We need an iBrowse replacement for 68k!!!

[wawrzon]

There have been a *lot* of frontend changes since then.

yes, ive been told that.

[Yasu]

Just a quick question: how about a bounty/kickstarter to open source Ibrowse? Since a lot of modern stuff is out of the classic Amigas range, wouldn't it make more sense to concentrate on making web pages look correct, making SSL work properly and such things?

[wawrzon]

@yasu

only if it was really a cheap bounty. ibrowse isnt anymore up to todays standards than aweb is, which already is open. and i doubt that the community needs more bounties for almost worthless code it cannot even maintain after it was opened.

[Madshib]

Has there been any discussion around making iBrowse open? Maybe a Kickstarter to do that would be appropriate?

Trying to learn C now in my free time... so now I realize how long it takes those that know to work on code for the community. I'm making the assumption that most have just as much free time as I do (which is very little)

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

@yasu

only if it was really a cheap bounty. ibrowse isnt anymore up to todays standards than aweb is, which already is open. and i doubt that the community needs more bounties for almost worthless code it cannot even maintain after it was opened.

The only difference is that Aweb is horrible, Ibrowse actually works.  

I know I'd throw in at least a C-note for an updated Ibrowse, am sure a few others would do the same.  Then a bunch more would come along and say "it should be free, blah blah".  The Amiga-wheel goes round-and-round, lol.  

[wawrzon]

aweb is horrible? on what except its gui (which being reaction/classact must be excused)? i didnt use ibrowse in a while, but im not sure if aweb is that much behind, taking todays web standards into account.

therefore i doubt if bounty and putting work into ibrowse is really feasible, because likely it would mean a complete rewrite. the code could be made open for historical reasons, but i wouldnt put any money into it. there is enough and more important project at hand, except someone makes it his personal goal, butr then this would be a private choice.

[utri007]

Just a quick question: how about a bounty/kickstarter to open source Ibrowse? Since a lot of modern stuff is out of the classic Amigas range, wouldn't it make more sense to concentrate on making web pages look correct, making SSL work properly and such things?

Netsurf displays pages correctly.

[Heiroglyph]

I still find iBrowse to be my goto browser on Amiga, but I'm not sure it's worth putting money into just to get it opened. I'd rather pay an active developer for new work on another project.

OWB on MorphOS is pretty awesome. I wish we had a good version of that.

I'm seriously looking into Netsurf at the moment though. It looks like it has potential and some active developers, just not enough.

[Yasu]

Ibrowse works fine on slower Amigas. How slow an Amiga will Netsurf be a joy to use?

[Tenacious]

Just a quick question: how about a bounty/kickstarter to open source Ibrowse? Since a lot of modern stuff is out of the classic Amigas range, wouldn't it make more sense to concentrate on making web pages look correct, making SSL work properly and such things?

This easily makes the most sense to me.  iBrowse was written specifically for the Amiga and to run well in that limited resource environment.  There is no modern bloat to trim away to make it run efficiently on 68k Amiga.

It's been 10 years? since iBrowse was last updated, and in that time no one has managed to  port anything else (from another platform) to 68k Amiga that is half as usable as ibrowse still is today.  Porting and trimming must not be an easy task.

If ibrowse cannot be open sourced, maybe Aweb is the next best option.  I happily used it for years, too.  I used to run Aweb on an A600 with 2 MB of CHIP and 2 MB of FAST and no acceleration.

My 2 cents.

[Heiroglyph]

Ibrowse works fine on slower Amigas. How slow an Amiga will Netsurf be a joy to use?

That's a really good question.

iBrowse to me has the best speed to usability ratio on real 68k Amigas at the moment.

[utri007]

OWB on MorphOS is pretty awesome. I wish we had a good version of that.

I'm seriously looking into Netsurf at the moment though. It looks like it has potential and some active developers, just not enough.

Do you really belive that OWB would be usefull with real amigas? Good version for it for 68k Amigas, I can't imaginet what that would be.

OWB takes 89mb ram just to start.
Netsurf takes 20mb ram just to start.

<- Tested 2 minits ago, without Network connection.

Another thing, I don't understand what you are looked into Netsurf? OR has you looked current 68k version of it??? It is light weight web browser, memory footprint is much smaller than OWB has. It is a multiplatform browser, so it doesn't have just some active developers, it has quite many developers for several operating systems. It displays prety much  every web page correctly. Has a CSS, SSL and Java support, what else you would require?

[Heiroglyph]

Do you really belive that OWB would be usefull with real amigas? Good version for it for 68k Amigas, I can't imaginet what that would be.

OWB takes 89mb ram just to start.
Netsurf takes 20mb ram just to start.

A good version would be one that runs on existing machines and gives similarly compatible results.

Morphos is very usable on the modern internet.

If I need 128MB of RAM to do that, well then I guess I need 128MB like high end Amigas had 20 years ago. It's not a high cost.

Another thing, I don't understand what you are looked into Netsurf? OR has you looked current 68k version of it??? It is light weight web browser, memory footprint is much smaller than OWB has. It is a multiplatform browser, so it doesn't have just some active developers, it has quite many developers for several operating systems. It displays prety much  every web page correctly. Has a CSS, SSL and Java support, what else you would require?

Like I said, I'm looking into it.

Last time I tried to install it, it wouldn't run properly so I blew it off. This discussion sparked an interest.

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

AI guess I need 128MB like high end Amigas had 20 years ago. It's not a high cost.

Haha, wait, what?  I wish!  :angry:

[wawrzon]

the memory may be a problem here, but if its possible to get odyssey running on os4 "classic", then, considering os4 takes about 70mb to run itself and that the 68k executables need half the memory anyway in comparison to ppcm ones, it should be pretty easy to get it run on 128mb amiga, maybe less.

what concerns usability, as it was already said, if aros-owb works on an 060 equipped a4k albeit slow, odyssey should be much more responsive. this sounds as if it *could* be pretty usable.

[Heiroglyph]

Haha, wait, what?  I wish!  :angry:

Seriously, most accelerators can hold 128MB or you can get a Zoram for 3000/4000 for under a hundred bucks and you're not going to get far on the modern web without at least an accelerator card.

If RAM was the problem preventing a decent web browser, it's available and won't break the bank. That's all I'm saying.

IMHO, it's the CPU speed, but I don't think the amount of RAM used is a deal breaker.