Show HN: Glide, an extensible, keyboard-focused web browser

#1

Post by probablyrobert » Tue, Sep 30, 2025, 7:43 PM UTC

Show HN: Glide, an extensible, keyboard-focused web browser
blog.craigie.dev

Re: Show HN: Glide, an extensible, keyboard-focused web browser

#2

Post by shaneos » Tue, Sep 30, 2025, 7:55 PM UTC

Whoa, so excited to try this out! As a regular Firefox user, does it pull over my settings?

Re: Show HN: Glide, an extensible, keyboard-focused web browser

#3

Post by probablyrobert » Tue, Sep 30, 2025, 7:58 PM UTC

shaneos wrote: post #2

Whoa, so excited to try this out! As a regular Firefox user, does it pull over my settings?

Currently the easiest way to pull over settings I'm aware of is to use Firefox Sync[0]. I haven't looked into other settings import solutions yet.

[0]: https://www.firefox.com/en-GB/features/sync/

Re: Show HN: Glide, an extensible, keyboard-focused web browser

#4

Post by probablyrobert » Tue, Sep 30, 2025, 8:00 PM UTC

Author here - happy to answer any questions :)

Re: Show HN: Glide, an extensible, keyboard-focused web browser

#5

Post by cosmic_cheese » Wed, Oct 01, 2025, 5:47 PM UTC

While this isn't quite my cup of tea, it's nice to see Firefox being forked instead of Chromium. With this, there's now at least three significantly modified Firefox forks, alongside Zen and Floorp.

Re: Show HN: Glide, an extensible, keyboard-focused web browser

#6

Post by sc68cal » Wed, Oct 01, 2025, 6:05 PM UTC

I haven't looked at the source too deeply yet to investigate how you implement the fork, but you state that it's a fork of Firefox, how do you plan to integrate fixes from Firefox (security, etc)?

Re: Show HN: Glide, an extensible, keyboard-focused web browser

#7

Post by probablyrobert » Wed, Oct 01, 2025, 6:08 PM UTC

sc68cal wrote: post #6

I haven't looked at the source too deeply yet to investigate how you implement the fork, but you state that it's a fork of Firefox, how do you plan to integrate fixes from Firefox (security, etc)?

It's implemented as a set of patches + new files for net new files I add myself, then to build it, the firefox source is downloaded and patched automatically - so bumping the underlying firefox version is generally very easy.

I'm currently actually tracking the firefox beta channel because the frequent small updates are so easy to do.

Re: Show HN: Glide, an extensible, keyboard-focused web browser

#8

Post by dandersch » Wed, Oct 01, 2025, 6:48 PM UTC

I've run into the restrictions regarding addons.mozilla.org myself using Vimium C, but it didn't happen often enough for me to consider switching my browser over it. I think I'd rather have something that makes my entire Linux desktop environment keyboard centric at that point, like homerow seems to do for macOS.

Re: Show HN: Glide, an extensible, keyboard-focused web browser

#9

Post by dandersch » Wed, Oct 01, 2025, 6:52 PM UTC

probablyrobert wrote: post #4

Author here - happy to answer any questions :)

Can it provide vim keybindings and modes inside a textbox?

Re: Show HN: Glide, an extensible, keyboard-focused web browser

#10

Post by sc68cal » Wed, Oct 01, 2025, 6:54 PM UTC

probablyrobert wrote: post #7

sc68cal wrote: post #6

I haven't looked at the source too deeply yet to investigate how you implement the fork, but you state that it's a fork of Firefox, how do you plan to integrate fixes from Firefox (security, etc)?

It's implemented as a set of patches + new files for net new files I add myself, then to build it, the firefox source is downloaded and patched automatically - so bumping the underlying firefox version is generally very easy. I'm currently actually tracking the firefox beta channel because the frequent small updates are so easy to do.

great thanks