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Lightspeed – A Browser Experiment

blog.mozilla.org

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Re: Lightspeed – A Browser Experiment

#3

Post by jfeser »

It's interesting that his concept for inline search looks almost exactly like a current google results page. It would be very cool to have something like that available without necessarily relying on google for it.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure that a composite view like that, which queries multiple services, can be created quickly without aggregating the data before the search is performed. That's problematic if you want to avoid relying on a single search provider.

Re: Lightspeed – A Browser Experiment

#4

Post by channikhabra »

I really like the popup from the url bar. Safari 8.0 on Yosemite already has it, but the one they show in the presentation is more interesting and useful. I already use Spotlight as the only way of accessing applications on OSX (habit most emacs users get from using smex), so I +1 a universal "Search interface"; it's much more useful/productive then moving your mouse and pointing to icons or open an application and look for stuff.

Re: Lightspeed – A Browser Experiment

#5

Post by Pxl_Buzzard »

I wonder if this could be made into a modification of Firefox, such that a user could choose the "simple" version when installing for the first time. If you wanted to switch between browser modes, just visit "about:config" and flip the switch to have the full experience of Firefox. Not to say that Lightspeed would be bad as a standalone browser, but the install base and the code base already exist for Firefox.

Re: Lightspeed – A Browser Experiment

#6

Post by owlish »

Disappointed that there isn't any innovation wrt tabs; they aren't mentioned at all.

I understand Lightspeed aims to be minimalistic, but many of these defaults are just illogical. Default click-to-play at the moment already ruins many audio sites where the flash applet is hidden, and turns others into a game of Where's Waldo.

Completely dropping extensions is antithetical to the central idea as well. Ideally, the browser would be barebones and fast (what Firefox once was) and any features would be an addon. Otherwise, you get sucked into the mentality of "if only there was this one feature".

All in all, there seem to be several inconsistencies in the central idea, but it could definitely turn out to be an interesting idea.

Re: Lightspeed – A Browser Experiment

#8

Post by kibibu »

owlish wrote: post #6

Disappointed that there isn't any innovation wrt tabs; they aren't mentioned at all. I understand Lightspeed aims to be minimalistic, but many of these defaults are just illogical. Default click-to-play at the moment already ruins many audio sites where the flash applet is hidden, and turns others into a game of Where's Waldo. Completely dropping extensions is antithetical to the central idea as well. Ideally, the br…

Tabs are accessed through the URL popup overlay. I agree that it's difficult to imagine browsing without them, but I manage well enough on phones without them.

Re: Lightspeed – A Browser Experiment

#9

Post by bane »

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 private/secure mode makes lots of sense to me as well.

Some ideas I don't like:

- get rid of loved sites/bookmarks altogether. 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.

- too much going on in the amazebar, drop all the suggestion (which will quickly get stale, tabs, email search, etc. Just focus on most frequent sites and autocomplete, it feels like the presentation is just burying lots of the clutter that used to take up GUI space in the amazebar.

- please don't default to a "downloads" folder. I've never liked it and before I bother to change it, my downloads folder quickly turns into a "random junk I've downloaded" folder. Forcing me to put it someplace actually is simplifying my workflow. It's almost the first option I change as soon as I install a new browser.

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

Re: Lightspeed – A Browser Experiment

#10

Post by fletchowns »

owlish wrote: post #6

Disappointed that there isn't any innovation wrt tabs; they aren't mentioned at all. I understand Lightspeed aims to be minimalistic, but many of these defaults are just illogical. Default click-to-play at the moment already ruins many audio sites where the flash applet is hidden, and turns others into a game of Where's Waldo. Completely dropping extensions is antithetical to the central idea as well. Ideally, the br…

He does mention tabs @ 4:18.

The click to play behavior doesn't have to be on the actual applet, it could be a popup just under the top bar or something. Use some imagination.

Dropping extensions is not antiethical. The people this browser is targeted for don't care about extensions.

I don't see any of the "inconsistencies to the central idea" you are talking about.

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