News

NetSurf 3.11 released 28 Dec 2023
NetSurf 3.11 features improved page layout with CSS flex support. It also features many other optimisations and enhancements. We recommend all users upgrade to NetSurf 3.11.
NetSurf 3.10 released 24 May 2020
NetSurf 3.10 features many fixes, better performance and improved functionality. In particular, handling of authentication, certificates and fetch errors have been updated and unified. The GTK front end has had a major overhaul too. We recommend all users upgrade to NetSurf 3.10.
NetSurf 3.9 released 18 Jul 2019
NetSurf 3.9 features support for CSS Media Queries (level 4) and improvements to JavaScript handling. Also included are many bug fixes and improvements. We recommend all users upgrade to NetSurf 3.9.
NetSurf 3.8 released 29 Aug 2018
NetSurf 3.8 features some page layout improvements, stability and security improvements, and some minor additional features. We recommend all users upgrade to NetSurf 3.8.
NetSurf 3.7 released 20 Oct 2017
NetSurf 3.7 features performance improvements, improved page layout, and many fixes. Also new is a treeview search feature, which allows Hotlist (Bookmarks), History and Cookies to be searched. We recommend all users upgrade to NetSurf 3.7.
Codethink sponsored work on NetSurf 02 May 2017
Michael's full-time job is as a developer for Codethink. Since Codethink value open-source software, Michael was given the opportunity to spend some time working on NetSurf, and its related components. The work completed during this time has been written up in a post to our mailing list. Many thanks to Codethink for this contribution.
NetSurf 3.6 released 20 Nov 2016
NetSurf 3.6 is primarily a bugfix release. It contains several fixes and clean-ups to front end code, as well as supercookie blocking, and certificate chain handling improvements. We recommend all users upgrade to NetSurf 3.6.
NetSurf 3.5 released 14 Apr 2016
NetSurf 3.5 is primarily a bugfix release. It contains several fixes and clean-ups to front end code, as well as an improvement to URL parsing. We recommend all users upgrade to NetSurf 3.5.
NetSurf 3.4 released 17 Feb 2016
NetSurf 3.4 features many optimisations to improve performance over previous releases. It also contains many bug fixes, including improvements to page layout. This is also the first release to contain the Duktape JavaScript engine. While our JavaScript bindings have seen a lot of development for this release, JavaScript remains disabled by default as the support is incomplete. We recommend all users upgrade to NetSurf 3.4.
Codethink sponsored development 12 Feb 2016
Over the last couple of weeks Michael has been able to work full time on NetSurf, and more particularly, its LibDOM and LibCSS components. At Codethink there is an arrangement whereby engineers may fill time between projects by making contributions to certain open source projects. A write-up of the work done has been posted to our mailing list. Thanks Codethink!
Developer weekend 04 Nov 2015
Some of NetSurf's developers met up at Codethink's office in Manchester. The main focus of the event was to make some progress on JavaScript event handling. In additon, much time was spent squashing bugs. For more details, see Vince's write-up.
Development builds now using Duktape 12 Aug 2015
We have replaced the old version of SpiderMonkey that we used to use as our JavaScript engine with Duktape, a lightweight engine which is more in keeping with NetSurf's goals. While we're testing our new JavaScript implementation we are forcing it on all the time in development builds. We'll return the "JavaScript Enabled" option to being choices-controlled when we're happy we're back to feature/stability parity.
Developer weekend 27 Jul 2015
NetSurf's core developers met up at Codethink's office in Manchester to make some progress on a couple of the big areas we've been planning for some time. We made a start at changing to use Duktape as the JavaScript engine, and started outlining the shape of our new layout engine. For more details, see Vince's write-up.
NetSurf 3.3 released 15 Mar 2015
NetSurf 3.3 is primarily a bug-fix release. Several of the front ends have received quite a bit of attention, with new features and improvements; notably the AmigaOS front ends has gained the beginnings of support for AmigaOS 3. We recommend all users upgrade.
Developer weekend 17 Nov 2014
The core NetSurf developers gathered in Manchester, UK to discuss the future direction of the project, and to make some progress in key areas. Vince has written up an account of the event, and a record of our discussions has been posted on the wiki. Many thanks to Codethink for hosting our developer weekend.
