You can make workarounds to gracefully degrade where we have missing HTML or DOM features, but JavaScript is pretty much run or don't, and more and more sites just plain collapse if any portion of it doesn't.' For better or for worse, web browsers' primary role is no longer to view documents it is to view applications that, by sheer coincidence, sometimes resemble documents. 'However, JavaScript is what probably killed TenFourFox quickest. 'Writing and maintaining a browser engine is fricking hard and everything moves far too quickly for a single developer now,' Kaiser said. Adding modern JavaScript features, like await and async, would require major changes to the underlying JavaScript engine, adding further complexity. With no Rust compiler for 32-bit PowerPC platforms, creating builds beyond FireFox 54 is a near-impossibility. And there are insurmountable hurdles that come with building a modern browser for computers that predate 2005.
