In only 20 short years, we've gone full circle back to AOL, but now with an amazing new interface.
Feh.
Lightspeed – A Browser Experiment
111–120 of 184 posts
Re: Lightspeed – A Browser Experiment
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Tabs are important to almost all web users these days Tabs would be a useless feature, if the window manager did a better job at what they should do. In a "tabbing" wm like the one BeOS has you are much better served by one-page-one-window application. With a bit of cooperation from the window manager you can get rid of tabs. I did it few years ago and my browsing behavior and habits have changed for the better.
The way we browse the Web is fundamentally different from the way regular applications are used: we explore several paths at the same time, branch, backtrack, revisit, keep things open as reminders... Tabs make this navigation visible and enable the conscious building of a trail, which can be a very useful aid when browsing and when trying to make sense of the collected information. Tree-style tabs (Firefox extension…
He is right.
Tree-style tabs is something the desktop manager should provide. And autosave for all documents like SublimeText does.
Whatever we do with the tabs in our applications is up to us.
Honestly, we don't know what the limits are until we try it.
All I get from your argument is: "we have not tried it, therefore it will fail".
Re: Lightspeed – A Browser Experiment
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
The way we browse the Web is fundamentally different from the way regular applications are used: we explore several paths at the same time, branch, backtrack, revisit, keep things open as reminders... Tabs make this navigation visible and enable the conscious building of a trail, which can be a very useful aid when browsing and when trying to make sense of the collected information. Tree-style tabs (Firefox extension…
> The way we browse the Web is fundamentally different from the way regular applications are used: we explore several paths at the same time, branch, backtrack, revisit, keep things open as reminders... I disagree: if I could I would do all these things also in desktop applications. Web makes it easy to do, but that does not mean that we do not have the same needs in other applications. I explore several paths also i…
I agreedly disagree. Windows managers are apparently not interested enough or advanced enough to do this, but having branchable/rewindable/taggable history is something most Window manager don't do.
Hyperlinks on the other hand are easily tracked, moved, rewind, etc.
Re: Lightspeed – A Browser Experiment
#114I would like to run this browser on an OS which is nothing but CLI. This imagined CLI based OS will come with two things only: A gigantic and thoroughly indexed PDF file containing hundreds of commands to do all kinds of things (so you would only use Ctrl+F to search what you're looking for); and a modern browser with least minimum settings.
Re: Lightspeed – A Browser Experiment
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Tabs are important to almost all web users these days Tabs would be a useless feature, if the window manager did a better job at what they should do. In a "tabbing" wm like the one BeOS has you are much better served by one-page-one-window application. With a bit of cooperation from the window manager you can get rid of tabs. I did it few years ago and my browsing behavior and habits have changed for the better.
The way we browse the Web is fundamentally different from the way regular applications are used: we explore several paths at the same time, branch, backtrack, revisit, keep things open as reminders... Tabs make this navigation visible and enable the conscious building of a trail, which can be a very useful aid when browsing and when trying to make sense of the collected information. Tree-style tabs (Firefox extension…
>Tree-style tabs (Firefox extension) are an even better solution: each new page becomes the root of a "tree", and the tabs that are opened from it become "branches". There is also a very interesting contrast between following a link (so the previous page is available on the Back button, and therefore either accessed right away or soon forgotten) versus opening it in a new tab (so the parent remains visible as a remainder of an interesting place or a branching point in the navigation).
I can't even operate without tree-style tabs anymore. They make it really easy to organize my thoughts, activities, and the current state of any investigation that I'm on.
They tend to start with a search, then all interesting links opened as leaves, then pruning happens, then finding the most comprehensive leaf and promoting it first leaf, then deleting the (search) root to make the most general leaf the new root.
Some leaves then end up becoming branches as I move leaves beneath them, and I may find old tabs or trees than may get moved into this tree. The final leaves usually end up being the most concrete pages - manual pages, product listings, specific vendor options, etc.
I keep these open until whatever I was working on or investigating is complete, or if other things get in the way, I can archive them by bookmarking the entire tree and giving it an appropriate folder name.
I get the suggestion that window managers could handle this, but I don't know of any window managers that handle tree-style tabs and bookmarks like that, and anything else at this point feels like a step back.
Re: Lightspeed – A Browser Experiment
#116Not a bad start.
This can be pared down even further:
* Adjust search results based on your own clickthrough rates. If you bounce out of a site a few times (hello, quora) then it grays out or falls off. Sites you go to and stay on become more prominent.
* Kill downloads. I know this won't be popular, but the ability to download a thing isn't necessary for everyday use. There would be a heightened awareness for the user if they had to switch browsers to download something.
* No cross-site loading of any kind; all source material MUST come from the domain you are on. This would seriously break some sites but it would close large gaps in security and tracking.
A browser just for browsing!
Re: Lightspeed – A Browser Experiment
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
But this Lightspeed experiment is at first, just an experiment. Moreover, it is heavily implied it is not going to be the new Firefox. He also suggests that the idea is targeted at more simple Internet users. As in, not us. I am not concerned.
It may just be a thought experiment at this point, but I think it's pretty clear now that all of the major browsers are unfortunately headed in this direction. This rush to target "more simple Internet users" hasn't gone well for Mozilla and Firefox so far. All they've managed to do is create a dumbed-down UI that's harder and less efficient to use, and this has alienated a lot of Firefox's existing users. This is a…
>When faced with two browsers offering basically the same flawed UI, then users will use the one that offers the best runtime performance and the lowest resource usage.
I don't think that Chrome wins decisively on resource usage. It cheats a lot, and if you use your browser in uncommon ways, it degenerates.
I think that Chrome will win over Firefox's 'be like Chrome' strategy because people like leaders rather than followers, and would rather have Chrome-like features now on Chrome rather than waiting a year for Firefox to copy them, slightly differently.
Re: Lightspeed – A Browser Experiment
#118My first thought: "Well, this is just the new Spotlight isn't it? Why do we need another Spotlight?"
My second, more intelligent thought: "Oh, most people don't have Macs." I think there's some pretty great ideas here, and since my gut tells me 95% of computer time is spent in a browser, it makes sense for it to be extremely intelligent about inferring what you want.
Re: Lightspeed – A Browser Experiment
#119I 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…
>I applaud the experimentation so long as the end results are choices we can make for ourselves.
I don't understand why Mozilla works like this, but they won't be. They'll be pushed into an update with an option to turn them off, after 3 or 4 releases the old behavior will be pushed into the about:config, and 3 or 4 releases after that, it will be removed completely.
Re: Lightspeed – A Browser Experiment
#120I think Mozilla should focus on making Firefox fast and easy on memory usage before they start trying to "innovate" in the UI space, even if it's just conceptual.