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Lightspeed – A Browser Experiment

blog.mozilla.org

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Re: Lightspeed – A Browser Experiment

#11

Post by ejr »

I had a flashback to the days of web portals. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, I like that they're trying something because complacency is never a good thing. You have to try things to see if they work.

I think the biggest allure of this is that there are people with simple needs that want their technology to "just work" as they said. I also agree with owlish's comment in that there are some quirks that need rapid alleviation that aren't being addressed like click-to-play and dropping extensions doesn't seem like a good way to approach this.

I applaud the experimentation so long as the end results are choices we can make for ourselves.

Re: Lightspeed – A Browser Experiment

#12

Post by jbardnz »

Pretty interesting video. A few things of note:

-Tabs are important to almost all web users these days. Maybe you could hide them and display them on hover but I don't think you should ever move them an extra click away.

-Not a huge fan of the click-to-play feature. Maybe it would work if you could whitelist plugins rather than websites, I guess you lose most of your security benefits by doing this though.

I think he actually raises a good point at the end though, he wouldn't use this for work but may use it elsewhere. That's great, but typical web users only want to use one browser, they get familiar with the interface and stick to that everywhere they go. If people use a certain browser at work chances are they use the same one at home, and I don't think this is powerful for many people to use at work.

Re: Lightspeed – A Browser Experiment

#13

Post by yeukhon »

The no setting part is not really an option. No matter how simple you want to the browser to be, if you want this to be the one browser for the personal use, you need some settings.

* setting search engine - this should be dead simple to implement and totally should be customized. I don't mind using Google but some people just don't like that.

Actually I don't get why Firefox search engine customization is the way it is. If you want to SE that is not part of Firefox's bundle choices, you have to install add-on. To me, this should be simple to implement. A user click on "manage search engine preference", press "Add", gives a URL of the search engine (e.g. https://google.com) and then OK. Firefox should just take whatever user types into the search bar / address bar (this case needs to know whether the "keyword" is url or not) and just redirect user to http://mysearch-engine.com/?q= / ?query=.

I can even imagine this useful when I want firefox to do code search. Imagine instead of me going to dxr.mozilla.org to find the code I want, now I just need to set the search engine to http://dxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/search?= yay!

I can even write an addon that does that right now in probably 30-50 lines of JS right now.

* home page. I think many older Internet users still set a home page.

* Download folders - you still want to expose where to set it because some people prefer to set it somewhere else.

* Bookmarks - if there is no concept of bookmark, how exactly do I find the things I want quickly? Imagine I What really helps users, including me, when I just want a browser.

* security, private, clear cookies - awesome, lightspeed would be super awesome on shared computers

* Big buttons. When I first install Lightspeed I should just be prompted a couple pages with big buttons and bars to set homepage / search engine preference

* When I And personally, a little cuteness like the wireframe in the demo is always welcome.

See these scratch drawing 1 and 2. I am not a designer, so pardon me. I am also trying to do a mobile experience here. In the bookmark case, you can type, you can mouse over / click and expand to see the top 5 in that category.

[1]: http://imgur.com/Bvtrnhi&WjAoic8

[2]: http://imgur.com/Bvtrnhi&WjAoic8#1

And yes, as a developer, Lightspeed is awesome to me.

Re: Lightspeed – A Browser Experiment

#14

Post by justfooit »

They should remove all the crap that is non-essential. For example, social and other things. Firefox size has nearly doubled in size between version 15 and 31. Also, I don't think that security would be good. I run noscript and similar. Notice how around slide 33 they said 3rd party cookies would be cleared? 3rd parties should not be allowed. Also, what if my trusted sites does not match their trusted list? Also, what if I don't want certain plugins to be enabled. Sounds less secure to me.

Re: Lightspeed – A Browser Experiment

#15

Post by mmastrac »

bane wrote: post #9

At first I thought "oh no, another distraction for Mozilla", but then I sat through the presentation and thought there was some really cool ideas (amazebar!). In fact, I think it can be simplified and paired down even more. Even better, some of the assumptions here even make the software portable (as in doesn't really need to be installed and could just run off a usb drive/out of my dropbox). Automatically being in a…

> - please don't default to a "downloads" folder.

