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Comment by duped | Hacker News Reader

There are no realistic alternatives to Electron. So calling it "junk" when its the baseline for "cross platform GUI application" is nonsense.

I get that you don't like it, so go build an alternative.

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Are we really trying to argue about cross platform GUI in 2025? This was solved decades ago. Just not in ways that are trying to directly appeal to modern webdevs by jamming a browser into every desktop application.

I don't even hate Electron that much. I'm working on a toy project using Electron right now for various reasons. This was just a bizarre angle to approach from.

The alternative already exists, processes using the system browser, for several decades now.

Or actually learn how we use to ship software on the glory days of 8, 16 and 32 bit home platforms.

Now I do agree there are no alternatives for people that only care about shipping ChromeOS all over the place.

> The alternative already exists, processes using the system browser, for several decades now.

Yes, Windows supported Electron-like applications back in the 90s with HTAs. If you want something modern and cross-platform, Tauri does this:

https://v2.tauri.app

You can't trust the system browser to be up to date and secure or for it to render things how you want. You can not guarantee a good user experience unless you ship the browser engine with your app.

Yeah sure but I use most web apps through the browser either way so I'm already in "possibly incompatible land" and you can reasonably expect any user facing device to have an updated browser OR one specific browser in case of embedded. We're not in Windows XP software distribution times anymore.

The system browser doesn't work on iOS, MacOS, or Linux (under certain, but common, conditions).

I’m actually working on an alternative called Slint => https://slint.dev

QT?

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