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Show HN: I made a customizable iOS browser for minimalists and myself

226 points by nckh 3y ago

Hello HN! So early this year I decided to build an iOS browser offering a large range of customization options, to accommodate anyone’s usage and visual preferences. Been using it as my default browser for 6 months and not looking back. On first launch it looks and behaves a bit like Safari, but to give you an idea, here are the various ways I customized it on my phone. - More screen real estate for the webpage, less for the toolbar. - A compact toolbar containing only the buttons for actions I use the most: new tab, close tab, open tab list. Since I use them hundred times a day, I need them available with button taps instead of swipe gestures. - A toolbar button layout adapted to my left-handedness. - A toolbar that disappears on scroll to allow full-screen reading. - The toolbar and address bar at the bottom, as they should be. - A popup menu showing the full URL and the buttons I use less frequently: back/forward (already available as screen edge gestures), share, reload, settings, etc. - Showing the page title in the toolbar. - Read time estimation for each tab. - Opening the keyboard automatically when I open a new tab. - Sorting tabs by read time, so that I can decide what to read based on how much time and focus I have. - Grouping tabs by domain. - A flat, condensed tab list, without snapshots. - A full-black toolbar in dark mode to read at night. It’s still early days but things like content blockers, reader mode, iPad support, and more should arrive soon enough. And of course, no analytics/monitoring/telemetry, no account creation, no backend. It’s not open source, but you can also inspect the app’s web views with Safari developer tools to see what’s going on under the hood. Would love to hear if the level of personalization my app provides resonates with like-minded people. Have a great day!

