OS2 World Community Forum

OS/2, eCS & ArcaOS - Technical => Internet => Topic started by: guzzi on August 07, 2019, 09:50:17 pm

Title: The new browser / QT5
Post by: guzzi on August 07, 2019, 09:50:17 pm
It looks like a beta release of QT5 is imminent. Days rather then weeks away (my assessment, https://github.com/bitwiseworks/qtbase-os2/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aopen+sort%3Aupdated-desc). Pretty much on schedule. Once the retail version is complete work on the browser proper can start. A lot of people have sponsored this project, either directly to BWW or through VOICE. Please, keep sponsoring. Beside the browser a lot of other application will become available in more recent versions with this port of QT5. i.e. qBittorrent. I think Tellie is already waiting impatiently to start porting newer QT apps to our platform). A little bird whispered in my ear that the Falcon browser  might be available as early as November.



Sponsoring: http://www.os2voice.org/membership.html#bww
Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: Martin Iturbide on August 07, 2019, 10:58:25 pm
Don't forget the Bitwiseworks link to donate (https://www.bitwiseworks.com/shop/index.php?id_product=56&controller=product&id_lang=1).  ;D

Or you can also use Paetron to donate monthly (https://www.patreon.com/bwwbitwiseworks).

Regards
Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: ivan on August 07, 2019, 11:15:49 pm
Maybe I missed something but what browser is this and will it use addons like noscript and adblock plus?
Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: guzzi on August 07, 2019, 11:42:51 pm
https://www.falkon.org/about/
Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: David Graser on August 08, 2019, 04:29:59 am
It looks like a beta release of QT5 is imminent. Days rather then weeks away (my assessment, https://github.com/bitwiseworks/qtbase-os2/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aopen+sort%3Aupdated-desc). Pretty much on schedule. Once the retail version is complete work on the browser proper can start. A lot of people have sponsored this project, either directly to BWW or through VOICE. Please, keep sponsoring. Beside the browser a lot of other application will become available in more recent versions with this port of QT5. i.e. qBittorrent. I think Tellie is already waiting impatiently to start porting newer QT apps to our platform). A little bird whispered in my ear that the Falcon browser  might be available as early as November.

Sponsoring: http://www.os2voice.org/membership.html#bww

I made a 80x80 PNG icon and an OS/2 256 color icon.
Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: Roderick Klein on August 08, 2019, 12:30:59 pm
Maybe I missed something but what browser is this and will it use addons like noscript and adblock plus?

The Firefox addons will not work with the Falcon browser. As I explained already is that the Falcon browser is one of the browsers we can port with the new QT libraries. 80 to 90% of the code the QT based browser use is in the QT framework.

I installed Facon for now on Windows box to see what it is like, screenshot of the extensions:
https://www.dedoimedo.com/images/computers-years/2018-1/falkon-extensions.png
They have an adblock extension.

Firefox/Seamonkey based browsers are effectively running at the end of the railwayline on OS/2.
We do not have the RUST compiler on OS/2 and it seems the kernel does not provide enough virtual adress space to run the compiler on OS/2. Also Firefox has been a nightmare to keep the ports up to date by BWW. (To many changes).

https://html5test.com/
Firefox 45 on OS/2 gets 400 out of 555 points scored.

Falcon gets 525 out of the 555 points.

Expected beta of Falcon in October or November of this year.

Roderick Klein
President OS/2 VOICE
Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: Eugene Tucker on August 09, 2019, 12:47:57 am
Thank you for the update Roderick.
Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: Dave Yeo on August 09, 2019, 01:35:38 am
Maybe I missed something but what browser is this and will it use addons like noscript and adblock plus?

The Firefox addons will not work with the Falcon browser. As I explained already is that the Falcon browser is one of the browsers we can port with the new QT libraries. 80 to 90% of the code the QT based browser use is in the QT framework.

I would have thought the newer web extensions that Firefox, Chrome etc support would work for most QT browsers.
Quote
I installed Facon for now on Windows box to see what it is like, screenshot of the extensions:
https://www.dedoimedo.com/images/computers-years/2018-1/falkon-extensions.png
They have an adblock extension.

Firefox/Seamonkey based browsers are effectively running at the end of the railwayline on OS/2.
We do not have the RUST compiler on OS/2 and it seems the kernel does not provide enough virtual adress space to run the compiler on OS/2. Also Firefox has been a nightmare to keep the ports up to date by BWW. (To many changes).

https://html5test.com/
Firefox 45 on OS/2 gets 400 out of 555 points scored.

Falcon gets 525 out of the 555 points.

A lot of those failures will also happen on Falcon for OS/2. Things that depend on OS support are most of the failures. Luckily some important ones should work, better scripting support hopefully, same with web applications and web components.
Quote
Expected beta of Falcon in October or November of this year.

