Robert O'Callahan

Most-linked posts?

1. Rr Chaos Mode (2016)
   10 people · 10 mentions · first linked 2021-12-03
2. Forking HTML into a static language doesn't make sense
   4 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2020-05-11
3. /2018/01/ancient-browser-wars-history-md5-hashed.html
   4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2018-06-01
4. So you want to build a browser engine
   4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2024-06-09
5. Pernosco Demo
   4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2019-10-24
6. /2017/01/disable-your-antivirus-software-except.html
   3 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2018-04-23
7. Choose Firefox Now, or Later You Won't Get a Choice (2014)
   3 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2018-12-07
8. Comparing the Quality of Debug Information Produced by Clang and Gcc
   3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2018-11-13
9. Maintaining an Independent Browser Is Expensive
   3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2017-12-03
10. Rust Optimizations That C++ Can't Do (Version 2)
    3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2017-04-05

What Hacker News says?

1. sfink · 2025-02-03

   Yes. That is what "...unless the base rate is set externally somehow" means. It is different initially, when only one company is offering the "discount" and they have not yet adjusted their base price upward. In fact, the people who want the discount will presumably flock to their service, which may even mean they won't raise the base price all the way up if it makes their costs lower. But if that works, the other c…

   Comment linking /2014/08/choose-firefox-now-or-later-you-wont.html?m=1

   on “Everyone knows your location: tracking myself down through in-app ads”
2. bzbarsky · 2017-01-26

   Submitted Avoid Non-Microsoft Antivirus Software as a story · 859 points

   HN discussion
3. ForHackernews · 2019-01-23

   Choose Firefox Now Or Later You Won't Have a Choice https://robert.ocallahan.org/2014/08/choose-firefox-now-or-l...

   Comment linking /2014/08/choose-firefox-now-or-later-you-wont.html

   on “Google proposes changes to Chromium which would disable uBlock Origin”
4. jakub_g · 2018-12-07

   Submitted Choose Firefox Now, or Later You Won't Get a Choice (2014) as a story · 698 points

   HN discussion
5. gsnedders · 2018-09-12

   Obviously by 2013 his views had changed: See https://robert.ocallahan.org/2013/02/and-then-there-were-thr... on Presto's demise (except it lives on after death in Opera Mini, to this day!) And https://robert.ocallahan.org/2013/04/blink.html on the Blink fork.

   Comment linking /2013/04/blink.html

   on “Microsoft intercepting Firefox, Chrome installation on Windows 10 Insider build”
6. francois2 · 2014-10-28

   Submitted Spidermonkey has passed V8 on Octane performance as a story · 651 points

   HN discussion
7. mook · 2018-09-12

   roc did, supposedly, in late 2007. See https://robert.ocallahan.org/2018/01/ancient-browser-wars-hi... It dates from back when Mozilla seemed to be losing quickly, and actually rebranding Chrome (with their own changes) might have made sense. I'm glad they didn't, of course. I have no reason believe he, or anybody else at Mozilla, currently thinks that way.

   Comment linking /2018/01/ancient-browser-wars-history-md5-hashed.html

   on “Microsoft intercepting Firefox, Chrome installation on Windows 10 Insider build”
8. nachtigall · 2017-06-01

   Submitted WebAssembly: Mozilla Won as a story · 626 points

   HN discussion
9. sfink · 2024-02-13

   That'll work great for your Distributed QSort Incorporated startup, where the only product is a sorting algorithm. Formal software verification is very useful. But what can be usefully formalized is rather limited, and what can be formalized correctly in practice is even more limited. That means you need to restrict your scope to something sane and useful. As a result, in the real world running thousands of tests is…

   Comment linking /2016/02/introducing-rr-chaos-mode.html

   on “Is something bugging you?”
10. bzbarsky · 2018-01-08

    Submitted The Fight for Patent-Unencumbered Media Codecs Is Nearly Won as a story · 495 points

    HN discussion
11. roca · 2022-06-04

    You probably could record a process running for days but it would also take days to replay to the end, which would not be much fun. We don't create checkpoints during the recording. You'd be better off restarting the recording periodically. Also, rr has a "chaos mode" which randomizes scheduling and often makes threading bugs easier to reproduce. https://robert.ocallahan.org/2016/02/introducing-rr-chaos-mo...

    Comment linking /2016/02/introducing-rr-chaos-mode.html

    on “What rr does”
12. jonotime · 2016-09-26

    Submitted Choose Firefox Now, or Later You Won't Get a Choice (2014) as a story · 484 points

    HN discussion
13. abhinavk · 2024-08-11

    https://robert.ocallahan.org/2024/06/browser-engine.html P.S.: This specific post was written in response to announcement of Ladybird.

