FAQ

Concerns About Java

Why did you choose Java?

• Only cross-platform high-level language with a fully-functional GUI library (AWT + Swing).
• Automatic memory management and resource management.
• Strongly and Statically typed.
• Runtime Sandboxing, via the Security Manager.
• Good performance for long running applications such as a browser.
• Fully open-source. (C# was not open-source and cross-platform until recently).

Why Java, and not some other JVM language?

• we forked from Lobo browser which was written in Java
• lesser run-time overheads than other JVM languages
• larger community

We are exploring alternatives, such as Scala, Kotlin, Ceylon, but don't want to rush into them right now. Also, Java 8 added support for Lambdas, which somewhat reduced the gap.

General

Why does it block cookies and javascript etc by default?

Those technologies are a major concern from a security and privacy perspective. Cookies allow servers, especially third parties, to track you. Javascript opens up an even larger avenue for tracking and finger-printing, while also opening up a huge surface for attack.

Apart from the security concerns, executing javascript by default consumes more power, which is especially significant on mobile devices.

That said, gngr does allow you to change this policy, either globally or on a per-site basis, via the RequestManager.