8 ms·

Min – A smarter web browser

101 points by alvil 9y ago

bobosha 9y ago
Neat idea. Perhaps position this as a minimalist browser (vs "smarter")
cyberferret 9y ago
Seems pretty cool, but I wonder at the claim that it will use less battery power. From the specs, it is built on Electron, and from my understanding to date, even the basic Electron framework shell is fairly resource hungry in its own right, which could impact power usage on a laptop? Perhaps it could have been a better initiative to build it using native code and utilising WebKit as the rendering engine? Much like the Vivaldi browser (which I use a lot of these days)
- dangoor 9y ago
  I wouldn't think that the browser part of Electron is significantly slower than Chromium, which it's built on. From what I remember, the Node part of Electron runs in a separate process.
minaguib 9y ago
"Using electron" and "uses less battery" are too close to each other.
- jdavis703 9y ago
  It's not like they're trying to cram in a music player or IDE in to an Electron app. This is a browser so I wouldn't expect the load to be substantially worse than running Chrome.
  - pls2halp 9y ago
    And you wouldn’t expect atom to use more memory than sublime, either.
    - jhasse 9y ago
      This is different. Atom is a text editor implemented in a web browser engine. This is a web browser implemented in a web browser engine.
  - AstralStorm 9y ago
    I wouldn't expect it to be any better either. Which means this thing is missing the point of writing a new browser.
darklajid 9y ago
Ignoring the general 'Electron seems a waste of resources' (with which I partially agree with) comments: Requires 'Ubuntu' or 'macOS'? I seem to know a lot of Electron based apps that run on other Linux distributions or - gasp - even Windows. Clicking on the 'Download anyway' link brings up the GitHub release tab. With, among others, a file called 'Min-v1.6.3-win32-x64.zip'.
- Gaelan 9y ago
  Pure speculation, but I bet it's a combination of: * Lack of a windows machine to test on * Forgetting to update the site when a Windows build became available.
- icebraining 9y ago
  > With, among others, a file called 'Min-v1.6.3-win32-x64.zip' "If it compiles, it is good; if it boots up, it is perfect"? Just because the build has a Windows target doesn't mean it's a supported platform.
  - darklajid 9y ago
    That ignores the "We target one random Linux distribution" thing and kinda doesn't address the point that Electron is cross-platform already. I would expect an Electron app to work where Electron works, but admit that I haven't targeted it. Any input on why that might not be the case would be appreciated.
- Kesty 9y ago
  Electron main selling point is being cross platform. Having it only Ubuntu/macOS seems counter-intuitive.
mrmondo 9y ago
I don't see what's "smarter" about it. - The UI seems clumsy and is so flat that it doesn't offer any directional hinting at all. - It's the same size as Firefox (160MB) despite offering significantly less features. - It's resource consumption seems to be about 25% more than a fresh Firefox instance.
- userbinator 9y ago
  and is so flat that it doesn't offer any directional hinting at all. These featureless, "wide expanse of pure white" UIs are one of the things that most irritates me about "modern" software today. They give the impression of being unfinished and opaque.
  - capex 9y ago
    Its not the flatness, its lack of design. See for example, https://www.sail.com.au/ https://www.sail.com.au/, which is flat too, but with a cohesive design.
    - Meph504 9y ago
      I am pretty sure core to "Flat UI" is that drop shadows shouldn't be used, and there is hardly an element on that site that isn't full of them.
      - capex 9y ago
        Flat UI is not "flat", please read up on the topic.
    - mrmondo 9y ago
      That site looks pretty awful to me, while I can clearly make out the buttons from other elements it looks like a old stock Drupal theme or something along those lines.
      - capex 9y ago
earenndil 9y ago
> Find anything instantly Aside from fuzzy search, all of this is already possible. > Effortless tab management All the things in here are already possible in firefox using addons. > Built-in ad blocking I honestly don't care if ad-blocking is built in. It's not like it's a chore that affects my day-to-day use of a browser to install an addon once for adblocking. > Fast and efficient It literally uses the same engine as chrome so it won't be any different from it. > Open-Source software Like most other browsers today
- nkkollaw 9y ago
  So..? What's your point? It's just as good as any other browser
  - shakna 9y ago
