May in Servo: user scripts, mp4 compat, blackboxing in DevTools, and more
34 points by kreeft
34 points by kreeft
How many years has Servo been in development? What's the point of it anyway?
Servo was an experimental project by mozilla to create a new browser using rust for it. The project ultimately got abandoned as a large target for it was the Microsoft holo lens. Components of it lived on and made it's way into firefox such as the CSS engine, which was notoriously hard to write in cpp due to the multithreaded nature. Ignalia has picked it up and become the new stewards of the browser, reviving it and trying to turn it into a new competitor. The JS engine is the same as firefox's
The project started in 2012 but as far as I know development stalled for years and only recently they resumed with a fast pace. The point is to have an alternative to the engines of major browsers, especially to give more competition to Blink (Chrome’s engine).
The point is to have an alternative to the engines of major browsers, especially to give more competition to Blink (Chrome’s engine).
To borrow an expression, "yes, and," because the number of weekly CVEs, of which a non trivial subset are RCEs, from Chrome is indicative of the futility of trying to maintain a C/C++ codebase in constant contact with untrusted code/file formats, even by one of the most well funded and staffed security teams on Earth