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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

#391

The problems these browsers are trying to solve aren't web browser problems, they're window manager problems. Your web browser shouldn't try to be a window manager. - If you want to have two web pages side-by-side, you don't need a web browser that can handle split panes. Just have each web page in its own window and use your window manager to put them side-by-side. Tiling window managers will do this automatically.…

> just use your window manager's tabs, stacks, or workspaces.

I wish we were in a world in which this is realistic. I can’t think of any major environment in which this is practical (maybe KDE has some plugin …).

Microsoft once experimented with what I consider to be the right approach (https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/65cfl8/microsoft...), but it didn’t get far.

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

#393

The problems these browsers are trying to solve aren't web browser problems, they're window manager problems. Your web browser shouldn't try to be a window manager. - If you want to have two web pages side-by-side, you don't need a web browser that can handle split panes. Just have each web page in its own window and use your window manager to put them side-by-side. Tiling window managers will do this automatically.…

Two windows side by side means two separate tab bars, and if they are vertical, very little horizontal space.

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

#394

The problems these browsers are trying to solve aren't web browser problems, they're window manager problems. Your web browser shouldn't try to be a window manager. - If you want to have two web pages side-by-side, you don't need a web browser that can handle split panes. Just have each web page in its own window and use your window manager to put them side-by-side. Tiling window managers will do this automatically.…

In ideal world, but you should consider about cross-platform capability and usability, most os window managements sucks, that's why web browsers implement their own.

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

#395
post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is described in their FAQ. Running `xattr -d com.apple.quarantine '/Applications/Zen Browser.app/'` fixes the issue, see https://docs.zen-browser.app/faq#zen-browser-is-damaged-and-...

This feels like a strong signal that either - this app won't see much adoption and will eventually fall out of maintenance, or - the developers are going to be a pain in the ass to work with, or both.

thats pretty unfair to the devs. You need a Developer ID through Apple, a mac, and you need to pay. Thats kind of a ridiculous expectation to begin with. Two of those things can be solved with money (a significant amount of money mind you, for the purpose of releasing a single application) and Apple can arbitrarily make the Dev ID process arduous and painful.

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

#396
post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of legitimate Firefox Addons say that. Just means Moz can't manually review every single extension if they want to allow their users a good extension experience...unlike developing Chrome extensions

> Just means Moz can't manually review every single extension The extension in question is authored by Mozilla.

Different teams.

In the case of extensions like this one should be asking , “Do I trust the author?”

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

#397
I have a few questions I would be very interested to hear the answers

1 When is the earliest we can try tab grouping in Firefox Nightly? 2 Will the following things be available, the ability to group by dragging and dropping a tab, the ability to name and change the name, assign a color, and pin and hide a tab group, and the option to sleep tabs in groups? 3 Is the Workspaces feature being considered, it is quite popular and has been implemented in Floorp and Zen? 4 Is tab grouping also considered for the Android version of Firefox? 5 Are there any plans for a Portable version with a built-in dark theme for websites? Thank you very much! We are very sad that many features have been removed, tab grouping, pwa, rss, compact mode, menu icons, etc., hopefully this will all be coming to Firefox and such mistakes will not be made again.

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

#398
Looks nice. I like that it defaults to vertical tabs, but I don't like the inability to give them any sort of hierarchy, be it a full-blown tree like Tree Style Tabs or with tab groups like Edge.

Since it's just a Firefox reskin, I was able to login with my Mozilla account and sync my extensions, Tree Style Tabs included. Enabling Zen's "compact mode" turns it into a pretty ideal setup for TST, since the default tab list disappears entirely. Still would be nice to not need TST in the first place.

Workspaces seem like a nice idea in theory, though currently underbaked in practice. Deleting a workspace appears to be bugged at the moment; attempting to do so just switches to the workspace instead of deleting it. It'd be great if they could integrate with Containers; I'd love to be able to e.g. set a default container for a given workspace (and then all tabs in that workspace would default to that particular container).

The Zen Sidebar is pretty cool; I can see myself using the premade Wikipedia and Google Translate panels quite a bit, in addition to setting up some of my own. Resizing the Sidebar is pretty finicky, unfortunately; dragging the edge will often fail and cause the Sidebar's size to snap to a tiny width.

Zen seems to have a built-in profile switcher, which is interesting, but seems redundant with Containers and way more limited. I also don't know why it defaulted to creating both "Default (alpha)" and "Default Profile" profiles, nor do I know why it set "Default (alpha)" as the default. I assume because this is an alpha release?

I don't know if Zen changes enough for me to prefer using it over normal Firefox (especially with Firefox's own vertical tab and sidebar improvements on the horizon), but I appreciate that this exists and look forward to seeing where it goes.

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

#399

The problems these browsers are trying to solve aren't web browser problems, they're window manager problems. Your web browser shouldn't try to be a window manager. - If you want to have two web pages side-by-side, you don't need a web browser that can handle split panes. Just have each web page in its own window and use your window manager to put them side-by-side. Tiling window managers will do this automatically.…

Edge has a convenient split view feature that allows you to set links from the first pane to open in the second pane, rather than in a new tab. Particularly useful for browsing Hacker News etc.
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