[HN Gopher] Wolvic, a new browser project picking up where Firef...
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Wolvic, a new browser project picking up where Firefox Reality
leaves off
Author : Vinnl
Score : 126 points
Date : 2022-02-03 17:01 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.igalia.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.igalia.com)
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| The name is a little confusing, and makes it clear they are not
| native English speakers. It's not a bad name, but if someone says
| to me, "Hey, did you try Wolvic yet?" I'll spell it "Wolfic" or
| "Wolfik" or "Wolfick", definitely not "Wolvic". Confusing.
| jraph wrote:
| I would pronounce the 'v' in Wolvic like in "vision" and the in
| your words 'f' like in "elfic". Which would make it clear
| Wolvic is written with a v. Would I be wrong?
|
| (not a native English speaker)
|
| (we have a town called Volvic here, known for its water.
| Pronounced like in "vision". I would pronounce Wolvic the same
| way, except the first letter would be pronounced like in
| "well")
|
| (the English pronunciation is not a gift)
| bialpio wrote:
| Also not a native speaker, I'd use the same pronunciation as
| you ("v" in "wolvic" is the same as in "elven", "f" in
| "wolfic"/"wolfish" is the same as in "elfic"/"elfish"). But
| the difference is quite subtle, I see it can be hard to tell
| apart in casual conversation when people pay less attention
| to enunciation.
| TingPing wrote:
| It is clear to me as a native English speaker. We do have
| "wolves" already.
| bkardell wrote:
| Interesting observation. Fwiw, I am definitely very much a
| native english speaker (in fact, I don't speak any other (non-
| programming) language very well), and I proposed the name. As
| the post says at the end - it doesn't hurt that the domains are
| available if you don't use a "real" world. I guess we'll see if
| this happens.
| nkurz wrote:
| Apologies if it's not the type of feedback you are looking
| for, but I strongly agree with the OP. I find the name so
| confusing that I have trouble even thinking about it. Quite
| possibly the problem is me, but if you are trying to reach an
| American audience, consider doing further audience testing
| before investing too heavily in the name.
| darrenf wrote:
| Whereas to my UK eyes it's instantly reminiscent of Volvic[0]
| mineral water, which is definitely a V sound and doesn't read
| or sound strange at all (see also: pelvic, civic, Slavic). It
| wouldn't occur to me that there might be an F sound.
|
| [0] https://www.volvic.co.uk/
| jraph wrote:
| Indeed, and wolves seems to be pronounced with a v both in
| the US and in the UK.
|
| > UK: /wUlvz/ US: (woolvz)
|
| https://www.wordreference.com/enfr/wolves
|
| You did think of Volvic as well!
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| Sounds good. Guess they'll do well with that name then.
| laurent123456 wrote:
| Never great when a product name looks like a misspelling of
| another more well known product name.
| josephcsible wrote:
| I'm always in favor of new browsers that are FOSS and don't use
| Blink!
| freediver wrote:
| Looks like they are jumping on the whole "Meta" train, with
| enough expertise to make a dent.
|
| I would be astonished though, if people used a web browser in
| virtual reality to do serious work.
| andybak wrote:
| A VR browser is however very useful eitherfor browsing 3d
| content or having access to content that is useful for other VR
| apps. Especially for standalone headsets where you can't just
| switch to your pc desktop.
| ghotli wrote:
| I've used passthru on the Quest 2 with a browser window hanging
| in my living room. There absolutely is an allure to having a tv
| as big as my wall playing a youtube video while I'm folding a
| mountain of laundry. Working, serious work it's a bit of a
| stretch at this moment yeah
|
| I haven't used immersed yet, but the whole "I can see my
| environment and my hands and type on a keyboard I can see with
| N floating windows" thing is neat and will only get nicer as
| the resolution improves
| voakbasda wrote:
| I continue to be astonished (and dismayed) that people use a
| browser on the desktop to do serious work. Really, the browser
| provides a horrible user experience, no matter where you use
| it.
|
| I miss native apps and the engineering that went into them, as
| compared to the slapdashery of web apps.
| freediver wrote:
| Serious work can be as little as searching for something and
| reading content. No reason why a web browser can not do this
| - in fact it was built for this purpose.
| bkardell wrote:
| I get this take... You might find my post on this topic
| interesting https://bkardell.com/blog/wolvic.html
| astlouis44 wrote:
| Very excited to see this, my ongoing prediction is that the
| metaverse will be WebXR based. No 30% cut from walled
| gardens, and sites can evolve from static, 2D flat
| experiences to immersive ones. Of course, apps will work day
| one on any headset in a platform-agnostic manner. And for the
| spark, just wait until the Apple headset ships with WebXR and
| WebGPU supported by default....
|
| Also, my team are currently working on bringing Unreal Engine
| to WebXR.
