121–130 of 234 posts
the whole reason I use linux and gnome is because it's easy to pin window on top for this exact reason, (plus some other tweaks). You've captured how I ( and perhaps many) do work really well.
Well done.
Love it, this is the most innovative thing in the browser space for a long while. It's baffling to me how boring most 'new' browsers are - most propositions are 'like X but with less friction on these 2 or 3 things'. I hate that it's only for Mac so far, but glad to see others are on the way. I've been thinking about picking up a cheap older mac for development work, though, and this is one more reason in favor.
Will definitely have to give this a try when it makes its way to other operating systems.
What I really want is a browser that displays information in a clear, unified format that I can customize to my liking. I want this browser to disregard all visual HTML and CSS rendering, and rather instrument a headless browser to gather the navigation and content from sites. I want to be able to easily make my own instrumentation for sites that do not yet work on this browser. I’m want to allow some branding in the…
It doesn't address your specific desire (uniform rendering of existing HTML), but the Gemini protocol seems to align with your desire for a simpler internet. It's worth a look if you aren't already familiar. https://gemini.circumlunar.space/
I was on the internet well before the web and I used Gopher all the time. It was great by the standards of the time (ie 1200 baud modems so a page of text like this HN discussion would easily take a minute or more to load and would probably do so with many errors). Gopher was (somewhat) integrated with two other services known as Archie and Veronica for content discovery. It was primitive, but relatively easy to navigate if you knew what you were looking for.
What we have here is a bunch of Gemini servers but no concept of user service. Are they blogs? aggregators? malware endpoints? interactive fiction/text adventures? I don't know, and that's not part of the fun. It's as if Gemini has fetishized the least good aspects of the BBS/Gopher/pre-web experience - lack of UI consistency and non-discoverability - in the hope of getting something better by forcing everyone to start over.
Nobody* has time for that. Harder doesn't automatically equal better. Gemini would be vastly improved if it presented with some color/minimal formatting (like syntax highlighting controlled at the user end or with typography for the color-blind)and seeded some useful information like mirroring Wikipedia or something that people are already familiar with. There are some Wikipedia proxies (gemini://medusae.space/index.gmi?25) but the only working one I know of is not listed (gemini://vault.transjovian.org).
This is Not Great.
* hyperbole is always an option
To change the world, there needs to be some critical mass of people using it, and to get people using it there needs to be some demonstration of what it's capable of. I want to love it. I have clients (plural) installed. But honestly, I don't want to invest the time figuring out how to make the server do interesting stuff, if I can't find anything very interesting to do with the client. Absent any effort to make it functional for one external thing, it's doomed to remain a toy, or an 'esoteric protocol' that everyone pays lip service to but nobody actually uses.
Here's a suggestion: get a gemini HN proxy running. It ought to be super easy given how minimal HN is, and would give people and excuse to have a Gemini browser running all the time.
Downloaded it, installed it, and loving it! The big thing I'm missing most is LastPass. Without access to my passwords, I can see myself falling back to Chrome. In fact, I need to keep Chrome running so I can look up my login names and passwords there in order to copy them over to Bonsai when I'm being asked to log in. If you could support popular password managers inside your browser, that would help a lot!
You should drop any software that prevents you from changing another unrelated software. In other words, move from LastPass to Bitwarden.
Give this thing a slick UX pass and it'll be a pretty nice tool I could actually see myself using.
Also dark mode is a must.
What I really want is a browser that displays information in a clear, unified format that I can customize to my liking. I want this browser to disregard all visual HTML and CSS rendering, and rather instrument a headless browser to gather the navigation and content from sites. I want to be able to easily make my own instrumentation for sites that do not yet work on this browser. I’m want to allow some branding in the…
User styles vs site styles. Either or both could be on or off.
Also, the ability to grey out links to domains I’ve decided I never want to visit.