NetSurf 3.2 released 30 Aug 2014
NetSurf 3.2 is primarily a bug-fix release. In addition to fixes, a disc cache feature has been added, and a little work has been done to improve CSS3 support. Several of the front ends have received quite a bit of attention, with new features and improvements; notably the GTK, AmigaOS and Framebuffer front ends. We recommend all users upgrade.
NetSurf in Google Summer of Code 01 May 2014
NetSurf is participating as a mentoring organisation in Google Summer of code again this year. We have a student called Rupinder Singh Khokhar who will be working on updating our core web technology libraries, LibDOM and LibHubbub, to bring them into line with the current versions of the specifications.
NetSurf 3.1 released 26 Apr 2014
NetSurf 3.1 contains many improvements over the previous release. The highlights include much faster CSS selection performance, faster start up time, new look and feel to the treeviews (hotlist/bookmarks, global history and cookie manager), improved options handling, undo/redo support in textareas, and general improvement of forms. Also included are many other additions, optimisations and bug fixes. We recommend that all users upgrade.
NetSurf wins Award 23 Jan 2014
NetSurf won the award for "best non-commercial product" at the 2012/2013 RISC OS Awards. Thanks to everyone that voted for us!
NetSurf developer workshop report 06 Jan 2014
The NetSurf core developers gathered in Cambridge at the start of the year, and managed to do a considerable amount of work across various areas of the project. See the developer workshop report for more details. Thanks to Collabora for hosting the event.
New bug report system launched 17 Dec 2013
We have created a new bug reporting system and transferred most of the existing reports from the old SourceForge powered bug tracker. Let us know if you have any trouble with the new system. The NetSurf project no longer uses SourceForge, and any issues raised there will go unseen.
LibCSS selection performance boost 02 Dec 2013
A significant optimisation has been made to LibCSS's selection engine performance. This is the code that works out which CSS rules apply to DOM elements, and calculates their computed styles. Recent development builds of NetSurf include this improvement.
Static analysis of the NetSurf codebase 22 Nov 2013
NetSurf and several of our libraries have recently been added to the Coverity Scan service for open-source projects. It has enabled us to identify and fix quite a few bugs over a very short period. We also have the Clang static analyser set up as part of our CI system. For more information on the utilisation of static analysis by the NetSurf project, take a look at this article.
Summary of recent development 16 Oct 2013
Some of the recent changes made to NetSurf have included a rewritten core treeview widget. It fixes bugs, provides a nicer look & feel, and yields an improvement to startup time. The Global History, Hotlist (Bookmarks), Cookie Manager, and SSL Certificate Inspection treeviews have all been rewritten with the new treeview. Another recent change is the addition of undo and redo support to NetSurf's textarea widget.
Continuous Integration experiences 05 Sep 2013
We've been running our Jenkins based Continuous Integration (CI) system for a year now. It now builds NetSurf and our libraries for multiple architecture, operating systems and with different compilers. It runs static analysis, automated testing, produces test coverage reports, code documentation and more. Vince has written up our experiences with the CI system.
NetSurf 3.0 released 20 Apr 2013
NetSurf 3.0 contains many changes over the 2.x release series. The biggest difference is the use of our new Document Object Model library, LibDOM. This new library is a foundation that paves the way for us to implement a fully dynamic layout engine in the future. Other improvements in NetSurf 3.0 include completely new textarea support, ability to fetch and parse CSS in parallel with HTML documents, extensive behind-the-scenes refactoring, and a host of smaller changes and fixes. A more complete listing is available in the Change Log.
NetSurf at the Wakefield Show 23 Mar 2013
The NetSurf developers will be exhibiting at the Wakefield RISC OS trade show on Saturday 20th April. Please visit our stand to discuss issues, future plans, or just to meet the developers.
Developer guide – 2: Working with the codebase and community 07 Mar 2013
The second part to Vince's development guide for newcomers to the project. This one examines the code, how its arranged, and how to interact with the existing developers.
Developer guide – 1: Getting & building the source 07 Mar 2013
Vince is producing a series of posts to help enable new contributers get involved with the project. This first post covers the mechanics of acquiring and building the source.
New textarea handling 11 Feb 2013
We've rewritten NetSurf's textarea support, so composing webmail, forum posting, and form filling should be more reliable now. Support for text selection and other behaviour is improved.
Project development visulisations 01 Jan 2013
Vince has produced Gource animations that show the development of our project graphically. The videos habe been uploaded to YouTube.
