Technology
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Looks like the "local AI only" idea was purged in favor of some Big Tech stuff that can give Mozilla some fat cash for promoting their services! Mozilla's second (or third idk at this point lol) downfall is looking really strong with all their recent decisions. WebKit is another independent engine that still doesn't seem to suck in terms of enshittification but it's basically not used anywhere except Apple ecosystem. Chromium is getting a full monopoly yay.
WebKit does exist for Linux, Gnome Web has been quite a nice experience however it still lacks support for most extensions (however some Firefox extensions do work). The real world performance is still a bit lacking but its close to Firefox on paper and as it continues to update I will probably swap to it. For now its a nice way for me to test if my websites will break on macs (spoiler, WebKit still lacks some stuff).
I know about that. I used to use Epiphany myself. The problem is that it's unpopular, still not nearly as good as the other options and there's no cross-platform support. The last one is a big problem because 90% of the market uses Android or Windows.
Cross platform and popular I agree with. Having it in a state where it could be the default for gnome distros would help with popularity. However I think at least in latest versions its pretty comparable to other browsers at least Firefox. Main issue is there isn't as much extensions that work with it. Considering the pace it is improving though I think it won't be long till it could be viable alternative at least on Linux, maybe it might get ported some day idk.
I have a pretty slow machine and GNOME Web is unusable on it. The performance is not comparable to Firefox or Chromium. Extensions are very important for regular people apparently (judging from old Firefox Play Store reviews). Also Firefox and its derivatives are known for advanced privacy features that GNOME Web doesn't have and likely will never have because GNOME is about extreme simplicity by all costs.
I like GNOME Web and I really can see myself installing it on an old person's computer because of awesomely simple UI. But it's not for most people and I'm afraid that without commercial support there won't be any good regular browsers based on WebKit. I wish engine-specific features didn't exist. Everything would be so simple without them.
That's fair, I haven't tried it on low end/older hardware. I only just found performance good enough in the 46 release so I've only tested on my high and middle end system. I have some n200 hardware arriving soon and I might give it a go on that.
Advanced privacy and security I agree with and that's the main reason I don't use it daily personally. I think better extension support would be a good step in enhancing that even if they keep the base simple. There is also non trivial issues such as fingerprinting which is going to be a lot easier on a browser with so little users.
Firefox does currently have a few more options and I don't see Gnome Web getting that ootb any time soon. Granted half of firefox's options these days is to disable telemetry from Mozilla, the actual user exposed options isn't huge (outside of about:config). Gnome does have gsettings which could serve a similar usage as already seen with enabling web extensions.
I don't think it will be mainstream any time soon not until Linux is or they support other oses. But I want to be optimistic on how it will be for Linux usage especially with the tablet and mobile scene starting to take shape and Gnome Web being one of the most viewport responsive browsers.