Roderick Klein
President OS/2 VOICE
Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: Dave Yeo on August 09, 2019, 08:27:11 am
This iseems to be the falkon web browser, previously known as Qupzilla, that Roderick is talking about, not falcon. Seems to be a KDE browser so I wonder if Bitwise is planning on porting part of KDE or if it'll run with just QT. Have to test.
Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: Olafur Gunnlaugsson on August 09, 2019, 02:36:11 pm
This iseems to be the falkon web browser, previously known as Qupzilla, that Roderick is talking about, not falcon. Seems to be a KDE browser so I wonder if Bitwise is planning on porting part of KDE or if it'll run with just QT. Have to test.
If the Windows port is anything to go by it just needs QT, but similarly to Chromium based browsers the built in adblocker slows it down considerably.
Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: ivan on August 09, 2019, 10:05:26 pm
They not only need a fast configurable ad blocker but a javascript blocker is a necessity considering the number of exploits that are delivered through javascript.  Without those two it is going to be almost useless (I would not let it near anything like internet banking and other sensitive sites).
Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: Olafur Gunnlaugsson on August 10, 2019, 04:35:10 pm
They not only need a fast configurable ad blocker but a javascript blocker is a necessity considering the number of exploits that are delivered through javascript.  Without those two it is going to be almost useless (I would not let it near anything like internet banking and other sensitive sites).

The entirely sandboxed Javascript environment is a viable exploit delivery mechanism how?

Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: Dave Yeo on August 10, 2019, 05:30:59 pm
They not only need a fast configurable ad blocker but a javascript blocker is a necessity considering the number of exploits that are delivered through javascript.  Without those two it is going to be almost useless (I would not let it near anything like internet banking and other sensitive sites).

The entirely sandboxed Javascript environment is a viable exploit delivery mechanism how?

Denial of service by overwhelming the CPU and/or memory. Just having to run an ad blocker will be hard on people with older systems.
Sandboxes have been known to leak as well.
Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: David Graser on August 10, 2019, 09:33:31 pm
Made some different Falcon icons.
Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: Dave Yeo on August 11, 2019, 06:19:27 am
Made some different Falcon icons.

Look good and similar to the Linux icon. One nit, it should be Falkon icons to differentiate from the unsupported falcon browser.
Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: Remy on August 11, 2019, 04:56:26 pm
I checked falkon under windows and saw some issue (e.g. on my site  http://remydodin.levillage.org/en/presentation.php?item=0900003&id=moi ) - pictures aren't correct and audio didn't start at expend time... ) 
Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: Per E. Johannessen on August 11, 2019, 05:12:10 pm
Just to avoid confusion, like Dave Yeo mentioned, there are;

https://falcon-browser.jaleco.com/

and

https://www.falkon.org/

Believe Falkon (with 'k') is the one likely to be ported.
Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: Dave Yeo on August 11, 2019, 06:53:38 pm
I installed it and tested a bit on Mint. Unluckily I had to update Mint from 18.3 to 19 first which took quite a while.
Installing with apt (similar to yum) it did pull in some KDE libs which probably aren't needed but do give some extra functionality like a password manager. It also pulled in gstreamer which is likely used for multimedia, this could be a problem as we don't have a gstreamer port and when I looked at it back when Firefox used it, it did not look trivial to port, it's plugin based so needs to dynamically load DLLs. So Youtube etc may not work at first on OS/2
Has the same minimal (phone?) UI that has become popular for some reason with the hamburger menu and not very configurable.
Doesn't support WebExtensions unluckily and only has half dozen or so extensions. I spent quite a bit of time trying to install the JavaScript blocking extension with no luck. Even being able to block all JavaScript would be better then nothing. No idea about cookies.
The browser itself seemed fine, displayed everything I tried, didn't take much CPU or memory but I didn't test that much. I assume it uses the same JavaScript engine as Chrome so a lot of stuff that doesn't currently work should.
It'll probably make a good secondary browser but the lack of extensions is a problem and things such as passwords will have to be manually transferred.
Have to play with it a bit more but at least it seems to display modern JS heavy sites.
Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: David Graser on August 11, 2019, 07:35:37 pm
still doodling around
Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: Dmitriy Kuminov on August 14, 2019, 08:12:35 pm
Dave, WebExtensions will eventually be available in QtWebEngine. Currently planned for Qt 5.14, here is its official bug report: https://bugreports.qt.io/browse/QTBUG-61676. (And btw the original ticket mentioned Falkon, https://bugreports.qt.io/browse/QTWB-35).

