Web browsers have become huge monolithic applications we all nowadays preach against. So much so that other monoliths get built on top of them. (I am taking the dictionary definition of monolith here: a massive structure).
Many of the solutions given in this thread are similar to ones we give to someone who wants to escape from the monolith mess. Namely, move towards a very slim core, make everything as modular as possible etc etc. And the problems towards such an approach are the same as well i.e., what do we do about the legacy stuff?
The important question here is: what can be done better if we start from scratch? The main issue I see with browsers is that they have become so big that building a new one in a reasonable amount of time is next to impossible. This makes all the open standards pointless because no one can do anything with them except the few already established browsers.
Many of the solutions given in this thread are similar to ones we give to someone who wants to escape from the monolith mess. Namely, move towards a very slim core, make everything as modular as possible etc etc. And the problems towards such an approach are the same as well i.e., what do we do about the legacy stuff?
The important question here is: what can be done better if we start from scratch? The main issue I see with browsers is that they have become so big that building a new one in a reasonable amount of time is next to impossible. This makes all the open standards pointless because no one can do anything with them except the few already established browsers.
Unfortunately there's no clean way out of this.