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Mozilla Open Source

Mozilla's Abandoned Web Engine 'Servo' is Rebooting in 2024 (itsfoss.com) 56

Posted by EditorDavid from the progress-of-engines dept.
Remember "Servo," Mozilla's "next-generation browser engine," focused on performance and robustness?

"The developers of Servo are starting 2024 by going all in..." reports It's FOSS News, citing a social media post from FOSDEM. "[T]he Servo Project team were there showing off the work done so far." If you were not familiar, Servo is an experimental browser engine that leverages the power of Rust to provide a memory-safe and modular experience that is highly adaptable. After Mozilla created Servo back in 2012 as a research project, it saw its share of ups and downs over the years, with it making a comeback in 2023; thanks to a fresh approach by the developers on how Servo should move forward.

Even though there are plenty of open source Chrome alternatives, with this, there's a chance that we will get some really cool options based on Servo that just might give Blink and Gecko a run for the money! Just a few months back, in September 2023, after The Servo Project officially joined Linux Foundation Europe, the existing contributors from Igalia stepped up their game by taking over the project maintenance. To complement that, at Open Source Summit Europe last year, Manuel Rego from Igalia shared some really useful insights when he presented.

He showcased stuff like the WebGL support, cross-platform support including mobile support for Android and Linux, among other things. They have experimented with Servo for embedded applications use-cases (like running it on Raspberry Pi), and have plans to make advances on it. As far as I can see, it looks like, Servo is faster for Raspberry Pi compared to Chromium. You can explore more such demos on Servo's demo webpage.
2024's roadmap includes "Initial Android support, that will see Servo being made to build on modern Android versions," according to the article, "with the developers publishing nightly APKs on the official website some time in the future."

One fun fact? "Even though Mozilla dropped the experimental project, Firefox still utilizes some servo components in the browser"

Another FOSDOM update from social media: "Thunderbird is also embracing Rust."
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Mozilla's Abandoned Web Engine 'Servo' is Rebooting in 2024 More

Mozilla's Abandoned Web Engine 'Servo' is Rebooting in 2024

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  • And yet (Score:1, Offtopic)

    by quonset ( 4839537 )

    We'll still be harassed day in and day out that there's an update, with no way to turn it off.

    • We'll still be harassed day in and day out that there's an update

      I believe this is the behaviour when downloading the auto-updating Mozilla binary yourself. When using distro packages, the parameter screen says "your browser is managed by your organization" and the special page about:policies has a policy called DisableAppUpdate enabled.

    • Re:And yet (Score:4, Informative)

      by markdavis ( 642305 ) on Sunday February 11, 2024 @06:05PM (#64232690)

      >"We'll still be harassed day in and day out that there's an update, with no way to turn it off."

      That statement is inaccurate.

      1) If you are using a Linux distro, it will be updated through the "normal" process, with ZERO "harassment" inside the browser.

      2) If you are using a Mozilla-downloaded compile under Linux or MacOS, you can turn off auto updates or harassment by setting a $BASEDIR/distribution/policies.json with

      {
        "policies": {
              "DisableAppUpdate": true
          }
      }

      3) If you are using a Mozilla-downloaded compile under MS-Windows, I believe a policy can be set under registry (not sure how to do that, because I don't use MS-Windows).

      I am annoyed Mozilla took away the easy menu option to do so and then later took away the about:config method as well? Yes. But they had what many would regard as reasonable reasons, and left a way to do it, although not as straight-forward.

  • The trolls are shivering, look at the comments so far. OH NO, RUST IS GOOD AND I DON'T LIKE THAT!

    • Why would I shiver? I'm the pro-rust troll.

      https://slashdot.org/comments.... [slashdot.org]

      See?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Mindless adoration for hype does not change the facts. By enough accounts from non-fanatics, Rust is not really that good, but rather cumbersome, unfinished and is still trying to find itself. And that is besides the toxic community. Basing anything important on it is pretty dumb at this time.

  • Being all over the place. That seems to be Mozilla in 2024. They all kind of things and everybody knows none of it will ever come to fruition.

    Up to now, year after year, you had the feeling that Mozilla wasn't terribly focused and wasn't really af the top of their game - if they ever were. But 2024 seems to be the year where utter nonsense, playing "me too" with leaders they have no chance of catching up with and clutching at straws become official company policy.

    • And that's one of the reasons why I'm glad Pale Moon exists.

    • Writing a browser engine is Mozilla's core function. It's the only thing they should be doing without being accused of being all over the place. Also having their products written in rust is "two birds with one stone".

      Regarding rust. For some reason many people think rust is the future (my opinion, or your opinion on rust, do not matter the slightest). Mozilla has a chance to seize (or retain) leadership in something that can bring big revenues from corporates if those can be convinced that rust is good for

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      This could be the thing that saves Firefox. If they have a nice clean browser engine, they can jettison the mess that is the Firefox source code, and build a new browser from a clean start.

      Then other vendors might be interested in actually basing their own browsers off it, like they do with Chrome. It might also mean that Firefox for Android stops sucking so much too.

      It's hard to explain just how awful the current Firefox code is. You have to go look for yourself.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Dwedit ( 232252 )

        Start over again, and then a browser will rise from the ashes like a ... Phoenix?

      • Too bad, to support modern web, you need to implement thousands of inconsistent redundant standards. More and more junk gets added every day, and hardly anything goes away (VRML and Flash being rare major exceptions).