Given that Qt 5.13 is already out (to which our port of Qt5 for OS/2 will be updated within a couple of weeks), Qt 5.14 is really soon. It is scheduled for November, 2019 so if it goes well on their side WebExtensions will appear before/when we are done with our QtWebEngine port. Even if it gets postponed further, we will still get it one day. We have a lot to do before Falkon is ready to run on OS/2 anyway.
Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: Dave Yeo on August 15, 2019, 01:54:35 am
That's good to hear as extensions do make the browser so much more useful. It's a shame that the weird interface has caught on, but it seems to be the way things are going on all platforms.
Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: Remy on August 15, 2019, 02:52:16 pm
Just to avoid confusion, like Dave Yeo mentioned, there are;

https://falcon-browser.jaleco.com/

and

https://www.falkon.org/

Believe Falkon (with 'k') is the one likely to be ported.

Right, I realy mean falkon
Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: ivan on August 15, 2019, 05:01:09 pm
Like Dave I installed it on my Linux Mint computer and I too am totally not impresses with the UI and the fact that there doesn't appear any way to change it. 

Not a browser I would use unless forced to do so - even firefox is heading that way and don't mention chrome.
Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: Dmitriy Kuminov on August 15, 2019, 05:09:08 pm
BTW, YouTube works great in pure QtWebEngine as long as "proprietary" FFMPEG codecs are enabled when building it. So I expect it to work out of the box on OS/2 once we port it (we already have FFMPEG et al). It will lack hardware support of course but that's another story.
Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: David Graser on August 18, 2019, 05:45:43 pm
doodling again
Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: jailbird on August 19, 2019, 02:01:20 am
Qt 6.0 is already in the planning stages. So hopefully we won’t have to go through this all yet again.
Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: Dmitriy Kuminov on August 19, 2019, 12:32:42 pm
This really depends on how they decide to go. They made Qt 5 much more modular and plugin based (compared to Qt 4 and earlier) and this is a good thing. It simplifies things a lot (in terms of support and porting to new platforms as well). Therefore I suppose they will leave the overall structure intact this time. Which means less work bringing it to OS/2.
Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: Pete on August 26, 2019, 03:59:32 pm
Hi All

Will there be an email/newsreader client to go with the new browser?


Regards

Pete
Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: David Graser on August 26, 2019, 08:30:48 pm
Hi All

Will there be an email/newsreader client to go with the new browser?


VOICE is working on an updated version of PMMail that I believe will be available for for all to use.  I don't know if a newsreader is in the works.
Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: Tuure Linden on August 28, 2019, 09:14:55 pm
QT seems to be a bit problematic because they release new major versions "all the time". In the Linux World the KDE desktop and other software follows QT. Usually when a new version of QT is available, the older one is abandoned soon. I'm just wondering how long time it takes that the "new" browser becomes obsolete and QT6 will have to be ported. And how much work that will be again... But there are now other alternatives than a QT based browser?
Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: Dave Yeo on August 29, 2019, 02:35:09 am
There's not many options besides the QT based browser. FF52 could still be ported and then the various forks such as PaleMoon could be ported. Really, now there is the Webkit browsers, Firefox and its forks.
Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: Tuure Linden on August 29, 2019, 01:54:55 pm
And portin RUST to OS/2 is absolutely impossible?

Personally I think it has been a bad idea to come up with such a programming language. Many legacy systems won't get Firefox releases anymore because of that... For example TenFourFox for PowerPC Macs is now doomed.
Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: Jochen Schäfer on August 29, 2019, 02:57:13 pm
Nothing is impossible, but even porting QT5 in C++ is a major undertaking.
In theory, one could build a Rust cross compiler from the C/C++ Rust compiler and then compile Rust with the cross compiler. That's what I read about how most ports are done.
But it's time consuming and it's also a 4 GB dead end.
Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: Martin Iturbide on August 29, 2019, 04:12:41 pm
Hi.

And portin RUST to OS/2 is absolutely impossible?

I don't think it is impossible, but not being a programmer I can not estimate the effort. Maybe the logical path was that it was less effort (I'm not saying that is easy or effortless) to port Qt 5 and a Qt browser than posting Rust and compiling Firefox. So that makes more sense for a community like us, which is struggling for resources. (money, developers, etc)

Personally I think it has been a bad idea to come up with such a programming language....

I can not say that Rust is technically good or bad (haven't used it), but I what is interesting is that is a new language that already has a "killer/flagship application" created under his technology, which is Firefox. But, how relevant is Firefox today? or, how strong is Mozilla's funding to push Rust harder on the market/community?. As my personal opinion, at the moment I'm not convinced of the Rust adoption in software, maybe the future will slap me in the face, but I would prefer Qt5, Node.js, OpenJDK to be ported to OS/2 before Rust.

Regards
Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: Olafur Gunnlaugsson on August 29, 2019, 04:29:24 pm
And portin RUST to OS/2 is absolutely impossible?

Personally I think it has been a bad idea to come up with such a programming language. Many legacy systems won't get Firefox releases anymore because of that... For example TenFourFox for PowerPC Macs is now doomed.

