Spatial navigation like in the good old Opera.
Ask HN: What would you want in an ideal web browser?
121–130 of 250 posts
Re: Ask HN: What would you want in an ideal web browser?
#122Control over who can run code on my machine. Have a block third party javascript option like we have a block third party cookies.
Sadly this would break a lot of websites and apps, since a lot of scripts are served from the Google (and other) CDNs these days. A whitelist of sorts could help though.
Re: Ask HN: What would you want in an ideal web browser?
#123The web needs to split into two: * Reader browser * Application browser The reader browser should show you the "web" in a kindle-like readable experience, just as it does today. However, the application browser, although it does receive a URL, should not have any HTML page as a default view. Instead, a JavaScript should be first loaded, and from there, following the permissions it requests, it can open new windows, n…
Safari and Firefox include a reader mode, directly from the URL bar. A simple click gives you an instant kindle-like experience.
Is it what you mean?
Re: Ask HN: What would you want in an ideal web browser?
#124Tree-style tabs and the bookmark model to go with it (a bookmark can have a parent, so you can restore subtrees of tabs, each with its history intact).[1] Scroll below bottom of page as necessary when navigating to anchor links.[2] Put focus in urlbar when switching to a tab unless the user has already moved it onto the page. Continue to allow bookmark keywords for custom searches from urlbar (e.g. "w fun" to search…
> Built-in ad blocking. I read this and thought "that's dumb", until I realized that's because I already take for granted that every browser will provide an ad-blocker. This has not proven true for my mobile browser, and it's driving me crazy.
If you're using Android, then Firefox supports ad blocking.
If you're not using Android…well, that's the choice you made.
Re: Ask HN: What would you want in an ideal web browser?
#125- works on X, the terminal and Android (yeah, that's a tall order, but it sure would be nice to have the same keystrokes available in X and on the terminal, and the same information available everywhere) - securely shares passwords across multiple hosts (emphasis on 'securely,' unlike Chrome and Firefox) - blocks ads - blocks JavaScript, but makes it very easy to selectively enable it - supports , and (hey, you did a…
Isn't emacs the 'emacs of web browsers'?
Re: Ask HN: What would you want in an ideal web browser?
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
Allow me to present an analogy between operating systems and browsers. You can install Arch/Debian Linux or Ubuntu, and there is no collision there. You build your OS the way you want it or you run an automated installation and soon you are doing work, browsing, watching movies, etc. My point is that if Debian wasn't what it is, you wouldn't have Ubuntu which offers additional value to a typical user, and be stuck wi…
Choice is of value. Choice also has costs. I like the OS analogy, and it highlights the potential benefits well, but we also need to consider the downside. It would load a huge amount of complexity on web developers. Rather than 5 browsers with a couple of versions of each, you'd need to start testing against a vast matrix of renderers, CSS engines, JS engines, chrome (as in browser chrome, not Chrome) plugins, etc,…
Well fortunately in the web we have already got standards committees. As long as those standards are supported there should be no problem.
Unfortunately current mainstream browsers don't comply with the standards to the fullest, although I admit compliance is orders of magnitude better than years ago.
Aren't Chrome only apps and web sites harming the web?
I agree with testing Linux software completely. It's maddening how much the notion of testing is ignored.
Well it's a win-win situation, build the ideal browser, then you have already built the "ideal" OS ;)
Re: Ask HN: What would you want in an ideal web browser?
#127Re: Ask HN: What would you want in an ideal web browser?
#128Tree-style tabs and the bookmark model to go with it (a bookmark can have a parent, so you can restore subtrees of tabs, each with its history intact).[1] Scroll below bottom of page as necessary when navigating to anchor links.[2] Put focus in urlbar when switching to a tab unless the user has already moved it onto the page. Continue to allow bookmark keywords for custom searches from urlbar (e.g. "w fun" to search…
I wouldn't want any browser to have built-in ad blocking. The best situation from my point of view is if majority of users gets to see the ads, while I don't. Who's going to pay for ads anymore if browsers come with adblocking by default?
"Who's going to pay for ads anymore if browsers come with adblocking by default?"
Why is this my problem? Nobody pays for buggy whips any more because we don't use horse and buggies. Times move on.
Apologies for sounding flip. I understand lots of folks have business models based on ads. This is most unfortunate, but it's no reason to screw over the consumer and not give them something they want simply because other people get paid money for it.
Re: Ask HN: What would you want in an ideal web browser?
#129[deleted]
Re: Ask HN: What would you want in an ideal web browser?
#130I think Firefox + Vimperator is pretty decent by itself, it could be slightly better.
* Even better extension support -- enable writing extensions in any language: expose a file system based API for a full Unix philosophy experience. uzbl has something like this but it's not nearly as ideal as Vimperator is for my use case.
* As others mentioned, lose mandatory UI downgrades and other crap Mozilla's been pushing us lately: give us a platform to customize instead. (Practically running a Firefox compiled from sources helps with some of the issues people have, but sadly there will be a day they overhaul the UI in such a manner it hinders the usability. And because of the security stuff I just can't go back and use an old one forever.)
* Yeah, better bookmarking. Firefox could use a better system, and Vimperator doesn't solve it either. Full-text search among history + bookmarks would be pretty good.
The well exposed API for external apps could solve it all, save for crap UI. For instance, the bookmarks could be crawled to an org-mode document where I could annotate, categorize and tags things to my heart's content.