I switched my default download directory to /tmp and haven't looked back.

Re: Lightspeed – A Browser Experiment

#16

Post by cypher543 »

> Auto-updates are always on

I really hope this isn't going to become a standard thing. There are still plenty of people like me who are stuck with something like satellite internet, which forces us to micromanage our data usage. I can't afford to just have things auto-updating whenever they want.

Re: Lightspeed – A Browser Experiment

#17

Post by userbinator »

yeukhon wrote: post #13

The no setting part is not really an option. No matter how simple you want to the browser to be, if you want this to be the one browser for the personal use, you need some settings. * setting search engine - this should be dead simple to implement and totally should be customized. I don't mind using Google but some people just don't like that. Actually I don't get why Firefox search engine customization is the way it…

No matter how simple you want to the browser to be, if you want this to be the one browser for the personal use, you need some settings.

Words cannot express how much I agree with this, and the frustration of finding out that some new version has removed an option I had before. I'd like to point out that the Firefox page description is (emphasis mine):

"Firefox is created by a global non-profit dedicated to putting individuals in control online."

If they really want to go with the no settings idea, maybe Lightspeed's description should instead be "Lightspeed is created by a global non-profit dedicated to putting Mozilla in control online."

Re: Lightspeed – A Browser Experiment

#18

Post by thrownaway2424 »

yeukhon wrote: post #13

The no setting part is not really an option. No matter how simple you want to the browser to be, if you want this to be the one browser for the personal use, you need some settings. * setting search engine - this should be dead simple to implement and totally should be customized. I don't mind using Google but some people just don't like that. Actually I don't get why Firefox search engine customization is the way it…

I think the easiest way to change search engine is to expose some UI when you browse to that site. For example if you go to google.com there could be a little dingus in the address bar that you click to make that your search engine.

I'm stealing this idea from Chrome, which already does that, somehow. If you go to a webmail site, there's a thing on the right of the omnibox, just left of the star, and if you click it that place becomes your mailto: url handling site.

As for search engines, Chrome has IMHO the dead-easiest way to install these of all. You only have to have gone to the site once. After that you get tab shortcuts for searching on that engine. There is a UI, but I've never seen or used it because why would you need to?

Re: Lightspeed – A Browser Experiment

#19

Post by yeukhon »

thrownaway2424 wrote: post #18
yeukhon wrote: post #13

The no setting part is not really an option. No matter how simple you want to the browser to be, if you want this to be the one browser for the personal use, you need some settings. * setting search engine - this should be dead simple to implement and totally should be customized. I don't mind using Google but some people just don't like that. Actually I don't get why Firefox search engine customization is the way it…

I think the easiest way to change search engine is to expose some UI when you browse to that site. For example if you go to google.com there could be a little dingus in the address bar that you click to make that your search engine. I'm stealing this idea from Chrome, which already does that, somehow. If you go to a webmail site, there's a thing on the right of the omnibox, just left of the star, and if you click it…

I don't remember if setting search via click had ever been done, but certainly when I was a kid (10-12 years ago), I vaguely remember when I visited sites like Yahoo, there would be an underlined text that read "click here to set this to be your homepage!"

I don't remember if it was actually possible without user to confirm or not, but I supposed the security reason prevents that from happening today.

The closest thing I can see is bookmarklet which is also very dangerous.

Re: Lightspeed – A Browser Experiment

#20

Post by gatehouse »

Having an intelligent non https submission warning could be good... You could go so far as to flat out refuse to send a cc number in the clear.

The degree of dependence on the search engine is troubling, would be interesting to see how much could be handled by a local mini index without involving a 3rd party.

Also think browser history could be a lot more useful if it were organized better. For example, maybe grouping pages by the search terms that led to them... Also would be nice to have a quick way to get a detailed history on any given site, along with the pages led in and followed out.

The main way I still use bookmarks is for organizing reference material, I think this could be automated partially as well.

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