Ask HN: Why doesn't YC build a web browser? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Why doesn't YC build a web browser?

3 pointsmalchow6 comments

The world needs one. To keep the internet alive. Now that Microsoft has given up, a company with reliable income, access to good devs, and a long-term interest in the open web should come along and do this.

And Firefox is slooow. (For me, anyway.)

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YC doesn't take on many large technical projects itself, but would be happy to fund a startup to build a better browser if there's a sustainable business model.

The problem I want a browser to solve: I don't mind paying for content, but logging in to paywalls is a hassle. Ideally I want the Spotify model, where I get all the content for a flat monthly fee that gets apportioned among all my content sources. Brave seems to have ambitions in this direction (and it's my current main browser) but they don't have enough deals yet.

Forgive my ignorance, I may not understand what the problem is, but I was under the impression there are numerous browsers, chrome, firefox, brave, etc

Why does the world need another one?

Implementing a full featured web page renderer is a massive task. Correctly handling HTML and CSS and JavaScript and Canvas and animations and etc, etc, etc...

Then test is against the top 1,000 websites and ensure that yours renders the same as the popular existing browsers, otherwise people will complain and stop using yours because it is different. Then maintain it as new standards constantly evolve over time.

Finally your will have a codebase that you cannot sell because browsers are free! Even Microsoft have given up and Microsoft Edge is going to switch from their own renderer to using the open source one from Chrome.

> a company with reliable income, access to good devs, and a long-term interest in the open web should come along and do this

That sounds like a nonprofit. In fact, it perfectly describes Mozilla.

Until/unless you find what you're seeking, check out The Classic Browser (http://theclassictools.com/). I just found out about it today and it's fast.

Why don’t you apply to YC with the idea?

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