● Covered by 1 source · 1 reportLow impact1 neutral
cwbrowser, a new browser with a custom Zig rendering engine, passes Acid3 test
Key points
- cwbrowser's rendering engine is custom-built in Zig.
- It passed the Acid3 test with a 100/100 score.
- The browser uses Google's V8 JavaScript engine.
- Early tests indicate it is faster than Chrome.
Introducing cwbrowser
cwbrowser is a new desktop web browser that has been under development for two years. Unlike most modern browsers, it does not rely on existing rendering engines like Blink (Chrome), WebKit (Safari), or Gecko (Firefox). Instead, its entire rendering engine, including the HTML parser, CSS cascade, layout engine, and paint pipeline, is custom-written in the Zig programming language.
Technical Architecture
The browser's core rendering components are all original code in Zig, a systems language known for its small size, speed, and memory efficiency. The only borrowed component is Google's V8 JavaScript engine, which is also used in Chrome and Node.js. This integration allows cwbrowser to handle modern JavaScript while maintaining a custom rendering pipeline.
Acid3 Compliance and Performance
cwbrowser achieved a perfect 100/100 score on the Acid3 test, demonstrating its compliance with web standards. Early benchmarking suggests that cwbrowser is approximately twice as fast as Chrome. This performance is attributed to its lightweight, from-scratch engine design.
Motivation and Future
The project aims to demonstrate that a modern browser engine can be built from scratch to be smaller, faster, and more understandable by a single developer, using contemporary systems languages. A public preview build for macOS on Apple Silicon is planned for release.
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Reporting from
A new web browser named cwbrowser, developed over two years, has passed the Acid3 web standards compliance test with a perfect score. This browser features a rendering engine written entirely in Zig, distinguishing it from browsers based on Chromium, WebKit, or Gecko, and uses Google's V8 for JavaScript execution.