Comment by whywhywhywhy
6 days ago
> in general, I find a little bit distasteful that the only way to build a browser is as a loss leading project for the largest advertising company on the planet
Safari came into the world on a similar timeline so this isn't true
If you look at the code size and feature set of Safari 1.0, it’s really a different universe from 2024. Web browsers have become miniature OSes. They contain multiple 3D rendering stacks (WebGL, WebGPU), hardware-accelerated 2D compositors, multiple languages that JIT optimize into native code (JavaScript, WASM), and require passing test suites with millions of cases. The bar has been raised massively since Safari came out, largely to user’s benefit, and honestly we mostly have Chrome to thank for it.