Technical Critique of WebKit: Development Challenges and Why Hopp is Moving to Rust
By
birdculture
Toasted golden, schmeared with insight. Top of the rack.
Summary
The article is a critical analysis of WebKit (Safari's browser engine) based on the author's experience building Hopp, a screensharing application. The author details numerous technical issues and limitations with WebKit, including poor WebRTC support, inconsistent CSS/JavaScript implementation, and performance problems. The piece explains why the Hopp team is moving away from WebKit and building their screensharing UI in Rust instead, citing reliability and performance concerns. The article combines technical critique with practical development experience.
Key quotes
· 4 pulledThere is an 80% chance, based on a quick Fermi estimate, that the browser was Safari (WebKit).
In this post, I will explain, based on my own experience, why I hate WebKit and the problems we keep hitting while building Hopp.
At the end, I will explain why we are committed to building the screensharing UI inside Hopp's app in Rust, without being Rust-pilled.
Early in our journey, we had to decide between building a web-based solution or a native application.
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