Creating a web browser is no easy task which is why great browsers like Firefox and Opera demand the work of large teams. It would be inconceivable for many of us to start from scratch and develop our own browser but one 12 year old has done it.
This browser is programmed in C# and supposedly consists of more than 20,000 lines of code. It is called the AuroraBrowser and on the kid’s website it says that it “will be the fastest web browser in the world!” I’m not saying that it is impossible I just think that if he is going to hype that then it better be true, and have the benchmarks to back it up.
The project is currently 88% complete but he is looking for some beta testers to find any bugs that may be in the program before it is released. I signed up and I would love to see what the browser is all about because the screenshots look impressive. Some people say that it would be easy to create a browser from C# since you can just embed Internet Explorer, but I don’t understand why he would have needed 20,000 lines of code if he just used the IE engine so I say that he really started from scratch.
There are several screenshots posted in case you want to see what some of the features look like, such as the tabs. The user interface is very well designed in my opinion and I especially love how it is adapted to the Windows Vista interface.
News Source: Alfred Thompson [via Digg]
I requested to beta test it and I installed it in my Vista RC2 partition and it works pretty well so far. It crashes when you click on the favorites button, but outside of that I’m pretty impressed so far.
I haven’t gotten my invite yet.
I just requested to beta test. I am interested in seeing it.
His server seems to be down, I shall try later.
Is it just for Vista?
It is working for me right now.
I’m actually not sure if it is just for Vista. I wouldn’t think so because it is just written in .NET but he may have used some Vista only features. If he has been developing it as long as it sounds like he has then I’m sure the project started in XP.
What a little shit-eater. If I had a nickel for every time some kid proved he was smarter than me.
***This comment has been censored by the CyberNet team***
That’s nothing special, it’s just an IE wrapper. Not to rip on him, but most 12 year olds can do something like this. To make a basic browser like his is about 10 lines of code. It uses .net framework which just drags and drops the browser onto his app. Uses IE to render the pages..
The browser buttons (back/forward/reload) have just been ripped off of [caminobrowser.org] That’s not cool.
I originally thought that is what he did as well, but if it is really 20,000 lines of code I am sure he isn’t using the IE rendering engine. That is one reason why I want to test it out.
Wow, you’re right and that really isn’t cool. Hopefully they are just temporary and he is going to replace them before he releases it.
He must be using the IE rendering engine because I went to the new Virutal Earth 3D site of Live.com and I had no trouble viewing the 3D maps which as we know it only works with IE6 & IE7 unless there is another explanation? I am writing this using the Aurora Browser.
If that works fine then it must be the IE rendering engine.
It probably can’t become the “fastest” browser on the earth, because .NET Framework uses JIT (just-in-time) compiler, it is something like Java, so it is slow.
20000 lines of code is not enough to create a full-featured browser. I believe, it is a IE7 wrapper.
By the way, all modern IDEs (Integrated Development Environments) uses something like WYSIWYG form editor with all those drag-and-drop functionality. And those “form designers” are creating a LOTS of code automatically. For example, it is possible to create a simple “Hello world!” application in C#, which will have 200 lines of code created automatically, and only 1 line created by human.
It is also very simple to check, is it IE-wrapper or not. Just go to, for example, [webstandards.org] page, look what you get, and compare it to your IE results.
Anyway, I found this browser’s interface very interesting, because it is something very fresh and original. So I would like to take a look at this browser.
I have filled in the request form, but still no response. And I’m sure I WILL NOT GET IT, because kid’s website just got some thousands requests today…
So, can anybody just upload it into some file sharing website, and post a link here?
Ryan! where is my super-long post which I just posted, your anti-spam protection ate it?
That is a very good point and hopefully Jeff can try that out to let us know what the results are.
Sometimes my spam protection likes to get ahead of itself but I despammified (I like making up words) the comment.
BTW, I think, “CybetNet News” is my favorite blog, because I check it about 5-10 times per day. There are some other good blogs for me, but this one is the best
Our spam filter doesn’t look at whether a user is registered or not but you won’t have to do the math anymore to get your comment approved. I would change it so that registered users don’t get filtered but I don’t want that to lead to spammers creating accounts.
We are glad that you love our site so much and this actually isn’t our full-time job yet. Within the next six months Ashley and I will both be working on it full-time so that we can provide more quality content to the readers. Thanks for all of your kind words SLA!
Impressive. When I was 12 I could barely do HTML
. Congratulations to this kid. However, I don’t think I will be switching from Firefox any time soon 
.