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Comment by kmlx | Hacker News Reader

> In terms of open source there are really only Chromium- and Firefox-derived browsers (I’m disregarding projects like the still pre-alpha Ladybird here).

isn’t webkit open source?

https://github.com/WebKit/WebKit

or maybe are you referring to something else?

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Kagi’s browser is based on WebKit, but currently macOS only and non-opensource. I’m perfectly willing to pay for a browser but not sure if closed source is viable no matter how much you trust the company today.

> but not sure if closed source is viable

The evidence points in the exact opposite direction.

Open source implies free. And free means getting fucked with ads. I trust a product I pay for versus one reliant on getting bailed out by Google.

Same. I mean i have already paid for opera once in life (20 years ago?) I don't have a problem to do it again.

I believe the GNOME Web Browser (previously known as Epiphany) is built from the WebKit source.

This is also a great way to test out a page during web-development in a pinch[when you are on Linux]. Chrome and Firefox are obviously available, and GNOME-Web is useful-enough to fill the gap[of Safari]. I'd always run a real cross-browser test before a proper release. Thankfully the cross-platform issues are dwindling by the day.

WebKit is a browser engine, not a browser. There is no open-source browser based on it that you could use as an alternative to Firefox.

Gnome Web is based on WebKit.

I should have added “cross-platform”. It’s not a viable alternative for most Firefox users.

There are several, just none that are still maintained. But webkit is still open source and there's no reason someone could not fork or start up a new browser project with 90% of the work already done by webkit, you just need a GUI.

Emacs supports browsing with WebKit: https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Em...

This is distinct from its own Emacs Web Wowser, which is a more primitive browser (but quite good for quite a lot!).

> There is no open-source browser based on it that you could use as an alternative to Firefox.

here you go:

https://github.com/duckduckgo/apple-browsers

I was under the impression Apple forked it and didn’t contribute upstream, but the text on that landing page suggests otherwise.

Is it roughly comparable to safari, functionality-wise?

Also, is there a non-gnome version? Gtk’s fine; containerized gnome, not so much.

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