Author Topic: Mypal68: A possible alternative browser?  (Read 27867 times)

Andi B.

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 950
  • Karma: +17/-2
    • View Profile
Re: Mypal68: A possible alternative browser?
« Reply #30 on: March 13, 2026, 02:02:34 pm »
Quote
but wouldn't it be worth it to use a fraction of Windows if it meant a functional browser?
No. There are better alternatives. Cheaper. More secure. And without reading and using (stealing) your data. And without giving permission to delete your data.

Dariusz Piatkowski

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1476
  • Karma: +37/-0
    • View Profile
Re: Mypal68: A possible alternative browser?
« Reply #31 on: March 13, 2026, 03:18:36 pm »
David,

...One question I was wondering about though: So if you are using a solution like winflector, which is letting you virtualize a 64 bit browser while you are still on a 32bit/4gb machine - Does the fact that your machine is 32 bit and limited in ram effect the performance of the virtualized session?...

I have been using the FreeRDP app in such a fashion for a long time now.

Yes, you need another box, be it Win or Linux, that's actually hosting the application itself, but beyond that (which honestly is a tiny price to extend OS/2 usage in real-world scenario quite significantly) this is a very realistic solution.

Sure, it's no native app, no doubt about it, and sometimes little quirks pop up here and there, especially brought on by the hosting OS updates/changes, but otherwise it's a pretty decent setup.

In my case I've been using ThinStuff (licensed) but the last time I checked they did not support Win10/11, not sure if that has changed or not though.

Winflector is in fact my next 'go-to' as I have a much beefier Win11 box on my LAN that can really handle multiple such RDP sessions with ease.

JTA

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 101
  • Karma: +2/-0
    • View Profile
Re: Mypal68: A possible alternative browser?
« Reply #32 on: March 13, 2026, 03:34:22 pm »
"the 4GB/32Bit limit is pretty much a ticking time bomb"

"Why do you think about winflector? Isn't this another remote access software where the real program runs on another hardware on another OS and only the screen output is mirrored to your machine?"

Both of these comments are currently "problems" with OS/2, but they are not showstoppers in any way. The whole point of "ArcaOS - Thrusters on Full" (AToF ... over in the virtualization subforum) is to solve these and other problems such that you can be very productive in OS/2, and *not experience* any of these problems. For example:

AToF runs on one machine (your desktop, your laptop), and utilizes all the reources of that machine (ssd's, 32 or 64gb ram, cpu's w/ multiple cores ... and makes all of these resources available to OS/2. It does this magic with a stripped down version of win10, such that the OS is a slave to OS/2's need ... win10 doesn't steal your data, it doesn't do anything other than provide resources to multiple OS/2 vm's on one box.

Multiple OS/2 vm's free us all up from nearly every single os/2 problem that this forum is full of:
- can't compile a massive app in one OS/2 vm? dedicate an OS/2 vm to compiling, or throw multiple vm's at it ... problem solved.
- can't access the occasional windows app? winflector, running on the win10 hostOS, is there to give any OS/2 vm a windowed win app, 64-bit, running on your os/2 desktop ... problem solved.
- can't access a piece of hardware, as there are no native OS/2 device drivers? win10 hostOS provides this, and makes everything available to the OS/2 vm's running ... all of them, all on one machine ... problem solved.

There's plenty more, just not enough room in a thread reply to show off all the features ... I demo'd this at Warpstock 2023, and wrote all of the AToF threads in the virtualization subforum, all with the goal of just using tools in the toolbox to solve all of OS/2's problems. Nothing magical, other than thinking outside of the box, and stringing tools together (win10 ameliorated, virtualbox, winflector, etc.) to ensure that OS/2's insurmountable limts aren't really a problem. These limits (4gb ram, 32-bit, no modern browser, never enough native device drivers, etc.) are likely to never go away, but it turns out that we don't need to worry about them anyway.

We can run 32-bit OS/2 forever, and get at any 64-bit feature we want ... just assemble those tools in the fashion that *you choose* ... if you choose not to, that's OK as well. It doesn't change the fact that OS/2 is not limited.

