Snowshoe: New Cross-Platform Web-Browser On Qt5, WebKit2

[scionicspectre]

Well, Fennec did run on the N9, and the primary development framework for MeeGo was Qt, but not used in Fennec (the old mobile Firefox).

Does anybody know if Sailfish or Ubuntu Phone OS use Qt because it's necessary on the hardware they're targetting? Maemo used X11, for instance, but perhaps GTK can't run on whatever they're using to display these new systems. Qt is easier to port to alternative platforms with Lighthouse.

Theoretically, GTK applications could run through the Broadway HTML5 backend, but that would be unpleasant given the apparent lack of hardware acceleration. I guess we'll just have to see what exactly these phones are using- I assume it's not X11 for Ubuntu Phone OS, since you can't just load up X11 drivers on any Android phone, right?

[ShadowBane]

I'm looking forward to trying this out if/when it hits the AUR. Unfortunatey I don't see arch or any other distrobution shipping Qt 5 very soon...

[Teho]

But why should users be interested in it?

Well QtWebKit is pretty amazing in itself. Just yesterday I installed rekonq on my computer for the first time in long time; On my KDE environment it started so fast that I couldn't believe my eyes (almost instant compared to around a second for Chrome). It even opened the web pages faster than Chrome which is hard to believe and this is not even Qt 5 which brings a lot faster JavaScript engine among other things.

[mayankleoboy1]

So another webkit clone ? Compiled with -OMGWTF optimisation ?
Meh.

[Pawlerson]

So another webkit clone ? Compiled with -OMGWTF optimisation ?
Meh.

You should replace webkit with khtml and say what you said about safari and chrome.

[mayankleoboy1]

You should replace webkit with khtml and say what you said about safari and chrome.

Atleast Chrome has the super duper fast Crankshaft JS engine. That runs circles around all the competing engines. So for Chrome atleast, i wouldnt call it a clone of anything.
As far as Safari goes, FUCK APPLE.


One question : All the layout goodness that Chrome has, its Webkit based. So any other browser that uses it will have the same speed as Chrome (at least in pure layout. No major JS). ?

[aavci]

I'm looking forward to trying this out if/when it hits the AUR. Unfortunatey I don't see arch or any other distrobution shipping Qt 5 very soon...

After reading the article I did a quick "yaourt -Ss", and disappointed that it wasn't there. I hope somebody adds a PKGBUILD soon.

[TheBlackCat]

I'm looking forward to trying this out if/when it hits the AUR. Unfortunatey I don't see arch or any other distrobution shipping Qt 5 very soon...

openSUSE has had Qt5 available since the betas.

[Marc Driftmeyer]

You should replace webkit with khtml and say what you said about safari and chrome.

Actually, no one should. KHTML isn't influencing WebKit and hasn't for many years. Sorry, but that distant fork was soon replaced with WebKit. WebKit 2 is a whole new beast, years in the making.

[a user]

Well QtWebKit is pretty amazing in itself. Just yesterday I installed rekonq on my computer for the first time in long time; On my KDE environment it started so fast that I couldn't believe my eyes (almost instant compared to around a second for Chrome). It even opened the web pages faster than Chrome which is hard to believe and this is not even Qt 5 which brings a lot faster JavaScript engine among other things.

no it's not. and it is no wonder that rekonq started so much faster than chrome when half of its libs etc. are already preloaded due to using KDE DE.