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Comment by freediver | Hacker News Reader

Current user of Safari as well because of minimal UI and WebKit.

If you are using macOS, Webkit is the most obvious choice because of superior rendering performance, memory usage and energy usage. Chrome/Blink and Firefox/Gecko are not even close (and probably will never be as WebKit is as 'native' on macOS as it can get).

But lack of openness and advanced browser features on Apple's side made me embark on a project to fork WebKit and build WebExtensions API support on top of it (so you can run all Chrome/Firefox extensions on it and get the best of both worlds). We are about half-way through with API coverage. Focusing on macOS first and we have popular extensions like uBlock or Grammarly running already. We also have an iOS prototype running some FF/Chrome extensions.

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> build WebExtensions API support on top of it (so you can run all Chrome/Firefox extensions on it and get the best of both worlds). We are about half-way through with API coverage. Focusing on macOS first and we have popular extensions like uBlock or Grammarly running already. We also have an iOS prototype running some FF/Chrome extensions.

This sounds great! Lack of WebExtensions like uBlock Origin and RES were pretty much the reason I switched over to Firefox when Safari 13 dropped, but there is really nothing that comes close to the usability, performance and energy usage of Safari on macOS, so I have been looking for exactly this kind of project for quite some time. I wasn't sure this "compatibility layer" would be feasible to implement, but I guess even supporting uBlock Origin only would make me switch back to Safari in an instant.

Do you guys have a webpage/twitter I can follow or a beta I can sign up for?

Not yet, we are pretty much stealth but will announce here when we have first public beta.

Is it similar to Topee? https://github.com/avast/topee

Not really. That is just a wrapper, and only supports apis supported by Safari. We are building a new browser with native WebExtension API support on top of Webkit.

I’m super interested in this project, where can I see more?

You can ping me and I'll add you to the invite list.

Awesome, just sent you an email!

(I run my own mail server so it might be in your spam)

You're doing God's work

Thanks, I too feel it is important work to be done, as hard as it is.

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