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.
-
Hello Guest! We're hosting a challenge to welcome vintage Intel macs to the MLA during the month of July! See this thread for more information. -
We've made some quality of life improvements to the Trading Post. More info here.
MacSurf — a real NetSurf-based browser for Mac OS 9 (CSS3, ES5 JS, native HTTPS)
- Thread starter ptricky
- Start date
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 !
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:
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.
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
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.
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If you give it a shot and run into an issue with being unable to load any sites let me know! Chasing a bug I can't replicate and need some logs. Thanks!
ALSO - try this version if you do have the blank screen issue:
https://macsurf.org/MacSurf168b.sit
ALSO - try this version if you do have the blank screen issue:
https://macsurf.org/MacSurf168b.sit
MacSurf 2.0 has been released!
A whole family of cross-signed HTTPS sites now validate on the Mac, including macintoshgarden.org , which loads here over a secure connection. And image-heavy forum pages that used to take a minute or two now come up in a few seconds thanks to viewport-gated lazy image loading. The address bar gained type-ahead autocomplete with a suggestions dropdown, and there are now real History and Bookmark manager windows.
http://macsurf.org/builds/MacSurf2.sit
https://macsurf.org/builds/MacSurf2.sit
https://github.com/mplsllc/macsurf/releases
What MacSurf can as of today:
A whole family of cross-signed HTTPS sites now validate on the Mac, including macintoshgarden.org , which loads here over a secure connection. And image-heavy forum pages that used to take a minute or two now come up in a few seconds thanks to viewport-gated lazy image loading. The address bar gained type-ahead autocomplete with a suggestions dropdown, and there are now real History and Bookmark manager windows.
http://macsurf.org/builds/MacSurf2.sit
https://macsurf.org/builds/MacSurf2.sit
https://github.com/mplsllc/macsurf/releases
What MacSurf can as of today:
- Loads more of the HTTPS web. The TLS stack now reorders out-of-order
certificate chains, so cross-signed sites (macintoshgarden.org among them) open securely instead
of falling back to plain http. - Fast on heavy pages. Off-screen images load only as you scroll to them,
cutting big forum threads from minutes down to seconds. - Type-ahead address bar. Autocomplete from your history as you type, with
a dropdown listing the other matches. - History and Bookmark managers. A persistent, clearable, day-grouped
history (Cmd-H) and a folder-based bookmark manager with drag-and-drop (Cmd-B). - Modern JavaScript on-device (macQJS). Real ES2023 via a QuickJS port,
no transpiling, no offload. - Native HTTPS. A hand-written TLS 1.3 stack (macTLS) with the full Mozilla
CA bundle, talking straight to live sites over Open Transport. - Real text input. A blinking cursor, click-drag selection, Cut/Copy/Paste,
and Tab between form fields. - Logins stick. Sign in to a forum or account and stay signed in, cookies
and sessions persist. - Modern CSS. CSS Grid, flexbox, custom properties (var()),
gradients, shadows, transforms, and downloadable web-font icon glyphs. - A refreshed interface. A new toolbar, animated loading Puffin icon and
progress bar, a pill-shaped address bar, and a downloads manager.