ASk HN: How difficult to build a browser?

[transburgh]

I have recently thought of a need for a web browser for an up and coming niche market. The needs go beyond add-ons that could be built for FF ect.

Does anyone have experience with the difficultly level of developing a browser??

Thanks.

[Someone]

You should make a distinction between:

- developing a browser engine - developing the GUI around a browser engine

The first is not rocket science, but lots and lots and lots of work, and will require some hacks, as there are many areas where specs aren't clear (what to do with invalid html, http headers that promise a text encoding that is not delivered, what to do when http headers say "text/html", but the url ends in ".zip", etc, etc)

The second can range from the almost trivial to whatever your imagination requires.

Unless you have lots and lots of time and/or resources and cannot use an existing engine such as Mozilla or WebKit, stay away from building your own engine.

[vorador]

It depends of the level of functionality you want to include in your browser. Could you describe your needs ?

And, by the way, qt now comes with webkit.

[_cyxo]

You can try using existing stuff - gecko, webkit etc.