"Opening a browser and going immediately to a search engine" is how most users use the Internet (proxy statistic; google.com is the most visited web page by a country mile, followed immediately by YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter). A browser that doesn't work with the most popular web pages is not a "browser" for practical purposes of most people.
... which is fine, but I suspect the headline is throwing readers here off because they're equating "browser" to "web browser" and then the actual tool flips their bozo bit when it can't even properly render popular sites in a degraded mode. Perhaps the tool can use better branding: "A general-protocol Internet document browser that can also do some HTML," for example?
Well, Apple, Windows, and various GNU/Linux distros (as they can also run Chrome and Firefox, i.e. two of the most popular apps, plug in a mouse and keyboard, do 99% of the "computer stuff," so they're fine). Chromebook is probably on the fence since you really have to beat it with a hammer to run Excel on it (depending on how you turn your head and squint, that's maybe true for Linux also, but you can get Excel running on there if you really shoulder into getting your compatibility layers working).
... but nobody considers the Arduino a "computer" in the same sense they consider a Raspberry Pi a "computer" because it can't run general-purpose apps.
Yeah let's stop here, you say people think Linux can run "general-purpose apps" but a raspi cant. Just stop try to prove your right...by moving the goalposts.
Arduino is a Micro-controller, Raspberrypi is a SBC -> Single board computer.
>>and user community that designs and manufactures single-board microcontrollers
No, a RasPi is a GNU/Linux platform and can run general-purpose apps. You misunderstood my comparison; RasPi is a computer.
I'm saying nobody considers an Arduino a "computer" in the same category as a Raspberry Pi is a computer (and similarly, nobody should consider Kristall a web browser, though it is something else, which is cool).
And by analogy, Kristall is a "microbrowser" and I think HN had a bad reaction to it because the top-level description was "a browser."
It's the Arduino of browsers.
That doesn't make it bad, but this site is full of pedants and when you call a tool by a slightly-different name, you get "um-actually'd" to death.
(Sometimes, you even get someone swearing at you because they think you don't know the difference between a general-purpose small computer and a microcontroller ;) ).
... which is fine, but I suspect the headline is throwing readers here off because they're equating "browser" to "web browser" and then the actual tool flips their bozo bit when it can't even properly render popular sites in a degraded mode. Perhaps the tool can use better branding: "A general-protocol Internet document browser that can also do some HTML," for example?