It is not impossible to port the rust compiler, but it is quite a big project and the only use for it really is for the Mozilla ecosystem, we have had problems maintaining much more popular programming tools in the past due to a lack of available programming talent and/or programmers willing/able to give up their free time to do maintenance  them, so focusing what little resources the community has on it will bring only limited amount of software to the platform.

The language features are also strangely old fashioned with lack of memory management (optional or otherwise) and modularity, especially given that the main problems associated with Mozilla browsers in the past have been related to memory leaks, the lack of a modularity is a pain since the rust toolchain is terribly slow making GGC seem fast by comparison. It would in its current state also need redesigning for use on OS/2, as it stands now it is too memory hungry, in fact has not possible to build the toolchain on 32 bit systems since 2014 (modularity would help a lot with this), although this is a language implementation issue and not a technical issue, i.e. it is perfectly possible to create or modify a rust compiler that works on 32 bit systems, but it will add considerably to the effort needed to port it.

The odd thing about rust while it is indeed a safer language than C++ and this is touted by Mozilla as the main reason for its existence, it is still not a safe language, making it yet another safeish functional language variant of which there are already a few thousands. It is a bit perplexing why mozilla choose to invent a new language that sports no new features rather than using an existing language and toolchain ....
Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: Dave Yeo on August 29, 2019, 04:36:07 pm
Porting Rust would be a huge effort. The whole toolchain would need reporting including GCC to use ELF instead of AOUT, then LLVM ported and then could start on Rust. Rust itself was quite hard to even port to the BSD's. Possibly years for a compiler guru to do. Then it sounds like a memory hog which would need more then 4GBs to build Firefox. OS/2 was actually one of the last 32bit platforms that could build Firefox.
A cross compiler might be easier, but still a big job really requiring a developer who really groks compilers and OS/2.
Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: Tuure Linden on August 29, 2019, 09:02:58 pm
And there's nothing wrong with the QT besides the short lifecyckle of major versions. It makes writing cross platform software very easy if I have understood right. I've never used the environment myself. What might be the reason why the make new versions so frequently, I have no idea... Back in the day I liked software made with QT3 and KDE 3 series Desktop was great in Linux. I absolutelu hated KDE4 and I don't like KDE5 so much neither. There is Trinity Desktop that is based on the latest KDE 3 release but it has compatibility issues with newer Linux distros and it seems that it's quite difficult to maintain QT3 software in the world of QT4 and 5.
Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: Paul Smedley on April 28, 2020, 11:45:49 am
FYI... from the Qt mailing list.....

It is time to start freezing Qt 6.0.0 initial schedule. I have had some discussion and based on those here is the initial schedule for Qt 6.0.0:

- Qt 6.0 Feature freeze 31.8.2020
- Qt 6.0 Alpha 14.9.2020
- Qt 6.0 Beta 1 1.10..2020
- Qt 6.0.0 RC  17.11.2020
- Qt 6.0.0 Final 1.12.2020
Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: Pete on April 28, 2020, 12:18:21 pm
Hi All

Looking at Pauls post I guess we should be thinking about porting qt6 rather than finishing qt5...

Any volunteers to tell Silvan?  :-)


Regards

Pete
Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: Andi B. on April 28, 2020, 01:10:31 pm
Hi All

Looking at Pauls post I guess we should be thinking about porting qt6 rather than finishing qt5...

Any volunteers to tell Silvan?  :-)


Regards

Pete
Not a good idea. Stopping running projects in favor of starting new ones usually ends up in finishing nothing. But I'm pretty sure Silvan knows the bigger picture and knows what to do. I for myself see no need to discuss this with Silvan. Think it's better when he does his usual work than discussing such things.
Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: Martin Iturbide on April 28, 2020, 05:39:46 pm
Hi

I agree with Andi B. It is better to complete the milestone of the new browser with the Qt5 port and later check the possibility and what is needed to port Qt6. Otherwise it will cause to delay too long the deliverable and support may fade.

But it is always good to keep an eye on what is going on with the Qt community.

Regards
Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: Dave Yeo on April 29, 2020, 04:25:06 am
I think Pete was joking, he even added the :)
Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: Pete on April 29, 2020, 01:08:02 pm
Hi All

Indeed Dave - I suspect Silvan would give about the same answer as Andi, possibly not as politely  ;-)

However, we need to be aware that there will probably be a need to fund a qt6 port in the near future - not sure how near - which starts with people organising funding a little in advance of need. Not my area of expertise so possibly a Roderick/OS2VOICE "project" in the near future...


Regards

Pete


Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: Martin Iturbide on April 29, 2020, 05:58:41 pm
Hi

And we also need to remember that developers takes some time to adopt newer versions of the framework before updating their software. Maybe in a year there will be nice open source things that runs on Qt6.

