Re:Ask HN: Why all the sudden people are writing browsers wi...
by simonw on Wednesday January 28, 2026 @12:17AM
(#46791353)
The Cursor FastRender project started in December, so it wasn't influenced by my prediction in January.
Re:Ask HN: Why all the sudden people are writing browsers wi...
by zabzonk on Wednesday January 28, 2026 @12:23AM
(#46791392)
> Coding agents are really good at tasks where you can define a concrete goal and then set them to work iterating in that direction.
Wholly based on other people's work. Which is OK.
Re:Ask HN: Why all the sudden people are writing browsers wi...
by jordanb on Wednesday January 28, 2026 @12:57AM
(#46791608)
> Coding agents are really good at tasks where you can define a concrete goal and then set them to work iterating in that direction.
Specifically ones that are in the training data.
> A web browser is the most ambitious project I can think of that leans into those capabilities.”
I assume Linux and gcc are in the training data, so additional options may be OSes and compilers..
“A common complaint today from AI coding skeptics is that LLMs are fine for toy projects but can’t be used for anything large and serious.
I think within 3 years that will be comprehensively proven incorrect, to the point that it won’t even be controversial anymore.
I picked a web browser here because so much of the work building a browser involves writing code that has to conform to an enormous and daunting selection of both formal tests and informal websites-in-the-wild.
Coding agents are really good at tasks where you can define a concrete goal and then set them to work iterating in that direction.
A web browser is the most ambitious project I can think of that leans into those capabilities.”
https://simonwillison.net/2026/Jan/8/llm-predictions-for-202...
“The browser and this project were co-developed and very symbiotic, only because the browser was a very useful objective for us to measure and iterate the progress of the harness. The goal was to iterate on and research the multi-agent harness—the browser was just the research example or objective.”
https://simonwillison.net/2026/Jan/23/fastrender/