| stanlarroque wrote:
| We are going to integrate this in our Lynx R-1 headset! Great to
| have something else than just chromium in this space.
| flakiness wrote:
| "As of today, Igalia has secured partial funding over the next
| two years"
|
| Wondering who is funding the project, or does this mean they use
| their own money to fund this? That sounds more brave than Brave
| imo. Good luck!
| ushakov wrote:
| dang wrote:
| " _Please don 't post shallow dismissals, especially of other
| people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something._"
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
|
| It poisons (and dumbs down) the ecosystem to post generic
| dismissals like this, so please don't. Of course, most projects
| end up failing - but that's a bad reason to direct this sort of
| barb at specific ones.
|
| If you have a substantive point, make it thoughtfully; if not,
| please don't comment until you do.
| jraph wrote:
| It seems based on Gecko?
|
| > Mozilla invested a lot into R&D in XR in the late 2010s, and in
| late 2018 they released an experimental browser called Firefox
| Reality. It was a great entry into the XR field, helping
| establish what a browser in these devices really looks like, and
| figure out the unique challenges. Today we're excited to take up
| this experiment and continue this work as a complete project.
|
| > [links to https://blog.mozilla.org/mozilla/update-on-firefox-
| reality/]
|
| A Gecko-based browser would be refreshing!
|
| Igalia really seems to do interesting stuff.
| eole666 wrote:
| Well, I hope they'll contribute to Gecko to make it faster at
| rendering 3D with WebGL, or even help adding WebGPU support.
| Because for now, perfs aint good compared to chromium based
| browsers... Firefox is often way slower when using heavy 3D
| apps.
| skywal_l wrote:
| I didn't know that. Why would firefox be slower than say
| chrome when if you use WebGL, the work is being done by the
| GPU anyway?
| colonwqbang wrote:
| Perhaps Chrome utilises the GPU more efficiently than
| Firefox does.
| orra wrote:
| > Igalia really seems to do interesting stuff.
|
| A lot of which is WebKit based, so this is indeed an
| interesting twist.
| jraph wrote:
| Yes, they even say it in the post, which is a bit confusing
| since I was specifically looking for this.
| bkardell wrote:
| We do right?! Thanks.
| fabrice_d wrote:
| Can you confirm this is a Gecko based browser? I find the
| wording a bit ambiguous in the article. Thanks!
| flakiness wrote:
| It is clear from the website https://www.wolvic.com/ >
| Wolvic begins a new branch of the evolutionary tree of the
| Firefox Reality Browser.
| bkardell wrote:
| Wolvic begins its evolutionary fork pretty close to where
| Firefox Reality left off, so yes, it is Gecko based.
| fabrice_d wrote:
| Nice! Is Igalia planning to work on webXR support for
| Gecko?
| mauricioc wrote:
| Firefox Reality also supports Servo as a browser engine, so
| this might be even more exciting!
| https://github.com/MozillaReality/FirefoxReality#experimenta...
| nicce wrote:
| Isnt Servo kinda dead project?
| qw3rty01 wrote:
| Well the linux foundation picked it up when mozilla dropped
| it so it's not dead, but the last commit was also 8 days
| ago so not very active either
| fire wrote:
| As far as oss projects go, eight days ago seems pretty
| active compared to the usual "inactive project" having
| last commit dates of months ago
| DiabloD3 wrote:
| Not in a way that doesn't also state Firefox is dead.
| gilrain wrote:
| Servo does not have a paid team of developers, whereas
| Firefox does. How about that?
| binarynate wrote:
| This is really interesting. Last night I was looking at FireFox
| Reality's repo and was pleasantly surprised to see [some newer
| commits][1]. Now today I see that Wolvic is [a fork of FireFox
| Reality][2] and that the commits were contributed from that
| project. I'm happy to see a private company fund new work on this
| front.
|
| [1]:
| https://github.com/MozillaReality/FirefoxReality/commits/mai...
|
| [2]: https://github.com/Igalia/wolvic
| [deleted]
| aloisdg wrote:
| > There is, of course, Firefox. Brave has a lion as a mascot,
| there are Puma and Dolphin browsers, and many smaller and
| historical browsers and projects within the browser space are
| named after animals
|
| But the wolf name is already taken and on a browser based on
| Firefox too https://librewolf.net/
|
| Note that I am still mad that librewolf was not named Windwolf or
| Waterwolf instead.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| I think Waterwolf would get confused with Waterfox. Only a
| matter of time before wind and earth also get claimed by
| Firefox forks, though. New ones seem to pop up every year or
| so.
| ilyu wrote:
| Volvic is a brand of water then Wolvic is probably a mineral
| water wolf
| lucic71 wrote:
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(page generated 2022-02-03 23:00 UTC)