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by dryeo ( 100693 )

      My impression from the summary that it is not Mozilla that is rebooting it, rather the original developers along with Linux Foundation Europe. It is probably MPLv2 licensed so easy for others to take up development. Not sure if the original developers are still employed by Mozilla.
      I do agree that Mozilla seems to have lost their course sometime back, perhaps as far back as Gecko V4 (FF4) when they gave up backwards compatibility and decided to do a release every 6 weeks.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      It looks like they may have finally done something about their absolutely terrible leadership. Maybe they will surve after all, even if that step came very late.

  • But why? (Score:1, Troll)

    by Gravis Zero ( 934156 )

    Why was Servo abandoned in the first place? What aren't we being told?

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Why was Servo abandoned in the first place? What aren't we being told?

      Money. Well, more specifically, in 2020 Mozilla downsized, and the Servo team was considered to be a non-core contributor to the priority of large C-level salaries.

    • Mozilla doesn't have the money to fund its development.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by caseih ( 160668 )

        Haha funny! Mozilla has crazy amounts of money they use for all kinds of non-core initiatives.

    • Re:But why? (Score:4, Informative)

      by nicubunu ( 242346 ) on Monday February 12, 2024 @02:08AM (#64233446) Homepage

      It was abandoned, but then Mozilla developed Quantum, folding into it some Servo features.

  • More rather than same (Score:5, Insightful)

    by markdavis ( 642305 ) on Sunday February 11, 2024 @05:59PM (#64232676)

    >"Even though there are plenty of open source Chrome alternatives"

    There are *ONLY* Google Chromium alternatives to Firefox- all the eggs are in that SINGLE basket for cross-platform browsers. Firefox is the *ONLY* alternative right now.

    >""with this, there's a chance that we will get some really cool options based on Servo that just might give Blink and Gecko a run for the money!"

    Please explain in what way Gecko/Quantum (the current engine) is not up to that task? In overall desktop metrics, it is just as fast, possibly more secure, and certainly as stable. Swapping the engine for another isn't going to change much for the end user, unless you think it will suddenly be much faster, secure, or stable than Chromium. It probably won't be.

    The reason to use and promote Firefox is mostly because it's engine and standards are *NOT* controlled by Google, that they value privacy a lot more, and [although some customization was taken away], it is still FAR more customizable.

    >"2024's roadmap includes "Initial Android support, that will see Servo being made to build on modern Android versions,"

    I would prefer the roadmap be a THIRD active, multiplatform, open-source engine (used by some new browsers) as additional competition, not a replacement for one of the only two being used for the last several years (excluding single-platform Apple). The ecosystem is already very dangerously small.

    • Chromium is based on Webkit (Safari) which is based on khtml (Konqueror). So there are some browsers further up the fork tree.

    • If Mozilla Firefox switches from Mozilla Gecko to Mozilla Servo, why would that bother you?

      Rust is considered to be safe in some conditions where C++ can't be.

      Do you think Mozilla will switch if it's slower, less compatible, or less secure?

      • >"If Mozilla Firefox switches from Mozilla Gecko to Mozilla Servo, why would that bother you?"

        It doesn't really bother me. If there is any reason it might help development, then it might be a good thing.

        >"Do you think Mozilla will switch if it's slower, less compatible, or less secure?"

        I would HOPE not.

      • Gecko, while much improved, still leaks memory badly and Rust is just the ticket to put an end to that.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by dfghjk ( 711126 )

      "The ecosystem is already very dangerously small."

      Yeah, DANGEROUSLY. No hyperbole there.

      Funny how there's absolutely no mention of merit or innovation, not that you care about that. All that matters is who owns it. Dangerously.

      • Re:More rather than same (Score:5, Insightful)

        by markdavis ( 642305 ) on Sunday February 11, 2024 @10:45PM (#64233140)

        >"Yeah, DANGEROUSLY. No hyperbole there."

        It isn't hyperbole. When the overwhelming majority of browsers are a single code base, it makes security much worse. A single exploit can now access much, much more. That isn't the case if there were many more browsers than just 2. It also is dangerous from a "takeover" or "muscling" of what used to be and should be an open process of standards, accessible to many.

        >"All that matters is who owns it."

        No, that isn't ALL that matters, but when it is Google, yes, it matters a lot.

    • Please explain in what way Gecko/Quantum (the current engine) is not up to that task?

      Even more than that: Quantum is newer than Servo

  • Slashdot is somewhat broken in this browser.
    My own websites, which use the Vue3 framework are completely broken. The work just fine in Chrome/Firefox/Edge on Windows, Safari/Firefox/Chrome on Mac, Firefox/Chromium on FreeBSD, Firefox/Chrome on Linux, Chrome on Android and Safari on iOS+iPadOS. They don't work on Safari for iOS 12 on an iPhone 6+.

  • Quantum (Score:3)

    by nicubunu ( 242346 ) on Monday February 12, 2024 @02:04AM (#64233440) Homepage

    Mozilla didn't simply abandon Servo, they used some results of that research project to implement Quantum

  • Servo was spearheaded at Mozilla, then abandoned.

    Now it is hosted by Linux Foundation Europe, and most development happens by Igalia.

  • Mozilla should have stuck with it (Score:3)

    by DrXym ( 126579 ) on Monday February 12, 2024 @08:26AM (#64233872)

    Mozilla got massive performance dividends from moving to a new concurrent CSS engine written in Rust, and Servo was the project to do the same to the layout engine. It might have taken some time to make it work as well as it needed to but Mozilla would have been the primary beneficiary, sporting a robust, performant, efficient engine that would have run rings around other browsers.

    I think servo still has a place, but without that main customer it's going to be hard to make it work as well as it might have if it was powering so many browsers out of the gate.

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