One Startup's Quest to Take on Chrome and Reinvent the Web Browser (protocol.com) 101
"The web browser is a crucial part of modern life, and yet it hasn't really been revised since the '90s," writes Protocol.
"That may be about to change."
The browser tab is an underrated thing. Most people think of them only when there are too many, when their computer once again buckles under Chrome's weight. Even the developers who build the tabs — the engineers and designers working on Chrome, Firefox, Brave and the rest — haven't done much to them. The internet has evolved in massive, earth-shaking ways over the last two decades, but tabs haven't really changed since they became a browser feature in the mid '90s.
Josh Miller, however, has big plans for browser tabs. Miller is the CEO of a new startup called The Browser Company, and he wants to change the way people think about browsers altogether. He sees browsers as operating systems, and likes to wonder aloud what "iOS for the web" might look like. What if your browser could build you a personalized news feed because it knows the sites you go to? What if every web app felt like a native app, and the browser itself was just the app launcher? What if you could drag a file from one tab to another, and it just worked? What if the web browser was a shareable, synced, multiplayer experience? It would be nothing like the simple, passive windows to the web that browsers are now. Which is exactly the goal.
The Browser Company (which everyone on the team just calls Browser) is one of a number of startups that are rethinking every part of the browser stack. Mighty has built a version of Chrome that runs on powerful server hardware and streams the browser itself over the web. Brave is building support for decentralized protocols like IPFS, and experimenting with using cryptocurrencies as a new business model for publishers. Synth is building a new bookmarks system that acts more like a web-wide inbox. Sidekick offers a vertical app launcher and makes tabs easier to organize. "A change is coming," said Mozilla CEO Mitchell Baker. "The question is just the time frame, and what's actually required to make it happen."
They have lots of different ideas, but they share a belief that the browser can, and should, be more than it is. "We don't need a new web browser," Miller said. "We need a new successor to the web browser."
While he was at the White House, Chief Digital Officer (and Miller's boss) Jason Goldman said something Miller couldn't forget. "Platforms have all the leverage," is how Miller remembers it. "And if you care about the future of the internet, or the way we use our computers, or want to improve any of the things that are broken about technology ... you can't really just build an application. Platforms, whether it's iOS or Windows or Android or Mac OS, that's where all the control is."
Josh Miller, however, has big plans for browser tabs. Miller is the CEO of a new startup called The Browser Company, and he wants to change the way people think about browsers altogether. He sees browsers as operating systems, and likes to wonder aloud what "iOS for the web" might look like. What if your browser could build you a personalized news feed because it knows the sites you go to? What if every web app felt like a native app, and the browser itself was just the app launcher? What if you could drag a file from one tab to another, and it just worked? What if the web browser was a shareable, synced, multiplayer experience? It would be nothing like the simple, passive windows to the web that browsers are now. Which is exactly the goal.
The Browser Company (which everyone on the team just calls Browser) is one of a number of startups that are rethinking every part of the browser stack. Mighty has built a version of Chrome that runs on powerful server hardware and streams the browser itself over the web. Brave is building support for decentralized protocols like IPFS, and experimenting with using cryptocurrencies as a new business model for publishers. Synth is building a new bookmarks system that acts more like a web-wide inbox. Sidekick offers a vertical app launcher and makes tabs easier to organize. "A change is coming," said Mozilla CEO Mitchell Baker. "The question is just the time frame, and what's actually required to make it happen."
They have lots of different ideas, but they share a belief that the browser can, and should, be more than it is. "We don't need a new web browser," Miller said. "We need a new successor to the web browser."
While he was at the White House, Chief Digital Officer (and Miller's boss) Jason Goldman said something Miller couldn't forget. "Platforms have all the leverage," is how Miller remembers it. "And if you care about the future of the internet, or the way we use our computers, or want to improve any of the things that are broken about technology ... you can't really just build an application. Platforms, whether it's iOS or Windows or Android or Mac OS, that's where all the control is."