PartiallyTyped 3y ago
My one caveat is that I wanted to use Kagi but that wasn’t possible.
- nckh 3y ago
  I'm getting an overwhelming amount of people asking for Kagi support, so I am gonna start working on that :)
  - PartiallyTyped 3y ago
    That's awesome! Thanks! :D
prh8 3y ago
This looks really great! Would love to get Kagi as a search engine option
- nckh 3y ago
  I'll see what I can do for the next update :) Thanks a lot!
elashri 3y ago
It would be more suitable to allow to add search engines manually. instead of restricting the users to only 4.
- nckh 3y ago
  This will come in the next update! :)
uni_baconcat 3y ago
Lovely app! Thanks.
- nckh 3y ago
  Thank you~~~ :)
tomekw 3y ago
This comment has been written on Quiche Browser. Testing. Looks great! So far the only thing I’m missing is to undo closing the tab (for 5 seconds?)
- nckh 3y ago
  Haha thanks for giving it an in situ test :) Super agree, I tend to close tabs accidentally and have to resort to open the history to find it.
puresick 3y ago
Great app! I already liked using your app Quiche Reader and Quiche Browser keeps the same level of quality. :) What I am missing besides all the customization is the possibility to set a custom search engine. Would be great to see this coming in an update. Keep up the great work!
- nckh 3y ago
  Awww so glad to hear you also tried Quiche Reader! I'm actually hoping to make both apps work together in the future. Implementing custom search engines would be easy, but I would not be able to support their autosuggest API, since they all require custom parsing rules.
thih9 3y ago
Excellent. I especially like all the customization options. As well as the privacy policy. One thing I’m missing - I couldn’t find a way to search for a text in page.
- nckh 3y ago
  Thanks a lot! I'm starting to get a lot of requests for a "find in page" button, so I'll see how and when I can add it.
  - shinycode 3y ago
    It’s a feature I often use on safari as well, +1 for feature request ;)
1023bytes 3y ago
Looks nice, only thing I miss from stock Safari are the gestures - being able to swipe on the toolbar to switch between tabs
- nckh 3y ago
  Thank you!! That's the most requested feature so far :) The challenge is to come up with gestures that work regardless of the toolbar configuration, but since this has been the most requested feature and I badly need it for my own browsing as well, it's very high on the todo list :)
  - kasdi 3y ago
    Swiping on the address bar - horizontal to switch tabs, vertical to enter tab overview - is one of iOS Safari’s best features. It prevents me from using any other browser that doesn’t have this. It was even one of the main reasons to not use Orion, which does the navigation but only has a static animation that doesn’t match the actual swiping movement. Apple did set a high bar with UX, but it’s really good.
    - nckh 3y ago
      Absolutely agree!
novoreorx 3y ago
I would replace Safari with this if it supports dark reader
- nckh 3y ago
  Well noted! :)
soared 3y ago
Awesome! Really enjoying the feel of this browser, and I’ve been stalwart chrome forever. One recommendation - when first using the browser I have no site history, so it defaults to ddg searches when entering text. Not sure how you’d accomplish it, but would be cool if the recommendations also had websites. IE if I type “news.yc” the first result is a ddg search for “news.combinatorial.com” but I’d rather have it be a direct link to the site!
- nckh 3y ago
  Hello and thanks for that awesome suggestion! That would be a nice feature, but I'm not sure it should replace the current behavior. Maybe I can find a way for a search suggestion looking like a URL to present 2 actions: one opening the URL, another the search results. I will give it some thoughts in the shower! :)
MR4D 3y ago
I just downloaded and played with it for about a minute. A couple thoughts: - it’s fast & menus are very snappy - cookies and history don’t come over from safari: that would be a nice feature - tiny download Nice work! Labors of love are great to see. Keep up the good work. I’m looking forward to future updates
- nckh 3y ago
  Thank you so much! It was also a labor of blood and sweat and tears but love overall :) Migrating cookies and history from Safari does not seem to be technically possible on iOS for privacy reasons.
  - spacebanana7 3y ago
    I find this restrictive behaviour frustrating with web views too. Particularly when clicking links from social media apps and I’m unable to read content because I’m signed out of news sites. I wish there was a permission that allowed transfer of cookies and local storage.
    - gigglesupstairs 3y ago
      Keeping the restriction aside, you can still log into most websites even inside webviews.
rasen58 3y ago
Does your browser handle having 500+ tabs open? (I use chrome iOS and it’s totally fine with that many without anything being slowed down. I assume because they unload old tabs. This would be a blocker for me for your app if yours doesn’t do that since I wouldn’t want my phone to slow down)
- nckh 3y ago
  Great question, thanks! I've got 200 tabs currently open on my phone :) Memory wise, at most 8 tabs can be kept alive in the background. Then based on the phone thermal state, that number decreases to 4, 2, and then 1. Additionally, turning on Low Power Mode suspends all background tabs immediately, which is also convenient. I should probably document that behavior somewhere actually :)
SanjayMehta 3y ago
Used it for half an hour and I’m on the verge of making it my default. Glad to see Reader mode is planned. Am hoping there will be a setting to make that the default mode for the browser. And it’s really fast on my 2020 SE.
- nckh 3y ago
  Well noted! Thank you for the super cool feedback :)
johnmorrison 3y ago
This is truly incredible, I love it. I customized it a lot, changed just about every setting, and now I'm left with a beautiful minimal experience: < domain.com > Long tap URL for settings, short tap for search, and navigation. Hide status bar in tabs & toolbar on scroll. Fullscreen de facto. Love it.
- nckh 3y ago
  Thanks a lot! I'm so glad you managed to create a minimal toolbar that works great for you :-)
RyJones 3y ago
Nice! Thank you for such a nice browser
- nckh 3y ago
  Super happy you like it, and thanks for those nice words :)
haint_ 3y ago
Why does the app store not allow clicking the screenshots to enlarge them? It's annoying such basic feature is not there.
- nckh 3y ago
  Indeed it's not possible when looking at the product page on the browser, but it does on iOS :)
