Qt 5.6 Drops WebKit, Qt QML Uses Less Memory & Other Forthcoming Features

[b15hop]

Modern browsers chew more memory because websites do. Visit a static page in Firefox 5 or 40 and both are tiny. But visit Facebook in both and it either won't work on 5 (most likely) or also eat 800mb ram...

It sucks but the modern web is all huge web apps eating loads of ram and web developers know and care less about performance optimization than your worst desktop app developer in your nightmares. Well they care about load time of pages, so they replace static images with JavaScript - eating even more memory of course.

Strangely enough I completely agree. But I am sick of web development these days. I feel like too many people jumped in on the bandwagon and now it's flooded with people who just install wordpress with 50 addons and a theme full of video files. Chug a chug.

[jospoortvliet]

Just worried about use of any chrome based tools mingling with Qt. Otherwise I am probably way off on that one

Yes features and stability are the most important. I feel that speed comes as a result of clean code anyway since you know less is more.

For me both waterfox and chrome are bloated. I see them chew up 4GB of ram and wonder how? Sure I have a lot of tabs open but 4GB for a Web browser seems excessive. I miss the days when Firefox was a fresh browser that ran on nothing. Irony is that even coming this far I find chrome will crash on webgl often. So I went back to waterfox. I will give your browser a shot and see how it goes.

Modern browsers chew more memory because websites do. Visit a static page in Firefox 5 or 40 and both are tiny. But visit Facebook in both and it either won't work on 5 (most likely) or also eat 800mb ram...

It sucks but the modern web is all huge web apps eating loads of ram and web developers know and care less about performance optimization than your worst desktop app developer in your nightmares. Well they care about load time of pages, so they replace static images with JavaScript - eating even more memory of course.

[b15hop]

What makes you think so?



I'd always take usability and stability over bloatedness. With web browsers, as you said, they have to have some level of bloat to work on today's web.

Just worried about use of any chrome based tools mingling with Qt. Otherwise I am probably way off on that one

Yes features and stability are the most important. I feel that speed comes as a result of clean code anyway since you know less is more.

For me both waterfox and chrome are bloated. I see them chew up 4GB of ram and wonder how? Sure I have a lot of tabs open but 4GB for a Web browser seems excessive. I miss the days when Firefox was a fresh browser that ran on nothing. Irony is that even coming this far I find chrome will crash on webgl often. So I went back to waterfox. I will give your browser a shot and see how it goes.

[The Compiler]

Is Qt being sold out to chrome?

What makes you think so?

I am so glad I am not a Web browser dev. Knowing how many work arounds in Web programming and how browsers are forced to read dirty code makes me not surprised how bloated the big browsers are. I am all for less bloat but it almost always means a loss somewhere else.

I'd always take usability and stability over bloatedness. With web browsers, as you said, they have to have some level of bloat to work on today's web.

[b15hop]

Is Qt being sold out to chrome? I am so glad I am not a Web browser dev. Knowing how many work arounds in Web programming and how browsers are forced to read dirty code makes me not surprised how bloated the big browsers are. I am all for less bloat but it almost always means a loss somewhere else.

[carewolf]

As if there was a big difference in the amount of code in a Blink wrapper vs a Webkit wrapper. It's pure politics.

Well, we never had a Blink wrapper or a WebKit wrapper. QtWebKit was a WebKit port, and QtWebEngine is a Chromium API. The difference is that QtWebKit implemented both platform backend and API for WebKit (WebKit could used Qt as a platform), QtWebEngine does not try to be a platform abstraction layer for Chromium, which is what makes it more reliably similar to Chrome than QtWebKit ever was to Safari, but also means we don't get powerful features like being able to hook into QtNetwork or QPainter.

[curaga]

it's basically a Blink wrapper. And the Qt Project doesn't have the manpower to maintain something as big as webkit.

As if there was a big difference in the amount of code in a Blink wrapper vs a Webkit wrapper. It's pure politics.

[RayDonnelly]

Another data point, Chromium can't be compiled using MinGW-w64, so what's to happen to distros like MSYS2 that cannot use non-FOSS compilers?

[Emdek]

lethal, sure, developers have seen that list and even gave some comments, most of that stuff will be eventually available, in one form or another.
But it is not yet done and QtWebKit is already dead.

[giucam]

The first thing that comes to mind is what software doesn't have bugs, especially complex web engines. The second thing that comes to mind if why not work to improve the WebKit derivative?

I'm simply not convinced of the value in generating a new web solution every couple of years.

QtWebengine is not a new thing, it's basically a Blink wrapper. And the Qt Project doesn't have the manpower to maintain something as big as webkit.