    It advertises itself as a smarter web browser, but, as you said, it's only "as good as any other browser". The only pull it has... is that it might be adequate.
  - kierenj 9y ago
    Title says it's "smarter"?
  - earenndil 9y ago
    But it's not. Because it's not extensible, like many other browsers.
SwellJoe 9y ago
YC commenters are brutal. Not a single positive comment, so far. That feels a little unnecessarily mean, given that it's a free software project.
- sadgit 9y ago
  It seems like this comment is a little understated. Maybe the commenter could think more about how to catch the attention if the persons he/she wishes to target. /s
- pvdebbe 9y ago
  Isn't it great, though, that we hold FLOSS projects to the same standards as the big-bucks closed software?
  - masukomi 9y ago
    Why shouldn't they be? If scoped correctly to the resources of the maintainers there is no reason that open source software can't be just as good as "big-bucks closed software". Yes, this means more focused product, that doesn't do ALL THE THINGS!!! but does a few things really well. That type of software is exactly why I use the Mac. There's a ton of indy developers out there making absolutely kick-ass focused software for it, and they do so on incredibly tight budgets. There's no reason OS software can't or shouldn't be held to high standards. There's literally no reason the quality of the core functionality of any project can't be as good. In fact it's probably easier for an open source dev to guarantee high quality stuff if they only get off their asses and write tests. This is their passion project after all. They _should_ care about the quality of the code more because it's their baby, not just a paycheck. Most of the open source projects out there have crap UI & UX but it's not like it's terribly hard for a geek to find a friend with decent UI skills (UX is a bit harder) and ask them to mock some stuff up for them, and then implement it. Or you know, use the $$ programmers get paid (relative to most everyone else) to hire a professional to design it. Note: to be clear, there are many OS things out there that are just some quickie tool someone threw together and are being kind enough to share. I've got a pile of these and I have NO problem with stuff like that being somewhat rough. There's a difference between quick and dirty scripts and things that are trying come across as, and be treated as a polished product.
linopolus 9y ago
I build a browser in your browser, so that you can browse the web browsier. It sounded reasonably nice (beyond the point that Firefox is all this with a few addons), but Electron? Again?
cryo 9y ago
I instantly like the clean distraction free look. That's Min.
cocktailpeanuts 9y ago
I think the main reason people are hating on this is because it's selling itself as something it's not: A smarter browser. Should stick with its original goal. I think they created it as a "minimal" browser, hence the name.
- bananicorn 9y ago
  If you're going for minimal, it won't get much more minimal than this: https://surf.suckless.org/ https://surf.suckless.org/ But at least the smart part may be of merit. And we all know what HN thinks of electron, but at least bundling chrome with a browser seems reasonable. Not for a minimalistic browser though, I think hence the branding as "a smarter browser". Oh boy, I actually set out to defend the project, but now I realize while there's clearly been some work put into it, some areas haven't been thought out too well... At least it looks nice and clean, that's something. edit: corrected my wording in the first sentence.
  - chriswarbo 9y ago
    > If you're going for minimal, it won't get much more minimal than this: > https://surf.suckless.org https://surf.suckless.org Minimal UI maybe (or maybe not; is there still a truckload of stuff when right-clicking, or pressing hotkeys, or visiting `about:something`?) I'd say lynx, w3m, links, dillo, netsurf, etc. are all more minimal in general.
    - anthk 9y ago
      Ahem, no. Links has right click, even Netsurf has that. About general minimalism, dillo is perfect. For cli, w3m and links are NOT minimal. That is netrik.
      - chriswarbo 9y ago
        Didn't know about netrik, thanks. I wasn't implying that 'right click == bloat', only that there are two meanings for "minimal": a minimal amount of code, or a minimal UI. surf doesn't have a minimal amount of code, since it wraps WebKit; although it seems to have a minimal UI. My point about right-click, etc. is that much of the (GTK?) WebKit UI might still be lurking there. I agree that dillo is really nice. Not minimal in the UI sense though (tabs, toolbar, search box, etc.)
colept 9y ago
Competition is good. This also looks like a neat browser for staging designs.
_Codemonkeyism 9y ago
