Launch HN: SigmaOS (YC S21) – A MacOS web browser designed for faster work

Ok, but if the reason you think something "sucks" is because of an uncommon opinion that you hold, like a good UI isn't important or worth paying extra for, then your comment isn't very helpful to the creator. It says much more about you than the product.

Similarly, most people in tech/knowledge work would not consider $15 per month for software that makes them more productive to be "exorbitant", and I think we all know that. If you feel that way, fine, but it's not relevant to the discussion.

- Tab groups – common in other browsers and extensions.

- Split screen - OS feature.

- Share integration – OS feature.

- Snoozing tabs, neat. My task list does this, but this is handy.

- Keyboard shortcuts, are they that much better than other browsers?

- Sync – how many people have multiple Macs? how many of those want to sync state between their personal life and work life? I don't.

- Doesn't sell data – typical for most browsers, usually funded by Google search (Chrome/Firefox/Safari).

- No ads – typical for most browsers.

I don't really know what the sell is here. Having slightly better keyboard shortcuts just isn't worth $15 a month. There are free browser extensions that do all of this, or if you want fancy tab management then something like Workona will do it for $7.

Browsers aren't perfect, but as a browser power user this solves none of my problems.

As for subscription pricing, I can understand that for a browser engine where staying up to date is critical to the web usability, but for a browser shell, it's a push, even with a good feature set.

I think there's a useful distinction between product analytics, which might include basic details about web usage but likely in a privacy preserving way, and actual web history.

All of the browsers, Sigma OS included, are going to do product analytics. But I'm not sure that any are going to actually track web history. They'll track what web features you're using, and Chrome is known to track domains but I believe in a statistical way that doesn't give perfect info on who's using what. They all sync some state if you sign in, but that's a feature not analytics, if you trust them, and Sigma is no different here.

Apart from browsers like Brave selling ad space or dodgy Android browsers selling full web history, I'm not sure that any of the major players are actually doing anything fundamentally different to what Sigma is here. Firefox and Safari push the privacy side a little harder in their own ways, but are still roughly equivalent I think.

If they built their own engine from scratch I can see the $15 being worth it just to encourage more competition and innovation.

SigmaOS is certainly an ambitious name. At present it does not make much sense to me, but down the line it might.