Lightspeed – A Browser Experiment • Hacker News Board

Re: Lightspeed – A Browser Experiment

#131

Post by GhotiFish » Fri, Aug 08, 2014, 5:46 PM UTC

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…

I like your suggestions, some comments:

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

don't worry, you'd never use this browser. The people who would barely know what a folder is. Actually that's a bit of a problem, those 'evergreen' people he talks about do NOT interact with the filesystem. So one way or another this application will have to open that folder somehow.

>keep tabs more present, don't bury them in the amazebar

This one I understand. The 'evergreens' I've met in my life don't use tabs. Some do, however, but only in a limited context.

It's tempting to think to add a feature that can be exploited for so much gain by us... but for a feature to be used, the UI must pressure the user to use it.

Re: Lightspeed – A Browser Experiment

#132

Post by ChikkaChiChi » Fri, Aug 08, 2014, 5:53 PM UTC

lemieux wrote: post #121

ChikkaChiChi wrote: post #116

Not 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 us…

> 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. This would probably break almost everything. Who doesn't use some sort of a CDN nowadays?

You can still use a CDN through your own domain. It wouldn't be perfect, but it would be something.

Re: Lightspeed – A Browser Experiment

#133

Post by GhotiFish » Fri, Aug 08, 2014, 5:53 PM UTC

Given your target demographic, I wouldn't willingly install this for a family member, as there is no ad block.

Without being able to protect my family from scams/manipulation/malware, this is a non-starter. I'd have to alter the hosts file. I'd need to install something that updates it. Erk, and then some sites would just break permanently with no recourse.

I would say the answer would be to add filtering as part of the interface. "Hey, lightspeed filters websites so you can read them easier, is the site misbehaving, try turning me off!" Or something.

That said, even if everyone was fine with the UI proposed, there is no way the idea would be implemented. Regardless of how much of a benefit it is to the consumer.

Re: Lightspeed – A Browser Experiment

#134

Post by TuringTest » Fri, Aug 08, 2014, 6:29 PM UTC

webwanderings wrote: post #114

I 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.

If you haven't yet, you may want to read The Humane Interface [1] (and test is working prototype Archy).

It's a description of a user interface that works exactly as you say, yet looks completely different that what you describe.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Humane_Interface

Re: Lightspeed – A Browser Experiment

#135

Post by chc » Fri, Aug 08, 2014, 7:04 PM UTC

sdrothrock wrote: post #46

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…

> Frequent usage should just percolate autocomplete suggestions to the top. This design doesn't really need them, and tbh I've barely used bookmarks in any browser in a long time. BECAUSE address bars autocomplete sites I frequently go to, the bookmarks end up being a way to store sites that I go to /infrequently/ and use for reference or only check up on every few months.

That's the same way I use bookmarks. I won't bookmark, say, Hacker News, but I will bookmark a recipe site that I know I'll want to refer to for ideas sometime down the road.

Re: Lightspeed – A Browser Experiment

#136

Post by yeukhon » Fri, Aug 08, 2014, 7:26 PM UTC

glandium wrote: post #96

thrownaway2424 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Firefox does this already, if the web site has a . Go, for example, to https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/ , which I know has that, now click on the drop down to select a search engine, there's a 'Add "Bugzilla@Mozilla"' item. Sure, discoverability is left to be desired.

Interesting, how was this done without installing addon? Is this bundled into Firefox? I also can add DDG doing this but not for some other search engines though.

Re: Lightspeed – A Browser Experiment

#137

Post by ben0x539 » Fri, Aug 08, 2014, 8:16 PM UTC

phloxicon wrote: post #47

Wouldn't no plugins mean no adblock? I would never go back to not using it.

Just lobby for adblock to be built-in with a Mozilla-curated block list. Seems to fit the idea of a safer/simpler-by-default web experience. ;)

Re: Lightspeed – A Browser Experiment

#138

Post by ben0x539 » Fri, Aug 08, 2014, 8:28 PM UTC

I'm surprised "private & secure" only goes as far as deleting the browser history and cookies every once in a while.

Shouldn't a privacy-by-default experience get rid of many of the information leaks currently inherent in the web browsing experience? Shouldn't it disable the http referer header and third-party requests to tracking sites? Shouldn't it sandbox flash so that it respects the browser's proxy settings and doesn't persist its own cookie-like objects?

Just hardwiring the current porn window behavior into the whole browser seems to create more problems than it solves privacy issues. (Makes search through weighted entries in the browser history impossible, which has 99% replaced bookmarks for me; makes restarting the browser a lot bigger of a deal, especially if it also disables opening recently closed tabs).

Re: Lightspeed – A Browser Experiment

#139

Post by jamesgeck0 » Fri, Aug 08, 2014, 8:44 PM UTC

weavie wrote: post #71

troymc wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with not defaulting to saving downloads in the "downloads" folder. Many people don't really know how to use their file manager. (For years, my mom would open Microsoft Word and organize files there.) Why not default to saving downloads on the Desktop? Where did that file get saved? Oh, there it is!

What happened to just asking the user where they want to save it? To download a file I now have to download it, then open Finder, navigate to Downloads and copy the file, navigate to the folder I want to place the download, paste the file. Then navigate back to the folder and delete the file from Downloads .. because Macs don't give you a Cut option.

I've seen users right click on a link, click "Save as...", navigate to a specific folder, open Windows Explorer, and promptly forget where they put the file.

Re: Lightspeed – A Browser Experiment

#140

Post by jamesgeck0 » Fri, Aug 08, 2014, 8:47 PM UTC

grrowl wrote: post #26

mmastrac wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - please don't default to a "downloads" folder. I switched my default download directory to /tmp and haven't looked back.

I'd think /tmp by default would make sense, effectively your downloaded files would live inside Firefox itself, ready for you to drag/save them out. It's in line with where modern computing is going, making the filesystem less relevant by the day.

Not if there's any chance that tmp would get automatically cleared out, ever. I've seen people intentionally, cluelessly save work in temporary directories and then get upset when it was nuked at a later date.