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Ask HN: What would you want in an ideal web browser?

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Re: Ask HN: What would you want in an ideal web browser?

#11

Post by fortytw2 »

mod50ack wrote: post #9
craigds wrote: post #7

Google Chrome is pretty close. Some extra things I'd like: * Fully open source, with clear and open licensing. * Extensions with a permissions system that works at multiple levels of granularity. So I should be able to trust an extension but deny it some specific things (without breaking it.) * A headless mode, with python/ruby/other bindings, so I can use it as an automation library.

1. I totally agree with the open source part. Although I use a closed source OS often in everyday life (OS X, so at least it's a *nix) I'm a big fan of Linux (which I use on the side, and way before Windows) although personally I like the MIT and BSD type licenses over the (L)GPL 2. Granularity is a great thing to have as well. Extensions could maybe be broken into multiple sections, so you could have a- Permission t…

In answer to 3 - ideally in a way similar to http://www.nightmarejs.org/, well worth looking into if you've never played with a headless browser before

Re: Ask HN: What would you want in an ideal web browser?

#12

Post by mod50ack »

mike-cardwell wrote: post #8

Its development should be managed by a group who are not concerned with generating money from advertising/tracking or any other privacy reducing endeavors. A group who put user privacy and security at the forefront of every decision made.

I agree. There should be three main aspects of a web browser's development team's plan.

1. Stability and Features

The browser should be stable and free of major bugs, reasonable feature requests should be fulfilled when fairly trivial or found to be important. Programmers should be knowledgable in the language the browser is in. Personally I'd write it in C++/wxWidgets, using Blink as the engine since that's the most popular and compatible renderer it seems.

2. Privacy and Security.

The user's ability to control their information should be key, and it should be kept locally unless the user explicitly chooses to send it off.

3. Customizability

The user should be able to make changes to how the browser operates through extensions, userscripts, userstyles, etc.

Re: Ask HN: What would you want in an ideal web browser?

#13

Post by lukasm »

craigds wrote: post #7

Google Chrome is pretty close. Some extra things I'd like: * Fully open source, with clear and open licensing. * Extensions with a permissions system that works at multiple levels of granularity. So I should be able to trust an extension but deny it some specific things (without breaking it.) * A headless mode, with python/ruby/other bindings, so I can use it as an automation library.

configuration. I want to be able to add more results from history to address bar. Don't want google autocomplete.

Re: Ask HN: What would you want in an ideal web browser?

#14

Post by mod50ack »

fortytw2 wrote: post #11
mod50ack wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. I totally agree with the open source part. Although I use a closed source OS often in everyday life (OS X, so at least it's a *nix) I'm a big fan of Linux (which I use on the side, and way before Windows) although personally I like the MIT and BSD type licenses over the (L)GPL 2. Granularity is a great thing to have as well. Extensions could maybe be broken into multiple sections, so you could have a- Permission t…

In answer to 3 - ideally in a way similar to http://www.nightmarejs.org/ , well worth looking into if you've never played with a headless browser before

Interesting, I'll be sure to check that one out!

Re: Ask HN: What would you want in an ideal web browser?

#17

Post by mod50ack »

zkirill wrote: post #6

The reason why I originally switched from Firefox to Chrome was because Chrome was minimalistic and very, very fast - a chrome for the web. Now I'm seeing Chrome become bloated, and slow. On top of this, it's now trying very hard to identify me by asking me to sign in with my Google account. I want my next browser to make me forget that I'm using a browser in the first place, and also to not care about my identity.

Anonymity should be a choice, especially at the browser level.

Re: Ask HN: What would you want in an ideal web browser?

#19

Post by hadrien01 »

zkirill wrote: post #6

The reason why I originally switched from Firefox to Chrome was because Chrome was minimalistic and very, very fast - a chrome for the web. Now I'm seeing Chrome become bloated, and slow. On top of this, it's now trying very hard to identify me by asking me to sign in with my Google account. I want my next browser to make me forget that I'm using a browser in the first place, and also to not care about my identity.

Why not Opera? The new Opera is Chromium with what I think is a better design[1] that respects your OS[2]. You don't have to sign in to sync, but you can if you want. It's not open, but they're not an ad company. And finally, it's said to be faster than Chrome.

[1] I prefer Firefox so I use the FxOpera theme

[2] Well, it tries its best on Linux (unlike Chrome), but it's near perfect on Windows and Mac OS

Re: Ask HN: What would you want in an ideal web browser?

#20

Post by 1arity »

See the history as a tree, not as a list, so branch points can be preserved and you can navigate back over everywhere you've already been.

A detailed development roadmap.

Privileged browser Apps and Extensions working on mobile. C'mon, it's 2015! ( no PhoneGap required )

An automation API.

The same really committed team who optimized V8.

Source on GitHub ( not necessarily all of it mind, some can be privileged access, tho a place to post issues that is no more code.google or crbugs, just, why? ).

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