The TRUE Web Browser

by Perette Barella

TRUE is a new web browser designed and implemented by me, completely from scratch. My target market is those suffering from information overload -- it doesn't render useless information, instead only displaying useful information that can be found on the 'net. To this end, I've given it a very appropriate name: TRUE.

Although designed to deal with information overload, TRUE is also 100% effective against adware, spyware, malware, browser hijacks, pop-ups, and banner advertising. It is also works effectively as a parental control, filtering out pornography, although I have some concerns about this behavior.

To ease the distribution, I've already blasted it out to pretty much every UNIX system in the known world; you'll find it installed as /bin/true or /usr/bin/true depending on your installation. (For the cynical out there, you'll find it it installed also as /bin/false or /usr/bin/false). Usage is as follows:

  true <URL>

TRUE is 100% conforming to HTML 4.01 and the CSS 2 specification. I spent hours implementing every CSS property and HTML tag, except the 'display' property because according to the CSS 2 Specification, p. 102, section 9.2.5, "Conforming HTML user agents may ignore the 'display' property".

After parsing the HTML and building a document tree, TRUE begins applying stylesheets. It starts with a standard set of defaults, but here's the magic for regulation of Internet junk: when TRUE simulates applying it's own default style sheet (per CSS 2, p. 72, section 6.4) it behaves as if the 'display' attribute was set to 'none'.

The rest is really not worth mentioning; it's a standard application of CSS rules according to the cascade based on media type, etc., as outlined in great detail in CSS 2. The results are sent to standard out for display. I don't yet have a graphic version of TRUE available, but maybe that'll be next week's project.

So since y'all will have much more time available now (TRUE having sorted all the wheat from the chaff on all those web sites you visit everyday), drop me an e-mail and let me know what you think of it.