ssss11 3y ago
What’s the tech? Does it use WebKit? Is it chromium?
- darknavi 3y ago
  If it's in the AppStore it uses WebKit.
kasdi 3y ago
Really like the customizability approach! It’s Safari, for the advanced user. For example, the option to hide the toolbar entirely which Safari had but removed it during beta. Well done! Biggest missing feature for me are the swiping gestures to switch tabs and enter tab overview, already mentioned by others. Main reason why I can’t switch to any other browser, including Orion which has it but the static animation doesn’t match the swiping movement. Also caching (no page reload) and extensions are missing but these seem to be system-level restrictions which is understandable. Also sooner or later I’d be missing the advanced features, like font zoom, request desktop website, long press on buttons like back/forward to select point in history, etc. Nitpick: the address bar font seems to be much bolder than in Safari, would be great to (be able to) tone it down.
- nckh 3y ago
  Thank you so much for the detailed feedback and the great feature requests, they're golden!
siddbudd 3y ago
only spent 3 minutes with it (Quiche v1.1 on iOS 17.0 21A5277j) so far, good first impressions. couple bugs though: 1. "Opening the keyboard automatically when I open a new tab." This does not work for me, new tab opens and the (empty) address bar is on the very bottom, close keyboard button on the right, but there is no keyboard to close, I still need to click inside the address bar for the keyboard to show up. Once the keyboard is open, I tap the close keyboard button on the right, click again inside the search field, the keyboard starts opening, but closes right away, leaving again just a search field and a close keyboard button on the very bottom, but no actual keyboard. As you can see I am running iOS 17 Beta, but I don't experience similar keyboard bugs in any other app, so probably not related to the Beta itself. 2. On another note, when clicking a bookmark and going to the tab switcher right away before the page has loaded, the preview of the tab is totally black and no tab name appears under it either. Not even if I stay on the tab selector page. I actually need to tap it again and then return to the tab selector. This might not be an issue for a single tab, but I just tested opening 5 pages in new in a row, and had no idea which tab is which in the tab selector. If I then tapped one of the tabs that has obviously loaded in the meanwhile, still only the thumbnail preview and name of that one tab was updated on the tab selector, not the other tabs, those were all still black and nameless. My suggestion is either take over the bookmark name as tab name temporarily, until the actual tab name is loaded and/or auto-refresh the tab selector page with thumbnail preview and tab name every once in a short while (100ms?).
- nckh 3y ago
  Thank you very much for the feedback! 1. This is actually related to the Beta and does not happen on iOS 16. I will make sure it doesn't happen anymore when iOS 17 RC approaches. 2. Will try to reproduce and see what I can do. Thanks a lot!
  - StockHuman 3y ago
    I’ll second that; the beta introduced massive keyboard issues related to stare reporting, dismissal and height.
Alifatisk 3y ago
Love the simple yet beautiful design
- nckh 3y ago
  Thank you! Glad you like it :)
bartvk 3y ago
What do you use to block ads, cookie nags and email-subscription popovers? Or you just live with them?
- nckh 3y ago
  For now, yes. But content blockers are the next big feature on my todo list.
  - snazz 3y ago
    Is it possible for third-party browser apps to integrate with content blockers for Safari, or would you have to integrate your own content blocker into your app?
    - nckh 3y ago
      Unfortunately this is not possible. Unless Apple opens that up, it's up to each app to embed its own content blocker.
      - simbolit 3y ago
        The blocklists used by uBlock origin are freely available: https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uAssets/tree/master/filters https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uAssets/tree/master/filters
        nckh 3y ago
        Thanks! I have to review whether they can be easily converted to WebKit's JSON-based content blocker format. But I suppose DuckDuckGo blockers can also be used as-is.
- steedsofwar 3y ago
  This is one of my foremost requirements from a browser these days; how well does it block ads. As much as I like Safari it doesn’t seem to block ads as well as Brave, so Brave is my daily driver.
djcannabiz 3y ago
What I see so far, I like very much. However, there are 2 features that are stopping me from using it as my main browser. an adblocker, and swiping the tab bar to switch between tabs. But what you have created so far, I really like!
- SanjayMehta 3y ago
  I didn’t notice the lack of adblocking until this comment, thanks to a DNS based adblocker. I wonder if it’s possible to support all Safari extensions seamlessly? There are a number I use which make it hard to switch completely.
  - hxii 3y ago
    I’m using Orion but it seems like extensions here are either hit or miss for the most part. Can you share which extensions you are using with Safari?
    - SanjayMehta 3y ago
      Vinegar Banish Dark Knight 1Blocker Scripts StopTheMadness The last two are essential for me, can live without the others.
- nckh 3y ago
  Thank you so so much for those nice words! During the beta period I was totally amazed that quick tab swiping was the absolute #1 most requested feature :)
  - eyelidlessness 3y ago
    At least for me, it’s one of those things I never knew I needed… until I had it, and now it’s like second nature. It’s like a much better version of the “switch tabs with scroll wheel” extensions I used to use on desktop.
    - 3y ago
hxii 3y ago
Looks great so far! Really looking forward to content/ad blocking. Any chance you're planning on adding tab groups?
- nckh 3y ago
  Thanks a lot! I'd love tab groups as well, but I would like to come up with something a bit more efficient than Safari, and this will take a lot of time to experiment.
thex10 3y ago
About to download this for the easy access to "Close Tab" alone, thanks for sharing!
- nckh 3y ago
  Haha thanks a lot! As stupid as it may sound, that close tab button has been a total game changer to my daily browsing :)
  - shinycode 3y ago
    I use a lot the left/right swipe gesture on the address bar to switch tabs on Safari. It saves many clicks from the show all tabs button. This plus the close tab is a perfect combo for minimalism and fast browsing ! Great UI options