I think the only way to make a dent into the browser market is to create the most secure browser and market it that way.
- earenndil 9y ago
  I disagree. I think what can make a dent is something that's significantly faster than all we have today.
jijji 9y ago
so its basically chrome-headless with a different UI and 20% slower because it is running via an interpreted nodejs rendering that is then compiled into a binary. why not just use chrome? If you're going to use an existing browser, why not use Dillo or Lynx as the backend, which really are minimalist in terms of memory usage.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- AstralStorm 9y ago
  Or test Servo... (Mozilla's new engine.)
arm 9y ago
Honestly, I’d say qutebrowser¹ is both smarter and more minimal than Min. ―――――― ¹ — https://qutebrowser.org/ https://qutebrowser.org/
- blux 9y ago
  From the FAQ; "I believe efficiency while coding is a lot more important than efficiency while running." As a user, that would make me nervous at least.
  - lallysingh 9y ago
    Depends on whether that efficiency is used for higher quality or higher feature count. For the firmer, I'd be pretty happy.
herewegoagain 9y ago
I tried this a while back, and the only thing I liked better than the mainstream browsers was that it doesn't waste space at the top of the browser and thus would theoretically be a good fit for e.g. watching something in a small window in the corner of your screen while doing work. But in practice, there is some crazy minimum window size limitation and thus it's useless for the only use case I would have for it.
- beojan 9y ago
  Chrome `--app` mode does the same thing.
another35 9y ago
> and get suggestions before you even start typing I really don't want that!
- Kesty 9y ago
  I think there is a dissonance between smart personalized suggestion and being against tracking. Which is the main downfall of DuckDuckGo they use as the smart bar search engine. If you want good suggestions and smart personalization you need to track your user. If you don't want to track your user for privacy concern, it's all good but then don't give user a product like suggestions that will always be subpar compared to someone else that is for user tracking.
  - fenwick67 9y ago
    I think it's very telling that you don't consider what the user might want. As a user I don't want to be tracked, but I want suggestions, and I'm willing to give up a little accuracy. Example: on DuckDuckGo, if I search for "int ball", it includes results for "int-ball". It doesn't need to know anything about me personally to do this.
la_oveja 9y ago
Based on Electron. So this is Chromium, but with less features? EDIT: It also claims less battery consumption. May I ask some proof?
- pls2halp 9y ago
  A. FUCKING. ELECTRON. BROWSER. ಠ_ಠ Just so I don’t get this comment killed, here’s some text calmly explaining that electron is based off blink, and implementing a browser in it is like using a text editor’s scripting feature to reimplement the cursor.
  - ricardobeat 9y ago
    More like using the cursor to reimplement the UI. Like... vim and a million other editors? Firefox has been switching from their custom markup (XUL) to HTML for its UI, and you’ll find that the web inspector in Chrome, Safari and Firefox are already implemented in HTML/CSS/JS (don’t know about Edge).
  - yoz-y 9y ago
    Isn’t Vivaldi basically that as well? If you do not care about the rendering (as in, making a new engine isn’t your purpose). Then electron seems like a good way of developing a browser.
  - chr1 9y ago
    This is like using web rendering engine to implement a browser, which is not ridiculous at all. The difference from chromium is that the browser ui is implemented using the web tech, instead of native, which is not unusual either. Firefox have been using slightly modified version of html and javascript to implement the browser ui forever. Vivaldi and brave browsers use the same method as well.
asteinbr 9y ago
Electron.. thanks for nothing.
mehmetkose 9y ago
I liked the simplicity. However it's not remember where I am after I refreshed.
pikzel 9y ago
Tried on a site (https://www.dn.se/ https://www.dn.se/) which looked completely broken. Tried it on another (https://www.svt.se/nyheter/ https://www.svt.se/nyheter/) and the browser crashed. No thanks.
rerpha 9y ago
how am I supposed to get to the other pre-built binaries?
andriesm 9y ago
This is actually Inspiring me to consider making my own visions of browsing can be improved come to fruition! Thanks very much for the implementation idea and the source. I'm certainly gonna play with both the product and the code.
davidp670 9y ago
I use Bookmark OS which allows me to sort my bookmarks. Does this have bookmark sorting?

