Homebrew [WIP Release] NetSurf 3DS

[3DSannoyance]

i dont know if this is the right place, but the browser just keeps looping the same thing over and over, never loading a webpage, i thought i downloaded it wrong but i tried all my options.

 

[anotherthing]

You need to install the resources file per the instructions on the first post in the thread.

 

[Coderman64]

i dont know if this is the right place, but the browser just keeps looping the same thing over and over, never loading a webpage, i thought i downloaded it wrong but i tried all my options.

Are you sure you properly extracted the required files to `sdcard:/share/netsurf/`?

 

[Lazybev]

Is there a cia qr?

 

[PoorPocketsMcNewHold]

Is there a cia qr?

Installation:​

NetSurf 3DS is currently only available as a .3DSX file. To install, copy the 3DSX file to your /3ds/ folder on your SD card. You will also need to download the resources.zip file, and extract the contents to /share/netsurf/.

IMPORTANT: THE BROWSER WILL NOT WORK WITHOUT EXTRACTING THE RESOURCES TO /share/netsurf! (At some point, I'll probably look into packing these resources in the RomFS for the app, but for now, this works well enough).

You can download all required files from the GitHub releases page.

 

[jamespoo]

this is cool

 

[Handango]

/share/netsurf/. in 3ds folder?

 

[Coderman64]

/share/netsurf/. in 3ds folder?

No, at the root of your sd card

 

[aquatubachris]

No, at the root of your sd card

I'm just as confused as most people on this GBATemp Thread. Where exactly is the /share/netsurf/ folders? I don't see in on the Github page or in the resource.zip file you provided

 

[Coderman64]

I'm just as confused as most people on this GBATemp Thread. Where exactly is the /share/netsurf/ folders? I don't see in on the Github page or in the resource.zip file you provided

You have to create a folder called `share` in the root of your SD card. Then create a folder called `netsurf` in the `share` folder. Extract all of the files from the resources.zip file into the `netsurf` folder, such that files like `netsurf.png` and `welcome.html` are directly within the netsurf folder.

This is pretty much the #1 question I get about this project. At some point I want to pack these files inside of the 3dsx, and have them auto-extract on first launch, but I don't know how I want to do that yet.

 

[aquatubachris]

You have to create a folder called `share` in the root of your SD card. Then create a folder called `netsurf` in the `share` folder. Extract all of the files from the resources.zip file into the `netsurf` folder, such that files like `netsurf.png` and `welcome.html` are directly within the netsurf folder.

This is pretty much the #1 question I get about this project. At some point I want to pack these files inside of the 3dsx, and have them auto-extract on first launch, but I don't know how I want to do that yet.

Ok thank you for explaining, because from the instructions given and looking on this thread. It was perceived that the /share/netsurf/ was something you had to download from the Github instead of creating it.

Maybe it might be helpful if you edit Installation instructions to something like "Create a folder called "share" and inside the "share" folder create another folder called "nerfsurf". It will definitely help decrease the confusion.

 

[WoomyBen]

Will you add js supports (now google requires it and also I randomly checked nintendo website for ex and it also needs js)
Whats weird is that google works on the official internet browser on new 3ds

 

[Coderman64]

Will you add js supports (now google requires it and also I randomly checked nintendo website for ex and it also needs js)
Whats weird is that google works on the official internet browser on new 3ds

The official browser has JS support.

As far as JS support for NetSurf goes, it exists as a WIP in the codebase, but I'm pretty sure it isn't even included in the official builds for desktop platforms yet.

Weird that Google would require JS to work. If any search engine will do, try duckduckgo's lite mode (https://lite.duckduckgo.com/)

 

[jonhon]

Will you add js supports (now google requires it and also I randomly checked nintendo website for ex and it also needs js)
Whats weird is that google works on the official internet browser on new 3ds

the http version of google doesn't use js

 

[verypedro]

Hey! This is awesome work!
I have a small question tho; does it have a built-in SD Card file browser? I want to use it in conjunction with the jpg to mpo online tool from here:
https://gbatemp.net/threads/release-mpo-online-creation-from-two-jpg.476984/

 

[Coderman64]

Hey! This is awesome work!
I have a small question tho; does it have a built-in SD Card file browser? I want to use it in conjunction with the jpg to mpo online tool from here:
https://gbatemp.net/threads/release-mpo-online-creation-from-two-jpg.476984/

No, it doesn't.