Just take one inexpensive box (my $200 ebay 2018 dell laptop, i7, 32gb ram, ssd), AToF it, and I can run multiple OS/2 vm's, on one physical machine. It isn't Windows, even though win10 is my hostOS (could also be linux, etc.) ... it's OS/2 (ArcaOS) all the way! I don't see the hostOS, I don't think about it at all, but Windows is slaved to OS/2 (the way it should be), and I get to keep using OS/2's very unique features ... forever!

Anyone else can, if they choose to ...

NOTE: we need to get ArcaOS and Winflector folks together, to produce an OS/2 native winflector client, which is a port of the linux 32-bit native client to OS/2. I've done much to request this, but it's been "crickets" from both parties. Everyone else should pile on as well, repeatedly, until these two sides finally get together to get it done.


David Kiley

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 149
  • Karma: +2/-0
    • View Profile
Re: Mypal68: A possible alternative browser?
« Reply #33 on: March 13, 2026, 11:24:32 pm »
Regarding:
"the 4GB/32Bit limit is pretty much a ticking time bomb"

I just meant coding a native web browser, even if achieved now, is going to run up against a memory limit eventually.
Whereas a virtual solution like winflector won't.
So I was saying I think the resources should go into another solution.

I've been in discussion with winflector about partnering with them to offer the hosted solution, and also talked to them about making a native client software for os/2, but it seems they are not interested:

"I'm afraid it's not so easy. To engage in software development for a niche environment, you need hardware, software, and application development tools. In addition, you need to learn a new, unfamiliar environment, and above all, you need to distract the team from the ongoing work of maintaining and developing the core versions of our software. It's probably safe to assume that a dedicated client for OS/2 won't be created, but you can try using the browser version, assuming there are modern versions of Opera, Chrome, or Firefox that work on OS/2."

And the last sentence is interesting.. as in the future it's possible the browser won't be modern enough for winflector to work.
Not sure about that though.
« Last Edit: March 13, 2026, 11:29:03 pm by David Kiley »

JTA

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 101
  • Karma: +2/-0
    • View Profile
Re: Mypal68: A possible alternative browser?
« Reply #34 on: March 14, 2026, 01:06:42 am »
That last bit from Winflector is interesting, because I offered to buy them an ArcaOS seat & such (afaik, the only $$$ part of a dev machine's software, as all else seems to be free or open source?).

I'm not sure, but I thought that an existing Winflector 32-bit linux client would mean a fairly easy port to OS/2.

So, the bigger problem is that they think OS/2 is too "niche". Unless AN gets involved, it may be hard to dissuade them from this view ... if there are no seat numbers, there's no way to judge interest.

How do we get AN, EComStation, and OS/2 Warp seat count? I can see potential seat numbers in the thread view counts on OS2World ... other sources?
« Last Edit: March 14, 2026, 01:08:18 am by JTA »

David Kiley

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 149
  • Karma: +2/-0
    • View Profile
Re: Mypal68: A possible alternative browser?
« Reply #35 on: March 14, 2026, 02:49:33 am »
Yeah. I asked them if we achieved 200 virtual users and all 200 users were willing to pay something for the client app..and that was their response. That would have been over 6 thousands of dollars in "seats" plus the client license fees. That would be a pretty high bar and I would think enough financial return.So they are really not interested in developing a native app. in one sense I get it.. coding for os/2 isn't an easy venture. They don't even have a native app for os/x which has a lot more users

 The big question is if we can continue to make the browser compatible enough. Like if they come out with html6 will it be codable with what we have. I would think coding the base might be easier then the whole browser but I don't know.
« Last Edit: March 14, 2026, 02:59:23 am by David Kiley »

Dave Yeo

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 5719
  • Karma: +150/-1
    • View Profile
Re: Mypal68: A possible alternative browser?
« Reply #36 on: March 14, 2026, 05:56:51 am »

I'm not sure, but I thought that an existing Winflector 32-bit linux client would mean a fairly easy port to OS/2.