Early JavaScript builds available 13 Dec 2012
While there is a very long way to go before NetSurf becomes a fully JavaScript-capable browser, brave users may like to try the JavaScript enabled test builds from our autobuilder.
Development progress 05 Nov 2012
The NetSurf Developers held another workshop over the weekend. During the event we were able to consolidate several aspects of the browser after the previous LibDOM integration. LibDOM's performance was optimised, and the remaining usage of LibXML was removed from NetSurf. Thanks to Collabora who kindly hosted the workshop.
Moved from SVN to Git 15 Jul 2012
We have migrated from Subversion to Git for our source version control. See the Getting started and Git cheat sheet documents on the Wiki. Please let us know if you find anything amiss.
NetSurf 2.9 released 28 Apr 2012
NetSurf 2.9 contains many improvements over the previous release. The most significant changes are new multi-tasking behaviour, optimised URL handling, fetcher optimisations, cache optimisations, and faster CSS selection. Full details in the change log. We recommend all users upgrade.
LibDOM progress 26 Mar 2012
The NetSurf Developers held a developer workshop over the weekend, during which much progress was made on LibDOM which sits at the heart of our NetSurf 3.0 plans. NetSurf trunk is now using the LibDOM library in place of LibXML2, and we hope to extract several benefits from this change over the coming months. Thanks to Collabora who kindly hosted the workshop.
New home for TTF2f 07 Dec 2011
The RISC OS font conversion utility TTF2f has a new web page here, on the NetSurf site. It is capable of converting TrueType, OpenType and other formats to the native RISC OS format. It supports conversion of large fonts with wide Unicode coverage. Anyone wishing to develop TTF2f further should get in touch!
NetSurf 2.8 released 21 Sep 2011
NetSurf 2.8 adds support for frames and iframes on all platforms, MIME type sniffing, and a new image cache. Image decoding can now be deferred until images are required for more optimal resource use and faster page load times. The release also incorporates many other new features, optimisations, improvements and bug fixes. Full details in the change log. We recommend all users upgrade.
NetSurf 2.7 released 16 Apr 2011
NetSurf 2.7 contains many improvements over the previous release. The most significant change is the addition of core global history, bookmarks and cookie management features. Full details in the change log. We recommend all users upgrade.
Mac OS X port and other frontend news 20 Jan 2011
A new Mac OS X port has been created. It can be built from source, following the instructions in the source tree. An Atari port has also been created, and the Windows, AmigaOS, GTK and RISC OS ports all continue to be developed.
NetSurf 2.6 released 21 Sep 2010
NetSurf 2.6 is primarily a bug fix release. It contains some improvements to page rendering, fetching & caching, memory usage, as well as some front-end specific fixes. Full details in the change log. We recommend all users upgrade.
NetSurf 2.5 released 24 Apr 2010
NetSurf 2.5 contains many improvements over the previous release. The major changes are the use of our brand new CSS parser and selection engine (LibCSS), and a newly designed cache for fetched content. Full details in the change log. We recommend all users upgrade.
NetSurf at Wakefield Show 2010 14 Jan 2010
NetSurf 2.5 is expected to be released at the Wakefield RISC OS Show. The release will focus on the CSS engine, memory usage and speed, as well as fixing bugs. NetSurf 2.5 is likely to be the last release for RISC OS.
NetSurf in The Icon Bar Awards 2009 01 Jan 2010
NetSurf won in the category of "Best non-commercial product" in The Icon Bar's 2009 RISC OS awards. Thanks to everyone who voted for us!
Google Summer of Code Roundup 15 Sep 2009
As many of you know, NetSurf has participated in Google Summer of Code for a second consecutive year. This year we ran three projects which have all been of great benefit to the project.
New developers sought 06 Aug 2009
A maintainer is required for the RISC OS front end. Also anyone with Perl scripting ability could help overhaul the autobuilder.
NetSurf 2.1 released 23 May 2009
NetSurf 2.1 is a bug fix release. It contains some improvements to page rendering as well as some front-end specific fixes. Full details in the change log. We recommend all users upgrade.
NetSurf as an embedded web kiosk 12 May 2009
Media watch: LinuxDevices has put up a tutorial for setting up NetSurf's framebuffer front end on embedded linux devices and creating a web kiosk.
