Timeline announcement for public beta of new Otter Browser....

[Roderick Klein]

Hi Ivan, playing with it on Linux, it is not very configurable, currently has no support for extensions though I believe support is planned and comes with its own ad blocker which seems to work. Not sure about tab re-positioning, at least they're along the top like our current browsers.

Hi Dariusz, we don't all have a spare Windows or Linux machine to use. As for funding, I don't think there are any big fish who care about having a browser left besides Arca Noae and I had the impression they and Bitwise don't get along as well as they used to, not that I really know.
I fully expect a lot of people will continue to use the Mozilla browsers along side the new one, perhaps eventually fully migrating, perhaps not. Still need to do email etc too.

Hi Roderick, unluckily we'll be back to not being supported on a lot of sites due to the speed of Browser development and can't even fall back to work arounds in add-ons like the XUL based browsers are doing. The XUL based ones also have a larger user base to pressure sites like GitHub to revert changes that affects them like the recent chaining operator thing, which at least the Simple Browser gets a 4/5 for supporting.
Site showing compatibility, https://kangax.github.io/compat-table/es2016plus/ which our old browsers fail badly, the Simple Browser does support up to 2020 JavaScript standards.
The continuing problem is crappy web developers who just plug in JS libraries, test on a couple of browsers and call it done instead of testing for features and having fall backs. We're supposed to update every month now a days
Hopefully the QT people keep supporting the QT5 web engine as it is hard to imagine the shrinking community being able to pay for porting current QT6

Hello Dave,

I know the Otter Browser will need updating over time. As I described in the newsletter 13 on articles.os2voice.org, the idea is a subscription model for the browser. This way we hope to raise more money so Dmitry from BWW can work on updates and new features. Such as possibly adding USB webcam support to the Otter Browser. I think the Open Office donation model is a good approach.

If have heard more complaints of web standards getting more and more complex. I can no longer find the URL, but the main developer
of Pale Moon complaint in a forum posting about the influence of Google. But if this trend can be stopped longterm, I doubt that.
I am afraid that Github is an isolated case where people got lucky. I hope I am wrong...

I do not understand you statement about XUL based browsers. It seems it has small marketshare.
https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share (about 4% marketshare, maybe slightly more).
I hope I am wrong, but I am afraid the XUL based browser will loose more influence in the web standards.
The big guys sadly decide what happens to web standards.

If you want to discuss it, I suggest to open another thread on os2world.com. You know my concern for long time.
That is that I do not know how long it will remain possible to backport fixes to the Mozilla suite that we have currently ?
Is it already not getting harder ?

There is a thread on os2.org I understand (in German) about people not being able to access certain banks in Germany.
Two Dutch OS/2 users reported recently that https://mijn.ing.nl/login/ no longer works. I am not saying you are not doing good work Dave.
But I have the impression it will get more and more difficult to keep up...

As for the funding. I know our community is getting smaller. I have tried to make an estimate how big our user base is.
I tried to base that on the IP addresses from rpm.netlabs.org. That was largely intended to get somewhat of an impression
how many people we have in the community.  Some people thought the numbers made no sense, but this is from what I remember.

Having worked on eCS for 10 years I can state I know a lot of customers do not visit the forums on frequent basis.
Keep an eye on articles.os2voice.org and how many people fill in the poll ? Right now at 60. 
My estimate is that we have a between few thousand *private* OS/2 users left, maybe closer more ?
Hard to say. As a lot of users do not come on the forums on a regulair basis!

I can not look into the future, the new browser is now close to getting over the finish line as public beta.
My estimate the community is big enough.

Roderick Klein

[Dariusz Piatkowski]

Dave,

...Hi Dariusz, we don't all have a spare Windows or Linux machine to use...

You know, I had a crazy idea at lunch today on this very topic: I should find the smallest factor Winx hardware box, so that it basically can work as a headless 'app server' for the sole purpose of providing the kind of app functionality we have been missing on our platform for quite some time, and most likely will never see again.

Browser is a perfect example of this, and while I personally prefer FF, heck, others may want to use Chrome.

...As for funding, I don't think there are any big fish who care about having a browser left besides Arca Noae and I had the impression they and Bitwise don't get along as well as they used to, not that I really know...

Well, this "big fish" reference, while I think today that may in fact exclusively apply to AN, was meant to apply to any business that still has the need for updated OS/2 browser functionality.

I make no assumptions about what our OS/2 platform looks like today...nor am I particularly optimistic that out there is some organization that has deep pockets and wishes to continue doing what all of us have been doing. But does anyone today actually know the true picture of our ENTIRE OS/2 installed base?

Dave, I do agree with you re: AN's direction, or perhaps lack thereof. Having said that, they have done some incredible things with AOS that it's hard to 'blame' them for lack of browser strategy...although I think everyone will agree that it is a very questionable position to be in.

[Dariusz Piatkowski]

Hekki,

I can use my internet bank with Simple Browser. It is slow and crashes often, but it doesn't leak shared memory like FreeRDP.

Have you ever tried troublshooting that FreeRDP memory leak?

I have and I suspect due to lack of know-how wasn't able to produce real results. But yes, I do see this here and it's the only -ve to that approach.

