Ask HN: What would you want in an ideal web browser? • Hacker News Board

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

#191

Post by brudgers » Mon, Aug 17, 2015, 2:08 PM UTC

knome wrote: post #179

brudgers wrote: post #174

Jails for cookies, history, etc. I want to be able to stay logged into Google/Facebook/Linkedin for convenience without other browser tabs knowing anything about it...or isomorphically, I want to be able to browse the internet while logged into those services without the pages I am browsing leaking data back to those sites. I'll take the hit of downloading 100k of jquery on my 20mbit pipe a few extra times. I want my…

Wouldn't creating a second user in chromium do what you want here? You could have a specific "social media" user.

I'm not sure what you mean. If this involves "sign in to Chromium" then that seems to involve signing in to Google, and that sort of defeats the purpose.

Incidentally, Chromium is what I use for Facebook...and only Facebook, on this particular computer. And signing into Chromium with my Google account seems to me to be a big information leak.

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

#192

Post by WaltPurvis » Mon, Aug 17, 2015, 2:11 PM UTC

d4n3 wrote: post #77

nitin_flanker wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No we can't. Please don't suggest to go incognito.

There' a user switcher button in the top right corner, you can have multiple browser sessions with seperate histories / cookies (e.g. work / personal)

Holy moley! I never noticed that!

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

#193

Post by halosghost » Mon, Aug 17, 2015, 2:16 PM UTC

nailer wrote: post #173

halosghost wrote: post #171

Okay, so, let me premise my answer with the acknowledgement that probably /very/ few people want what I do. 1. Terminal-only (^Z is a thing that I want) 2. Capable of some basic CSS support (e.g., colors, basic text decorations; whatever can be simply translated to ANSI escape codes) 3. Capable of doing -based page layouts fairly consistently. 4. Just enough Javascript support to login to a couple of webpages I like…

elinks (not lynx, which is a different app) does most of these. http://elinks.or.cz/ HSTS support would be a welcome patch.

It's true that elinks covers a fair bit of what I want. But it does not have libsixel integration, does not have enough JS for me to login to the websites I'd like (afaik, perhaps that has changed since I last tried it) and does not handle -layouting very well.

Admittedly, those three things are the hardest ones in the list.

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

#194

Post by halotrope » Mon, Aug 17, 2015, 2:17 PM UTC

1arity wrote: post #182

I know this is crazy but I want there to be a service where I can subscribe to a number of websites, and every week I get a printed hardcopy of all the content that I can leaf through. Eco-greenie-ologists be damned, I want my degradable, ephemeral paper to leaf through while lounging in a rocker chair drinking ice tea. Civilized. Now that's a browser. Solves the security issue right there, aint nobody tracking me no…

Well, I think such a service exists:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2715617/The-D...

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

#195

Post by pieter_mj » Mon, Aug 17, 2015, 2:21 PM UTC

Security and privacy would be my main concerns.

- full libre gpl3'ed codebase including plugins and extensions.

- immediate disclosure of all security problems (in the hope they get fixed promptly). the socalled "responsible" delayed disclosures annoy me to no end. let every exploit be a 0day exploit and leave it to the user to decide, at least it'll be an informed user!

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

#196

Post by smasty » Mon, Aug 17, 2015, 2:24 PM UTC

Something like the old Opera:

- Extensive customizability of the interface

- Proper tab management (tiling, cascade, positioning) and tab stacking

- Mouse gestures

- Content blocker baked in

- RSS reader included

- Better cookie control

- Per-site privacy mode

- low CPU/memory usage - no "one tab per process" - I want 10s of tabs open without wasting few GBs of memory

- fast JS

- advanced search from address bar - custom search engines with search suggestions

- customizable Speed Dial baked in - no extensions needed.

- Dragonfly instead of DevTools

- detailed page loading info, not just "Loading example.com..."

I'm hoping to get at least some of these things out of either Vivaldi or Otter Browser when they're mature enough...

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

#197

Post by 1arity » Mon, Aug 17, 2015, 2:25 PM UTC

halotrope wrote: post #194

1arity wrote: post #182

I know this is crazy but I want there to be a service where I can subscribe to a number of websites, and every week I get a printed hardcopy of all the content that I can leaf through. Eco-greenie-ologists be damned, I want my degradable, ephemeral paper to leaf through while lounging in a rocker chair drinking ice tea. Civilized. Now that's a browser. Solves the security issue right there, aint nobody tracking me no…

Well, I think such a service exists: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2715617/The-D...

Thanks for the find. I feel ( from the pics ) this could be done better. And 5 quid for a newspaper!!!!

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

#198

Post by awinter-py » Mon, Aug 17, 2015, 2:29 PM UTC

samuellb wrote: post #169

Mostly security, privacy and usability related stuff. Here's a quite long list: * Browser written in a way that prevents most exploits. * Built-in Javascript and cross-domain request blocking. * Single-process sandboxed browser where only the active tab is allowed to run. * Tab content written to disk so it can be restored in the event of a crash or running out of battery. * Ability to "swap out" tabs to disk so they…

freeze is critical -- I don't need scroll events running once my news article loads.

+1 on easy build process

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

#199

Post by thelastguy » Mon, Aug 17, 2015, 2:29 PM UTC

Vertical Tree Style Tabs (aka, Hierarchical Tabs) where opening a new Tab will make it a child tab of the original Tab.

Virtualized Tabs that unloads completely when it is no longer visible on the Tab Bar to save memory and CPU processing.

NoScript built in.

Ability to write Extension in any Language, aka, the Extension API is exposable to all Languages.

Tabs opened in the background should not start playing Flash automatically. Only once the Tab is selected, does Flash play, and continue to play in the background after moving to another Tab. Should be able to right click on the Tab and Allow Flash to Continue Playing in the Background.

Most importantly is speed and low CPU usage (running a hundred Javascripts per webpage literally kills speed).

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

#200

Post by Shorel » Mon, Aug 17, 2015, 2:30 PM UTC

Aoyagi wrote: post #56

Basically Opera 12 or pre-Chromium Opera in general.. - Obvious things like encryption support, tabs, full cookie options, (customizable) "smart" address bar, speed dial, history, favourites, optional synchronization, extension support, spell check... - heavily customizable UI, - plenty of other customization through settings or Opera's neatly done opera:config, - easily togglable (is that a word?) side panel with M2…

Chromium developer tools are very good, and the smartphone preview functionality is killer, but for really obscure JavaScript issues only the Dragonfly error messages made sense. They were clear an to the point every single time.

I remember the JavaScript that ran in Kestrel bug free, would run everywhere bug free.

Now, about mouse gestures and switching between tabs with right -click + mouse wheel, you can do that just now with Vivaldi. It only needs synchronization and supporting extension icons to replace Chrome in my computers.