MacSurf
Shares rank 29 of 53 web browsers by recommenders
A free web browser for classic Mac OS 9 that people find impressive for its engineering. Some commenters note it lacks TLS 1.2 support, though it has TLS 1.3.
A free web browser for classic Mac OS 9 that people find impressive for its engineering. Some commenters note it lacks TLS 1.2 support, though it has TLS 1.3.
14 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 12
- criticize it
- 2
- approval share
- 86%
Recommended in 2 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 12 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 6 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 2 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, not met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Impressive engineering for an old system
“That's impressive, too bad modern web requires more than 2000x the transistor density to run JS at decent speed.”
Comment from 30 May 2026 in “Macsurf, "modern" web browser for macOS 9” “To me it proves that a technology can be understood and implemented by one person.”
Comment from 30 May 2026 in “Macsurf, "modern" web browser for macOS 9” “bringing an entire browser to a system this old is a serious achievement”
Comment from 30 May 2026 in “Macsurf, "modern" web browser for macOS 9” - Comment from 7 Jul 2026 in “MacSurf 1.68 – NetSurf on OS 9 Released”
Praised as a cool project
“What a cool project! The homepage for this is really quite slick”
Comment from 28 May 2026 in “Show HN: MacSurf, a web browser port of Netsurf for Mac OS 9 with native TLS” “Looks fantastic, wish I had a G4 to test it on!”
Comment from 31 May 2026 in “Macsurf, "modern" web browser for macOS 9” “This is awesome and greatly appreciated”
Comment from 7 Jul 2026 in “MacSurf 1.68 – NetSurf on OS 9 Released”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Lacks TLS 1.2 support
“Too bad it’s not both TLS 1.2 and 1.3”
Comment from 27 May 2026 in “Show HN: MacSurf, a web browser port of Netsurf for Mac OS 9 with native TLS”
Other web browsers people recommend
The four most recommended other web browsers, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Firefox | 1,572 | 1,371 | 53% | 12 | 16 yrs125 owners | — |
| Google Chrome | 503 | 1,086 | 32% | 12 | 10 yrs11 owners | — |
| Brave | 397 | 248 | 62% | 12 | 4.9 yrs16 owners | — |
| Safari | 307 | 577 | 35% | 12 | 13 yrs27 owners | — |
| MacSurfThis page | 12 | 2 | 86% | 2 | — | — |
What people said
13 of the 16 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Better lazy image loading on heavy forums like 68kmla.”
“Not working, “Bad Parameter””
“Writing a JS engine for OS 9 in 2026 is like, genuinely impressive”
“This is awesome and greatly appreciated”
“Looks fantastic, wish I had a G4 to test it on!”
“I can now say it's also 1.3.”
“bringing an entire browser to a system this old is a serious achievement”
“Let us know how many minutes it runs before you get a system crash and a sad-face Mac icon.”
“This is what the Amiga is missing!”
“That's impressive, too bad modern web requires more than 2000x the transistor density to run JS at decent speed.”
“To me it proves that a technology can be understood and implemented by one person.”
“What a cool project! The homepage for this is really quite slick”
“Too bad it’s not both TLS 1.2 and 1.3”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.