The PlayStation 4 is quite the capable device, unsurprisingly able to run Linux. I recently bought a PS4 and in true developer spirit immediately began poking around the browser. To my knowledge, there's next to zero developer documentation. The best I could find was a single PDF from Sony which appears to be dated. My goal is to document what's known about the PS4's Browser.

My PS4 test setup

Version: CUH-1200

OS: 3.50

Gecko? Mozilla? Netfront?

whatbrowser.org ps4 screenshot

Google's whatbrowser gives an error.

whatbrowseramiusing.co ps4 screenshot

whatbrowseramiusing.co reads the Gecko-Like User-Agent string.

whatismybrowser.com ps4 screenshot

whatismybrowser.com likely matches UA string by closest match, and returns Mozilla.

whatsmybrowserorg.org ps4 screenshot

whatsmybrowser.org correctly identifies the PS4 as NetFront.

NetFront is a proprietary web browser used for the PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, PSP, Nintendo 3DS, Wii U and Kindle E-reader. The original Netfront Browser has since been replaced by a webkit powered NetFront NX which appears to power the PS4.

Support

Specs:

  • HTML 4.01, XHTML 1.1, XHTML Basic 1.1, CE-HTML, XML 1.1, RSS feed (RSS 0.9/0.91/0.92/1.0/2.0, Atom 1.0)
  • HTML 5 Support: Canvas, Canvas Text, localStorage, sessionStorage, Web Workers, applicationCache, HTML5 Input types (partial) - Notable missing: Geolocation API, HTML5 Input input attributes, picture element, srcset, service workers, web components
  • CSS3 (Flexbox, full CSS3 selector support Media Queries, Animations, 2D/3D Transforms, Transitions, etc.) - Notable missing: Multiple background support
  • CSS1, CSS2.1
  • Javascript V 1.7+
  • DOM LEVEL 2

PS4 passes all the CSS3.info's select test

The PS4 scores relatively well on the CSS3 test (Chrome v 49.0.2623.112 scores 52%, Safari 9.1 54% and FireFox 45 63%)

Security:

  • TLS1.2 *no compression
  • NSS
  • Configurable digital certificates
  • Extended Validation
  • Elliptic Curve Cryptography
  • No SSL support (2/3)

Viewport: unsupported

WebGL: unsupported

PS4's webGL error

  • Image Formats: JPG / GIF / PNG / BMP (32 bit + compress supported)
  • Note: TIFF image format is unsupported (commonly supported in WebKit).

  • Video:

    • Container: Mp4/HLS
    • Codec H.264
    • Profile: Baseline/Main/High
    • Level: 4.1 or lower
    • Resolution: 1920 x 1080 or lower
    • Framerate: 60 fps or lower
    • Bitrate: 20 Mbps or lower
    • Autoplay: supported

  • Audio:

    • Formats: AAC (LC or HE-AAC v1)
    • Channels: 1 channel, 2 channels, 6 channels (AAC-LC only), or 7.1 channels (AAC-LC only)
    • Sampling rate: 8000, 11025, 12000, 16000, 22050, 24000, 32000, 44100, or 48000 Hz
    • Bitrate: 48 to 3456kbps
    • MP3/WAV/AIFF/AU/MIDI unsupported
    • Audio playback using the audio element is not supported.
    • Direct links to audio is not supported
  • PDF: unsupported
  • Downloads: unsupported

Browsers Tests

Successful:

Acid3 test

Sunspider 1.0.2 test: Overall score: 3203 ms using remote login (and a game left open)

unsuccessful:

PS4's fails to load html5test.com...

Notably, some previous users have completed the HTML5 tests; you can see the scores: here.

PS4's fails during Octane test...

Not pictured: Jetstream

The PS4's weakest link appears to be modern JS support. Unsurprisingly the PS4 isn't a strong performer. In a very uncontrolled environment with three concurrent browsers open, and roughly 25 tabs and several apps, my MacBook Pro in chrome scored a 157.8ms vs the PS4's 2929ms (Lower is better). An iPhone 6 scores roughly 326.6 ms. The big differences here are that both Chrome, Safari and FireFox use highly optimized JS engines, V8, NitroJS, and SpiderMonkey respectively. However, other users report much better SunSpider benchmarks clocking around 1027ms which places roughly at the performance of an iPhone 5 when it comes to JS. While the PS4 certainly has room for improvement but is unlikely to see massive gains as I highly doubt most people spend much time in the browser outside of gaming.

More to come...

Stay tuned; I plan to update this over time. Testing the PS4 is tedious as the remote support doesn't allow text input via keyboard.

Planned tests: weinre remote debugging, FireBug Lite, BrowserSync

Anyone with better documentation or more information, please feel free to e-mail. Thanks!