If possible, after having a solid Qt5 and a modern browser on OS/2, I think it will be interesting to fund Bitwise to update OpenJDK. But it would be good to discus the relevance of Java today and if there are interesting Java applications that would be great to run on OS/2 today.

The other thing that catch my eye are the javascript frameworks that young people are using today to produce multiplatform applications like node.js and others. I would like to have more time to evaluate and understand that frameworks.

Regards
Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: Joop on April 29, 2020, 07:16:31 pm
If possible, after having a solid Qt5 and a modern browser on OS/2, I think it will be interesting to fund Bitwise to update OpenJDK. But it would be good to discus the relevance of Java today and if there are interesting Java applications that would be great to run on OS/2 today.
In my search for Java programs, still counting and up to 150 today!, there are lots of programs which have an update or which need a higher level of Java. New features but also databases, new apps which can deal with the new rules from Google or Youtube or what about full featured daw's, the only solution for OS/2 to run serious sound applications which is bugged or even absent in present jdk6. New games, new whatever you can think off. If we could run them all the count will go up to may even 250 programs. So, yes, Java is still important special for OS/2 because it does have applications which are not build native on OS/2. Also lots of applications which uses Java with QT, so the need for update is also in this corner. And to be honest, I'm a little disappointed about the QT spread of applications, had expected more. But that's my opinion. OpenJDK version 11 or the next major version is needed for OS/2 in order to have an interesting spread of useful applications. Even if they start today with porting and so on, it will take also not only money, but also a year or so to do the job.
Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: Dave Yeo on April 30, 2020, 12:07:24 am
The other thing that catch my eye are the javascript frameworks that young people are using today to produce multiplatform applications like node.js and others. I would like to have more time to evaluate and understand that frameworks.

I think with the new browser, support for node.js should follow.
As for QT6, as long as the QT people keep updating QT5, we should be fine but eventually they will stop, probably about the time that QT7 work starts :)
Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: guzzi on May 03, 2020, 01:40:10 am
The root of all evil, but we need more of it.....

We are a bit behind schedule, but work on the QT browser is progressing steadily. It's very near completion but it is at this moment it is hard to fix a date. There are still a number of build breaks to address. Basically, to get everything to compile fixes are needed. A fix might solve one build break, or 35. That makes it hard to guesstimate exactly where we are. One thing is sure, we are very close. To finish, we still need more funding. I know, especially now, people may be having a hard time. For those of you who still have a few bob to spend, please consider donating to the browser development. I will transfer yet another 200 euro, bugger the retirement fund). We are so close, draw your wallets, let's get it to the finishline!
Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: Martin Iturbide on May 03, 2020, 10:07:32 pm
The other thing that catch my eye are the javascript frameworks that young people are using today to produce multiplatform applications like node.js and others. I would like to have more time to evaluate and understand that frameworks.

I think with the new browser, support for node.js should follow.
As for QT6, as long as the QT people keep updating QT5, we should be fine but eventually they will stop, probably about the time that QT7 work starts :)
Hi

Since some node.js application were running on Firefox 45 OS/2,  I was wondering if something can be reused from that (or from the new browser port) to be able to run node.js apps as stand alone applications.

Regards
Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: Dave Yeo on May 03, 2020, 11:44:06 pm
Hi

Since some node.js application were running on Firefox 45 OS/2,  I was wondering if something can be reused from that (or from the new browser port) to be able to run node.js apps as stand alone applications.

Regards

Probably, the Firefox build process spits this out if you want to experiment. Good chance something similar may be generated building the new browser.
Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: Martin Iturbide on May 10, 2020, 11:54:21 pm
Dave, did you compiled that js.exe.

It worked for me with some base .js samples, it was interesting.
Like:
Code: [Select]
function add(a, b) {
return a+b
}
console.log(add(4, 6))


I don't know if I can get other samples (possible with GUI) to see if it works.

Regards
Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: Dave Yeo on May 11, 2020, 05:34:20 am
Hi Martin, it gets built during the Firefox etc build process. I think its main purpose is for testing. I don't think it does any GUI stuff but is handy for testing functions and such as you found. Beside it is js-gdb.py for running it in the GDB debugger.
Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: ivan on May 11, 2020, 12:02:03 pm
And here am I being very concerned that this browser doesn't have anything like No Script available for use which makes it almost useless for ant real work.

I have it on one of my Linux boxes and am not very impressed with it.  Sorry.
Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: Martin Iturbide on September 23, 2020, 06:41:17 pm
Hi

I understand that RUST will take a long time to be ported to OS/2, and I was reluctant to let go Firefox under OS/2 since it was a solid open community... but I'm changing my mind.

