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

zen-browser.app

231–240 of 427 posts

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

#231
post #69
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tab groups again? I don’t remember when exactly, but like 10 years ago Firefox already had this feature. I was using them happily, organising all my numerous tabs to a dozen of groups by theme (work, social, movies, etc). But then Mozilla decided: “Nobody is using tab groups, screw it!” and removed them. All groups and tabs were lost. Now history will repeat?

I remember, I was around back then. :) Panorama was in some ways ahead of its time. The UI was nice visually but also somewhat heavy handed / not very beginner friendly to say the least, which contributed to it being used only by a relatively small share of our user base. We're cautious about not repeating history. We're implementing tab groups from scratch and directly in the tab bar. Our Firefox View feature (Tools…

[deleted]

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

#232
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tab groups again? I don’t remember when exactly, but like 10 years ago Firefox already had this feature. I was using them happily, organising all my numerous tabs to a dozen of groups by theme (work, social, movies, etc). But then Mozilla decided: “Nobody is using tab groups, screw it!” and removed them. All groups and tabs were lost. Now history will repeat?

I never understand the need for tab groups, once you get above 4-5 tabs you are actively working in, whats wrong with bookmarks?

I use Firefox's existing native support for tab groups that it's had since pre-1.0. They're called windows.

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

#233

Why are there so many new browsers these days? Is there really that much demand for them? Considering that creating one is very hard and requires a team.

The situation is pretty bad, where there are only two browsers: an ad-company controlled one that is making life harder for ad-blockers, and Firefox which is… fine, but somehow both stagnant and unfocused.

So, the opening is there, can’t blame people for trying to fill it.

OTOH this is just a Firefox fork advertised as a new browser.

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

#234

“Zen Browser.app” is damaged and can’t be opened. You should eject the disk image. Current MacOS on M2

cd /Applications && xattr -d com.apple.provenance "Zen Browser.app"/ && xattr -d com.apple.quarantine "Zen Browser.app"/

I appreciate it, but I'll wait.

When you enter a restaurant or hotel, and the lobby is disheveled, the parts you can't see likely won't be of a higher standard. Not for me yet.

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

#235
post #208

I've recently started using Arc mostly out of FOMO and there are parts that I like and parts I don't. I have been a Firefox user for a long time before that so glad to see something similar that's one of the major priorities is the aesthetics and I very much appreciate that. I tried to use it on my macOS Apple Silicone and got an error about it being broken and macOS suggested to trash it. Not sure if it is a bug iss…

+1 on Apple Silicon build being damaged. A lot of users that care about aesthetic are going to be on MBPs and they're all blocked right now.

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

#236

I use Sway (an i3 clone for Wayland), so these "split views" and "workspaces" are not appealing to me. Zen makes serious claims about performance and sandboxing, but do not forwardly present writings on how they do these things, leaving us with the impression there are some tweaks here and there but not much more.

I’ve been using the sway family of window managers for nearly 20 years! (First ion2, then ion3, then i3, and now sway.) In all this time I’ve briefly used native tabs but mostly now use windows without title bars or any other decorations in split mode all of the time. Most of the day I simply have a terminal running tmux on the first workspace with vim in the first tmux window, shells in the others, and a browser on…

Tmux splits are really nice on the server, and getting the server and my local system to be aware of each other is… either very difficult or impossible.

Tmux and vim splits, the competition between them can be a little annoying. Mostly I prefer tmux splits, but the shared yank buffers and ability to link scrolling in vim is really nice.

You can open a terminal in vim somehow IIRC, maybe vim as a multiplexer is the way to true enlightenment, haha.

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

#237
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to also use i3 and later sway and I noticed I only ever tiled my terminals. I don't really remember why but I started using tmux (with tilish) and I liked that I can detach and reattach to sessions later. But at that point I'm just full screening windows so now I'm on gnome and use a single terminal window with tmux :) Edit: my journey of text editors has been vim -> neovim -> helix so I just have them open in…

As a very longtime VIM user, can you talk me into helix?

I'm not one for preaching about software :p

I thought I'd miss the infinite extendability of neovim with all my plugins and such but it didn't end up mattering to me and it was quite freeing actually to be just bound to what is supported in the core editor (as long as it's enough for you). I've been waiting for editorconfig support since before switching but it doesn't look like it will be merged into core.

Afaik there's plans to add plugin support using some custom lisp language which I'm excited about (I wrote all my neovim config in fennel).

But overall it's really fast and comes with essentials built-in like LSP and tree sitter support. There's some learning curve coming from vim in terms of key commands and such as helix is inspired by kakoune in that realm.

I don't think I did a really good job at convincing you but that's what came from my head quickly :D

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

#238

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…

Vivaldi has split view / tab tiling and I really like it too. Vivaldi is based on Chromium.

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

#239
I hope a sustainable Firefox fork emerges soon because it seems Google's illegal default search deals (aka the only thing keeping Mozilla afloat) are coming to an end. That's a great thing in general, but it would really suck if FF died and we all got stuck with Chrome derivatives.

Personally, I wouldn't mind paying for my web browser if it's good. I wouldn't pay for Mozilla's FF, but I would pay for a fork of it by a company whose business model doesn't involve ads or selling data. I happily pay for Kagi, and will happily pay for the app that I use the most.

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

#240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same problem, to the point that I started testing alternative browsers that are chromium based. Currently using Brave, I couldn't find better alternatives that worked on linux, windows and Android. It's shocking that there isn't a decent chromium based browser that supports extensions on android.

There is an app called Kiwi Browser that does support extensions on Android. The issue becomes no sync, which I think is also a feature you are looking for. It makes sense that Chrome has never built it, have to keep the users from using Adblock.

I'm aware of Kiwi, but it lags for months to a year behind chromium updates, which is very dangerous.

Chrome for sure, I was surprised that also any other browser (Via, Soul, Brave, vivaldi) don't support extensions.

I'm on Brave now because while it does not support ublock origin, the adblocker is stronger than the others I tried and works similarly. It also has some sort of builtin sponsorblock, so I use it on the phone over Firefox which is slow.

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