Marc Andreessen backs new browser?

August 15, 2009 · by Haavard

Netscape founder Marc Andreessen is apparently backing a new browser called "RockMelt". Details are sketchy at the moment, but rumours have it that it's a browser tailored for Facebook.

I hope the rumours are untrue.

What I am hoping for is that RockMelt will be a Web browser which is not tied to any specific sites, and that it will introduce a completely new browser engine. Writing a browser engine is a huge undertaking, but we need more of them on the market.

The larger the number of widely used browser engines is, the lower the impact of security holes in any single browser, the more expensive and time-consuming it will be for virus and malware authors to infect computers, and the higher the benefits are for writing standards-compliant Web pages.

Readers' comments 10

Left under the original article, as archived.

DjiXas15. August 2009, 16:29
Well, since they are going to integrate it with Facebook, I doubt about completely new engine... Like, it's mostly for FB users only. Not sure if they would waste so much time and energy on engine itself.
haavard15. August 2009, 16:33
That's why I'm hoping that the Facebook thing is just a rumour.
qlue15. August 2009, 19:31
What does it take to create a new Browser engine! .
Surely it's a massive undertaking just in the conceptualasation itself! .
Micky15. August 2009, 20:57
i don't think they have new browser engine in mind, too much work if you can take webkit...
bugscout15. August 2009, 20:58
greut17. August 2009, 10:12
What is the latest brand new layout engine that some company wrote?
Micky17. August 2009, 12:56
Someone on favbrowser.com put it correctly:
using completely NEW engine is a sure way of making no advanced page wrk with your browser. they are forced to stick to one of two – gecko or webkit, and due to popularity and available devtools (firebug) they probably are going to use gecko.
Anonymous17. August 2009, 15:02
n00body writes:

That "someone" is an ignorant little rat who constantly spews out uninformed nonsense.
FataL17. August 2009, 21:24
The larger the number of widely used browser engines is...
the even more headache have web developers.
All that bugs, regressions, inconsistencies between different rendering and JavaScript engines. Hell, no new engines please! Four are enough for healthy competition!

So many years of development and all browsers still can't get CSS 2.1 specs right... I say NO again!
haavard18. August 2009, 08:01
If there were several engines out there with about an equal market share, no single vendor would be able to force other browsers to emulate bugs in that browser. This means that all browser vendors would have more time to work on actual standard support, improving it a lot over today's situation.