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

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

#241

Post by danenania »

detaro wrote: post #200
danenania wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just about being abrasive. It's about posting negative comments when you have nothing to offer. If your reaction to something new is that you have absolutely no interest or wouldn't pay a few cappuccinos per month for it then guess what: no one cares. You're just polluting the thread with noise. Helpful: this is interesting, but I tried it and it's missing these features that I would need to consider paying…

The comment all this is under is not just "subscriptions are the devil!". Some responses seem more "reflexively negative" (against any criticism) than the comments they respond to. you don't seem to offer much value over free competitors and why should we trust you might be hard points to address, but are important.

"you don't seem to offer much value over free competitors and why should we trust you might be hard points to address, but are important."

I agree with you on those points. But dismissing improved UI/UX as "makeup" is not helpful.

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

#242

Post by sauravmitra »

danpalmer wrote: post #237
sauravmitra wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks! Performance: We use WebKit for the actual pages, so similar to Safari in speed and memory usage (much better than Chrome), and our UX should be pretty fast (we did a performance update right before this launch!) Privacy: The app obviously knows what pages are on it since it's loading them. Our server doesn't have any of that data unless you choose to upload it for cloud syncing. That data is encrypted so shou…

Using Azure AppCenter and its analytics SDK isn't ideal from a privacy perspective. I think it's reasonable for product development, but if you want to sell based on privacy I think it would need to go.

Hmm, you might be right. AppCenter is super useful for crash logs, but do you think it would be an issue for users when concerned with privacy? We don't identify the reports at all, so literally anonymous crash logs.

(And AppAnalytics is needed for it to work with SwiftUI, I think? Might be why we're using that.)

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

#243

Post by idreyn »

danpalmer wrote: post #236
idreyn wrote: post #196

> Oh, and we don't sell your data > Wondering why browsers are usually free? There's a heavy implication here that most browser vendors sell your browsing data, but you don't state it outright because (aside from Chrome, arguably) I don't think it's actually true. Let's look at the others: - Edge is probably sending all kinds of invasive telemetry to Microsoft - Firefox is maybe(?) sending your email address to Pocke…

> Edge is probably sending all kinds of invasive telemetry to Microsoft 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 featu…

Totally. I don't think Google is necessarily doing anything as blatant as directly selling your browsing history to third parties.

Since I went to go check, I might as well share what I found: in my Google account "Activity controls" there is a toggle (off for me, not sure what the default is) that grants them permission to use Chrome history for "faster searches, better recommendations, and more personalized experiences". As I understand it, this is not selling away your data so much as letting them use it to auction your attention to advertisers.

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

#244

Post by AkshitGarg »

Osiris wrote: post #203
mythz wrote: post #120

It looks like the primary redeeming tab groups feature could've been implemented as a browser extension which I personally still wouldn't use as I don't see that it adds any value over my current natural setup of having my "tab groups" basically grouped across across multiple browser windows and virtual desktops. So all sites I frequent are already open and I just use the OS shortcuts for opening the preferred browse…

Also tab grouping already exists in the free Vivaldi browser so it's an even less compelling feature to pay for.

Tab groups also exist in chrome, brave and edge (was behind a flag last time I checked), and presumably other chromium-based browsers too

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

#245

Post by lwn »

sauravmitra wrote: post #161
lwn wrote: post #146

$15 a month is too much for me to consider switching from Safari. Although I'm looking for a decent browser-replacement, because of the update interlock. I don't mind paying for software, but for $15 I'd expect Browser + full blown google internet search alternative + privacy.

We're still workshopping pricing models. We have a 14-day free trial, so please give it a go and tell us what you think!

Will do!

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

#246

Post by sauravmitra »

srcreigh wrote: post #239

Why did you choose to feature ~100% non-work distractions in your demo video? Reverse psychology? Hahaha. Nevertheless I am intrigued :-) I always use Chrome Omnibar to navigate to bookmarks/history. I wish it could show me the bookmark 1st, but I usually just to the right suggestion.

Honestly, just for fun :D

Yes, I use my browser mainly for work, but product demos are usually a bit boring. Also, I was hoping for a little Vim vs Emacs flame war (which didn't happen) and "Backwards Hippo" is just great :D

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

#248

Post by sauravmitra »

ThinkBeat wrote: post #238

What engine is this a skin for? 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.

The engine is WebKit.

It is our long-term goal for that name to make more and more sense :)

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

#249

Post by danpalmer »

sauravmitra wrote: post #242
danpalmer wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using Azure AppCenter and its analytics SDK isn't ideal from a privacy perspective. I think it's reasonable for product development, but if you want to sell based on privacy I think it would need to go.

Hmm, you might be right. AppCenter is super useful for crash logs, but do you think it would be an issue for users when concerned with privacy? We don't identify the reports at all, so literally anonymous crash logs. (And AppAnalytics is needed for it to work with SwiftUI, I think? Might be why we're using that.)

I think there are levels to it. Best for privacy would be no crash reporting, but obviously that comes at the cost of no crash logs and needing to do a lot more testing and QA before shipping to get equivalent quality, and that's an engineering trade-off.

Custom crash-reporting, where the server is controlled by you, is likely a bit better because it's not going to a third party, but that's another engineering cost.

Having crash reporting is probably fine – I put crash reporting in the apps and services I work on, and I expect them as a user – but it is definitely worse for privacy and if an app is marketing on being good for privacy it's not a great fit. As for analytics, again, I can see the reasoning, but I think it would be good to not do it.

As far as privacy is concerned, shipping the binary and it doing any networking is the same impact, regardless of the tagging that you may or may not be doing. MS might be tagging connections/IPs, correlating users, fingerprinting, etc. There's also the risk that private data accidentally ends up getting sent to AppCenter (in crashes or analytics) just from values on the stack or the particular code paths that users are executing.

Honestly, I don't think you should be selling based on privacy. I don't think Sigma OS is fundamentally better than Firefox/Safari, and it takes a LOT of work and giving up a lot of useful data to do it correctly. I'd put product analytics in (but not too much), keep the crash reporting, don't sell data, don't sell ads, don't advertise as being any more private than that, and use your product analytics to inform your product process and build better features.

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

#250

Post by danpalmer »

idreyn wrote: post #243
danpalmer wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Edge is probably sending all kinds of invasive telemetry to Microsoft 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 featu…

Totally. I don't think Google is necessarily doing anything as blatant as directly selling your browsing history to third parties. Since I went to go check, I might as well share what I found: in my Google account "Activity controls" there is a toggle (off for me, not sure what the default is) that grants them permission to use Chrome history for "faster searches, better recommendations, and more personalized experie…

Yeah exactly. Third parties can bid on keywords as they have always been able to do, and Google might give you better ads based on that data, but they aren't telling the third party why. That's a pretty big difference!
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