A release of the Wolvic 1.6 web browser is available, intended for use in augmented and virtual reality systems. The project continues the development of the Firefox Reality browser, previously developed by Mozilla. After the Firefox Reality codebase stagnated within the Wolvic project, its development was continued by Igalia, known for its participation in the development of such free projects as GNOME, GTK, WebKitGTK, Epiphany, GStreamer, Wine, Mesa and freedesktop.org. Wolvic code is written in Java and C++, and is licensed under the MPLv2 license. Ready-made assemblies are generated for the Android platform. Supports work with 3D helmets Oculus, Huawei VR Glass, Lenovo VRX, Lenovo A3, HTC Vive Focus, Pico Neo, Pico4, Pico4E, Meta Quest Pro, Pico Neo3 and Lynx (the browser is also being ported for Qualcomm devices).
The browser uses the GeckoView web engine, a variant of Mozilla's Gecko engine packaged as a separate library that can be updated independently. Management is carried out through a fundamentally different three-dimensional user interface, which allows you to navigate through sites within the virtual world or as part of augmented reality systems. In addition to a 3D helmet-driven interface that lets you view traditional 3D pages, web developers can use the WebXR, WebAR, and WebVR APIs to create custom 360D web applications that interact in virtual space. It also supports viewing spatial videos shot in XNUMX-degree mode in a XNUMXD helmet.
VR controllers are used for navigation, and a virtual or real keyboard is used to enter data into web forms. In addition, a voice input system is offered for user interaction, which makes it possible to fill out forms and send search queries using the speech recognition engine developed in Mozilla. As a home page, the browser provides an interface for accessing selected content and navigating through a collection of 3D-adapted games, web applications, 3D models, and XNUMXD videos.
In the new version:
- Added support for Pico Neo3 virtual reality helmets.
- The ability to view vertical videos in full screen (videos shot with the smartphone in a vertical orientation, in which the height is greater than the width) is provided.
- Support for input completion for Latin-based layouts has been added to the virtual keyboard. Auto-completion is enabled in the Settings > Display > Latin Keyboard Input Auto-complete settings, dictionaries are loaded as needed. Improved stability and reduced input lag.
- New 3D environments have been added: “village clearing”, “above the clouds” and “milky way”.
- For devices other than those manufactured by Huawei, the option to manage telemetry collection has been removed, since the Mozilla service used to send telemetry is disabled. For Huawei devices, the option is left, since Huawei platforms have their own telemetry collection system.
- Improved display of information in full screen mode.
- Added support for buttons for quickly resizing the window (doubling it, returning to the original size) taking into account the current aspect ratio.
- The Gecko browser engine and Mozilla Android Components have been updated to version 121, matching Firefox 121 (previous releases used Mozilla Android Components 116 and Gecko 116).
Source: opennet.ru