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> it sounds like the author mostly has issues with the HTML part of the web

Nope. And he has links to his blogs about what he doesn't like.

--- start quote ---

I used wget to download all 1,217 of the W3C specifications which have been published at the time of writing, of which web browsers need to implement a substantial subset in order to provide a modern web experience. I ran a word count on all of these specifications. How complex would you guess the web is?

The total word count of the W3C specification catalogue is 114 million words at the time of writing. If you added the combined word counts of the C11, C++17, UEFI, USB 3.2, and POSIX specifications, all 8,754 published RFCs, and the combined word counts of everything on Wikipedia’s list of longest novels, you would be 12 million words short of the W3C specifications.

I conclude that it is impossible to build a new web browser. The complexity of the web is obscene. The creation of a new web browser would be comparable in effort to the Apollo program or the Manhattan project.

It is impossible to:

- Implement the web correctly

- Implement the web securely

- Implement the web at all

Starting a bespoke browser engine with the intention of competing with Google or Mozilla is a fool’s errand.

--- end quote ---

https://drewdevault.com/2020/03/18/Reckless-limitless-scope....



That's all concerning the content though. If you don't want HTML and Javascript and video streaming and EPUBs on the web, you don't have to use them. None of that concerns HTTP itself, which is developed by IETF.

You could fairly easily make your own web browser that uses HTTP and only reads (gem)text files and ignore the rest of the web.

Or just use Lynx.

Pushing your own standard seems to only add to the complexity of it all. Now if you want to make browser that can read all the text pages, you have implement HTTPS and Gemini.


> That's all concerning the content though

Ah yes. Just the content. Including things like WebUSB, WebHID, and a bunch of others.

> You could fairly easily make your own web browser that uses HTTP and only reads (gem)text files and ignore the rest of the web.

Yes, you probably could. And it wouldn't work with most of the web.


I still feel like that's better than Gemini, which doesn't work with any of the web.

Text over HTTP:

  - Easy to write browsers
  - Viewable by those browsers
  - Can use other browsers
  - Viewable by everyone else
  - Can only see some other websites
Text over Gemini:

  - Easy to write browsers
  - Viewable by those browsers
  - Cannot use other browsers
  - Not viewable by everyone else
  - Cannot see any other websites
What's the advantage of Gemini again?


You are again conflating HTTP and 'the web'. The stuff you are talking about for web browsers has nothing to do with the HTTP protocol. In fact, many many things use HTTP that are not part of `the web`. Most APIs these days are HTTP based, but do not exchange HTML or any web content.


> You are again conflating HTTP and 'the web'

I'm not. It's you, who keep saying that the author's gripe is with HTML, content, HTTP and what not. It's not.




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