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Comment by frik | Hacker News Reader

I can't wait to use a Servo (and Rust) based multi-process browser with a lean HTML5 UI. We wait for E10s since 2011 or so, and it still defaults to 1 process and is experimental. The whole XPCOM and XUL legacy API cruft do hurt Firefox. Phoenix/Firebird/Firefox originally started as a lean fork of the Mozilla Suite, with a lot of old cruft removed. Nowadays, I wish there would be a new leaner fork, that kisses the old cruft good bye and starts fresh with Servo and TraceMonkey.

Maybe Mozilla should refocus all resources to Servo and Rust... All what people expect from Mozilla is a lean modern fast independent open source browser.

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> The whole XPCOM and XUL legacy API cruft do hurt Firefox.

I'd argue the exact opposite - that "cruft" is the reason I still use Firefox. Extensions are so much better because they can truly have native features and have deep access to the browser. From the native look and feel of the LastPass extension of Firefox to basic stuff I need like sidetabs are only possible because of this deep "legacy" API rather than the extremely limited web based APIs everyone's pushing for these days.

Kill XPCOM and XUL and you kill the only reason I still use Firefox.

At least in the current state of things, nothing to say they won't improve the web-style extension APIs at some point but they're really not ready yet in my opinion, they've got a long way to go and leave a lot to be desired.

Unfortunately, any mention of creating a lean UI based on HTML5 creates a huge debate, nee a holy war, in the Firefox community because this is deemed to reduce the ability to extend the Firefox UI through extensions. Please refer to [1] for a protracted argument on why WebExtensions (or similar framework) are a step-back/inferior because they don't allow for extending the Firefox UI the way XUL-based extensions do. There are a number of power-users and vocal community members who believe that Firefox must have XUL-based extensions otherwise it becomes an inferior clone of Chrome (bollocks if you ask me).

[1] http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=2956625

From what I've seen, the current rate of progress on Servo is quite good. Here is a recent demo of what it can now do http://blog.servo.org/2016/01/25/twis-48/. In a few years, it might be able to do everything that other browsers can do.

The servo project also makes it really easy to get involved http://servo.github.io/servo-starters/.

> Phoenix/Firebird/Firefox originally started as a lean fork of the Mozilla Suite, with a lot of old cruft removed. Nowadays, I wish there would be a new leaner fork, that kisses the old cruft good bye and starts fresh with Servo and TraceMonkey.

Let's not forget that Mozilla Suite was a fresh rewrite of Netscape, causing years of delay - and still resulting in lots of cruft. Code without cruft may only survive in laboratory environnments.

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