alt Hacker NewsThe hardest part for browser development has always been "artificial" web compatibility, as you know a lot of websites are forcefully blocking specific browser from loading, only allow Chromium to load their websites, that is the reality check for Ladybird, and seriously what stopping new web browsers from being able to compete, same with DRM Widevine, it's REALLY hard to acquire (unobtainiumware) for new browser, even big browser like Zen Browser with 10M users failed to acquire it
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How common is this that they would even care about it anyways? I've run Firefox exclusively for the last 2 decades and have never once run into a site that told me I needed to switch to Chromium for compatibility.
To get to the point where these artificial gates substantially matter for interop, you've already cleared 99% of the hurdles, and you can get away with just spoofing the User Agent string most of the time.
Widevine is legitimately a “gate”, but realistically it only stops 4K playback on Netflix, Disney and a few other streaming sites. And it's not super relevant considering that Zen has gathered 10M users without it.
Hmm, I haven’t used a single website in a long time that forces a Chromium-based browser to operate. The only exception I know of is DocuSign requiring a Chrome extension. And, of course, plenty of websites are laggy on Safari.
Quite recently, Ladybird started reporting itself as Chrome for exactly this reason.
They can mock the User Agent for the purposes of compatibility testing. When you control the browser itself, nothing's impossible. (aside from DRM specific issues)
> DRM Widevine,
we have to thank tim berners lee for allowing this kind of bs in the first place
Unfortunately a whole new generation failed to learn the IE lesson, and are the first to complain when others don't follow the Chrome OS Platform wishes.