 years
         | from the last one.
         | 
         | You can read the main website for more details[1].
         | 
         | [1]: https://dillo-browser.github.io/
         | 
         | And the release page[2], which explains a bit of the history of
         | the project and the current state.
         | 
         | [2]: https://dillo-browser.github.io/latest.html
        
       | zem wrote:
       | awesome work! dillo used to be my standard documentation browser
       | when projects started using html for their docs, it was snappy
       | and opened files almost instantly
        
         | rodarima wrote:
         | You may like this plugin[1] to read _local_ man pages as
         | properly formated HTML pages.
         | 
         | [1]: https://github.com/dillo-browser/dillo-plugin-man
         | 
         | More plugins: https://dillo-
         | browser.github.io/index.html#plugins
        
           | zem wrote:
           | nice :) thanks for the pointer
        
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       (page generated 2024-05-04 23:00 UTC)