[Dave Yeo]

Hi Roderick,
By the XUL browsers, they're mostly forks of Firefox, PaleMoon and friends that use the Goanna (forked Gecko from 52ESR) engine, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goanna_%28software%29 and of course SeaMonkey, and you're right, they have very little user base, probably less then 1%.
It's a crappy situation with Google controlling the standards it seems now, the only saving grace is Safari as Apple, especially their small devices is a market that can't be ignored.
As for the funding, the subscription model should work as long as the QT folks support the QT5 Web stuff, afterwards, who knows.

[Wim Brul]

Two Dutch OS/2 users reported recently that https://mijn.ing.nl/login/ no longer works.

Make that three. It happened in december last year and I had to make up my mind on what to do. Must I buy a smartphone, laptop, desktop and learn how to operate that? Which one? What operating system? All my systems are OS/2 based. It is all I know. No linux, Mac, Windows. Bills and taxes had to be paid! So after searching the internet and making up my mind I ended up buying a windows 11 laptop at the local computer shop.         

[Jan-Erik Lärka]

Hello,

Sweden must be "ahead" of most of the world as it seems, as almost everyone once upon a time agreed on "windows" and with that also accepted to update toward a promize all the time. Many sites these days refuse to let one in if one fall behind the browser updates the slightest. Even what appear as plain text sites tend to check and require only new browers. The exception is ... OS/2 World.
The banks here in Sweden, phone compaines, ... you name it, forcefully stop the use of old and not so old FF for quite some time now, even though there are no visible updates that should require such restrictions.

I've had time to prepare for the transition, thus installed the extension in FF to install other extensions and export passwords, bookmarks etc. and await to see if the new browser perhaps can use url wps objects as bookmarks, allow one to write scripts to import passwords etc.

I don't use Mac nor Linux... and don't intend to, but find the idea to connect to another system, even inside a virtual box, and project an application window to the OS/2 system, appealing. An harvesting application that send over the application resources and redirect drawing commands to the other side... but that might just be what rdp (resource+draw command) is about, compared to vnc (image)?

The latest release of WebCam work great on my system btw, though a bit grainy when used in the dark, so there might even be something to look forward to there later on.

[Roderick Klein]

Two Dutch OS/2 users reported recently that https://mijn.ing.nl/login/ no longer works.

Make that three. It happened in december last year and I had to make up my mind on what to do. Must I buy a smartphone, laptop, desktop and learn how to operate that? Which one? What operating system? All my systems are OS/2 based. It is all I know. No linux, Mac, Windows. Bills and taxes had to be paid! So after searching the internet and making up my mind I ended up buying a windows 11 laptop at the local computer shop.       

Open a ticket at AN.

Roderick Klein

[Roderick Klein]

Hi Roderick,
By the XUL browsers, they're mostly forks of Firefox, PaleMoon and friends that use the Goanna (forked Gecko from 52ESR) engine, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goanna_%28software%29 and of course SeaMonkey, and you're right, they have very little user base, probably less then 1%.
It's a crappy situation with Google controlling the standards it seems now, the only saving grace is Safari as Apple, especially their small devices is a market that can't be ignored.
As for the funding, the subscription model should work as long as the QT folks support the QT5 Web stuff, afterwards, who knows.

There is rough estimate how long it would take to port QT 6 to OS/2. The big chunk of work was going from 4.68 QT to the 5.12 version.
Why can QT6 not be ported to OS/2 ?

Roderick Klein

[Andreas Schnellbacher]

Sweden must be "ahead" of most of the world as it seems, as almost everyone once upon a time agreed on "windows" and with that also accepted to update toward a promize all the time. Many sites these days refuse to let one in if one fall behind the browser updates the slightest. Even what appear as plain text sites tend to check and require only new browers.

No, there's only one Internet and the differences between states decrease. It's same here in Germany.

The exception is ... OS/2 World.

Sure, and a few others. Additionally, some can be made work by switching JavaScript off or by using an add blocker. But there are not many sites that work completely.

[Dave Yeo]

There is rough estimate how long it would take to port QT 6 to OS/2. The big chunk of work was going from 4.68 QT to the 5.12 version.
Why can QT6 not be ported to OS/2 ?

Roderick Klein

Be good if it can be ported and it is a simpler process then porting QT5. My biggest worry about this stuff is how 64 bit is more and more of a requirement.

[mike]

I will check Dmitry from Bitwise Works. But I seem to recall the Falkon browser would even be more work, because we need yet another library and would take more time to port.

The reason is simple: Falkon (as opposed to its predecessor Qupzilla) is KDE based. So, besides Qt, it also requires a recent version of KDE Framework (KF5) to build. It is a huge project and it is a very complex task to port it it to OS/2.

There is an option to build a qt based version without the additional KDE dependencies. In case the KF5 build system/framework needs to be ported as well its too much work, true.

[Paul Smedley]

XDA article on the new browser https://www.xda-developers.com/otter-browser-os2/?fbclid=IwAR0v8AI-hdwt38XWY1CB9b2mQ6TJVk0LkTYCCIaGPxGLtDOtWaAwQO-kMFI