NetSurf 2.0 released 25 Apr 2009
NetSurf 2 is a major update over the 1.x release series, and represents almost two years of development. New features include a new HTML parser, SVG support, PDF export, improved page layout and a more complete GTK interface. This is also the first release for our new framebuffer target and the native ports to AmigaOS, BeOS and Haiku.
GSoC students selected 20 Apr 2009
This year we will have students working on a Document Object Model implementation, the usability and feature set of NetSurf's core multi-platform interface, and adding features to the GTK front end.
Google Summer of Code 18 Mar 2009
NetSurf has been accepted into Google Summer of Code 2009, as a mentoring organisation. Students interested in getting involved should check out our project ideas.
NetSurf 2.0 plan & summary of recent development 09 Mar 2009
NetSurf 2.0 to be released next month. Recent changes to page layout, form submission improved, upgraded AmigaOS port, framebuffer front end advanced and many other changes.
Another year, another accolade 07 Jan 2009
At the end of a busy year for NetSurf, with the release of NetSurf 1.2, the development of many new features, ports to new operating systems and participation in Google Summer of Code, NetSurf was voted for an award by Drobe's venerable readership. Thanks to everyone who voted for us!
Summary of recent developments 09 Nov 2008
New framebuffer port, better CSS support, improved page layout, tabbed browsing improvements, new features and functionality for BeOS and AmigaOS ports.
AmigaOS and BeOS ports 18 Aug 2008
New native port to AmigaOS and work on the BeOS port continues. Both ports are at an early stage, but usable.
Summary of recent developments 17 Aug 2008
Bumper development summary, including performance and page layout improvements, better text selection handling, vastly improved GTK front end, ports to new platforms and Google Summer of Code round-up.
Now using Hubbub 11 Aug 2008
NetSurf now uses Hubbub, our new HTML parser which is compliant with the HTML5 specification. This fixes many issues and ensures we handle broken HTML in the same way as the other mainstream browsers.
BeOS port started 03 Jun 2008
NetSurf is now running natively on the BeOS operating system. The early port is available from SVN.
GSoC projects selected 22 Apr 2008
The student projects that will be carried out this summer have been announced. See our GSoC page for details.
NetSurf 1.2 released 22 Mar 2008
The second update to NetSurf 1 has been released. It offers several bug fixes over the previous release and we recommend that users upgrade.
Google Summer of Code 17 Mar 2008
NetSurf is participating in Google Summer of Code 2008, as a mentoring organisation. Students interested in getting involved should apply to Google. More information on our GSoC page.
Summary of recent development 02 Mar 2008
Pages are now periodically reflowed as images are downloaded. Handling of presentational markup is improved. Better form element handling and many other fixes and improvements.
Summary of recent development 03 Feb 2008
NetSurf's cookie and HTTP redirect support have been enhanced. Layout upgrades, including better form element display and float positioning. SVG redraw is now faster on RISC OS.
NetSurf web site redesigned 02 Jan 2008
We've redesigned the web site to make it easier to navigate. Much of the content has been rewritten to make it clear that NetSurf is a multi-platform web browser.
Summary of recent development 02 Jan 2008
Recent work on the development branch of NetSurf has added SVG support to the GTK build and the beginnings of SVG Tiny support to the RISC OS version. Other changes have included refinements to the web page scaling facilities.
NetSurf 1.1 released 13 Aug 2007
The first update to NetSurf 1 has been released. It offers several bug fixes over the previous release and we recommend that users upgrade.
NetSurf in Debian testing 03 Jun 2007
NetSurf is now packaged in Debian linux. Currently it is in Debian testing.
NetSurf 1.0 released 19 May 2007
The first stable release of NetSurf is now available. The NetSurf project was first started in 2003 and development builds have been available from the project web site since then.
Media watch 04 Dec 2006
An article at The Iconbar reviews recent developments and discusses future plans for the project.
Moved to subversion 09 Apr 2006
We have migrated to Subversion, a more powerful and advanced versioning system than CVS.
The road to 1.0 25 Mar 2006
Our plans for version 1.0 for the RISC OS and GTK builds.
Experimental GTK port 22 Jun 2004
A new GTK front end has been checked in. It allows NetSurf to be tested on Uinx-like systems.
Sourceforge project registered 19 Apr 2002
After an online discussion about the deficiencies of existing web browser on the RISC OS plaform, the NetSurf web browser project has been started.