D4ckard 3y ago
Just installed it on my phone and played around with the configuration options for a few seconds. I really that there are so may themes and presets already installed. While I think that the ability to configure software is great software that doesn't need configuration is obviously still better. Carefully designed presets can be a good middle ground between personal and niece preferences and shipping a product that's actually finished.
- nckh 3y ago
  Honestly I agree. I'd like to make buttons arrangement easier, but also something like an assistant that could come up with your ideal toolbar and menu. Plenty of work to do, but so much fun!
samuelfekete 3y ago
Does it save the content of open tabs? This is my number one frustration with existing iOS browsers - when I come back to tabs without an internet connection everything is gone.
- nckh 3y ago
  It should remember the scroll position, and the content of <input> and <textarea> tags.
  - LynxInLA 3y ago
    Does it re-request contents when it reload tabs after the app is suspended? Safari makes it very difficult to read content later if you don’t have service.
    - nckh 3y ago
      It does. Not sure WebKit has an easy solution for that specific scenario at the moment, besides saving a web archive to disk.
- the_gipsy 3y ago
  All iOS browsers just use some webview under the hood. I doubt they have any control at all over this extremely irritating behavior.
  - eviks 3y ago
    Buy why can't they store page cache as local data and continue to use webview to open it?
    - Tagbert 3y ago
      It is likely the OS that is clearing those tabs from memory. The app may not get any notifications. IOS does not have virtual memory that can be saved to storage and restores on request. IPadOS does now have that on the newer M1 processor versions. They also have 8GB of RAM so they are less likely to need to purge or swap.
keepamovin 3y ago
I love this, man! Looks great! make me smile! :) I hope you go really far with this!!! :) [like all the way to browser-killer far] It's got that "je ne sais quoi" of a good product. Some sort of internal coherence and a deja vu type feeling where you feel you've used this before / or it should exist so it seems it already must have. Well fluffin done!!! :) BTW - technical question, how did you write it? I'm just getting into iOS dev myself wonder how you made the UI look so good? What lang, framework, etc??
- nckh 3y ago
  Thanks so much for those super kind words! The app was made with good ol' Swift+UIKit+WebKit+Core Data, with some sprinkles of hosted SwiftUI views. Throw me an email from the support link in the app if you need more details :)
  - keepamovin 3y ago
    Will do! :) It was a pleasure, and you're welcome. It ain't that kind if it's true, and in this case, it's true! I think so anyway.
magicseth 3y ago
Awesome! Thank you for sharing. Here’s a tiny little feature idea I’ve always wanted: when a link opens a new tab, the back button should close the tab and take you back where you were! Congratulations on launching!
- layer8 3y ago
  In addition, it would be great if after going back that way there would be a way to go forward again (= undo the going back and closing the tab), in particular if the tab one has returned to has no other forward history. I frequently miss this in Safari.
- madeofpalk 3y ago
  (For what it’s worth, Safari on iOS does that)
  - nckh 3y ago
    Absolutely! That's something I would like to implement as well.
  - eyelidlessness 3y ago
    It does, but it’s really quirky! Any browser getting it right without so many weird quirks would be a compelling option for me.
www_harka_com 3y ago
I'd kill to have something like this on Android.
- nckh 3y ago
  That's the nicest thing someone has ever said to me <3 Thanks a lot!!
  - www_harka_com 3y ago
    Thank You! <3 I love minimal UIs and customizability. Is there any way I can keep updated if that ever happens?
    - nckh 3y ago
      You can follow on Twitter and Mastodon! Would it work for you? Do you prefer newsletters maybe?
      - www_harka_com 3y ago
        I'd prefer a newsletter as I'm not actively using Twitter, but give me your handle and I'll follow you for the time being.
        nckh 3y ago
        Understood, I'll think about starting a newsletter then :) Please follow @quichebrowser on Twitter.
        www_harka_com 3y ago
        Thanks! Followed. Keep up the good work!
- yoavm 3y ago
  Really? It sure looks like the OP did a great job with this browser, but it's still iOS... On Android I can use Firefox for Android with uBlock Origin, Bypass Paywall, Cookie Auto Delete, and more. Whenever I try browsing on an iPhone I'm reminded it's always Safari behind the scenes, without extensions, making web browsing so painful. Again - great job with with the OP's browser. Android is just so much customizable to begin with, IMHO.
galuggus 3y ago
Looks good. How about adding some more screenshots/a video on the appstore page?
- nckh 3y ago
  Thank you! I totally agree and am planning to revamp the screenshots for the next release. Initially I went with landscape screenshots in order to show multiple toolbar variations at a decent size, but the tradeoff is I couldn't show settings screens. A video would be great but I'm gonna have to grow some video editing skills first :)
franze 3y ago
Is there a way to get the toolbar to the top? Never liked it down blow.
- nckh 3y ago
  Not yet, but this will come when I add iPad support. I'd love to know why you prefer it at the top. Can you please elaborate, here or by email?
  - FollowingTheDao 3y ago
    When I am reading a book, the chapter and title are at the top of the page.
    - nckh 3y ago
      Good point for the address/title bar. But would you also want the toolbar buttons at the top?
      - FollowingTheDao 3y ago
        Yes, because I turn my book pages from the top right corner as well. :)
        nckh 3y ago
        I see your point now :) Thanks for sharing!
  - franze 3y ago
    Cause I read down the page, and I don't want there any text (adressbar where I prefer the full URL) to distract me.
    - nckh 3y ago
      Oh same for me :) Then you can setup the toolbar to hide on scroll: Settings → Display → Behavior on Scroll → Hide
madeofpalk 3y ago
Interesting meta-observation - This thread is filled with people satisfied with this new web browser, and not a single mention of the engine. IMHO this apps existence proves that you can build a new web browser with innovative features on top of the engine restrictions on iOS, and consumers are not harmed because this runs WebKit.