The original source is meant to be super portable, meaning that a lot of these OS-specific features (like file dialogs) were stripped out. I'd have to manually add that stuff back in, and, since the 3DS doesn't have native dialogs for this, I'd likely have to program it completely from scratch.

You can just navigate around the SD card using file:/// URLs, which will display the folder contents as a webpage, and will also allow you to view png and jpeg images. It doesn't look like that will help you here, though. Your best bet is probably to find and/or program a 3dsx application that will do this conversion entirely locally.

 

[verypedro]

No, it doesn't.

The original source is meant to be super portable, meaning that a lot of these OS-specific features (like file dialogs) were stripped out. I'd have to manually add that stuff back in, and, since the 3DS doesn't have native dialogs for this, I'd likely have to program it completely from scratch.

You can just navigate around the SD card using file:/// URLs, which will display the folder contents as a webpage, and will also allow you to view png and jpeg images. It doesn't look like that will help you here, though. Your best bet is probably to find and/or program a 3dsx application that will do this conversion entirely locally.

Oh that's ok and totally expected to be outside of the scope of this project. Just wanted to check it. I don't want to undermine what amazing work you did here, keep it going!

(I guess I'll have to learn C++ libctru and do it myself)

 

[Zarphonia]

That would be really cool if you could put this web browser on a 2DS/3DS game cartridge and make it to where you could watch YouTube videos by building a program to save videos directly to the game cartridge and play them on a DS!
(Essentially a mini YouTube downloader for YouTube video support!) It will be a lot more feasible than trying to make the 3DS run modern YouTube on HTML5, CSS, and JS while also making it compatible with older HTML and basic CSS! Since 3DS game cartridges actually save your game progress directly to the cartridge itself!

Post automatically merged: Mar 25, 2025

That would be really cool if you could put this web browser on a 2DS/3DS game cartridge and make it to where you could watch YouTube videos by building a program to save videos directly to the game cartridge and play them on a DS!
(Essentially a mini YouTube downloader for YouTube video support!) It will be a lot more feasible than trying to make the 3DS run modern YouTube on HTML5, CSS, and JS while also making it compatible with older HTML and basic CSS! Since 3DS game cartridges actually save your game progress directly to the cartridge itself!

 

[Dionicio3]

That would be really cool if you could put this web browser on a 2DS/3DS game cartridge and make it to where you could watch YouTube videos by building a program to save videos directly to the game cartridge and play them on a DS!
(Essentially a mini YouTube downloader for YouTube video support!) It will be a lot more feasible than trying to make the 3DS run modern YouTube on HTML5, CSS, and JS while also making it compatible with older HTML and basic CSS! Since 3DS game cartridges actually save your game progress directly to the cartridge itself!

This would not be possible at all, at least definitely without CFW. Game carts have to be signed, which isn't possible as we don't have Nintendo's signing keys. Additionally, I'm not even aware of any hardware that would allow writing 3DS homebrew to a cart. It'll literally just be easier to use something like FourthTube if you want YouTube on the 3DS

 

[Coderman64]

That would be really cool if you could put this web browser on a 2DS/3DS game cartridge and make it to where you could watch YouTube videos by building a program to save videos directly to the game cartridge and play them on a DS!
(Essentially a mini YouTube downloader for YouTube video support!) It will be a lot more feasible than trying to make the 3DS run modern YouTube on HTML5, CSS, and JS while also making it compatible with older HTML and basic CSS! Since 3DS game cartridges actually save your game progress directly to the cartridge itself!

As Dionicio3 said, creating a cartridge is unfortunately currently impossible, as, unlike DS carts, 3DS cartridges are encrypted. There is not much we can do to encrypt an equivalent homebrew cart without the encryption key, which Nintendo is not giving us any time soon. The best we can do is install Homebrew like an eShop game/app using custom firmware.

As far as downloading YouTube videos to your SD card, that might be possible at some point. I was already thinking about trying to make some sort of built-in downloader for artifacts in GitHub releases (so you can download homebrew directly from the web). There are already desktop applications like youtube-dl, which is a Python app to download YouTube (and other) videos, and there are already 3DS homebrew apps that allow you to watch (low-quality) YouTube videos on the device.

All this would be a lot of work, though, and I haven't been working on this project all that much recently because of real life (ew), and the fact that it no longer seems to compile properly with the latest DevKitARM packages (double ew). Still, I'd like to take another crack at adding features someday.