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alexdelorenzo
Making moves
Status: In review

This would allow for Electron-like frameworks that work on top of Gecko and SpiderMonkey instead of Chromium via CEF.

It would also be good for embedding webpages in desktop applications. As it stands, CEF is the go to for this along with some WebKit-based options like WPE.

23 Comments
Salamandar
Strollin' around

Oh god yes. That could be worked on with Tauri.

Mte90
Making moves

I tried in the past with a FFOS emulator: https://discourse.mozilla.org/t/g-ene-one-day-experiment-gecko-alternative-to-electron-nw-js/7106

But mozilla tried years ago with positron: https://github.com/mozilla/positron

Maybe today with Servo it is possible and avoid to use Gecko that is so integrate in Firefox that is idficult to separate it

Status changed to: Trending idea
Jon
Community Manager
Community Manager

Hey all,

Here with an exciting update…

Your idea has received a great deal of votes (kudos) in the Mozilla Connect community, so we are upgrading the status to “Trending idea.” This means it’s now one step closer to reaching our internal teams for review—learn more about The Idea Journey.

Please keep the conversation going, add more details, and stay tuned for updates 😃

-The Community Team

trickypr
Strollin' around

I would absolutely love to see this happen. One of the easiest things I would love to see was better documentation and examples for using embedded gecko in your own application. Thunderbird currently does this, I presume using browser.chromeURL or toolkit.defaultChromeURI. I would absolute love to see better documentation of the process of using these and the surrounding file structure.

I would avoid using Servo as it is less actively developed then Gecko and no longer associated with Mozilla.

Ponda
Making moves

It could help in wider adoption of Gecko, plus many app developers could prefer Gecko over Blink due to lower average memory consumption, which is especially important in gaming.

Status changed to: In review
Jon
Community Manager
Community Manager

Hey all,

Here with another exciting update…

This idea has been upgraded to "In review" which means it will be brought to our internal teams for review—learn more about The Idea Journey. As soon as we have another update on its status, we’ll let you know right here in the comment section.

Stay tuned 😃

-The Community Team

trickypr
Strollin' around

So, this has been bugging me, and after some messing around, I have an example application that works. There are some technical problems with it, like a lack of windows support and the browser toolbox not working, but it proves that it is possible.

I believe that Mozilla could make this practical for larger applications that could benefit from the more powerful parts of gecko, like web browsers. Gecko, in its current state is fairly close, all that is missing is:

  • Something similar to Firefox artifact builds for all projects to reduce compile time
  • Decent docs and examples (everything I have done so far is just based on reverse engineering)
trickypr
Strollin' around

I have been experimenting and I think this is fairly close to reality. I have a functional "Hello World" gecko app that I have been working on. There are bugs, like browser toolbox refusing to work, but I think better documentation could fix it. I think that the following would make it practical (and maybe even better than chromium) to use Gecko for large apps, like web browsers, outside of Mozilla:

  • Decent docs and examples: It would be nice to not have to try and guess what things do and learn via trial and error. Better documentation surrounding bootstrapping gecko and custom xul elements like `<browser />`

  • Some form of artifact builds: Firefox artifact builds are great and it would be amazing if there was some way of using them within custom applications if we aren't modifying parts of Gecko
  • Allow third party developers into the build tool: The build tool assumes you are building Mozilla products, it would be nice if it was a bit smarter
Daseinn
Strollin' around

Very important since Servo days

cirlo
Strollin' around

I feel like detaching Gecko (& SpiderMonkey) from Firefox UI is the necessary for Mozilla. No Doubt.

That way:

  • other browsers could base their engine on Firefox's

  • it would be possible to make NodeJS applications based on Gecko rather than Blink (similar to what @Mte90 mentioned with Positron)

  • other companies could join and help having an engine that is truly free and open source. A common ground where everybody can contribute and assure that the web standards are respected

  • extracting Gecko from Firefox would also decrease code coupling and probably help greatly cleaning up the code (due to the introduction of a clean external interface to Gecko).