- cole-k 3y ago
  If I may offer an explanation, I think it's because the OP is upfront about the browser being about customization and personalization. I clicked on the link first thinking "another reskin" and expecting to see the comments you were probably also expecting. When I saw that being a good reskin was the whole point my attitude changed. (somewhat orthogonal to this post): Although I think your meta-observation is also true for other browsers like Brave (which I've seen gaining traction recently). While I bet a power user on HN could go and make chromium (or firefox) comparable, would it look the same? Would it be as easy as just installing a new one? Although although I think a lot of the "reskin" complainers are sad or upset that chromium is dominating (has dominated?) the web, and I can commiserate with them.
- hahn-kev 3y ago
  Except it still sucks to develop websites for it and they often get a worse experience because of that.
- nckh 3y ago
  100% agree. WebKit is incredible, and people underestimate all the great things you get out of the box for free. That means more time to experiment with creating something different around the web views.
  - jwells89 3y ago
    Yeah, as someone who’s built a WebKit browser for kicks in the past, WebKit is designed to have applications built around it and you can definitely feel that when working with it. It may have changed since then, but last I knew a good example of this is its multiprocess architecture. In WebKit, that’s part of the engine while with Blink it’s part of the browser. So while using WebKit gets you multiprocess regardless of how your app is built, if you’re using Blink you need to bring Chromium along for the ride or roll your own to get that. And of course Gecko is joined at the hip with XUL, so to do anything with it your only real choice is fork Firefox. Really hoping Ladybird turns out well and/or Servo takes off because there’s a dearth of properly embeddable web engines right now.
coin 3y ago
Any reason why it needs iOS 16.4?
- nckh 3y ago
  The minimum version should have been iOS 16.0, but a bug with keyboard layout guides got fixed by Apple only on iOS 16.4.
  - csoup2 3y ago
    Wanted to try it out on my SE 2016, but I guess I'm out of luck. :)
    - nckh 3y ago
      Sincerely sorry about that :/ I work on this browser alone and sometimes have to take shortcuts and leverage features from the latest SDKs to ship faster.
throwaway72762 3y ago
Adblock? I've been hoping for an iOS browser with adblock that isn't bloated.
- nckh 3y ago
  That's the next big feature on the todo list :)
filoleg 3y ago
Thanks for the post, this is very nice. While I am not switching browsers yet, this is looking very promising, and so far I love the direction you are taking with this. Incidentally, discovered your reader app[0] thanks to this post, and it looks exactly like what I've been looking for for quite a while. And the fact that it is on macOS as well is a very welcome cherry on top. 0. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/quiche-reader/id1387881185 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/quiche-reader/id1387881185
- nckh 3y ago
  Haha that proves my reach has been extremely bad: I released the reader's v1 four years and half ago :) Thanks a lot though! I've got a few ideas on how to make the browser and reader work together smoothly.
  - filoleg 3y ago
    To be fair, I am not sure it was your perceived lack of reach in my specific case. I simply got burned out on trying to use reader apps, given there are so many of them out there, all just not feeling quite right to me at the end of the day (similar to how there are bajillion different todo apps of all kinds and sizes). So it isn't like i had some specific set of requirements that i was looking for in a reader app and was actively searching for it. It was more of a case of "i don't know what i actually want until i see it, and i gave up on actively searching for it". Tastefully opinionated defaults and workflows draw me in, can't argue with that. Realistically, no matter how wide your reach could've been, I probably wouldn't have noticed the app unless I saw an HN thread about it like this one. That's a datapoint of one though.
  - LynxInLA 3y ago
    Does the reader have dark mode? Or does that depend on the website’s implementation?
    - nckh 3y ago
      Not yet, but that's a feature I would like to bring to both apps for sure.
de_nied 3y ago
Any chance you could implement WebBLE capability?
- nckh 3y ago
  Not in the immediate future, but I'm hoping Apple will add support into WebKit at some point, and I can just inherit from it.
jasonjmcghee 3y ago
Piece of feedback- the screenshots in the App Store look like fake iPhones (wrong shape) which (I believe) hurts the overall polish / trustworthiness of the app. (After a quick browse in App Store) Splitwise and Feedly do this well. AllTrails is a bit more abstract but gets the shape right.
- nckh 3y ago
  That's a very good point. That's a tradeoff I made to get some extra space inside those constrained landscape screenshots, but I will probably revert to actual device frames once I revert to portrait screenshots. Thanks for the great examples!
  - sunnybeetroot 3y ago
    I wouldn’t bother changing it. IMO the average user won’t notice or even care.
- benabbottnz 3y ago
  I agree, and find it quite overstimulating too. I’m not even sure what it’s trying to show me.
  - nckh 3y ago
    Got it. I will try to make them more self explicit :)
marssantoso 3y ago
Hi. Nice browser. Looking forward to daily drive this. One thing that caught me off guard after using safari is swiping up the address bar doesn't bring up the tabs in this. Idk, I guess it's more intuitive that way.
- kasdi 3y ago
  Missing this too. Swiping up feels much more natural than pressing a button. Similar to opening iOS multitasking - multitasking for web apps.
- nckh 3y ago
  Thanks for your feedback! Safari gestures do work very well and really became the benchmark on iOS. It may be a bit trickier to pull out in my case when the address bar is very narrow, and become less convenient to pull and drag around. I'll see what I can do :)
nangtrongvuon 3y ago
Great app! I've noticed on iOS 17 beta the keyboard doesn't show when tapping the address bar once. Other than that, feels very nice to use.
- nckh 3y ago
