Serenity: Ports: netsurf

[danboid]

I need not tell you that serenity is sorely lacking a graphical browser for those who want a bit more than links. We'll gain more (better) browser port options when webkit and Qt eventually get ported but until then, NetSurf would seem to be a good choice for a lightweight graphical browser. It is designed to be highly portable (Amiga OS? Check. Atari? Check. RISC OS? Yep!) and has a framebuffer display mode so we don't need to port any toolkits first.

https://www.netsurf-browser.org

EDIT

Seems netsurf supports SDL for display output.

[Ronsor]

I second this

[danboid]

Except from #netsurf chat:

<danboid> Does netsurf support mbedtls?
<kyllikki> not currently
<kyllikki> we use libcurl for http(s) but have to use the libcurl mechanism to get certificates
<kyllikki> and openssl is the only TLS library that supports that interface
<danboid> kyllikki, OK, thanks!

[xTibor]

You'll also need freetype, zlib, libpng, libjpeg, duktape, some iconv implementation with TRANSLIT support, etc.

[danboid]

Thanks xTibor! I've never actually built netsurf so I don't really know whats required. That list of external deps isn't trivial but its still less than most of the alternatives.

[xTibor]

Most of these deps can be disabled with override NETSURF_USE_SOMETHING := NO in netsurf/Makefile.config and progressively enabled as you go along porting these things. They are only necessary if you'd actually want to display something meaningful. libcurl and openssl are as far as I remember are hard deps though.

[Ronsor]

Most of these deps can be disabled with override NETSURF_USE_SOMETHING := NO in netsurf/Makefile.config and progressively enabled as you go along porting these things. They are only necessary if you'd actually want to display something meaningful. libcurl and openssl are as far as I remember are hard deps though.

That's true. You don't need freetype. You probably wouldn't have a useful browser without zlib, libpng, and libjpeg though.

[danboid]

Just to set peoples expectations better (including mine), netsurf has some JS and HTML5 support but it does NOT support the video element so no YouTube etc.

[deoxxa]

This may be obsoleted by LibWeb and Browser - thoughts, @danboid?

[danboid]

https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity/issues/1310

[danboid]

Wasn't there talk of a Browser plugin to enable it to use the OpenSSL port?