So yet another data-gathering company? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So yet another data-gathering company? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, of course. The VCs who are funding ventures like this generally have *some* expectation of an eventual return on their investment...
It almost seems like everyone is out of ideas, even though the dream of becoming a tech billionaire is alive and well. I mean, lately, we've been seeing startups who want to reinvent the web browser, reinvent email, and reinvent chat. They can't think of anything new, so they're forced to pitch VCs on the idea they can convince people to pay (one way or the other) for the privilege of replacing an already-functional cross-platform standards-based service with their own locked-in proprietary "solution" (which of course will only "interoperate" with other users on the same proprietary platform).
Google regularly tries to pull off crap like this (hello AMP!), and the only reason anyone pays attention is because Google is big and can attempt to cram it down people's throats. But I'm not sure why we keep seeing these regurgitated press releases from new wannabes.
Re: (Score:3)
Moving towards FOSS and open standards w/o VC (Score:3)
"Well, of course. The VCs who are funding ventures like this generally have *some* expectation of an eventual return on their investment..."
And that is why something transcending the web will probably built more by people engaging in subsistence, gift, or planned (government) transactions/economies instead of the Venture-Capital-involved exchange economy (even as exchange economy transactions like VC emphasizes may play a part).
There are plenty of good ideas out there, but VC is mostly about managing scarci
Saddly, that *is* happening. (Score:2)
the idea they can convince people to pay (one way or the other) for the privilege of replacing an already-functional cross-platform standards-based service with their own locked-in proprietary "solution" (which of course will only "interoperate" with other users on the same proprietary platform).
Saddly, in some area, this business model is working (mostly by leveraging network effect).
Case in point: all the various (but not inter-operatble) modern chat "solutions": Slack, Microsoft Teams, etc.
Whose single only extra feature compared to venerable (and cross-platform, standards based) IRC is that the above work directly in the browser.
Oh, yeah, almost forgot another difference: and IRC chat bots are now called "Apps" for some obscure reason (because Apple made the word cool ?).
Re: (Score:3)
What if we could build a browser that does what chrome does, with a different name and sell shares to stupid investors?
Re:So yet another data-gathering company? (Score:5, Insightful)
What if your browser had an RSS feed in it?
WHERE'S MY BILLION DOLLARS?!?!?!
Re:So yet another data-gathering company? (Score:4, Interesting)
It's even worse than that. What if your browser had a news bubble built right in? No need to even go to Facebook any more to get your world-view warped and distorted, the browser does it for you!
If it ever took off then within a few years you would find terrorists saying that they were radicalized by a web browser instead of Facebook.
Re: (Score:3)
Sorry for them, but someone beat them to it.
BTW writing a web browser from scratch is WAY too much work for any one company. I mean, Firefox is still largely based on the Netscape Navigator code from the 1990's. Their Rust rewrite has only touched about 20% of the code, maybe less. And they have hundreds of developers working on it.
Also, I'm disappointed they're hiring C++ engineers, when anything new should be written in a thread-safe / memory-safe language like
Re: (Score:2)
Firefox is still largely based on the Netscape Navigator code from the 1990's.
Specifically the non-performant, C++ rewrite by recently acquired Collabra (1996). A foundation of sand.
Their Rust rewrite has only touched about 20% of the code, maybe less. And they have hundreds of developers working on it.
God help them. Wait, you said hundreds? WTF? How about 6 competent people instead?
Also, I'm disappointed they're hiring C++ engineers, when anything new should be written in a thread-safe / memory-safe language like Rust.
If they're not going to use Rust, perhaps they could write it in C (like Netscape 1), but go for smallest memory footprint. At least it would be *different* and *interesting*, as opposed to a re-paint.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: So yet another data-gathering company? (Score:2)
Its just vivaldi again.
Theres like 5 browsers like what they describe with an app bar and crapola like that. Control spotify from within the sidebar, have instagram quick chat there and whatever.
Shoot me now (Score:3)
What if your browser could build you a personalized news feed because it knows the sites you go to? What if every web app felt like a native app, and the browser itself was just the app launcher? What if you could drag a file from one tab to another, and it just worked? What if the web browser was a shareable, synced, multiplayer experience?