  Thank you very much! An adventurous friend on iOS 17 reported me that as well, but it seems Safari has the same problem as well? Anyhow I'll make sure it works well when the iOS 17 RC is released.
alin23 3y ago
I've been wanting something like this for a long time: fullscreen with a full address bar available on scroll, reload button beside the address, full URL etc. Really really great job on this! But unfortunately I'm already dependent on some Safari extensions, and the missing extensions seems to be the problem of all custom iOS browsers right now. I'll still keep it for a few websites that don't have ads and I like to use in fullscreen. With all my hacks [0], I still can't install all the websites I need as PWAs [0] https://notes.alinpanaitiu.com/Install%20any%20website%20as%20PWA%20on%20iOS https://notes.alinpanaitiu.com/Install%20any%20website%20as%...
- nckh 3y ago
  Thank you very much for the nice words! Besides ad/content blockers, can I ask what are your must-have extensions?
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - alin23 3y ago
    1Password is a must have nowadays for me, which is why I couldn't use even Orion [0] which supposedly has support for both Chrome and Firefox extensions. I miss automatic password saving and instant 2FA autofill without the extension. Mate Translate is another. The builtin translate feature of Safari is good but it supports very few languages. The others are nice-to-haves, but I could live without: - uBlacklist: block websites from appearing in search results - Rekt: removes annoying "use our app" popups - Dark Reader: well-made dark mode for websites that don't support it - Super Agent: automatically accepts cookies and hides those cookie nags and popups [0] https://browser.kagi.com/ https://browser.kagi.com/
    - nckh 3y ago
      Thanks a lot for sharing! I'm afraid I can't do much regarding automatic password saving until Apple extends support to third-party browsers, but I'll see if I can implement your nice-to-haves on my end!
achr2 3y ago
I love this. My number one ask is to add a context menu action to open an image in a new tab.
- nckh 3y ago
  Adding to the todo list. Should not be too hard to implement :) Thanks for the suggestion!
  - achr2 3y ago
    Amazing! It’s a good differentiator also as this was removed in safari.
therealalexz 3y ago
Dashlane seems compatible with the browser. As well as Omnivore. I want to be able to set Kagi as my primary search engine. Also, the input fields seem to be wiped if I switch tabs. I think I will try to switch for a while.
- nckh 3y ago
  In theory the state of input fields is preserved, but maybe some websites mess up with that. Can you please share which website did you try with?
  - therealalexz 3y ago
    This website actually. :)
    - nckh 3y ago
      Hmmm I gave it a try and it does not work 100% of the time. I'll have a look. Thanks a lot, good catch! :)
Ziggy_Zaggy 3y ago
Support for script-driven fullscreen mode is a big plus. You keep support for that and I will keep the browser.
- nckh 3y ago
  Can you please elaborate what do you mean by "script-driven fullscreen mode"? Does any other iOS browser have such feature?
  - Ziggy_Zaggy 3y ago
    So the problem is that the "user gestures" break any JS that attempts to engage or disgage fullscreen on a video object. Imagine!!! ...there eixsts an app that implements a playlist using video objects (.mp4s). This app will NOT be able to engage/disengage fullscreen in Chrome/Edge without some serious hacks. Potential solution: - Simply implement a brower setting that enables/disables user-gestures for specific URL(s). Edge error: Failed to execute 'requestFullscreen' on 'Element': API can only be initiated by a user-gesture. MDN Docs fullscreen link: - https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Element/requestFullScreen https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Element/req... MDN Docs user gesture link: - https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Web_Audio_API/Best_practices https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Web_Audio_A... MDN Docs gesture event link: - https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/GestureEvent https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/GestureEven... Stack Overflow Link: - https://stackoverflow.com/questions/27649264/run-chrome-in-fullscreen-mode-on-windows https://stackoverflow.com/questions/27649264/run-chrome-in-f... "Does any other iOS browser have such feature?" - Not to my knowledge? Can you dig it?
user_7832 3y ago
Thanks for linking your app! While I'd love to try it, there's unfortunately an issue - it requires iOS 16.4 or later. I understand that this is a really minor/insignificant thing for 99%+ of users, but as someone on iOS 14/15 (iPad/phone), I can't use it :( Are there any iOS 16 specific APIs used, and/or does Apple prevent targeting older versions of iOS? Btw I'd also recommend looking at Soul & Kiwi browser for android if anyone's interested, they're great too.
- layer8 3y ago
  Same here.
- novok 3y ago
  As an iOS dev, every year there are significant amounts of APIs that make doing your day to day job easier that you can't use if you don't stay on the latest, especially with actively developed ones like SwiftUI. So probably nothing needed specifically, but definitely something productive.
  - nckh 3y ago
    A few reasons below :) - iOS 15 introduced a "proper" way to restore scroll position and page state. - iOS 16 introduced the super nice "expanded" font width, used in certain address bar setup. - iOS 16.4 fixed a bug where the address bar could not be properly attached to the keyboard.
  - user_7832 3y ago
    That’s quite understandable, thanks!
orr721 3y ago
Hi I like it very much, it reminds me of Firefox Focus (https://apps.apple.com/us/app/firefox-focus-privacy-browser/id1055677337 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/firefox-focus-privacy-browser/...). Please add optional toolbar buttons to force web page text size increase/decrease like in MacOS Safari. You can consider it an accesibility option for us older people with worsening eyesight. Thanks!
- nckh 3y ago
  Hello and thanks for the great suggestion! May I ask if you would prefer having -/+ buttons in the toolbar, or in the menu instead?
  - pseudo_meta 3y ago
    I also support this issue. Love the browser, will switch as soon as I can increase font size! Buttons in the menu are fine. Though some setting for a minimum font size might also be a good solution
    - nckh 3y ago
      Very well noted! Bumping that feature higher on my priority list then :) Thanks for the nice words.