101 points by alvil 9y ago

Neat idea. Perhaps position this as a minimalist browser (vs "smarter")

Seems pretty cool, but I wonder at the claim that it will use less battery power. From the specs, it is built on Electron, and from my understanding to date, even the basic Electron framework shell is fairly resource hungry in its own right, which could impact power usage on a laptop? Perhaps it could have been a better initiative to build it using native code and utilising WebKit as the rendering engine? Much like the Vivaldi browser (which I use a lot of these days)

dangoor 9y ago
I wouldn't think that the browser part of Electron is significantly slower than Chromium, which it's built on. From what I remember, the Node part of Electron runs in a separate process.

minaguib 9y ago

"Using electron" and "uses less battery" are too close to each other.

jdavis703 9y ago
It's not like they're trying to cram in a music player or IDE in to an Electron app. This is a browser so I wouldn't expect the load to be substantially worse than running Chrome.
- pls2halp 9y ago
  And you wouldn’t expect atom to use more memory than sublime, either.
  - jhasse 9y ago
    This is different. Atom is a text editor implemented in a web browser engine. This is a web browser implemented in a web browser engine.
- AstralStorm 9y ago
  I wouldn't expect it to be any better either. Which means this thing is missing the point of writing a new browser.

darklajid 9y ago

Ignoring the general 'Electron seems a waste of resources' (with which I partially agree with) comments: Requires 'Ubuntu' or 'macOS'? I seem to know a lot of Electron based apps that run on other Linux distributions or - gasp - even Windows. Clicking on the 'Download anyway' link brings up the GitHub release tab. With, among others, a file called 'Min-v1.6.3-win32-x64.zip'.

Gaelan 9y ago
Pure speculation, but I bet it's a combination of: * Lack of a windows machine to test on * Forgetting to update the site when a Windows build became available.
icebraining 9y ago
> With, among others, a file called 'Min-v1.6.3-win32-x64.zip' "If it compiles, it is good; if it boots up, it is perfect"? Just because the build has a Windows target doesn't mean it's a supported platform.
- darklajid 9y ago
  That ignores the "We target one random Linux distribution" thing and kinda doesn't address the point that Electron is cross-platform already. I would expect an Electron app to work where Electron works, but admit that I haven't targeted it. Any input on why that might not be the case would be appreciated.
Kesty 9y ago
Electron main selling point is being cross platform. Having it only Ubuntu/macOS seems counter-intuitive.

mrmondo 9y ago

I don't see what's "smarter" about it. - The UI seems clumsy and is so flat that it doesn't offer any directional hinting at all. - It's the same size as Firefox (160MB) despite offering significantly less features. - It's resource consumption seems to be about 25% more than a fresh Firefox instance.

userbinator 9y ago
and is so flat that it doesn't offer any directional hinting at all. These featureless, "wide expanse of pure white" UIs are one of the things that most irritates me about "modern" software today. They give the impression of being unfinished and opaque.
- capex 9y ago
  Its not the flatness, its lack of design. See for example, https://www.sail.com.au/ https://www.sail.com.au/, which is flat too, but with a cohesive design.
  - Meph504 9y ago
    I am pretty sure core to "Flat UI" is that drop shadows shouldn't be used, and there is hardly an element on that site that isn't full of them.
    - capex 9y ago
      Flat UI is not "flat", please read up on the topic.
  - mrmondo 9y ago
    That site looks pretty awful to me, while I can clearly make out the buttons from other elements it looks like a old stock Drupal theme or something along those lines.
    - capex 9y ago

earenndil 9y ago

> Find anything instantly Aside from fuzzy search, all of this is already possible. > Effortless tab management All the things in here are already possible in firefox using addons. > Built-in ad blocking I honestly don't care if ad-blocking is built in. It's not like it's a chore that affects my day-to-day use of a browser to install an addon once for adblocking. > Fast and efficient It literally uses the same engine as chrome so it won't be any different from it. > Open-Source software Like most other browsers today

nkkollaw 9y ago
So..? What's your point? It's just as good as any other browser
- shakna 9y ago
  It advertises itself as a smarter web browser, but, as you said, it's only "as good as any other browser". The only pull it has... is that it might be adequate.
- kierenj 9y ago
  Title says it's "smarter"?
- earenndil 9y ago
  But it's not. Because it's not extensible, like many other browsers.

