I have been writing a lot about how great Wayfarer has become for MorphOS. Well, now Wayfarer 2 is out and it is totally free to download and use unlike what IBrowse is for Classic Amiga. Its not just any short time update. No, this update is a lot heavier than the previous updates. The bumping from 1.21 to 2.0 is bigger than the previous version jumps.
Here is all you need to know about the new web surfing experience on MorphOS!
Wayfarer 2 is a new Web era for MorphOS
With a new webkit engine (WebKitGTK (2.32.1)), dark mode function added and several fixes (read all of them at the bottom of this article). Jacek and Andre shows that MorphOS is able to do things that other operating systems cant on the same PowerPC hardware.
With Wayfarer 2 you can do almost anything that a modern PC or Mac can do, but on much slower hardware. Browsing on nextgen Amiga is starting to feel legit with the Wayfarer 2 release. I used my whole day at startup campus Oslo with my iBook G4. Writing articles, watching YouTube clips and upload images to Amitopia while writing worked almost like on any modern system today. .
This is what I call purpose of life. To be able to use the things you love the most and for me that is using MorphOS daily.
Wayfarer 2.1 is already Out
Including releasing the main new Wayfarer 2. Also a version 2.1 is now released.
Improvements for Wayfarer 2.1
- ICU files will now be loaded from PROGDIR if missing in MOSSYS
- Updated EasyList adblocker data
- Fixed wheel scrolling in subframes
- Fixed a race condition in HLS player
- Fixed a widely reported crash in H264 decoding
- Fixed a potential crash in bookmarks code
I moved the ICU files to MOSSYS myself on my iBook G4. But with 2.1 you can just leave it as it is as you wish. I didnt notice any crashes when testing YouTube. But thats why its important for people having issues to report them.
Improvements for Wayfarer 2.0
- Rebased to latest stable WebKitGTK (2.32.1)
- Implemented Dark Mode
- Fixed a crash in HLS video playback
- Worked around an issue preventing sites from loading, etc after quit confirmation requester got cancelled
- Fixed webkit message log functionality that crashed if the resulting message contained formatting sequences
- Changed rendering of elements like checkmarks that were missing on some websites
- Out-of-RAM crashes no longer bring up the Send Bugreport messagebox
Including adding WebKitGTK (2.31.1), I personally never thought of seeing the implementation of Dark Mode in any Amiga browser. It is a modern feature for people that wants to watch websites and video services such as YouTube in a dark mode environment. This is a CSS support that I never saw would come to Amiga. Perfect.
Wayfarer 2 working Flow
I have tested Wayfarer 2 both on my iBook G4 and on my PowerBook G4 and the speed increase is felt a lot more on the iBook G4. The WordPress editor that I use for Amitopia website feels a bit laggy on iBook G4 still but it is way better on Wayfarer 2.1 which makes it useable. On my PowerBook G4 the usage is more responsive. The best performance for the browser is above 1.5GHz G4.
I am not a coder, but these updates to Wayfarer are for me impressive. It shows the tremendous dedication to give MorphOS a window to the modern world. The fact that Wayfarer 2 lets MorphOS surf the web like any other operating systems on much worse specifications, is a very interesting feeling. Wayfarer 2 invites even more PowerPC users to MorphOS. Personally, you might not like the licensing policy that MorphOS got, but this is the way they have chosen to be able to survive.
I recommend anyone interested in keeping their PowerPC Macs and AmigaOnes or PegasosII machines alive to Support MorphOS. It is a very interesting Nextgen Amiga operating system with support for more of todays standards than any other Nextgen Amiga systems available.