226 points by nckh 3y ago

PartiallyTyped 3y ago

My one caveat is that I wanted to use Kagi but that wasn’t possible.

nckh 3y ago
I'm getting an overwhelming amount of people asking for Kagi support, so I am gonna start working on that :)
- PartiallyTyped 3y ago
  That's awesome! Thanks! :D

prh8 3y ago

This looks really great! Would love to get Kagi as a search engine option

nckh 3y ago
I'll see what I can do for the next update :) Thanks a lot!

elashri 3y ago

It would be more suitable to allow to add search engines manually. instead of restricting the users to only 4.

nckh 3y ago
This will come in the next update! :)

uni_baconcat 3y ago

Lovely app! Thanks.

nckh 3y ago
Thank you~~~ :)

tomekw 3y ago

This comment has been written on Quiche Browser. Testing. Looks great! So far the only thing I’m missing is to undo closing the tab (for 5 seconds?)

nckh 3y ago
Haha thanks for giving it an in situ test :) Super agree, I tend to close tabs accidentally and have to resort to open the history to find it.

puresick 3y ago

Great app! I already liked using your app Quiche Reader and Quiche Browser keeps the same level of quality. :) What I am missing besides all the customization is the possibility to set a custom search engine. Would be great to see this coming in an update. Keep up the great work!

