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In the span of about 2 years, the Serenity browser has gone from nothing to where it is now. It already supports JavaScript and the canvas API.

Do you think you could build this in 2 years? The answer is yes, you could.




Sure, but like I said, having some JS support is one thing, building a fast JS engine is another. The same goes for canvas, I mean, you have to realize, there is WebGL support on the web now, but also the Web Audio API, WASM, etc. It never stops growing. There's even talk about adding machine learning features to WASM.

Again, this isn't to minimize the accomplishment, this is great, it's just to say, while building a hobbyist browser must be fun for sure, and I'm sure this browser can be useful to browse many websites out there, particularly if said websites intentionally restrict which HTML features they use. However, it's probably not realistic to think you could compete with the commercial browsers. They have dozens of people who have been working full-time on those projects for two decades and they are constantly adding new features.

I think if Andreas Kling was here, he would probably agree. I'm sure his goal was never to replace Chrome/Firefox or compete with them, but rather to learn, educate, and have fun. I congratulate him on his success and for reaching the milestone of being able to sustain himself from his passion project.


I think this is where the ninety-ninety rule is typically invoked.




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