Considering the shit quality of most web sites today, and the mountains of scripts, css and everything else needed to display a single picture, making a browser more complicated, more bloated, more sucking a golf ball through a garden hose, I'd rather go back to Netscape Navigator 3.5 than deal with this abomination.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I'd rather go back to Netscape Navigator 3.5...
There is no reason not to [seamonkey-project.org]
Re:Shoot me now (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Exactly. Also, making a third party toaster-refrigerator-car-blender is not going improve security is it? It is difficult enough tying everything down with the underlying OS, let alone attempting it with what is obviously going to be a mix of bloatware and spyware.
Kill it with fire.
Re: (Score:1)
To me, it sounds like another site wanting that sweet, sweet analytic trail of what people browse, so they can find a way to monetize it, perhaps sling their own ads like Brave does.
Heck with that. I'm sure some hostile nation-state would love browsing records of journalists and dissidents when yet another massive compromise happens.
We replaced one monopoly with another (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
it is only being used on a few sites of people nostalgic for Geocities rather than a true open web.
By true open web, I presume you mean facebook, instagram, and twitter :)
Re:We replaced one monopoly with another (Score:4, Interesting)
Many geeks rejoiced this month when Microsoft finally retired IE, which ruined the internet since the 90s
IE4 revolutionized the web in 1997. They created DOM based rendering allowing what was known as DHTML at the time to be fully functional. That was the stone on which every web browser is built today. So no, it did not ruin the web since the 90s, it enabled it.
Once they eradicated competition (namely Netscape 4) through simple technical superiority, they stopped investing in it. There was a few releases with half baked mildly good ideas, like SVG, and they stopped at IE6.
It took almost 8 years to Mozilla to get a decent browser to replace the pile of crap that was Netscape Navigator. The first versions were memory and CPU hogs but were so much better in all other aspects to Internet Explorer that it quickly took off - notably with developer tools that we all know today behind the F12 key. This was a revolution for web devs, so every dev used it, and that's when we first saw websites not working properly in IE. Then came Safari, showing that this could be all running in full in a phone in 2007, then Chrome that took over pretty much any platform they could get their hands on - so, everything but the iPhone.
Microsoft reacted slowly, as usual in these cases, by releasing IE7 in 2006, which was another huge pile of crap. IE8 in 2009 started to be decent but it was too late. They had already notably lost the smartphone market and Chrome was already years ahead of them by then - from a technology standpoint, building on the shoulders of Apple.
Re: (Score:2)
They created DOM based rendering allowing what was known as DHTML at the time to be fully functional. [...] So no, it did not ruin the web since the 90s, it enabled it.
Many argued this ruined the internet, and the web browsing experience.
Re: (Score:2)
Chrome deserves more credit. It had two major innovations that were nothing to do with Apple.
First it added the fully sandboxed one-process-per-tab model, which massively improved performance, security and stability. Everything else was slow and clunky in comparison, with one JS heavy tab bringing the whole browser to a crawl and eventually crashing the whole thing.
Second, it pioneered JIT compilation for Javascript and took performance to another level. These days all browsers use JIT and heavily optimized
Re: (Score:3)
Once they eradicated competition (namely Netscape 4) through simple technical superiority,
Bullshit. They eradicated competition by supplying the piece of shit called internet explorer with their OS and using self-developed features for their own web services, thereby nudging users to use their rotten browser.
It is a clear example of the embrace, expand, extinguish tactic which was popular at microsoft at the time.
Re: (Score:2)
They eradicated competition by supplying the piece of shit called internet explorer with their OS and using self-developed features for their own web services, thereby nudging users to use their rotten browser.
IE3 and Netscape 3 were comparable browsers, on Windows. Neither was really worse than the other.
