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pylapp@programming.dev

Building a browser using Servo as a web engine (servo.org)

submitted 2 months ago by erlend_sh@lemmy.world to c/opensource@programming.dev

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As a web engine, Servo primarily handles everything around scripting and layout. For embedding use cases, the Tauri community experimented with adding a new Servo backend, but Servo can also be used to build a browser.

We have a reference browser in the form of servoshell, which has historically been used as a minimal example and as a test harness for the Web Platform Tests. Nevertheless, the Servo community has steadily worked towards making it a browser in its own right, starting with our new browser UI based on egui last year.

This year, @wusyong, a member of Servo TSC, created the Verso project as a way to explore the features Servo needs to power a robust web browser. In this post, we’ll explain what we tried to achieve, what we found, and what’s next for building a browser using Servo as a web engine.

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[–] mke@programming.dev 6 points 2 months ago

Awesome stuff. Maybe there's still hope for a non WebKit, Blink, or Gecko browser in the Servo project after all.

[–] onlinepersona@programming.dev -1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

After looking at the code it still looks like this is built just like Gecko: made for a single browser and nigh impossible to embed anywhere else by somebody who isn't involved with servo. Quite disappointing as it just makes it less likely for devs to switch from webviews using webkit. They seem to be repeating the exact same mistakes that were made with Gecko and Firefox.

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