Browsersphere

One of the things I’ve always been fascinated by is the low-level side of web browser development.  I used to look through Mozilla’s source code, take a look at patches that were added to Bugzilla, and try to find anyone on the web who actually did web browser development to get a sense for what it entailed.  Back in the day, getting that type of information was very much so a do-it-yourself kind of venture.  The closest I really came to getting low-level yet consumable details was when I used to follow David Hyatt’s work several years ago.

Having had those experiences in the past helps me appreciate even more the fact that the Chromium community has been publicly exposing details about the “guts” of Chromium in several tech talks posted over at the Chromium Blog.  The tech talks have been archived in video form on YouTube so that anyone interested in the details of Chromium development can find out more about what’s involved.

One video features Darin Fisher, who used to work for Mozilla, talking about The Chromium WebKit API.  In another, Pam Greene covers Chromium WebKit Layout Tests.  In another, Brett Wilson discusses Painting in Chromium.  Last but not least, Eric Seidel, who has worked on both Safari and Chrome, goes in-depth about Rendering in WebKit.

That last video is probably the most interesting to me, simply because it deals with the rendering engine and also unveils a few interesting facts.  For instance, WebKit is made up of almost 2 million lines of code and is developed by about 80 active committers, of which about half work for Google.

If you’re interested in how web browsers are tested, how HTML source gets transformed into what you see on a web page, etc., you’d be doing yourself a favor by checking out the Chromium tech talks.

Tags: Brett Wilson, Bugzilla, Chromium, Darin Fisher, David Hyatt, Developers, Development, Eric Seidel, Mozilla, Pam Greene, Source Code, Tech Talks, Testing, Videos, WebKit

To borrow from Pink Floyd, is there anybody out there?

Ironically enough, Browsersphere has been neglecting the browsersphere a little like Microsoft neglected Internet Explorer earlier this decade.  After all, my last post was way back in June.  However, unlike Microsoft, it isn’t the competition that has jolted this site back to life.  On the contrary, sites like Avencius and Twitter accounts like @AltBrowser have actually made me feel a little bit better about the whole ordeal, knowing that at least someone is out there covering the browsersphere in my absence.  Truth is, the site went dark out of pure laziness on my part.  Well, that and the fact that I’ve been pretty consumed by another project.  Nevertheless, I’m back, and after catching up a bit on what’s been going on, my first order of business is to share a little bit about what’s been tweeted in the browsersphere lately.  So let’s get to it.

