Top all-time · #3346
Brian Kardell
Personal blog · bkardell.com/blogwebprogramming
Brian Kardell's personal blog at bkardell.com covers web and programming. Since 2017, 23 different Hacker News readers have linked it 41 times, most often “Where Browsers Come From”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-09-28, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (10) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Brian Kardell's blog for its Brief-ish History of the Web series and his mid-season reviews of browser engine contributions, mainly by Igalia.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 10 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Most-linked posts?
- Where Browsers Come From3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2022-07-07
- /blog/2023-Mid-Season-Power-Rankings.html3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2023-08-15
- Igalia is the #2 committer for WebKit and Blink2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2019-12-18
- Enhanced Spell Checking on the Web2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2026-08-18
- The Blessing of the Strings2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2024-04-06
- Can I:Has()2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2021-05-14
- UA Gotta Be Kidding2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2022-03-31
- /blog/2024-Midseason.html2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2025-01-15
- Web Engine Diversity and Ecosystem Health2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2020-05-26
- A Brief(ish) History of the Web Universe (2015)2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2021-10-12
What Hacker News says?
Last autumn we finally fell to third behind Microsoft, in fairness.. But we're also the second biggest contributors to WebKit (really significant there) and Gecko too, as well as the #1 contributors to Servo, and more - if you're interested: https://bkardell.com/blog/2024-Midseason.html
Comment linking /blog/2024-Midseason.html
on “I Switched to Firefox and Never Looked Back”Submitted UA Gotta Be Kidding as a story · 128 points
HN discussionI get this take... You might find my post on this topic interesting https://bkardell.com/blog/wolvic.html
Comment linking /blog/wolvic.html
on “Wolvic, a new browser project picking up where Firefox Reality leaves off”Submitted Making the whole web better, one canvas at a time as a story · 90 points
HN discussionPart IV is the last in the series but is not linked (ends in the launch of Netscape 2 with Java, Javascript and the browser plugin API): https://bkardell.com/blog/Brief-ish-History-of-The-Web-Part-...
Comment linking /blog/Brief-ish-History-of-The-Web-Part-4.html
on “Semantics and the Web: An Awkward History”Submitted Unlocking Colors as a story · 43 points
HN discussionMailing List Link: http://lists.xml.org/archives/xml-dev/202109/msg00001.html Youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77qDvd5uOx8 Transcription: http://simonstl.com/balisage/TRANSCRIPT09042021.txt Pairs well with Brian Kardell's History of the Web series (2015), which covers some of these bits & is a delightful enjoyable read as well: https://bkardell.com/blog/Brief-ish-History-of-The-Web-Part-... Also, note,…
Comment linking /blog/Brief-ish-History-of-The-Web-Part-1.html
on “Semantics and the Web: An Awkward History”Submitted The Blessing of the Strings as a story · 31 points
HN discussionThis article from Igalia describe pretty well the situation around contribution to gecko/webkit/blink : https://bkardell.com/blog/2023-Mid-Season-Power-Rankings.htm... Very interesting read!
Comment linking /blog/2023-Mid-Season-Power-Rankings.html
on “Firefox finally outperforming Google Chrome in SunSpider”Submitted Webrise as a story · 20 points
HN discussionYes! We've contributed loads to each of them. Here's a summary I wrote at the end of last year https://bkardell.com/blog/2019-Wrap.html - #2 contributor to Chromium, #2 contributor to WebKit, top 10 to Firefox last year.
Comment linking /blog/2019-Wrap.html
on “Igalia's open prioritization experiment for contributing to browsers”Submitted I is=“the walrus” as a story · 16 points
HN discussionThat's a different argument, unrelated to the one that I originally responded to: > > all of the big, successful open-source projects are either GPL, or can't be GPL because of the GPLs murky legality around linking I don't see how your argument is relevant to that, or how it disputes the article. The article is not about funding or "organic growth". It's about survival characteristics and winning the mainstream. Bl…
Comment linking /blog/2024-Midseason.html
on “In the long run, GPL code becomes irrelevant (2015)”Submitted Tabs in HTML: API Design as a story · 3 points
HN discussionHi, Igalian here. I can tell you that Wolvic does not use Servo nor are there any immediate (or even long term at this point) plans for it to. That's not to say it couldn't happen someday or that it wouldn't be interesting. We are major contributors to a lot of major projects and many of them have something to do with web engines (see https://bkardell.com/blog/2023-Mid-Season-Power-Rankings.htm... ) so it's easy eno…
Comment linking /blog/2023-Mid-Season-Power-Rankings.html
on “Rusty revenant Servo returns to render once more”Submitted Where Browsers Come From as a story · 3 points
HN discussionBrian Kardell's recent post "Webrise"[1] has similar exploration of what humanity might be able to do to become responsible stewards of one it's most important common means. Less specific than this article, & spends a lot more time building context & opening the questions, but both are interested in how we maintain user-agency ongoingly, which is a powerful humanistic nigh-unto religious question to me (in a world w…
Comment linking /blog/Webrise.html
on “We Need a Chromium Foundation”Submitted A Brief(ish) History of the Web Universe (2015) as a story · 3 points
HN discussionNo affiliation with Mozilla, just a very long time FF user. They don't release this info so I don't know. That said, the best info I can find is here [0]. It claims that 87% of Firefox's contributions are from "mozilla". Red Hat also contribute. If you dig into some of Mozilla's outgoings, a lot of their non-employee outgoing spend is going on paying other vendors to work on their software. At least some of these lo…
Comment linking /blog/2023-Mid-Season-Power-Rankings.html
on “Mozilla to UK regulators: VPNs are essential privacy and security tools”Submitted Enhanced Spell Checking on the Web as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Maintaining the Bridges as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Where Browsers Come From as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Where Browsers Come From as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted What even is a web browser? as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Can I :has() as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Can I:Has() as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Web Engine Diversity and Ecosystem Health as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Igalia is the #2 committer for WebKit and Blink as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Enhanced Spell Checking on the Web as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Get Clamped: Unwinding Some Difficult CSS History as a story · 1 points
HN discussion