SwellJoe 9y ago

YC commenters are brutal. Not a single positive comment, so far. That feels a little unnecessarily mean, given that it's a free software project.

sadgit 9y ago
It seems like this comment is a little understated. Maybe the commenter could think more about how to catch the attention if the persons he/she wishes to target. /s
pvdebbe 9y ago
Isn't it great, though, that we hold FLOSS projects to the same standards as the big-bucks closed software?
- masukomi 9y ago
  Why shouldn't they be? If scoped correctly to the resources of the maintainers there is no reason that open source software can't be just as good as "big-bucks closed software". Yes, this means more focused product, that doesn't do ALL THE THINGS!!! but does a few things really well. That type of software is exactly why I use the Mac. There's a ton of indy developers out there making absolutely kick-ass focused software for it, and they do so on incredibly tight budgets. There's no reason OS software can't or shouldn't be held to high standards. There's literally no reason the quality of the core functionality of any project can't be as good. In fact it's probably easier for an open source dev to guarantee high quality stuff if they only get off their asses and write tests. This is their passion project after all. They _should_ care about the quality of the code more because it's their baby, not just a paycheck. Most of the open source projects out there have crap UI & UX but it's not like it's terribly hard for a geek to find a friend with decent UI skills (UX is a bit harder) and ask them to mock some stuff up for them, and then implement it. Or you know, use the $$ programmers get paid (relative to most everyone else) to hire a professional to design it. Note: to be clear, there are many OS things out there that are just some quickie tool someone threw together and are being kind enough to share. I've got a pile of these and I have NO problem with stuff like that being somewhat rough. There's a difference between quick and dirty scripts and things that are trying come across as, and be treated as a polished product.

linopolus 9y ago

I build a browser in your browser, so that you can browse the web browsier. It sounded reasonably nice (beyond the point that Firefox is all this with a few addons), but Electron? Again?

cryo 9y ago

I instantly like the clean distraction free look. That's Min.

cocktailpeanuts 9y ago

I think the main reason people are hating on this is because it's selling itself as something it's not: A smarter browser. Should stick with its original goal. I think they created it as a "minimal" browser, hence the name.

bananicorn 9y ago
If you're going for minimal, it won't get much more minimal than this: https://surf.suckless.org/ https://surf.suckless.org/ But at least the smart part may be of merit. And we all know what HN thinks of electron, but at least bundling chrome with a browser seems reasonable. Not for a minimalistic browser though, I think hence the branding as "a smarter browser". Oh boy, I actually set out to defend the project, but now I realize while there's clearly been some work put into it, some areas haven't been thought out too well... At least it looks nice and clean, that's something. edit: corrected my wording in the first sentence.
- chriswarbo 9y ago
  > If you're going for minimal, it won't get much more minimal than this: > https://surf.suckless.org https://surf.suckless.org Minimal UI maybe (or maybe not; is there still a truckload of stuff when right-clicking, or pressing hotkeys, or visiting `about:something`?) I'd say lynx, w3m, links, dillo, netsurf, etc. are all more minimal in general.
  - anthk 9y ago
    Ahem, no. Links has right click, even Netsurf has that. About general minimalism, dillo is perfect. For cli, w3m and links are NOT minimal. That is netrik.
    - chriswarbo 9y ago
      Didn't know about netrik, thanks. I wasn't implying that 'right click == bloat', only that there are two meanings for "minimal": a minimal amount of code, or a minimal UI. surf doesn't have a minimal amount of code, since it wraps WebKit; although it seems to have a minimal UI. My point about right-click, etc. is that much of the (GTK?) WebKit UI might still be lurking there. I agree that dillo is really nice. Not minimal in the UI sense though (tabs, toolbar, search box, etc.)

colept 9y ago

Competition is good. This also looks like a neat browser for staging designs.