Today this news shows up on Slashdot: "Firefox Usage is Down 85% Despite Mozilla's Top Exec Pay Going Up 400% (https://news.slashdot.org/story/20/09/23/1528219/firefox-usage-is-down-85-despite-mozillas-top-exec-pay-going-up-400)"

We may have different opinions and "creative differences", but I think the real actions these days should be to support Bitwise works to complete the Qt 5 QtWebengine browser port (https://www.patreon.com/bwwbitwiseworks).

Regards
Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: Dave Yeo on September 23, 2020, 10:11:38 pm
Yes, Mozilla seems to have totally lost their way. Hopefully the new browser works out.
Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: Roderick Klein on September 24, 2020, 12:13:17 am
Hi

I understand that RUST will take a long time to be ported to OS/2, and I was reluctant to let go Firefox under OS/2 since it was a solid open community... but I'm changing my mind.

Today this news shows up on Slashdot: "Firefox Usage is Down 85% Despite Mozilla's Top Exec Pay Going Up 400% (https://news.slashdot.org/story/20/09/23/1528219/firefox-usage-is-down-85-despite-mozillas-top-exec-pay-going-up-400)"

We may have different opinions and "creative difference", but I think the real actions these days should to support Bitwise works to complete the Qt 5 QtWebengine browser port (https://www.patreon.com/bwwbitwiseworks).

Regards

From what I understand it might not even be possible to get the RUST compiler to run on OS/2 duo to the limited amount of memory the kernel offers.

Roderick
Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: Dave Yeo on September 24, 2020, 08:15:17 am
From what I understand it might not even be possible to get the RUST compiler to run on OS/2 duo to the limited amount of memory the kernel offers.

Roderick

No reason that it couldn't be cross-compiled besides resources.
Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: Ben Hjelt on September 24, 2020, 08:51:27 pm
There's not many options besides the QT based browser. FF52 could still be ported and then the various forks such as PaleMoon could be ported. Really, now there is the Webkit browsers, Firefox and its forks.
Users of older PPC Mac hardware are truly blessed by Cameron Kaiser's work on TenFourFox. The Pale Moon/XUL project is also interesting as from it there has spawned independent forks for OS X Snow Leopard and even Windows XP!
Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: Olafur Gunnlaugsson on September 25, 2020, 02:26:36 pm
There's not many options besides the QT based browser. FF52 could still be ported and then the various forks such as PaleMoon could be ported. Really, now there is the Webkit browsers, Firefox and its forks.
Users of older PPC Mac hardware are truly blessed by Cameron Kaiser's work on TenFourFox. The Pale Moon/XUL project is also interesting as from it there has spawned independent forks for OS X Snow Leopard and even Windows XP!

I have an old PPC Mac and TFF is not exactly in great shape, as for Pale Moon it is buggy and the original author does not like forks, see: https://github.com/Feodor2/Mypal/releases

Apart from that Feodor2 has been doing a bang up job
Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: Ben Hjelt on September 25, 2020, 09:19:34 pm
Quote
TFF is not exactly in great shape
Yeah, TenFourFox was usable enough for banking and such but I usually disabled javascript altogether for general browsing even on a G4. And forget embedded video, modern codecs choked it.
Quote
as for Pale Moon it is buggy
;D What did you expect from furries?
Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: Ibrahim Hakeem on September 28, 2020, 05:24:38 pm
Quote
Quote
as for Pale Moon it is buggy
;D What did you expect from furries?

Oh snap, that does explain how so much is wrong with Palemoon haha
Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: Greg Pringle on October 26, 2020, 03:50:24 pm
Today I loaded Falkon under windows 10 and found it ran youtube fine but would not display the videos on CBS or CNN. Does anyone know why? Will this be the same for OS/2?
Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: Ibrahim Hakeem on October 26, 2020, 08:40:50 pm
Today I loaded Falkon under windows 10 and found it ran youtube fine but would not display the videos on CBS or CNN. Does anyone know why? Will this be the same for OS/2?

Out of curiosity I tested it on my end and came up with the following error:
Quote
Code: 4 | Message: Something went wrong during native playback.
Did the same error occur for you?

I'm going to off on a limb and assume it's because of some kind of API restriction and/or a lack of total support for Widevine, a nightmare of a DRM implementation for video playback in web browsers. I don't believe it's likely we'll get Widevine support in our version of Falkon simply because of the effort involved, at this stage it's probably not worth it and I doubt that many OS/2 users will be affected by it.
Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: Martin Iturbide on October 26, 2020, 10:39:47 pm
Hi Greg

Can you post the YouTube URLs where you are having issues? I'm also trying Falkon on Windows 10 and YouTube seems to works fine, but I found an issue with YouTube live videos (https://www.youtube.com/live). Check the Live streams.

