Web Browsers on PDAS | Hacker News Reader

Web Browsers on PDAS

vale.rocks

52 pointsrobin_reala19 comments

We had about 10-15 years or so where the web wasn’t so complex and fast moving that a browser needed constant updates for things to work. Now browsers are more complex that entire operating systems and anything older than a few years just won’t work and publishers think that’s ok. I remember as late as 2008 verifying websites in Lynx (or elinks or links2) to ensure screen readers and low end devices would have a reasonable experience.

Now anything older than a few years is garbage that can be abandoned and websites have no problem using GBs of RAM. What a wasteful, fickle industry software is.

One of my pals was back then writing his thesis around web browsers, modern technologies and components that at that time were considered to be crucial in the upcoming years. He included Acid tests and browser market share; also covered Internet Explorer dominance and Firefox that managed to break it. All of this in context of standard computers - smartphones were about to become a thing.

We went a full circle and whole world nearly runs on a single browser engine. And beyond that if we consider the portability of modern software.

Yet, this Blink-Chromium monoculture is not a matter of concern to competition regulators. Whether because "it is what it is" or perhaps because of some deep shenanigans we don't see, it's terrifying because we lost choice and we're dependable on Google whims. All the hope lies in these small projects that bloomed around, and perhaps even in Firefox - if Mozilla will be ready to take own examination of conscience. But even so, wind of change might be not that strong.

I remember using Dillo on a Compaq iPaq with Linux installed. No Dillo screen shots, but plenty of information about apps for Linux on the iPaq 3765 here:

https://www.frequal.com/ipaq/index.html

If it wasn't for webshitters and big tech pumping out JS and using framework on top of framework we could easily be browsing on ancient devices today.

Partially, but the biggest problem for old devices is encryption technologies.

It's hardly a problem because most web traffic doesn't need to be encrypted. Just banking, shopping, a few other things like healthcare and health care.

It’s a problem because regardless of whether it needs to be or not, it is.

You'd be right if ISPs didn't do mass DPI and modification of pages to inject their own ads and trackers. They also routinely hijack and intercept DNS responses. They absolutely cannot be trusted carrying unencrypted traffic.

The point is that https-everywhere people have successfully pushed the majority of the sites that could previously be served over vanilla http to require https anyway. Now if you're on and old device you need an https proxy or else you're out of luck.

a) yes it does

b) it is literally trivial to buy a tiny RISC chip for a dew cents that can handle HTTPS just fine

Arguably not really a web browser, but possibly the first (and pre-RSS!) "read it later" app: Plucker for Palm OS was amazing.

You could enqueue websites to download and compress from a PC during each HotSync operation and then read them offline on the PDA.

Was just going to ask if anyone remembered the name of this one. It was amazing! 15 year old me felt very important/futuristic syncing the news before school in the morning and reading during school break!

Edit: after looking it up with plucker as a starting point I think the one I actually used was AvantGo, same idea though I think.

I worked on a real estate app. We added mobile support by generating a static website from the database, including listing previews and stuff. Realtors were amazed that they could have the entire database that looked like a full website. That was fully offline. Plucker made it possible

The AlphaSmart dana had its own widescreen browser on PalmOS. Modern sites bring it to its knees, but it's a nicer experience than a smaller PDA screen when it works.

OT, but man, this is a beautifully designed website. The progress indicator on the left is particularly clever.

Title should read "Web Browsers on PDAs", in case you're confused like I was.

I thought everyone in my generation knows of PalmOS but TIL its later known as GarnetOS..

I didn't have a PDA but surfed the web on a WAP phone and a PSP.

Dig the site layout. Left nav is interesting, glow around screenshots is a nice touch.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com