Not really, unless it uses Qt which is about the only widget set we share with Linux. The Windows 32 bit version would actually be easier as Windows and OS/2 are cousins. It would still be hard as hell, perhaps easier to go the Odin route. A small team might be able to do it in a year including testing etc to make it stable. Can't see it making business sense.

Quote
So, the bigger problem is that they think OS/2 is too "niche". Unless AN gets involved, it may be hard to dissuade them from this view ... if there are no seat numbers, there's no way to judge interest.

How do we get AN, EComStation, and OS/2 Warp seat count? I can see potential seat numbers in the thread view counts on OS2World ... other sources?

It's hard to say how many OS/2 users there still are, but I doubt there's many using OS/2, eCS and AOS full time. Even if we knew how many licenses Arca Noae has sold, it wouldn't mean much as a lot of them are likely tyre kickers. I've seen a few people from the past show up with an AOS license, play a bit and move on.
AN itself doesn't have much in the way of resources, otherwise they could have found a skilled developer to update our existing browser years ago, before we fell so far behind.

David Kiley

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 149
  • Karma: +2/-0
    • View Profile
Re: Mypal68: A possible alternative browser?
« Reply #37 on: March 15, 2026, 03:45:45 am »
they could have found a skilled developer to update our existing browser years ago, before we fell so far behind.

Did Ecomstation contribute to the browser? Or something changed that they didn't need to?

Dave Yeo

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 5719
  • Karma: +150/-1
    • View Profile
Re: Mypal68: A possible alternative browser?
« Reply #38 on: March 15, 2026, 08:58:53 am »
they could have found a skilled developer to update our existing browser years ago, before we fell so far behind.

Did Ecomstation contribute to the browser? Or something changed that they didn't need to?

Yes, first they paid Rich to fix the printing. That was FF v4. Walter and I took it to v10, then Serenity paid Bitwise for 17 to 45, actually at the end the community was paying. I supported SM and TB, easy once Firefox built and ran as they all use the same engine. At that point I was left alone with a few resources from Arca Noae and I don't have the skills to do what was needed for 52 and it took awhile for me to even get it building to the point where we needed someone much more knowledgeable. I also ported it to the newer GCC and applied a lot of security fixes from 10four (Mac fork of 45).
In theory someone knowledgeable  could continue development to the latest PaleMoon with our source, though PaleMoon has really rearranged the source.
Meanwhile Bitwise thought that porting Chromium would be a better route using Qt. Turned out pretty hard, newer GCC was needed, lots of libc updates and got Qt5 to where it is now. Development kind of stopped due to issues updating Qt5 on our system and then war broke out and the developer left Russia and spent quite a bit of time stateless. Paul applied the Qt5 patches to Qt6 but wasn't skilled enough to really go on. One problem is that Qt6 doesn't officially support 32 bits, so no testing by the Qt folks and no worries about freeing memory at times.
At the beginning of the month, Dmitriy, Bitwise's lead developer, did post that he expects to get back to working on Qt6 in the next couple of months.
Meanwhile KOMH has ported our build system to 64bit Linux which should really help. Memory has been a problem compiling browsers since FF10 where I needed VAL=3072 and at the time with only 1.5 GB of actual ram, the swap file could overflow (2.1GB limit) and crash the system if I did anything else while building. Linking some of the Chromium DLL's is even harder due to the memory limits of our system.
It's actually amazing what we've accomplished in the way of compiling browsers. We were the last 32 bit OS that could build Firefox and considering that most of the design of OS/2 was done in the early 90's or earlier...


David Kiley

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 149
  • Karma: +2/-0
    • View Profile
Re: Mypal68: A possible alternative browser?
« Reply #39 on: March 15, 2026, 11:40:36 am »
Wow.. thanks for all of your (and others) work. It's fascinating to read everything that happened. And yes impressive what was achieved for so long on a 90s operating system. When I was actively using ecomstation as my primary desktop, the browsers sure kept up for a long time. I had no trouble with any sites back then.