It seems to me it does not works with YouTube Live, it seems to use a different CODEC. It says the browser does not recognize the video format.

Regards
Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: Dave Yeo on October 26, 2020, 11:30:19 pm
I wouldn't be surprised if it is a codec issue. Youtube will use the open VP9 and friends while the other sites likely use H264/AAC. I doubt that any release of Falkon supports Widevine and depending on how FFmpeg was compiled it may not support MP4/AAC due to patent issues. Other web browsers get around the issue on Windows by using the system codecs, which are licensed but I don't think Falkon does.
For us, we can get away with using a FFmpeg that supports these codecs though strictly speaking that is likely illegal for Americans and perhaps others without licensing the codecs. At least that is how it has been with Firefox.
Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: Greg Pringle on October 27, 2020, 04:13:52 pm
I only checked a few YouTube videos using Falcon on Win 10 and they all worked fine.
What did not work were any of the videos on www.cnn.com or www.cbsnews.com
CBS uses some java script to have an opening commercial and then switches to the actual video.
Neither of these ran under Falcon.
CBS game me a spinning dots circle then a black screen.
CNN gave me a "Code4 | Message: Something went wrong during native playback"
Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: Doug Bissett on October 27, 2020, 05:08:19 pm
Quote
I only checked a few YouTube videos using Falcon on Win 10 and they all worked fine.

So far, they have only mentioned Falkon (with a K, not a C) as a candidate for OS/2. It is not the same program as Falcon (with a C, not a K). The last time I looked, it was well over one year since Falkon was updated. Just looked again, and it has still not been updated (two years now?). While that may be  a good think for an update cycle, I am pretty sure that it is NOT a good thing for security, or bug fixing.

When I was trying Falkon, under win 10, I was not very impressed with it. Hopefully, they will pick something that is current, maintained, and usable.
Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: Remy on October 27, 2020, 05:12:41 pm
Hi !

I just had a look on CBS from under windows.
a/ Videos are in video playlist M3U8    (hls)
b/ the list can be played under VLC
c/ Under the <video> tag, there is a <source> tag :  <source type="application/vnd.apple.mpegurl"></source>
    It seems that this isn't supported under falcon

I'm going to send a "private message" to Greg about some information e.g. m3u8 list he can give a try under vlc.

 
Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: Dave Yeo on October 27, 2020, 11:38:19 pm
OK, I rebooted to Linux Mint and tested CNN and CBSNews, videos on both sites played fine. Seems to be,
Quote
Application version 3.0.0
QtWebEngine version 5.9.5
Not sure how new the QTWebEngine is, I assume fairly up to date and it is what does all the heavy lifting so even with the browser not being updated, as long as  the webengine is kept up to date, it should be fairly secure.
I must say I'm not very impressed with the interface and I miss NoScript and really need to install a hosts file on this system.
As for the Windows problems, well it's Windows and I still think it doesn't supply the right codecs for most sites. Our version, using the FFmpeg libs, should play most of this stuff as long as there is no DRM, so no Netflix
Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: Davorin on October 28, 2020, 12:08:42 am
Quote
I only checked a few YouTube videos using Falcon on Win 10 and they all worked fine.

So far, they have only mentioned Falkon (with a K, not a C) as a candidate for OS/2. It is not the same program as Falcon (with a C, not a K). The last time I looked, it was well over one year since Falkon was updated. Just looked again, and it has still not been updated (two years now?).

What is about: https://www.archlinux.org/packages/extra/x86_64/falkon/
regards
Davorin
Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: Dave Yeo on October 28, 2020, 03:41:34 am
What is about: https://www.archlinux.org/packages/extra/x86_64/falkon/
regards
Davorin

That just seems to show the latest that can be downloaded. Have to go to the hamburger menu and click about Falkon or such which will show a version number like I posted above.
Unluckily, most of the about: stuff doesn't seem to be implemented in Falkon excepting about:blank and the interface is crap (so is the default FF one, but it can be changed) so I find having to use keyboard shortcuts just to do simple things like refresh or back.
Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: ivan on October 30, 2020, 06:04:53 pm
When this 'new' browser was first mentioned I installed it on my Linux Mint computer.  It was about a year old then and there has not been any updates for the last year, so what is the point of it? 

The interface on Mint is reasonable but there is no way to install something like NoScript nor any apparent way of changing most of the settings to make them useful.

As it stands, when our firefox browser becomes useless I will just nount another monitor and run firefox esr from my Linux box.  Any browser that will nor run something like NoScript, or its equivalent is useless as far as I am concerned.   
Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: Roderick Klein on October 30, 2020, 08:23:43 pm
When this 'new' browser was first mentioned I installed it on my Linux Mint computer.  It was about a year old then and there has not been any updates for the last year, so what is the point of it? 

