5 ms·

I use a browser probably 12 hours per day. Maybe there's enough people willing to pay a dollar or two a month for that to be a possible business model again.

by 55555 5y ago

awful_waffle 5y ago
This honestly sounds like a great idea. At this point I'd pay money for a browser that was private, fast, and dev-friendly, simply to avoid the moral dilemma of switching from FF to a Chrome clone.
- todd3834 5y ago
  Is Safari an option for you? (Mac?)
  - kristofferR 5y ago
    Safari is about the least dev friendly browser there is. Their API support is atrocious, especially for web extensions.
    - freediver 5y ago
      Perhaps Orion will be of interest to you (WebKit fork with web extensions support, I am the founder)
      - kristofferR 5y ago
        Really interesting project, will check it out!
- CaptainZapp 5y ago
  What's wrong with Firefox? It's an honest question, since as a user I really love it. Is it the 'dev-friendly', which Firefox lacks?
  - jbnjkkm 5y ago
    The new UI overhaul looks awful, they killed most useful plugins with the big update awhile back, and ideologically/politically Mozilla has become equivalent to an impoverished Google so personally speaking I'm horny for something new in the browser space
  - lkozma 5y ago
    One small thing in the latest redesign: if you have two tabs, one active, one not, the visual cues suggest exactly the opposite. The active one seems like a clickable button, the inactive one seems pushed down and not clickable. After misclicking hundreds of times, I still couldn't train myself to go against my perception and follow the designer's "bold vision", using it feels like writing with my left hand or steering a bicycle with a crooked wheel.
    - jamespo 5y ago
      Might want to check https://color.firefox.com https://color.firefox.com
      - SekstiNi 5y ago
        This is the way. Additionally I went into about:config and set browser.proton.enabled to false, which fixed most of the issues I had with the new design.
    - kome 5y ago
      ah then i'm not the only one. i had to change color scheme.
  - awful_waffle 5y ago
    FF is my daily driver (since Quantum in '17) but I've found it really just isn't holding up these days: • Profiling functions between Chrome/FF reveals that Chrome is frequently considerably faster (usually 60%+) • During WebGL work I'll often hit blue screens around memory management (this seems to be a relatively recent development) • Similarly, trying to profile a WebRTC application with video feeds will consistently trigger a blue screen. (I can tell this is from FF, as the browser itself flashes white a few times before the system goes down.) • Things like the UI changing - while minor - are enough to cause inconvenience, plus the occasional random feature removal (View Image context menu option) indicates that I'm not necessarily the target audience for the browser. I actually slightly prefer the devtools in FF than Chrome, but there are a number of quirks that have started appearing over the past year or so, ranging from actual bugs to just weird UX. As I write this, I'm realizing I'd love a browser that's seen more as a devtool than a catch-all web navigator which happens to have a profiler built in.
0x49d1 5y ago
They've actually added option for donations: https://vivaldi.com/contribute/ https://vivaldi.com/contribute/
kordlessagain 5y ago
If it had a decent search agent in it, without ads, I'd pay for it. Because, let's be honest, advertising sucks and anyone that thinks advertising and search belong together sucks even more.
- kmonsen 5y ago
  This is what neeva tries to do, it’s currently free in beta.
scroot 5y ago
Though I'm not sure what they are up to exactly, isn't this what The Browser Company [1] is trying to do? [1] https://thebrowser.company/ https://thebrowser.company/

I use a browser probably 12 hours per day. Maybe there's enough people willing to pay a dollar or two a month for that to be a possible business model again.

by 55555 5y ago

I use a browser probably 12 hours per day. Maybe there's enough people willing to pay a dollar or two a month for that to be a possible business model again.

awful_waffle 5y ago

This honestly sounds like a great idea. At this point I'd pay money for a browser that was private, fast, and dev-friendly, simply to avoid the moral dilemma of switching from FF to a Chrome clone.

todd3834 5y ago
Is Safari an option for you? (Mac?)
- kristofferR 5y ago
  Safari is about the least dev friendly browser there is. Their API support is atrocious, especially for web extensions.
  - freediver 5y ago
    Perhaps Orion will be of interest to you (WebKit fork with web extensions support, I am the founder)
    - kristofferR 5y ago
      Really interesting project, will check it out!
CaptainZapp 5y ago
What's wrong with Firefox? It's an honest question, since as a user I really love it. Is it the 'dev-friendly', which Firefox lacks?
- jbnjkkm 5y ago
  The new UI overhaul looks awful, they killed most useful plugins with the big update awhile back, and ideologically/politically Mozilla has become equivalent to an impoverished Google so personally speaking I'm horny for something new in the browser space
- lkozma 5y ago
  One small thing in the latest redesign: if you have two tabs, one active, one not, the visual cues suggest exactly the opposite. The active one seems like a clickable button, the inactive one seems pushed down and not clickable. After misclicking hundreds of times, I still couldn't train myself to go against my perception and follow the designer's "bold vision", using it feels like writing with my left hand or steering a bicycle with a crooked wheel.
  - jamespo 5y ago
    Might want to check https://color.firefox.com https://color.firefox.com
    - SekstiNi 5y ago
      This is the way. Additionally I went into about:config and set browser.proton.enabled to false, which fixed most of the issues I had with the new design.
  - kome 5y ago
    ah then i'm not the only one. i had to change color scheme.
- awful_waffle 5y ago
  FF is my daily driver (since Quantum in '17) but I've found it really just isn't holding up these days: • Profiling functions between Chrome/FF reveals that Chrome is frequently considerably faster (usually 60%+) • During WebGL work I'll often hit blue screens around memory management (this seems to be a relatively recent development) • Similarly, trying to profile a WebRTC application with video feeds will consistently trigger a blue screen. (I can tell this is from FF, as the browser itself flashes white a few times before the system goes down.) • Things like the UI changing - while minor - are enough to cause inconvenience, plus the occasional random feature removal (View Image context menu option) indicates that I'm not necessarily the target audience for the browser. I actually slightly prefer the devtools in FF than Chrome, but there are a number of quirks that have started appearing over the past year or so, ranging from actual bugs to just weird UX. As I write this, I'm realizing I'd love a browser that's seen more as a devtool than a catch-all web navigator which happens to have a profiler built in.

0x49d1 5y ago

They've actually added option for donations: https://vivaldi.com/contribute/ https://vivaldi.com/contribute/

kordlessagain 5y ago

If it had a decent search agent in it, without ads, I'd pay for it. Because, let's be honest, advertising sucks and anyone that thinks advertising and search belong together sucks even more.

kmonsen 5y ago
This is what neeva tries to do, it’s currently free in beta.

scroot 5y ago

Though I'm not sure what they are up to exactly, isn't this what The Browser Company [1] is trying to do? [1] https://thebrowser.company/ https://thebrowser.company/