I wonder how many sales Arcaos gets compared to the eCs days. I assume the numbers have gone down as enterprise companies might retire or upgrade their aging equipment eventually.
« Last Edit: March 15, 2026, 11:42:42 am by David Kiley »

JTA

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 101
  • Karma: +2/-0
    • View Profile
Re: Mypal68: A possible alternative browser?
« Reply #40 on: March 15, 2026, 07:46:02 pm »
"I've been in discussion with winflector about partnering with them to offer the hosted solution, and also talked to them about making a native client software for os/2, but it seems they are not interested:
  "I'm afraid it's not so easy. To engage in software development for a niche environment, you need hardware, software, and application development tools. In addition, you need to learn a new, unfamiliar environment, and above all, you need to distract the team from the ongoing work of maintaining and developing the core versions of our software. It's probably safe to assume that a dedicated client for OS/2 won't be created, but you can try using the browser version, assuming there are modern versions of Opera, Chrome, or Firefox that work on OS/2." "

Winflector is a commercial company, with proprietary software/code. But, the above still seems like it's possible, it just needs:
1. a free ArcaOS license (possibly two ... I've offered to buy this for them)
2. an OS/2 (emx?) build VM ... we should be able to get this detailed and built for them
3. an OS/2 developer ... (without "distracting" their existing devs)

The last one is on us ... Winflector just need to bend a little. Sign up Paul S., or KOMH, or anyone else (with a non-disclosure and other legalese), and now they have a dev dedicated to the effort (of just porting the linux 32-bit to an OS/2 native). If it's not these two, and there could be plenty of reasons why not, then we need to find/develop others, starting with detailed "here's a build environment" (emx, gcc, whatever) plans.

All are big asks ... Winflector has to bend (open up that piece of software), existing devs have to participate (or we grow more of them), AN could help by revealing "seat count" data, if not restricted in some way (their business practices, IBM, etc.) ... we all have to help with $$$ (I have offered $$$, in licensing terms, and could offer other help).

A native Winflector OS/2 client is the last piece of the AToF puzzle for me ... the HTML5 client (Firefox v45) gets me 95% of the way, and everything works. But ... the OS/2 native client would be the finishing touch!




David Kiley

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 149
  • Karma: +2/-0
    • View Profile
Re: Mypal68: A possible alternative browser?
« Reply #41 on: March 15, 2026, 11:01:11 pm »
A native Winflector OS/2 client is the last piece of the AToF puzzle for me ... the HTML5 client (Firefox v45) gets me 95% of the way, and everything works. But ... the OS/2 native client would be the finishing touch!

Regarding the above. It would be nice if they were willing to bend but I think it's a dead end. We are just going to have to be happy with the html5 option. I've noticed from their forum that they are very firm when they don't want to do something.

Also consider that they don't even have a mac client..which has millions of users probably.

I ran a 9 line BBS (online service) in the 90s by an innovative company called PowerBBS. They had made the first graphical BBS that was like AOL and very cool but it also supported the dos like terminal services that 99% of people used at the time. Our big problem with them was that the support for "dos" bbs games didn't work very well. When I tried to talk to them about it they would just say "they are not going to reinvent the wheel" even though I was spending a ton of money with them and needed it to be competitive. Sometimes you just have to take a no as a no regardless if it shouldn't be a no.

Also, the goal I had presented them was at least 200 seats (which I calculated out of curiosity with my partner status) and that would have come to $8,398,00. So if that amount of money didn't motivate them then a free arcaos license means nothing to them. And I didn't even think the metric was actually achievable frankly. When I posted on this forum (the most rabid os/2 supporters) about selling one seat as a hosted solution I got crickets in response. I'm not upset by that.. you have to provide value regardless of if you think something is valuable. I sell on eBay and I could think my products are the greatest thing in the world but that doesn't mean anyone will buy it if they don't agree.

A lot of os/2 clients are enterprise using legacy applications and they probably don't care about the internet. Only users like you and me care about that kind of thing. So even if ArcaOS has sold 20,000 seats it doesn't mean those users are motivated for a browser.
« Last Edit: March 15, 2026, 11:40:28 pm by David Kiley »