
<feed xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom">
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    <title>
                browsers on
            
        
        The Neo-Babbage Files</title>
        <link href="https://babbagefiles.xyz/categories/browsers/atom.xml" rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" /><link href="https://babbagefiles.xyz/categories/browsers/"/>
    <updated>2025-12-29T11:00:32+00:00</updated>
    <author>
            <name>Benjamin Slade</name>
            
                <email>slade@lambda-y.net</email>
            </author>
    <id>https://babbagefiles.xyz/categories/browsers/</id>
        
        <entry>
            <title type="html"><![CDATA[Browsing the Web with Common Lisp]]></title>
            <link href="https://babbagefiles.xyz/next_browser-common_lisp/"/>
            <id>https://babbagefiles.xyz/next_browser-common_lisp/</id>
            
                    <author>
                        <name>Benjamin Slade</name>
                    </author>
            <published>2018-10-20T13:22:00-06:00</published>
            <updated>2022-06-20T11:28:31-06:00</updated>
            
            
            <content type="html"><![CDATA[<p>I was a long-time user of <a href="http://conkeror.org/">Conkeror</a>, a highly-extensible browser with
an Emacs ethos. It <a href="https://www.freelists.org/archive/conkeror/09-2018">still exists</a>, but since the changes in the Firefox
back-end away from XULRunner, which Conkeror uses, running Conkeror
became increasingly difficult to use, so I&rsquo;ve largely switched to
just using plain Firefox.</p>
<p>However, <a href="http://john.mercouris.online/">John Mercouris</a> has been developing <a href="http://next.atlas.engineer/">Next Browser</a> (originally
styled <a href="https://dm.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/7fw57u/next_browser_a_next_generation_extensible_lisp/">nEXT Browser</a>), a browser with a Common Lisp front-end, allowing
for customisability and extensibility along Conkeror/Emacs lines:</p>



<figure>
    
        
            <img src="https://web.archive.org/web/20190226201246/https://raw.githubusercontent.com/atlas-engineer/next/master/assets/gifs/fast_navigation.gif"/> </figure>

<p>The back-ends are – if I understand correctly – planned to be Blink
for the QT port and WebkitGTK+ for the GTK port, with the Mac port of
Webkit for the Mac version. But the front-end, the user-facing side,
is Common Lisp.</p>
<p>John is currently running an <a href="https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/next-browser-nix-support#/">Indiegogo campaign to properly port</a> it to
Linux and other non-Mac Unix variants (it apparently runs well already
on the Mac, John&rsquo;s main platform it seems [there&rsquo;s no accounting for
taste ;) ]). The raised money would be used in part to pay a
professional C/C++ developer for their time.</p>
<p><a href="https://ambrevar.xyz/">Ambrevar</a> is <a href="https://github.com/atlas-engineer/next/issues/92">currently working on packaging</a> Next Browser for <a href="https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/">Guix</a>,
which is exciting and promises to add to the amount of Lisp front-end
software we&rsquo;ll be able to use. Currently I&rsquo;m running Emacs (elisp) for
the majority of my non-browser productivity (writing papers &amp; creating
class slides using <a href="https://www.gnu.org/software/auctex/">AUCTeX</a>; reading composing email with <a href="https://www.djcbsoftware.nl/code/mu/mu4e.html">mu4e</a>;
note-taking and scheduling with <a href="https://orgmode.org/">Org mode</a>; &amp;c. &amp;c.) and, at least on
one machine, <a href="https://stumpwm.github.io/">StumpWM</a> (Common Lisp window manager) for my &lsquo;desktop
environment&rsquo;; and <a href="https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/">GNU GuixSD</a> with a Guile-based package manager,
Guile-based cron (<a href="https://www.gnu.org/software/mcron/manual/html_node/index.html#Top">mcron</a>), and Guile-based init/daemon-manager
(<a href="https://www.gnu.org/software/shepherd/">Shepherd</a>). A functional, configurable, Lisp-based browser would be a
most welcome addition. As excellent as Firefox is, especially its
backend, I do really miss the halcyon days of Conkeror, and Next
Browser could represent a return to those heady days of configurable
browsing Emacs-style.</p>
<p>So, if this sort of thing appeals to you (i.e. if you like Lisp,
Emacs, and/or highly-extendable browsers), you might want to support
the Linux/Unix-port of Next Browser:
<a href="https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/next-browser-nix-support">https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/next-browser-nix-support</a></p>
<p>There&rsquo;s only about a week left in the campaign.</p>
]]></content>
            
                 
                    
                         
                        
                            
                             
                                <category scheme="https://babbagefiles.xyz/categories/lisp" term="lisp" label="lisp" />
                             
                                <category scheme="https://babbagefiles.xyz/categories/commonlisp" term="commonlisp" label="commonlisp" />
                             
                                <category scheme="https://babbagefiles.xyz/categories/nextbrowser" term="nextbrowser" label="nextbrowser" />
                             
                                <category scheme="https://babbagefiles.xyz/categories/browsers" term="browsers" label="browsers" />
                            
                        
                    
                 
                    
                 
                    
                         
                        
                            
                             
                                <category scheme="https://babbagefiles.xyz/tags/web" term="web" label="web" />
                            
                        
                    
                
            
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