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Comment by VWWHFSfQ | Hacker News Reader

Good to see some competition in the browser wars. Badly needed.

This one competes with the other text-based ones out there, and I'd almost call it a "HTML viewer" instead of "web browser" due to the limited features it has --- it's basically HTML-only with no CSS support, so far more limited than even Dillo or NetSurf; but works well for viewing documentation and other primarily text-based and "content-focused" sites.

>I'd almost call it a "HTML viewer" instead of "web browser"

Ahh but it's not a browser. It's a wowser.

A highly specialized browser for emacs from 2013 is hardly competition against consumer browsers. I don’t think they’re directly comparable either.

I’m sure grandpa was being facetious

I guess eww is for those who are infatuated by their editors, rather than getting things done with it, when the rest of the world just uses Chrome.

Here's a practical use-case eww: reading technical articles (e.g., grom google search) without a context switch to a different application: a single key chord to start a typing a query (counsel-web-suggest), then choose the desired link , then read it in eww — all without leaving emacs (while using the same commands that work throughout emacs).

On the other hand, it is nice when the competition brings something completely different to the table. It serves the needs of people who would never have those needs served by consumer oriented browsers.

While this may not be competition in the "winner takes all" sense, eww is does have to consider what those consumer browsers are offering in the context of its domain of application. If it doesn't, it will lose those users and it's reason for being.

Yes. I predict as many as 0.01% of web users will be using EWW in the year 2025

I think that's a pretty lofty goal/estimate.

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