• Looks like @ryan45419 is working on his own web browser named iSurfWeb.
• @humancell points out that Firefox and Safari accounted for 79% of all web vulnerabilities in the first half of this year.
• @ByteEye appears to be working on its own web browser as well.
• @erichthewebguy is happy to be seeing Firefox used more and more on TV these days.
• As someone who appears to have given up on Firefox for Chrome on the Mac, @lee_cummings may have coined a new term: “nozilla.”
• @UKTJPR wonders if anyone is willing to give up their web browser for a week.
• @DevJonny points out SRWare Iron, a browser created with the Chromium source code that apparently doesn’t have all the privacy concerns of Chrome.
• @BemusedWolf, who has come up with some colorful names for Firefox and Internet Explorer, might be interested in SRWare Iron.
• @SuperDuperCam had some colorful words to share about Firefox as well.
• @BrowserNews, the creator of the Dolphin3D browser, is touting it as “a better web browser.”
• @mrtech points us to a blog entry about what the Firefox team is doing about crashes and startup time.
• @usingpond wonders if Blackbird, which sells itself as an African American browser, is for real.
• @msacks makes reference to the Lobo browser, which is all-Java and uses a rendering engine called Cobra.
• @waynehastings and @deanq appear to be pleased with Chrome for Mac OS X, with the later giving a parting shot to both Firefox and Safari.
• @chrispy2004 appears to be displeased, however, claiming that Chrome for Mac OS X is the slowest browser he’s used in a long time.
• @GameFreak4321 doesn’t seem all that pleased either.
• @JasonTselentis thanks the “Facebook browser” for finally taking away Internet Explorer’s market share.
• @KileyG wonders what the threshold is for the number of open tabs before someone becomes unproductive.
• @muhanov discovers and shares the fact that the Android web browser doesn’t support FTP.
• @ganetsky wonders how it’s possible that no one has created a web browser named “Bowser.”  Good question!  Though to be fair, some people have referred to IE as the “Bowser” browser.
• @Andrew_James claims to be in “web browser heaven.”  I wonder if Netscape’s there.
• Both @jamienguyenle and @jinkhet refer to Chrome using sexual terms.
• @nicnab asserts that Firefox’s remembering of per-site zoom levels is enough to keep him hooked on said browser.
• @ConduitYourSite wonders what the best Twitter lists for browsers and web-related tools are.
• As I often have, @alex_crawshaw finds it ironic that you need to use a web browser in order to download an alternative one.
• @propstm wonders if IE6 users even realize what they’re missing out on, using such an out-of-date web browser.
• @derickthemacguy says Google Chrome looks like “a Fisher Price version of a web browser.”
• @souravghosh says that Mosaic “is considered the first browser to make the Internet easily accessible to non-techies.”
• @C_Hernandez_ heard that Camino is the fastest browser for Macs and apparently is going to check it out.
• @omegatron laments, as do many I’m sure, the fact that his mom doesn’t know the difference between a web browser and a web page.
• @Allyssen points us to a split-screen browser for the iPhone called iNetDual.
• @ericylai recommends the Bolt browser, which also happens to support a split-screen mode (check out the demo), for those tired of the default Blackberry browser.
• @IHtherapies finds KidZui, a web browser targeted at kids, very cool.
• Even if it’s “a bit slow,” Firefox is still @flyfiddlesticks‘ favorite browser.
• @abhishek tweeted about the Facebooker browser, which is currently available as a release candidate.
• @juandelpozo makes reference to Infinity Web Browser, a web browser for Android.
• @va3stl gave Midori a try.
• @wordtree likes the idea of trying a text-based web browser like Lynx.
• @tr4st recommends Lunascape, the “world’s first and only triple engine browser,” to web developers.
• @sphereinabox wants to know what mobile web browsers, other than Safari, support offline storage.  If geek.com is to believed, it looks like Fennec does, too.
• And finally, @rodhilton loves that Ubuntu lets him use a web browser while the operating system is still installing.

That’s it for Twitter Watch #3.  Believe it or not, Twitter Watch #2 was so long ago that I was still using Summize to search for tweets.

Before I end this post, since we’re on the subject of Twitter, I should mention that Browsersphere is now on Twitter as well.  Just follow @Browsersphere for real-time updates, links to new site content, etc.

Tags: Android, Avencius, Blackberry, Blackbird, Bolt, Chrome, Chromium, Cobra, Dolphin3D, Facebook, Facebooker, Fennec, Firefox, Google Chrome, iNetDual, Infinity, Internet Explorer, iPhone, iSurfWeb, KidZui, Lobo, Lunascape, Lynx, Mac, Microsoft, Midori, Mosaic, Netscape, Performance, Privacy, Rendering, Rendering Engines, Safari, Split-screen, SRWare Iron, Summize, Tabs, TV, Twitter, Ubuntu, Vul, Vulnerabilities

A post at Tombuntu uncovers the fact, for me anyway, that there is a pre-alpha version of Chromium already available for use on Linux.  The following is an excerpt of the author’s review:

Chromium for Linux is pre-alpha software, but farther along in development than I expected. The GTK-based Linux interface looks and works just like Windows interface. The browser rendered sites I tested it with just fine, and I haven’t been able to crash the it yet. Lots of features, such as bookmarks, the options window, and even the about window, are simply…not implemented yet.

The review goes on to say that the tab bar is also missing, making it difficult to do anything with tabbed web pages, but that, like on the Google Chrome Windows counterpart, each tab runs in its own process.

Apparently getting the pre-alpha build is as simple as issuing the following from the command line:

sudo apt-get install chromium-browser

You can read much more about the Chromium build(s) in question over at Chromium on Ubuntu.

Hap-tip to Lim Chee Aun.

Tags: Alpha, Chrome, Chromium, Google Chrome, Lim Chee Aun, Linux, Reviews, Ubuntu, Windows