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Triple-Engine Browser Released As Alpha
jcasman passes along a heads-up on Lunascape, a Japanese browser company that is releasing its first English version of its Lunascape 5 triple-engine browser. It's for XP and Vista only. There are reviews up at CNET, OStatic (quoted below), and Lifehacker. Both the reviews and comments point out that, in its current alpha state, the browser is buggy and not very fast; but it might be one to watch. "How many web browsers do you run? If you're like me, you regularly use Firefox, Internet Explorer, Chrome and Safari. Each of those browsers, of course, has its own underlying rendering engine: Gecko (in Firefox), Trident (in Internet Explorer), and Webkit (in Chrome and Safari). Today, a Japanese startup called Lunascape has released an alpha version of its Lunascape browser ... that allows you to switch between all three of these prominent rendering engines. The company says that the Japanese version of Lunascape has been downloaded 10 million times and touts it as the fastest browser available."
Lunascape supports its own plug-ins and themes...It does not, however, support Firefox add-ons, which is a real drag.
And almost certainly not even worth the look useless unless it will be able to block ads and scripts like NoScript and AdBock can. Using the english page to search the plugins reveals...nothing! Nothing at all! Okay, trying the Google translation of the original Japanese page yields 43 plugins, all related to crap like youtube and twitter...not a single ad or script blocker.
This browser is much more chindogu , than anything else.
My god! This is like inviting the cast of 'Biggest Loser' at the beginning of the show over to your apartment for Hors de Vors. Vista already ate everything, they are going to be fighting over crumbs!
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
If it does what it promises, (and they release a Linux version) it could be convenient for web development. However I'm bit wary, because if they don't implement everything exactly right, I may end up fixing "bugs" that only exist in the minds of the Japanese. . . .
This isn't really useful as a diagnostic browser.
There are significant rendering differences between the various KHTML/Webkit implementations (eg Apple uses its own font renderer, which gives seriously different results than most host OS renderers, and Google has provided its own viewport code which gets several things incorrect, such as the placement of background coloration on absolutely positioned bodies, which aren't as silly as they might initially sound once you look into scalable viewports.) It also misses Opera, which still has more market share than Safari on Windows, as well as a variety of small browsers.
On top of that, there's the significant likelihood that this browser injects new differences into the rendering process.
Short version? Switch if you find the browser compelling (does an, but this doesn't substitute for actual browser case testing (it neither correctly nor completely covers the playing field.)
I won't be adding it to my standard six, that's for sure. The last thing I need is another also-ran browser to check.
StoneCypher is Full of BS
How many web browsers do you run? If you're like me, you regularly use Firefox, Internet Explorer, Chrome and Safari.
What person in their right mind needs to "regularly" run 4 different web browsers? I'm a full-blown web developer, and I only use 2 browsers on a daily basis. I use Opera for the vast majority of normal browsing, references, API lookups, etc, and I use Firefox with Firebug for actual development and debugging. Periodically I test with IE and Safari, and maybe Chrome, but I would never say that I "regularly" use IE or Safari. Opera is the only browser I use where I save bookmarks, for example.
I'm having a hard time seeing where there would be an audience for a browser with 3 rendering engines. In Opera I have toolbar buttons to launch the current page in Firefox, IE, or Safari. If I want to test my page with a certain rendering engine, I'm going to launch it in that browser. I'm not interested in testing my pages with "Trident running in Lunascape", I'm interested in testing with Internet Explorer. Period. It doesn't matter if it works in Lunascape if it's broken in IE or Safari or Firefox.
And that's from a web developer's perspective, a normal user wouldn't have the first clue what a rendering engine even is and they wouldn't know when or why they would change the engine to use another one.
If you want 3 rendering engines, download 3 browsers. A single browser with 3 rendering engines is a novelty, nothing more. It is not useful as a development tool because it is not the same thing when something works in Trident vs. working in IE. IE has plenty of room to screw things up besides the engine, testing with the engine is only one part of making sure it works in IE.
What exactly would the business model for this startup be?
Firefox is free software that gets most of its funding from Google.
Safari is Apple's way of ensuring their users have some level of web access that is not dependant upon a third party and to push web standards.
IE is MS's way of ensuring that users are able to access the web through Windows and to have some kind of vendor lock-in (although arguably that's going away).
Chrome is Google's attempt to push web standards & Javascript performance because their applications rely heavily on this.
In addition, they've got a user-base issue. They're targeting the wrong user-base as is. The only people who would use this are web developers. Yet they are saying that "most" users use multiple browsers to overcome incompatibility. Considering that the only incompatibility people complain about is IE-centric sites, I fail to see how most users would use more than 2 (also considering how a lot of sites tend to work well enough on other browsers these days).
Also, how exactly does it "automatically" select the best performing engine for each site? Either it keeps a list of site-engine mappings (which doesn't seem scalable or feasible) or it somehow analyses the content (an analysis which must be fast enough that when included with the optimal rendering time is still faster than just picking the fastest engine on average).
They also don't seem to be providing the source code for their modified Gecko engine that is supposedly faster than Chrome. They probably chose the MPL, rather than GPL or LGPL, but even it still, AFAIK, forces you to release the source code if you make modifications to the MPL licensed files.
A browser that has the second (or third) engine as from another browser is no substitute for proper testing in a different browser. Browsers are much more than just engines. However, this sort if chimera IS a great way to get more bugs and vulnerabilities than a single engine would provide.
I haven't had time to try this but if they are just sitting on top of everyone else's rendering engines then how can they claim to be faster than any of them?
Play me online? Well you know that I'll beat you. If I ever meet you I'll "/sbin/shutdown -h now" you. -Weird Al, kinda.