Maybe you were too young to remember this, but IE4 was one generation better than the monumental piece of crap that Netscape Navigator 4 was. Yes, they also bundled it with Windows which might have accelerated the transition, but nobody in their right mind would have chosen Netscape over Microsoft. Netscape 4 was a statically parsed HTML engine, much line IE3 and Netscape 3, meaning that when the browser was don
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Netscape introduced Javascript, both on the client and on the server. IE4 introduced the DOM. Netscape up to its latest version (4.5) did not have the DOM. I was already a web developer back then, and trust me, only IE4 was capable of introducing a DIV in the DOM or dynamically changing anything else than visibility or color. Only the content of input fields could be dynamically changed in Netscape, all because the document flaw was fixed after parsing.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: We replaced one monopoly with another (Score:1)
Re: We replaced one monopoly with another (Score:1)
Didn't read the article but looked bloated (Score:2)
Yep, vaporware that won't go anywhere (Score:2)
I can't see this brain fart getting anywhere soon. The web is too ubiquitous and the concepts described in TFA are just a random jumble of ideas. Change the channel, Marge.
What if we got money? (Score:2)
RSS
Browser sync
Web Assembly
And tabs, somehow, though it doesn't explain how?
Yeah I'm sure yet another web browser is exactly what's needed.
Re: (Score:2)
And tabs, somehow, though it doesn't explain how?
Push tabs. The new popup.
Re: (Score:3)
Yeah I'm sure yet another web browser is exactly what's needed.
And it's crap like this:
"The web browser is a crucial part of modern life, and yet it hasn't really been revised since the '90s"
The fact that something hasn't fundamentally changed in a long time isn't, in itself, a good argument for changing it.
Re: (Score:3)
Not to mention that the browser has changed quite a bit since the 90s.
Re: (Score:2)
Tabs too even; Firefox's container tabs for example.
Re: (Score:2)
Coffee has been a crucial part of modern life for a hundred years or more, and yet it hasn't really been revised since the 1800s.
I think that pretty much covers their argument.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Wrong. In the late 90s a new roast was invented, and single-cup pour-over coffee became all the rage as coffee became a thick chemical sludge where a single sip would coat the inside of your skull and leave an after-taste lingering for a week.
Strangely, the called this new concoction "dark roast" when really it's darker-than-dark and should've had a new name invented for
Re: (Score:2)
This page gives an idea of what the new tabs look like [meetsidekick.com]. I'm not impressed (because I'm old) but I could see it taking off, with the right marketing strategy.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
It's a fucking abomination, I hate this trend of taking away the visual cues that say one area is divided from another because it has a different functional purpose.
Where are the bookmarks? File menu? History? Settings?
And no I won't pay for a browser especially crap like that, get your money from search like everyone else.
New browser - or new privacy rapist? (Score:2)
Seems to be the "browser problem" is already solved - this just wreaks of someone trying to do mass collection of data on users (and to sell to ad agencies/governments).
Re: (Score:2)
"... you can't really just build an application. Platforms, whether it's iOS or Windows or Android or Mac OS, that's where all the control is."
If you want control then you have to build a platform, so they are trying to build a platform.
Re: New browser - or new privacy rapist? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I got this ... (Score:2)
Simply going to reference theshowmecanuck's post [slashdot.org] about the Echo Show watching your house:
Nope no nope nope nope.
It's hilarious that this article is on Slashdot (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:1)
What if my web browser could just stay a fucking web browser?
That is quite simply crazy talk.
"Platforms... that's where all the control is." (Score:4)
Ahem.
History repeats. (Score:4, Interesting)
He sees browsers as operating systems, and likes to wonder aloud what "iOS for the web" might look like.
Predicting Browsers Becoming an Operating System Platform [dzone.com]
In the book, Fire in the Valley, Bob Metcalfe predicts the web browser becoming the common operating system platform of the future. Has this prediction become reality?
The browser and the OS. [theworld.com]
When this happened, the internet, and—especially—the web were suddenly propelled into public awareness. For a brief period of time, there was serious speculation that the web browser would supplant the operating system as the user's primary interface to the computer.
The prospect of this doubtless terrified Microsoft. If users spend all their time inside the web browser, then they don't care what operating system runs underneath it. OEMs are then free to sell computers with competing operating systems, and Microsoft's monopoly evaporates.
