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Building a Better Web Browser - James Mickens - Harvard CS Colloquium 2015

Paul Irish · talk · Watch on YouTube

Web developmentSoftware architecture & designSecurity & hacking

What it is

James Mickens's 2015 Harvard colloquium argues that browsers are bloated and insecure because feature races trump clean interface design. He presents a cleaner, more secure browser architecture (Atlantis) with a much smaller API surface.

Why Hacker News recommends it

HN cites it whenever people discuss rebuilding the web platform or what a better browser architecture could look like.

  • 4 people recommended it
  • 5 different months
  • 0 strong recommendations
  • first 2017, last 2023

What HN commenters said

  1. “James Mickens gave an interesting talk on what we could do to build a better browser”

    James Mickens on what a better browser could look like.

    VarFarYonder, 2017-09 · Recommendation · in “W3C abandons consensus, standardizes DRM, EFF resigns”

  2. “To see what a better platform could look like, consider this”

    Shows a better platform with reduced surface area.

    zeroname, 2018-09 · Recommendation · in “Show HN: Thi.ng/hdom – S-expression based, pure ES6 UI/VDOM components”

  3. “which I definitely think this still the most forward-looking browser architecture out there”

    Presents the Atlantis browser architecture.

    maxharris, 2018-11 · Recommendation · in “Ask HN: What will future browser be like?”

  4. “It's a perfectly sensible proposal and the talk is well worth the time to listen to.”

    Argues for rebuilding the browser, though commenter thinks it's unworkable.

    foobiekr, 2020-07 · Recommendation · in “Why is CSS the way it is?”

Excerpts from Hacker News comments, linked to the originals. Summaries and labels were written by a language model from those comments.

Topics: james mickens, web browsers, atlantis, web security, api design, rendering

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