This could actually be useful if they applied machine learning techniques to allow the browser to remember which engine works best on which site. As long as switching the rendering engine doesn't take too long, you could probably get a decent overall boost in performance.
How many web browsers do you run?
Like 99% of the rest of internet users, I use one browser (firefox).
I'm rather surprised this has been downloaded 10M times, unless there is some sort of patriotism based motivation going on. For the life of me I just can't picture the average internet user saying "Hey, let's see how this website looks when rendered by the Webkit engine!" while their buddy, looking on over their shoulder responds "Yeah, do it! This is going to be a blast!"
Better known as 318230.
It doesn't have 5 blades either...friggin lightweight...
Another fastest browser... woo hoo.
How many browser do I use? The majority of users? Come on people. The majority of users use one browser. They use either Internet Explorer, or something like Firefox. That's it. If they use something besides Internet Explorer, they will reluctantly fire up IE when they have problems. Does anyone believe otherwise? Unless I'm developing web pages, I personally don't use more than that either - I may check new ones out, and pick the one with the current best features for what I use - but this isn't normal.
Yeah, just like "Citizen Dick is really big in Japan too.
If thou see a fair woman pay court to her, for thus thou wilt obtain love
I work for a Japanese video game company, and about a month ago we had a network outage that was traced back to the auto-update feature of Lunascape. I have no idea how many people installed it, but it apparently created enough traffic to take down our internet connection. I hope the developers have improved it by now.
this browser, like firefox, locks the file that is being downloaded and is therefore, not anime friendly. since it is not anime friendly, it has dishonored all of japan. until i can download my code geass mkv files in hi def and watch them as they are being downloaded (btw, lulu lives so =P ), i will stick with my anime friendly opera browser.
Trying to install linux on my microwave, but keep getting a kernel panic...
So is there some feature that allows it to automatically switch between engines, or is this just another ill-thought out mashup? I mean if I have to choose which engine each time, then I might as well just open another program, RAM isn't the tight commodity it once was.
Sometimes, life itself is sarcasm...
Are there plans for a Mac OS X version? I'm still waiting for Google Chrome to arrive on the Mac. I unfortunately have to use both Firefox and Safari. Firefox on Mac doesn't reliably render http://surfline.com/ It seems to render it sometimes and then I lose the navigation menus for the site about 1/4 of the time.
Three rendering engines? I'm reminded of the lowly razor. First it was a single blade. Then two, then it went to three. I thought that would be it. Then the Quattro came out: four blades. Of course, everyone thinks this is ridiculous, but then someone comes out with five blades! What percentage of your head must be bone to think that you need five blades on a razor - plus one extra for those areas that need a precise trim? Some amazingly close to 100 number, I'm guessing.
So now it's not enough to have a single rendering engine in your browser. You have to have three. Next year they'll make the LunaScape 7 with five rendering engines, plus an additional one for "discrete browsing".
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
There's always going to be a difference in the implementation of the same features. Some rendering engines will be more efficient at certain tasks than others.
I've never noticed poor text quality on the text stream subs. Must be your player of choice and configuration, not the fundamental platform on which it runs.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
they already did that. It's called webkit(passes acid3). I don't think it would be a good idea though because then you would lose all competition and there would be no incentives to improve performance
P.S. I am a firefox user, I'm just stating the facts here. I'm not saying that safari/chrome is the best browser around
Fastest? Lemme guess, when you make an HTTP request it goes to some website with a database of all webpages cross-referenced by which rendering engine is fastest for each, then it opens the site you asked for with that particular engine.
...the future crusty old bastards are already drinking the Kool-Aid.
It "works" like slashdot's new CSS stuff: run like hell!
Table-ized A.I.
What are you on and where can I get some?
Nah, twitter is incapable of typing the 's' in Microsoft.
Three engines, for the closest browse yet...
"Strangers have the best candy" -Me
Why browser do not support Wiki formats directly?
You are kidding, right? Please say you are kidding...
Tired of all the isms, don't exploit people as an employer, or a government, mmmmK?
They already have plugins for IE and opera rendering engines for firefox. And I think one for webkit will appear very soon as well, so I really don't see the need for switching to anything over firefox.
But, i'll likely someday get burned just for saying this: NO, goddammit, it's NOT all about business decisions based on customer preferences. I have PLENTY of awareness of Koreans and Japanese using Apple laptops with Firefox. Hell, I can see 5-10 at a time on any given visit to Borders in SF. Too bad most of them are on windoze. But, i make sure people can see Mandriva running, and Opera opening up saved HTML pages (I don't, won't and can't surf wirelessly...)
Killer sales pitch dude. You should get commission on the copies of Opera and Mandriva you sell.
Come to think of it, you do ;-)
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Sheesh! Even my toothbrush has 5 blades and aloe vera!
Smivs on the intertubes!
Sounds like 3X the memory footprint and 3X the browser vulnerabilities.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I have been talking about this since the last discussion on browser technology. We should have a browser that's plug-n-play friendly, which allow us to choose our favorite render engine, our favorite javascript engine, and the browser just somehow link them together. This give the user the choice and be free from a specific flavor, and be able to choose from the best of the best, and not like, i can have the best rendering engine but not the best javascript engine, or the best css engine and not the best javascript engine. Last time when I bring this up, everyone is like why.. I think this browser is very close to what I wanted.. CHOICE!
this browser may be the one to feed trolls with engrishisms: "all your javascript is crash"
Browsers that can work with multiple layout engines are not new.
People forget that Netscape 8's big feature is the ability to display pages with either the Trident or Gecko layout engine
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