_Codemonkeyism 9y ago

I think the only way to make a dent into the browser market is to create the most secure browser and market it that way.

earenndil 9y ago
I disagree. I think what can make a dent is something that's significantly faster than all we have today.

jijji 9y ago

so its basically chrome-headless with a different UI and 20% slower because it is running via an interpreted nodejs rendering that is then compiled into a binary. why not just use chrome? If you're going to use an existing browser, why not use Dillo or Lynx as the backend, which really are minimalist in terms of memory usage.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
AstralStorm 9y ago
Or test Servo... (Mozilla's new engine.)

arm 9y ago

Honestly, I’d say qutebrowser¹ is both smarter and more minimal than Min. ―――――― ¹ — https://qutebrowser.org/ https://qutebrowser.org/

blux 9y ago
From the FAQ; "I believe efficiency while coding is a lot more important than efficiency while running." As a user, that would make me nervous at least.
- lallysingh 9y ago
  Depends on whether that efficiency is used for higher quality or higher feature count. For the firmer, I'd be pretty happy.

herewegoagain 9y ago

I tried this a while back, and the only thing I liked better than the mainstream browsers was that it doesn't waste space at the top of the browser and thus would theoretically be a good fit for e.g. watching something in a small window in the corner of your screen while doing work. But in practice, there is some crazy minimum window size limitation and thus it's useless for the only use case I would have for it.

beojan 9y ago
Chrome `--app` mode does the same thing.

another35 9y ago

> and get suggestions before you even start typing I really don't want that!

Kesty 9y ago
I think there is a dissonance between smart personalized suggestion and being against tracking. Which is the main downfall of DuckDuckGo they use as the smart bar search engine. If you want good suggestions and smart personalization you need to track your user. If you don't want to track your user for privacy concern, it's all good but then don't give user a product like suggestions that will always be subpar compared to someone else that is for user tracking.
- fenwick67 9y ago
  I think it's very telling that you don't consider what the user might want. As a user I don't want to be tracked, but I want suggestions, and I'm willing to give up a little accuracy. Example: on DuckDuckGo, if I search for "int ball", it includes results for "int-ball". It doesn't need to know anything about me personally to do this.

la_oveja 9y ago

Based on Electron. So this is Chromium, but with less features? EDIT: It also claims less battery consumption. May I ask some proof?

pls2halp 9y ago
A. FUCKING. ELECTRON. BROWSER. ಠ_ಠ Just so I don’t get this comment killed, here’s some text calmly explaining that electron is based off blink, and implementing a browser in it is like using a text editor’s scripting feature to reimplement the cursor.
- ricardobeat 9y ago
  More like using the cursor to reimplement the UI. Like... vim and a million other editors? Firefox has been switching from their custom markup (XUL) to HTML for its UI, and you’ll find that the web inspector in Chrome, Safari and Firefox are already implemented in HTML/CSS/JS (don’t know about Edge).
- yoz-y 9y ago
  Isn’t Vivaldi basically that as well? If you do not care about the rendering (as in, making a new engine isn’t your purpose). Then electron seems like a good way of developing a browser.
- chr1 9y ago
  This is like using web rendering engine to implement a browser, which is not ridiculous at all. The difference from chromium is that the browser ui is implemented using the web tech, instead of native, which is not unusual either. Firefox have been using slightly modified version of html and javascript to implement the browser ui forever. Vivaldi and brave browsers use the same method as well.

asteinbr 9y ago

Electron.. thanks for nothing.

mehmetkose 9y ago

I liked the simplicity. However it's not remember where I am after I refreshed.

pikzel 9y ago

Tried on a site (https://www.dn.se/ https://www.dn.se/) which looked completely broken. Tried it on another (https://www.svt.se/nyheter/ https://www.svt.se/nyheter/) and the browser crashed. No thanks.

rerpha 9y ago

how am I supposed to get to the other pre-built binaries?

andriesm 9y ago

This is actually Inspiring me to consider making my own visions of browsing can be improved come to fruition! Thanks very much for the implementation idea and the source. I'm certainly gonna play with both the product and the code.

davidp670 9y ago

I use Bookmark OS which allows me to sort my bookmarks. Does this have bookmark sorting?