InfoQ Homepage Web Browser Content on InfoQ
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GeckoView and the New Firefox Preview for Android
Mozilla has recently released Firefox Preview to the Android Play store. It's a new iteration of the Firefox Mobile web browser that was built from scratch around GekcoView, an open-source web browsing component that is based on the Gecko browser engine
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First Look at the Web Share API: Exposing the Native Device Sharing Capabilities to the Browser
Native device sharing is now possible within web browsers using the Web Share API that was recently released. Find out how it works and what's coming next in the full article
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Chrome 74 Natively Supports Lazy Loading
Google recently released Google Chrome 74 with a new experimental flag to enable native lazy loading support for images and iframes. The img and iframe HTML tags get an additional loading attribute to configure the lazy loading behaviour of the corresponding resource. Deferring load of non-visible content may reduce data usage, memory usage, and speed up above-the-fold content.
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Google Chrome Never-Slow Mode
Google has been working on a prototype feature called Never-Slow Mode. This prototype feature, referenced as a work in progress, aims to improve the user experience, delivering consistent quick browsing.
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Beaker Browser Offers Electron-Based Peer-to-Peer Web Browser
Beaker is an experimental peer-to-peer Web browser based on Electron, Chromium, and Node.js. Beaker includes new Dat-based APIs for building hostless applications while retaining compatibility with the traditional Web.
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Mozilla Firefox 62 Brings Dark Theme on macOS, Variable Fonts and More
Mozilla has released Firefox 62. This version brings variable fonts, automatic dark theme on macOS Mojave, improved scrolling on Android, and more.
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W3C Releases HTML 5.2 As Official Recommendation
The W3C released the HTML 5.2 update to the HTML specification as an official recommendation on December 14, 2017. This update adds new features like the dialog element, obsoletes old ones like the HTML plugins system, and integrates work from other W3C committees such as support for the Payments Request API and the Presentation API.
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Firefox Quantum Commits to Cross-Browser Extension Architecture
With the Firefox 57 “Quantum” release, Firefox now only supports extensions based on the WebExtensions API, joining Chrome and Edge in supporting extension development with pure HTML, CSS, and JavaScript based on a cross-browser shared extension architecture.
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WebAssembly Now Supported across All Browsers
With releases on September 19 for Safari and October 31 for Edge, Apple and Microsoft join Google and Mozilla in providing support for WebAssembly in production browsers. All four companies’ browsers can now run code compiled to the wasm binary format.
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W3C Publishes DRM as a Recommendation
After a divided vote, the World Wide Web Consortium has adopted Encrypted Media Extensions as a full recommendation, formalizing closed-source Digital Rights Management into the specification. In response, the EFF has resigned from the W3C.
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Adobe Will No Longer Support Flash after 2020
Adobe has announced the termination of Flash by the end of 2020. Browser vendors have published timelines outlining the steps to phase out the technology in their respective browsers.
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Babylon.js 3.0 Released, Supports WebGL 2
Babylon.js, Microsoft's native JavaScript-based 3D game engine, has reached version 3. The new version supports WebGL 2 and includes a rewritten component for handling physical based rendering (PBR). In addition, developers can use the playground, an in-browser editor, and Spector, a WebGL debugger.
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Google Is to Remove Support for PNaCl
After de-staffing the PNaCL/NaCl team last year and adding default support for WebAssembly in Chrome in March of this year, Google has officially announced the retirement of PNaCl in favor of WebAssembly.
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Google Retires Octane JavaScript Benchmark
Google has retired their Octane JavaScript benchmark tool, citing over-optimization of micro-benchmarks to the detriment of real-world performance. Other browser vendors agree that the benchmark by itself is of little value. In the future, performance improvements may come from focusing on what the user is actually experiencing.
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Browser Vendors Start Shipping WebAssembly by Default
The browser vendors working on WebAssembly have reached a "consensus" on an initial implementation set, allowing browsers to ship it on by default. While this is an important milestone, the initial implementation won't immediately result in significant uptake by developers as important features such as DOM integration and garbage collection are not yet part of the spec.