Make an Android version that supports extensions (preferably MV2) like the now abandoned Kiwi Browser did and I'll be very interested.
Helium Browser
41–50 of 561 posts
Re: Helium Browser
#42What is the primary difficulty in developing a web browser?
- breadth of the http/css/js standard? - inefficient implementations - requires too many resources?
Why has the market converged on two major players and most independent attempts fall short?
Re: Helium Browser
#43Re: Helium Browser
#44>We'll keep support for MV2 extensions for as long as possible. This doesn't particularly give people any confidence in your product if even the devs don't know how long they can hold the line. Why not fork Firefox like Zen?
I know this is unfair to firefox, majority of enterprise software now (including and starting with Microsoft teams) outright say do not support firefox or have ‘limited’ support whatever that means.
For anyone working remotely like me, teams is a crucial piece of software (however bad it is). So as much as I like Firefox and legends that started it and religiously developed it over the years, bottom line, I can’t use it now.
Some maybe majority of blame falls on Mozilla, they let it stagnate and focus on cosmetic changes in last few years instead of focusing on improving core technology.
Re: Helium Browser
#45Re: Helium Browser
#46Why did anyone think it was a good idea to put tabs in the title bar. How the hell am I supposed to easily drag a window if I have 100 tabs open? Who the hell thought this was a good idea? Why do I feel like the only sane human being left on Earth? Why is this project continuing to use this horrible UI convention? How are they going to make money or enshittify this in the future or sell it off to an evil billion doll…
I would hate to have a 40px title bar doing nothing except wasting space on my screen. I've been using this layout for years, and I didn't even consider that anyone could have an issue with this until I read your statement. I'm not saying that you are wrong to disregard it due to your personal preferences, but please consider that this might not be such a horrible design as you make it out to be. Also, you can be cer…
The parent post is overly strongly worded, but I agree with the meat of it: tabs should not be in the title bar of the window. It's worse usability for a space savings that really isn't relevant because it's so small.
Re: Helium Browser
#47>We'll keep support for MV2 extensions for as long as possible. This doesn't particularly give people any confidence in your product if even the devs don't know how long they can hold the line. Why not fork Firefox like Zen?
I know this is unfair to firefox, majority of enterprise software now (including and starting with Microsoft teams) outright say do not support firefox or have ‘limited’ support whatever that means. For anyone working remotely like me, teams is a crucial piece of software (however bad it is). So as much as I like Firefox and legends that started it and religiously developed it over the years, bottom line, I can’t use…
Many vendors look at the userAgent. I’d be surprised if Microsoft Teams org doesn't have some soft incentives pushing Edge and if not edge Chromium-based browsers.
Then again, there are definitely some Firefox behaviors that differ from the WebKit-derived engines (webkit, blink, etc); for a few years Notion editor had very different UX in Firefox for this reason. They eventually fixed it though! Firefox's profiler is also excellent, I always analyze my Chrome profiles in https://profiler.firefox.com/ when I'm optimizing CPU use.
Re: Helium Browser
#48Re: Helium Browser
#49This is neat, and reminds me of Kagi's browser Orion, since their hero image features Kagi search.
Orion is WebKit based, so it uses less battery and feels faster to me compared to Chromium browsers, yet it largely supports Chrome extensions via a compatibility layer; like Helium uBlock Origin is included by default. It also has vertical tabs which is essential for me, and open-url routing between profiles.
However, I tried it in January 2025 and gave up on using it after a few weeks of sporadic bugs. I didn't lose data or anything but some actions in the UI didn't produce any result, or they produced a confusing unintended result. I hope they get better - I will probably give it another go in a few months, especially since Arc (my current browser) is now owned by Atlassian.
Anyways, great to see a Chromium browser improving on the privacy of ungoogled-chromium.