The interface on Mint is reasonable but there is no way to install something like NoScript nor any apparent way of changing most of the settings to make them useful.

As it stands, when our firefox browser becomes useless I will just nount another monitor and run firefox esr from my Linux box.  Any browser that will nor run something like NoScript, or its equivalent is useless as far as I am concerned.

Fair point... But keep one thing in mind with the new browser. Let go of the "concept" of a browser. As time goes by we can port other QT front ends for QT webkit rendering engine.

I can understand why people want to have certain add ons in a browser. But for me personally Firefox 45, with each day passing is becoming more and more useless. Webpages not loading, entry forms not working. And its only going to go downhill further from here... I wish it was different....

Anyway if people wamt to port another QT front end for the webkit engine, then see if you can find such a browser and suggest it.

The first key thing is it to make people at least be able to use a browser to access pages again that no longer work.
I am running an internal test version of the browser on my lapop and websites such as GIT, Patreon, Linkedin are working again.
I was not able to login to Linkedin for close to 1 year on ArcaOS.

Roderick

Roderick
Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: Remy on November 02, 2020, 02:54:38 am
What about: https://otter-browser.org/
Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: Dave Yeo on November 02, 2020, 04:45:45 am
Looks promising. Hopefully the developer keeps at it.
Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: Eugene Tucker on November 02, 2020, 07:02:43 pm
When they first mentioned the new browser I suggested they look at Otter as it is going to have a 32bit version. And as you say it looks promising.
Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: Paul Smedley on January 06, 2021, 10:03:55 pm
Interesting article on Qt.... https://devclass.com/2021/01/05/qt-lts-5_15/
Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: Dave Yeo on January 06, 2021, 11:30:06 pm
Well the positive part, for now, is,
Quote
Existing branches will be kept visible to the public, but are closed for new commits with the exception of Qt WebEngine and the already deprecated Qt Script.

Wonder how long they'll maintain the WebEngine for non-paying customers?
Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: Paul Smedley on January 07, 2021, 09:43:04 am
Well the positive part, for now, is,
Quote
Existing branches will be kept visible to the public, but are closed for new commits with the exception of Qt WebEngine and the already deprecated Qt Script.

Wonder how long they'll maintain the WebEngine for non-paying customers?

It will be really interesting to see - I guess it somewhat depends how quickly the major OS adopt QT6...
Title: Status of QT5 based Browser
Post by: Rene Hvidsoe on January 13, 2022, 04:31:13 pm
Hi,

any idea about progress of the new QT5 based browser ?
Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: Martin Iturbide on January 20, 2022, 04:36:36 pm
Hi Rene

I also have no information or plans about the release of the new Qt5 Browser. I know that Bitwise works keeps updating libraries and news on his website (https://www.bitwiseworks.com/), but I don't know any timeline.

Regards
Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: Roderick Klein on January 20, 2022, 10:08:55 pm
Hi Rene

I also have no information or plans about the release of the new Qt5 Browser. I know that Bitwise works keeps updating libraries and news on his website (https://www.bitwiseworks.com/), but I don't know any timeline.

Regards

Things have grinded to halt duo to difference circumstances.  I am working on an update to be published in the month January to tell everybody what the status is.

Roderick
Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: Ibrahim Hakeem on January 27, 2022, 09:19:42 am
Hi Rene

I also have no information or plans about the release of the new Qt5 Browser. I know that Bitwise works keeps updating libraries and news on his website (https://www.bitwiseworks.com/), but I don't know any timeline.

Regards

Things have grinded to halt duo to difference circumstances.  I am working on an update to be published in the month January to tell everybody what the status is.

Roderick

Any idea on when this update will be posted?
Title: Re: The new browser / QT5
Post by: Roderick Klein on January 27, 2022, 11:25:39 pm
Hi Rene

I also have no information or plans about the release of the new Qt5 Browser. I know that Bitwise works keeps updating libraries and news on his website (https://www.bitwiseworks.com/), but I don't know any timeline.

Regards

Things have grinded to halt duo to difference circumstances.  I am working on an update to be published in the month January to tell everybody what the status is.

Roderick

Any idea on when this update will be posted?
Month January and January has not ended yet :-)
But seriously its being worked on. A draft is being reviewed by Dmitry from BWW and Steve Levine before publication.
It might be slightly later then the end of month January before the update about the Otter Browser is published.
Keep an eye on https://articles.os2voice.org

I can reveal that current status is that the Otter Browser is moving forward again.
OS/2 VOICE ran out of funding to pay BWW, however we where able to collect some funds together.
In the coming month the browser should become a lot more stable, that is what is at least the current estimate.

In one tests the browser stayed up for about an hour. And as other people with QT Simplebrowser have experienced, more websites that no longer work on our platform, work again.  This has also been reported by our beta testers.

Roderick Klein
OS/2 VOICE