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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

#251

Post by mthoms »

layer8 wrote: post #195
mthoms wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If that's the impression you got, I don't know what to tell you. Among the very first words on the page are "Donate" (clearly indicating that it is not a professional product). And directly below that we have the words "Introducing Zen Alpha" which should tell you to expect a product that is anything but polished.

>is cringe at best and disingenuous at worst.

Groan. Can we stop with the hyperbole and be a little more constructive? You're saying it's "cringe" and "disingenuous" because they used a professional looking template and their marketing copy needs work? Let's give them the benefit of the doubt, shall we?

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

#252

Post by 0x2a »

rocketvole wrote: post #13
0x2a wrote: post #9

Looks like it supports Firefox extensions such as uBlock Origin as well. Surprised the website didn't mention it. Wonder if this still applies: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/uBlock-Origin-works-b...

I mean, it's a firefox-based browser. Is there any reason why it wouldn't support firefox extensions?

I thought it might be similar to Orion based on the submission title, but it looks like a rebranded Firefox (which is great). This is what Mozilla should be doing.

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

#254

Post by bee_rider »

joshmarinacci wrote: post #247
bee_rider wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Don’t forget Safari. Essentially there are three browser engines that all browsers are built on. The only engine that is truly new in the last 15 years is Servo. (And maybe Ladybird)

lol, I posted the comment from mobile safari but didn’t think of it. Eh, closed source software doesn’t count, haha.

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

#255

Post by mthoms »

gexla wrote: post #196
mthoms wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's not the message, it's the delivery. Some people don't react well to having their skills publicly derided as "horrible". We're all human after all.

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

#256

Post by downsplat »

1oooqooq wrote: post #127
dao- wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. I work at Mozilla as an engineer for Firefox, and I'm generally happy to see this. I currently work on tab groups, and I'm curious to see what their implementation will look like or whether they'll try to fast-track our work-in-progress once that's somewhat viable. For the sidebar and vertical tabs, they seem to have implemented their own thing rather than using what our team has been working on. At a first g…

Firefox defaults lately are awful and out of touch... gestures for reload/back/forward? really? several decades and still not incorporating uBlockOrigin as a native feature? really? a convoluted only-4-containers shenanigans that not even the author understand instead of simply isolating private tabs per window like everyone asked over the years? using on android? too bad now you don't have half the settings availabl…

For Android, I've been using Firefox Beta as my daily driver for over a year, it works flawlessly, and about:config is available.

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

#257

Post by PrototypeNM1 »

jay_kyburz wrote: post #94
nokeya wrote: 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?

Think of it like memory hierarchies. Bookmarks are long term storage, tabs are registers. Tab groups fall somewhere in the middle, easy to reengage with and easy to put out of focus.

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

#258

Post by angryasian »

widdershins wrote: post #55

Not many straightforwardly positive comments here so far, so I will write one. I'm a Firefox user but I've recently been tempted by Arc primarily because of its 'workspaces' feature and its minimal UI that gets out the way. I used Arc for several weeks and really got a taste for these features, so I'm really happy to see them come to a Gecko-based browser. Thank you, and keep it up! My advice would be: don't advertis…

You should try Firefox Mozilla containers

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account...

This is official supported add-on

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

#259

Post by mariusor »

causal wrote: post #243
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #89

I got a weird error when trying to run the app from within the .DMG on ARM Mac, in case anyone who can look into it is reading. It said "Zen Browser" is damaged and can't be opened, you should reject the disk image. edit: it's a known thing to do with Apples security, workarounds in step 3 here: https://github.com/zen-browser/desktop/issues/53

Reading the discussion, I see the developers intend to never sign their OSX package. This is a pretty big red flag for me, shows that the developer isn't really serious about supporting OSX. Too bad, I was excited by the idea, but this is just unprofessional and I really need to trust my browser.

> this is just unprofessional

Or they just prefer to not go out of their way to support the walled garden that is the Apple ecosystem. Principles beat professionalism any day for me.

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

#260

Post by autoexec »

widdershins wrote: post #55

Not many straightforwardly positive comments here so far, so I will write one. I'm a Firefox user but I've recently been tempted by Arc primarily because of its 'workspaces' feature and its minimal UI that gets out the way. I used Arc for several weeks and really got a taste for these features, so I'm really happy to see them come to a Gecko-based browser. Thank you, and keep it up! My advice would be: don't advertis…

If they commit to keeping all Firefox's spying out of their Firefox-based browsing UI that's all I really need. Firefox was fine, it's just stopped working for its users and respecting their privacy.
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