Re: (Score:2)
Just what I need, my web handler cranked up to my whole-device handler, this is not an exploitable (this is WITHOUT even turning the conversation to security/malware) concern at all.
Re: (Score:2)
For a brief period of time, there was serious speculation that the web browser would supplant the operating system as the user's primary interface to the computer.
This isn't surprising to me at all.
What surprised me quite a bit is how quickly all data centers converged into AWS.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Well, the original competitor was just normal datacenters. They work fine. Sun had tried to build something like AWS (rented computer time) but obviously they didn't do it as well.
I never got this (Score:2, Troll)
everyone says Chrome is bloated.
At idle, my system (without Chrome open) is using up 2.76GB
When I open Chrome it goes to 3.26GB
When all my favs are open (41 tabs) is jumps to 4.68GB.
I have 64GB in my system.
Granted, I'm not using Windows 10 (but rather Windows 8.1 Industry Embedded Professional) but the point stands that using ~7.3% (if my math is right) of my available RAM, is tiny.
Dunno, someone care to point out what I"m missing?
Re: (Score:2)
In keeping with your moniker did you try that with all blockers off?
Re: (Score:2)
Heh, turning off ad-blockers these days is like going to an orgy without a condom.
So, no, no I didn't.
Re: (Score:2)
Agreed.
Any site that won't let me in until I whitelist them in my adblocker? Bye Felicia.
Re: (Score:2)
I typically have 20-50 tabs open on my 10 year old Linux PC with 8 GB RAM, and Chrome never runs noticeably slow. Background tabs were an issue 5 or 10 years ago, but not today unless you're on a phone.
Re: (Score:1)
My 11 year old Linux PC is fine with 20-50 tabs in Firefox - with 4Gb RAM.
My 4Gb RAM Chromebook (which I'm posting on now) has 70+ tabs open, is fast and responsive - and is also running the Debian Linux container which shows 2.7Gb RAM available.
Yet you get loads of people saying their 16Gb PC is crawling when just browsing with the same number of tabs. I just don't get it. What *are* they doing? Are there some popular websites which I don't use that just eat RAM constantly?
Chrom* (Score:5, Interesting)
>"the engineers and designers working on Chrome, Firefox, Brave and the rest â" haven't done much to them."
Chrome, Brave and "all the rest" are all Chrom*. So really they just mean "Chrom*" and Firefox.
>"Platforms, whether it's iOS or Windows or Android or Mac OS, that's where all the control is."
No, the other part of control is the browser base, itself. And when every multi-platform browser OTHER than Firefox is based on just Chromium (collectively, "Chrom*"), there is a LOT of control in the hands of a single company with a single code base. I am all for browser innovation, but not if it is just putting yet another new face on Chromium.
Re: (Score:2)
... and Webkit.
Re: (Score:2)
>"... and Webkit."
I am not aware of any major (or even just more than minor) multi-platform browser using Webkit. The only real browser using it, Safari, is single-platform (Apple only), and is not open. Even on MacOS it seems most people opt for one of the other two browsers- Chrom* or Firefox.
There is no need for that (Score:3)
No, really not. These people try to reinvent the wheel, when perfectly good wheels are available. The only explanation is that they hope to get rich off it and that never bodes well.
What if?? (Score:5, Insightful)
What if your browser could build you a personalized news feed because it knows the sites you go to?
What if a big slice of that pesky, expensive, server-intensive infrastructure that sends your targeted ads, builds echo chambers to help make you a compliant controllable consumer, and tracks your every move on the Web, could be cheaply distributed among all our computers and browsers?
What if every web app felt like a native app, and the browser itself was just the app launcher?
What if your browser became the one, the only, the unavoidable spyware / paywall / gateway between you and everything on your computer that currently exists as a separate, user-controlled application?
What if you could drag a file from one tab to another, and it just worked?
What if the browser became the common-to-everyone, easily-exploitable chunk of attack-surface real-estate with ready, built-in access to every file and program on your computer?
