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Zen, a Arc-like open-source browser based on the Firefox engine

zen-browser.app

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Re: Zen, a Arc-like open-source browser based on the Firefox engine

#181

Post by mthoms »

gexla wrote: post #150
layer8 wrote: post #117

Whenever I read “beautiful” in marketing copy, I’m immediately put off. It’s so presumptuous and conveys vanity. Moreover, users may prefer their software to be utilitarian, and in any case are likely to have different opinions on what constitutes “beauty”. For that aspect: Show, don’t tell. If people do find it beautiful, then they don’t need to be told. And if they don’t, then telling them is unlikely to change tha…

From the site... > Beautifully designed, privacy-focused, and packed with features. If I'm going to put in the effort to create something like this. There is ONE powerful reason which compels me to do this. If I'm pitching this to an investor, then I need to craft a message to convince the investor to hand over money. The above line is wasting space. I get a sense that the message is either crafted by developers who…

Come on. It's an open-source, community-funded, soft-launch of an alpha product. The cynicism on this site is really over the top sometimes.

Re: Zen, a Arc-like open-source browser based on the Firefox engine

#182

Post by quasarj »

thinker5555 wrote: post #109

I've seen the "workspaces" thing in a few different browsers now. I know Vivaldi and Arc have them, and it sounds like it's a separate thing from profiles, but I don't quite grok what the difference is between workspaces and profiles. Can anyone help enlighten me? If you use both workspaces and profiles, what do you do differently between them?

Doesn't FF have them as well? Or maybe it's an extension.

Re: Zen, a Arc-like open-source browser based on the Firefox engine

#183

Post by lo_zamoyski »

wccrawford wrote: post #134
layer8 wrote: post #117

Whenever I read “beautiful” in marketing copy, I’m immediately put off. It’s so presumptuous and conveys vanity. Moreover, users may prefer their software to be utilitarian, and in any case are likely to have different opinions on what constitutes “beauty”. For that aspect: Show, don’t tell. If people do find it beautiful, then they don’t need to be told. And if they don’t, then telling them is unlikely to change tha…

I feel the same, and not just about "beautiful". Any time a marketing person tells me how to think about their product, it pushes me away. Tell me what it is, now how I should think about it.

You mean "tell me what it does". Beautiful is what a thing is. And what a thing does follows from what it is.

Contrary to modern misconception, beauty is objective. Taste is subjective. What makes good taste is alignment of the subjective with the objective.

So, in this case, we can ask "what makes a browser beautiful?". Well, since it is a tool, then its usefulness is intrinsic to the kind of thing it is. So, how useful it is as browser is constitutive of its beauty, as beauty has to do with the perfection with which something realizes the kind of thing it is.

Re: Zen, a Arc-like open-source browser based on the Firefox engine

#185

Post by Y_Y »

InsideOutSanta wrote: post #145
layer8 wrote: post #117

Whenever I read “beautiful” in marketing copy, I’m immediately put off. It’s so presumptuous and conveys vanity. Moreover, users may prefer their software to be utilitarian, and in any case are likely to have different opinions on what constitutes “beauty”. For that aspect: Show, don’t tell. If people do find it beautiful, then they don’t need to be told. And if they don’t, then telling them is unlikely to change tha…

I like it, because it shows the author's aspiration. Not all software aims to be visually appealing, which is totally fine. But depending on what the software is, aesthetics are something that I find important. For browsers in particular, that is a major reason why I don't use any of the existing Firefox forks: they are all very utilitarian. But I look at a browser window pretty much all day long, so I prefer a visua…

Can we just have two separate things? One is a browser that works well, and the other could be maybe some pretty pieces of paper that you can stick over the UI elements that don't spark joy for you.

Re: Zen, a Arc-like open-source browser based on the Firefox engine

#186

Post by TedDoesntTalk »

InsideOutSanta wrote: post #145
layer8 wrote: post #117

Whenever I read “beautiful” in marketing copy, I’m immediately put off. It’s so presumptuous and conveys vanity. Moreover, users may prefer their software to be utilitarian, and in any case are likely to have different opinions on what constitutes “beauty”. For that aspect: Show, don’t tell. If people do find it beautiful, then they don’t need to be told. And if they don’t, then telling them is unlikely to change tha…

I like it, because it shows the author's aspiration. Not all software aims to be visually appealing, which is totally fine. But depending on what the software is, aesthetics are something that I find important. For browsers in particular, that is a major reason why I don't use any of the existing Firefox forks: they are all very utilitarian. But I look at a browser window pretty much all day long, so I prefer a visua…

> I prefer a visual design that brings me joy

This sounds like a marketing-speak. Joy is not an experience gained by staring at the visual design of a browser. You are confusing joy and another experience, perhaps appeal or attraction.

If you genuinely experience joy from browser visual design, you are probably that same guy who experiences “delight” when a customer support representative treats you well on a phone call.

Re: Zen, a Arc-like open-source browser based on the Firefox engine

#188

Post by beAbU »

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #126
layer8 wrote: post #117

Whenever I read “beautiful” in marketing copy, I’m immediately put off. It’s so presumptuous and conveys vanity. Moreover, users may prefer their software to be utilitarian, and in any case are likely to have different opinions on what constitutes “beauty”. For that aspect: Show, don’t tell. If people do find it beautiful, then they don’t need to be told. And if they don’t, then telling them is unlikely to change tha…

I read it the opposite way: - I feel more passion from the author. - I value the pride they show in their work. - I know many people actually care about beauty. In fact, with the same amount of bugs, the users of the most beautiful software will actually report it's less buggy. The problem is when someone makes appearances more important than being useful. But I want to give this project the benefit of the doubt. We…

The first sentence in the first paragraph on the website is "beautifully designed". Clearly the creator wants to bring to our attention that they spent a lot of time designing the visual aspects of this browser. And from the looks of things, this is indeed true. The browser does look very beautiful.

But... this is literally form over function.

Browsers should be like car tyres. Only after you have selected for your functional use case and requirements, do you filter for visual aesthetics.

Re: Zen, a Arc-like open-source browser based on the Firefox engine

#190

Post by gexla »

mionhe wrote: post #162
gexla wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine having an artist who does paintings and an architect both come up with a concept for a building. Then have each explain their design decisions and why you might select that concept. Each are going to use much different language, though each concept might still be described as beautiful by a judge. Of course, you still need to craft your language to appeal to the buyer, but an architect can probably still do t…

I think you be comparing an amateur artist with a professional architect (which isn't surprising; amateur architects are very rare and professional artists have less visibility.) Only amateur artists would actually describe their work as "beautiful". If you go to a gallery or museum and read what a professional artist says about their own work (usually found on little cards next to paintings/scriptures/etc.) their de…

A couple of things on this...

If only an amateur would use the word beautiful, then was it an amateur who wrote the content for this site?

The core of my comment was that different professions use different language. In your example, I may find a similar level of skillful description of their work, but that's not going to cross over into different domains. The architect would likely write a more compelling pitch for a building design concept than an artist who is a painter. The artist may not use the word "beautiful" but still may use other language which is a similar miss in domain language used for a successful pitch.

In my field, I have to sell software development services to customers who may not be technical. I have to be careful to limit the depth of my technical explanations. But I'm still going to use just enough domain language that the customer will intuitively understand that I have a better grasp of the work to be done than the newly hired sales guy who is doing a pitch for the company he represents.

Here's a snippet from "above the fold."

> Beautifully designed, privacy-focused, and packed with features.

Packed with features? That's like creating a menu item in your site nav entitled "Stuff" or "Misc."

Maybe they were just in a hurry.

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