    Comment linking /2024/06/browser-engine.html

    on “Verso – Web browser built on top of the Servo web engine”
14. jonchang · 2017-12-03

    Submitted Maintaining an Independent Browser Is Expensive as a story · 441 points

    HN discussion
15. roca · 2021-10-07

    Building a shell around Chromium or Webkit isn't very expensive. Maintaining an independent, high-quality browser engine so that the design and implementation of the Web isn't up to a Google/Apple duopoly is incredibly expensive: https://robert.ocallahan.org/2017/12/maintaining-independent... (4 years old, but the situation I describe hasn't changed, except that Microsoft has switched to Chromium so Mozilla's engine…

    Comment linking /2017/12/maintaining-independent-browser-is.html

    on “Mozilla to put ads in Firefox address bar suggestions”
16. hasheddan · 2021-06-19

    Submitted Spectre mitigations murder userspace performance as a story · 405 points

    HN discussion
17. ForHackernews · 2019-01-29

    "Choose Firefox now, or later you won't have a choice" https://robert.ocallahan.org/2014/08/choose-firefox-now-or-l...

    Comment linking /2014/08/choose-firefox-now-or-later-you-wont.html

    on “Firefox 65.0 released”
18. walterbell · 2014-08-16

    Submitted Choose Firefox Now, Or Later You Won't Get A Choice as a story · 390 points

    HN discussion
19. roca · 2020-05-11

    This idea comes up often. I think it's a bad idea for many reasons, so rather than repeat myself I wrote them down here: https://robert.ocallahan.org/2020/05/why-forking-html-into-s...

    Comment linking /2020/05/why-forking-html-into-static-language.html

    on “Second-Guessing the Modern Web”
20. samth · 2019-11-27

    Submitted Debuggers Suck as a story · 299 points

    HN discussion
21. Lockal · 2024-06-24

    "animated fonts" - not really; all meaningful applications not only calculate shaping once, they also aggressively cache the result (mentioned in https://robert.ocallahan.org/2024/06/browser-engine.html ) But things like this might be possible (for now): https://gwern.net/dropcap

    Comment linking /2024/06/browser-engine.html

    on “Llama.ttf: A font which is also an LLM”
22. fabrice_d · 2016-02-23

    Submitted Rewrite Everything in Rust as a story · 297 points

    HN discussion
23. dmix · 2019-08-18

    Getting rid of AVs is old news. If almost no one in infosec trusts using them then why bother? https://twitter.com/justinschuh/status/802491391121260544 https://robert.ocallahan.org/2017/01/disable-your-antivirus-...

    Comment linking /2017/01/disable-your-antivirus-software-except.html

    on “Kaspersky AV injected unique ID allowing sites to track users in incognito mode”
24. cesarb · 2017-06-14

    Submitted How I Found a 20-Year-Old Linux Kernel Bug as a story · 274 points

    HN discussion
25. roca · 2019-03-05

    I'm not aware of any evidence that C++ Lifetimes will detect "most misuse". It will detect some common lifetime errors. It will certainly fail to detect other common lifetime errors. https://robert.ocallahan.org/2018/09/more-realistic-goals-fo... Since it fails to detect common lifetime errors, it's not surprising it's more "flexible" than Rust NLL, which prevents all lifetime errors.

    Comment linking /2018/09/more-realistic-goals-for-c-lifetimes-10.html

    on “Building Fast Interpreters in Rust”
26. tatterdemalion · 2017-02-06

    Submitted What Rust Can Do That Other Languages Can't as a story · 273 points

    HN discussion
27. BrendanEich · 2016-09-26

    Surprised to see this on HN again. BTW, Rob left in early March: http://robert.ocallahan.org/2016/03/leaving-mozilla.html

    Comment linking /2016/03/leaving-mozilla.html

    on “Choose Firefox Now, or Later You Won't Get a Choice (2014)”
28. bzbarsky · 2014-03-26

    Submitted Mozilla's low-overhead open source replay debugger as a story · 272 points

    HN discussion
29. cxr · 2020-07-11

    Funny, before your comment showed up, I was actually going to edit in an addendum to link to https://robert.ocallahan.org/2018/10/the-costs-of-programmin... ... to pair with the mbeddr link. You seem to be at a place where you think of Rust as already entrenched, but I'm at a place where I still see Rust as a proposition—one that could lead to that place, or not if we think better and nix it (following the reasoning…

    Comment linking /2018/10/the-costs-of-programming-language.html

    on “Linux kernel in-tree Rust support”
30. Murmuring9087 · 2026-09-25

    Submitted Goodbye Google as a story · 263 points

    HN discussion

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