What if the web browser was a shareable, synced, multiplayer experience?
What if your computer was Jonestown, with a gulp of Kool-Aid just a click away?
Thanks, but no. I'll keep my autonomy; and if I have to walk away from computers to do that, so be it. Sometimes being an old fart has its advantages.
I'll build my own ... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
In fact, forget the blackjack!
Websites should NOT be apps (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
If one considered websites as what they really are... untrusted code, likely with malicious intentions, then the whole idea of browser-as-OS is foolish. Browsers should be like mail programs, where they do not execute anything, or at most, sanitize inputs and allow for basic HTML rendering. Why should a site like FB take so much client CPU and memory? It doesn't really take that much to have two static panes and a scrolling pane. Yes, it is nice to have some stuff done on the clientside, but anything mo
Re: (Score:1)
They're right, the browser does need help (Score:2)
Face it, the browser is the universal client, and has been for some time now. There will always be niche client environments (especially the programmable ones), but for a huge chunk of daily applications work, the browser is what people use.
But the browser has a couple of embedded assumptions about usage patterns that are like burrs in the saddle. Those could definitely go.
Tabs are hard to keep organized, they just become one, long list of things you were doing in no particular order, and since they are lis
Re: (Score:2)
Define "like with like' and how to tell that in pages.
Re: They're right, the browser does need help (Score:2)
Same domain name.
"your browser could build you a personalized news (Score:2)
sounds like Facebubble (Score:2)
A browser feeding me a personalized something?
Sounds like Facebook and is one of the reasons I avoid this company. Use an RSS-Reader.
Just like e-mail (Score:2)
You let me know when you're done inventing the successor to e-mail clients. Then I'll believe you when you say you're inventing the successor to web browsers.
The internet isn't new anymore. We're simply not going to see the routine upheaval that it used to have throughout. There are some very well-established components. Those elements will change just as slowly as established components do in every other industry.
Great idea. I look forward to my grandchildren telling me all about it it forty years. I
Crap (Score:3)
He sees browsers as operating systems, and likes to wonder aloud what "iOS for the web" might look like. What if your browser could build you a personalized news feed because it knows the sites you go to?
Lennart, is that you?
We can call it⦠(Score:2)
That ship has sailed. (Score:2)
Gods I'm tired of this Baroque bullshit. (Score:2)
Just do what I want and then shut the fuck up.
"iOS for the web" (Score:1)
LOL. How about what would web without all the spyware, targeted ads, JavaScript, bloat and all this nonsense about the "apps" would look like?
Spoiler: search for "Gemini protocol".
Tizen (Score:1)
Hardly (Score:2)
"Most people think of them only when there are too many, when their computer once again buckles under Chrome's weight."
200 open tabs that are all refreshing 24/7 in the background every minute are the bane of the web.
OTOH not even a thousand tabs would make my Firefox buckle under Chrome's weight. :-)
Stop amimations (Score:2)
change how people think about browsers altogether (Score:1)
I think we've seen this movie before? :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Been there, discarded that business model (Score:2)
We've already been there and discarded that business model. Repeatedly.
You mean, what if all the different content providers agreed on a standard data format and actual semantic tagging? How would that benefit the existing players? The last thing that Facebook et al. want is for other services to be able to scrape their pages. They go to pretty serious effort to prevent it. Now you want to make a browser tha
Didn't we do this already? (Score:2)
In Active Worlds and Second Life you can share a web browser, video, music stream in a 3D game-like multiuser environment. I forget the name but at some point I had some kind of plugin that created a chat room for every website and you could talk to other people who were browsing it at the time. This was like 15 years ago.
The browser should learn my habits (Score:1)
I want the browser to learn my habits, and I DON'T want my habits shared with advertisers.
And I want popups and ads blocked. ALL OF THEM.
And I am interested in micropayments for good content.
Do that, and I'm interested.
Also the Wheel (Score:1)
the web "what if" game (Score:2)
Well okay, if they're inviting us to play "What if", by list would be something like: