This, absolutely. Especially if it comes with a GUI in the same aesthetics as SerenityOS itself. The world needs less Chrome-clones and Google-backed browsers (which to a certain extent includes Firefox), and more independent ones.
As someone who has also been attempting to write a browser (engine) in my spare time --- but these guys are far ahead of me --- this is great to see.
Sure, it's good to have more options but, the deploy base of browsers like Chrome are massive and IE6 only lost its position by being careless and stop evolving (and lets not forget it took years), which is something that is not happening with Chrome.
Just to make clear, this is not specifically directed to you or your project, which is a great thing to do independently of the outcome. I'm saying this more as in a general perspective as we are pretty much sitted on the state-of-the-art of browser engines and its hard to see something else taking over except for a "game reset" scenario (outside of the web).
The point is that a lot of sites out there don't need anything more than the web tech of 2 decades ago. With more people being aware of that and using browsers like this, the Google monopoly may weaken. I make it a point to complain whenever some site I need to use changes in the direction of Google's desires and becomes less browser-agnostic. It has had mixed results, but I suspect if a company is losing customers because its web devs are Google-loving trendchasers, they'll take notice.
> The point is that a lot of sites out there don't need anything more than the web tech of 2 decades ago. With more people being aware of that and using browsers like this, the Google monopoly may weaken.
I always thought this was a way to get out of this, that agrees with your vision. First you'll need a powerful force to take back control on defining web standards.
This new web standard would be a very simplistic one, making possible for two or three (or even one) people to create new browsers on top of it.
But this movement would need to be so strong, that it would be possible to make a dent and start to lead a new way. And this is the one of the most hardest part. People on this movement would need to be prepared to fight for at least 10 years without loosing its faith until the killer app of this movement should be able to be at a market share bigger than Safari and taking over the Firefox position.
This movement could use the hype akin to Rust folks to navigate the harder first years. Its a possibility but it's hard to become possible. Another thing to notice is that the Firefox position is getting weaker, but the most probable candidate to take over is the chrome-based Brave.
So unless a "black-swan" event happen it's hard to see a big change into this in the coming years. BTW it's even more likely that the browser standards get stronger by completely taking over the mobile applications..
I think Gemini will have people following it and developing for it, but i think it could have been a little more ambitious and also took tech history a little bit more serious as to not take too much out of what is actually a improvement done on the web that could be a soft fork of the current web with a lot less things, but not as simplistic as Gemini is.
So i don't think Gemini is "it" yet, but at least i liked the audacity and the way of thinking, its on the right direction and actually it should be people like Tim-berners-lee that should actually be leading this, but unfortunately they are lost..
I think browsers are comparable to operating systems, and if we look at the richness of the Linux ecosystem, I'd say it can't hurt to have a few more browsers and browser engines. For example, most users wouldn't see the utility of Arch linux. And yet Arch linux is the backbone of Docker. Perhaps a new browser engine can fill a similar niche, targeting low resource usage and light browsing
As someone who has also been attempting to write a browser (engine) in my spare time --- but these guys are far ahead of me --- this is great to see.