MacSurf — a real NetSurf-based browser for Mac OS 9 (CSS3, ES5 JS, native HTTPS)

[ptricky]

Have you tried the new Fable model?

Only in small amounts, it's quite expensive and can be wasteful if not used well. If I have a stubborn bug that I've been chasing for awhile I'll have it do a targeted session, but I haven't found it much better than Opus for this work.

 

[slipperygrey]

Only just noticed this. More software for Mac OS, be it written with the assistance of AI tooling or not, is not a bad thing. This is an interesting project. However, I can't help but think the speed at which web technologies change is going to mean it becomes obsolete pretty quickly without a community of contributors to keep supporting it. This was the nail in the coffin for Classila/TenFourFox which I believe are no longer actively maintained.

dunno about "obsolete" -- web standards are generally designed to be backwards compatible and degrade gracefully

it's not like this project is aiming to keep up with the latest multimedia, 3D accelerated canvas, enterprise grade requirement shenanigans

I would chalk down the death of the Mozilla fork projects to the severe difficulty of working in the Mozilla code base

just my 2 cents... keep up the great work @ptricky !

 

[ptricky]

MacSurf 1.68 "macQJS" is out

The big one this release: MacSurf's JavaScript engine has been replaced. Duktape (ES5) is gone and MacSurf now runs macQJS, a QuickJS port that executes modern ES2023 JavaScript natively on a PowerPC running Mac OS 9. Real sites' real scripts run without being dumbed down first.

Headline changes:

• New JavaScript engine (macQJS / QuickJS, ES2023) — modern JS runs as-is; the old ES6-to-ES5 transpiler is retired
• Text input actually works with a visible blinking cursor, click-and-drag selection, Cut/Copy/Paste, and Tab between form fields
• Logins stick and signing in to a site now keeps you signed in
• Near-instant startup with the about ~17-second launch delay is gone
• Bookmarks menu, a Downloads manager (HTTPS downloads now work), and working window Maximize. Minimal but a start.
• Faster pages with image and font disk cache, plus lazy images that load as you scroll instead of all at once
• Lots of rendering fixes such as full-width forum layouts, downloadable web-font icon glyphs, better text spacing, and cookie-consent bars you can actually click

This release is named 1.68 in honor of 68kmla.org so thank you all for being so welcoming, and for testing it. I have been on the site everyday for five to six hours each getting the forums to render, log in, and post a reply from a real Mac OS 9 machine has been the best target to build toward. Don't expect super speeds but I did my best to get to a working state.

Requires a Power Mac G3/G4, Mac OS 9.1–9.2.2, CarbonLib 1.5+.

See the full release notes and download here: https://github.com/mplsllc/macsurf/releases

You can also download it from the non ssl version of macsurf.org.

If you run into any issues please let me know so I can get it fixed! In many cases it runs much better on real hardware vs emulation so results will vary.