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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

#191

Post by jeremiahlee »

Hard_Space wrote: post #54

Does anyone know if Zen identifies itself as 'Firefox' at program-level when running on Windows? This is the biggest mistake that FF forks and offshoots make, since it makes it impossible to run Firefox and the derivative work at the same time.

Just tested with Zen v1.0.0-a.26. User agent reports: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.15; rv:129.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/129.0

Exact match with Firefox v129.0.1: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.15; rv:129.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/129.0

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

#192

Post by Y_Y »

lo_zamoyski wrote: post #183
wccrawford wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 u…

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

If they state in the readme that it's a web browser and I can compile it using GNU make then I'll believe them. If they say it's whizzy fast and easy to learn then I'll consider that's probably somewhat true. If I read "beautiful" and "paradigm-changing" and "redefines the browsing experience" then I imagine they're just trying to puff themselves up without having anything concrete to back it up.

It's true that things can be beautiful, and there are some universal (enough) beauty standards. The signal of being beautiful is not saying "look how beautiful I am" though. It's easy to claim something like that and hard to refute, so it's not a very good signal. The beauty should speak for itself, or at least be attested to be a third-party like with a quote from a review.

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

#193

Post by remedan »

I really like the UI! I use Firefox with Sidebery and the top tab bar hidden via userChrome.css, which is kind of a hassle. Zen supports that kind of layout out of the box.

I'm very happy to see a new modern browser not based on Chromium. Will definitely test drive it to see if it's worth switching to.

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

#194

Post by slightwinder »

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?

Workspace is mainly just managing Tabs. While Profiles are separating all settings, including addons, passwords, bookmarks, etc.

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

#195

Post by layer8 »

mthoms wrote: post #181
gexla wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In that case, the website wants to make it look like a polished professional product, which is cringe at best and disingenuous at worst.

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

#196

Post by gexla »

mthoms wrote: post #181
gexla wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's still hopefully useful dialogue on a common subject. I would be grateful to get this much feedback. And the discussion helps boost the visibility of this project on HN. Pick apart my work all you like, I'm happy to see it continue to hover on page 1. Please continue.

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

#197

Post by Izmaki »

gpm wrote: post #170

femou are you the author? https://github.com/zen-browser/desktop/tree/main/src/browser... has a submodule pointing to https://github.com/zen-browser/components/tree/dab7fd0b2fbf2... which isn't public... I assume that's an oversight.

Woops.

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

#198

Post by mthoms »

1oooqooq wrote: post #123
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?

it's just a group of tabs. absolutely nothing else. profiles offer settings (proxy, etc) and state (cookies, etc) isolation. it's the same as opening a new window for me. meh.

Arc spaces have transient and pinned tabs, which in turn can be organized as needed into folders. Some tabs are actually multi-tab (split screen). The folders themselves have a neat feature whereby active tabs can be shown while hiding inactive tabs located in the same folder. I can also switch to a specific space with a user defined hotkey, and customize the color of each workspace. Each workspace can have its own profile (and history) or you can share profiles between workspaces. You choose.

None of those on their own are groundbreaking, but all together they make for a compelling differentiator (for me anyways, but I have ADHD so prioritize different things than most).

Describing all that as "absolutely nothing [other than a new window]" is not accurate at all.

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

#199

Post by jedisct1 »

Do people really care about the engine being used under the hood?

From a user perspective, I see no difference between Blink, Webkit and Gecko. And when there is, it's a website that has only been tested on Blink, or uses features not available elsewhere.

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

#200

Post by discardedrefuse »

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #129

I've been wanting split view in FF for a long time, so I'm going to try this right now And I know somebody, somewhere, is going to argue that it should be the job of the desktop. I disagree. I don't want to have to create each context I want things to exist in, and manipulate that carefully. I like automatic context. That's why I like tabs in my browser and not a thousand windows. And that's why I enjoy my split view…

Mozilla maintains a Firefox extension that does split view in the browser. Its called Side View. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/side-view/
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