Wayfarer 8 - End of an Era.

After spending weeks getting WebKitGTK 2.46 to compile and then work, it's time to move on. Wayfarer will no longer have its WebKit core updated past the current version. The past 2 releases I've had to effectively fork more and more of the functionality since WebKit removed the Legacy/Win/Cairo target and started removing its dependencies, of which Wayfarer needs quite a bit. While 2.46 mostly works, I've been unable to track down the breaking change that causes most pages to fail sooner or later. Could be JavaScript, could be WebCore, could be caused by the fact that I've had to change the compiler since WebKit started using C++23 features and aggressively optimising parts with SIMD code. WebKitGTK moving to Skia for rendering doesn't help either. Meanwhile, the gap between the performance modern websites need and what our aging G4 and G5s can deliver keeps widening.

So where does this leave us? Well, the engine is still modern enough that the pages that currently work will continue working for a while, likely several years. Meanwhile, I intend to focus on providing a Linux/macOS hosted browsing service that will be able to render pages in Wayfarer as transparently as possible. And so, the next Wayfarer version will have an option to either load a page locally or remotely via CEF/Chrome.