nckh 3y ago
Awww so glad to hear you also tried Quiche Reader! I'm actually hoping to make both apps work together in the future. Implementing custom search engines would be easy, but I would not be able to support their autosuggest API, since they all require custom parsing rules.

thih9 3y ago

Excellent. I especially like all the customization options. As well as the privacy policy. One thing I’m missing - I couldn’t find a way to search for a text in page.

nckh 3y ago
Thanks a lot! I'm starting to get a lot of requests for a "find in page" button, so I'll see how and when I can add it.
- shinycode 3y ago
  It’s a feature I often use on safari as well, +1 for feature request ;)

1023bytes 3y ago

Looks nice, only thing I miss from stock Safari are the gestures - being able to swipe on the toolbar to switch between tabs

nckh 3y ago
Thank you!! That's the most requested feature so far :) The challenge is to come up with gestures that work regardless of the toolbar configuration, but since this has been the most requested feature and I badly need it for my own browsing as well, it's very high on the todo list :)
- kasdi 3y ago
  Swiping on the address bar - horizontal to switch tabs, vertical to enter tab overview - is one of iOS Safari’s best features. It prevents me from using any other browser that doesn’t have this. It was even one of the main reasons to not use Orion, which does the navigation but only has a static animation that doesn’t match the actual swiping movement. Apple did set a high bar with UX, but it’s really good.
  - nckh 3y ago
    Absolutely agree!

novoreorx 3y ago

I would replace Safari with this if it supports dark reader

nckh 3y ago
Well noted! :)

soared 3y ago

Awesome! Really enjoying the feel of this browser, and I’ve been stalwart chrome forever. One recommendation - when first using the browser I have no site history, so it defaults to ddg searches when entering text. Not sure how you’d accomplish it, but would be cool if the recommendations also had websites. IE if I type “news.yc” the first result is a ddg search for “news.combinatorial.com” but I’d rather have it be a direct link to the site!

nckh 3y ago
Hello and thanks for that awesome suggestion! That would be a nice feature, but I'm not sure it should replace the current behavior. Maybe I can find a way for a search suggestion looking like a URL to present 2 actions: one opening the URL, another the search results. I will give it some thoughts in the shower! :)

MR4D 3y ago

I just downloaded and played with it for about a minute. A couple thoughts: - it’s fast & menus are very snappy - cookies and history don’t come over from safari: that would be a nice feature - tiny download Nice work! Labors of love are great to see. Keep up the good work. I’m looking forward to future updates

nckh 3y ago
Thank you so much! It was also a labor of blood and sweat and tears but love overall :) Migrating cookies and history from Safari does not seem to be technically possible on iOS for privacy reasons.
- spacebanana7 3y ago
  I find this restrictive behaviour frustrating with web views too. Particularly when clicking links from social media apps and I’m unable to read content because I’m signed out of news sites. I wish there was a permission that allowed transfer of cookies and local storage.
  - gigglesupstairs 3y ago
    Keeping the restriction aside, you can still log into most websites even inside webviews.

rasen58 3y ago

Does your browser handle having 500+ tabs open? (I use chrome iOS and it’s totally fine with that many without anything being slowed down. I assume because they unload old tabs. This would be a blocker for me for your app if yours doesn’t do that since I wouldn’t want my phone to slow down)

nckh 3y ago
Great question, thanks! I've got 200 tabs currently open on my phone :) Memory wise, at most 8 tabs can be kept alive in the background. Then based on the phone thermal state, that number decreases to 4, 2, and then 1. Additionally, turning on Low Power Mode suspends all background tabs immediately, which is also convenient. I should probably document that behavior somewhere actually :)

SanjayMehta 3y ago

Used it for half an hour and I’m on the verge of making it my default. Glad to see Reader mode is planned. Am hoping there will be a setting to make that the default mode for the browser. And it’s really fast on my 2020 SE.

nckh 3y ago
Well noted! Thank you for the super cool feedback :)

johnmorrison 3y ago

This is truly incredible, I love it. I customized it a lot, changed just about every setting, and now I'm left with a beautiful minimal experience: < domain.com > Long tap URL for settings, short tap for search, and navigation. Hide status bar in tabs & toolbar on scroll. Fullscreen de facto. Love it.

nckh 3y ago
Thanks a lot! I'm so glad you managed to create a minimal toolbar that works great for you :-)

RyJones 3y ago

Nice! Thank you for such a nice browser

nckh 3y ago
Super happy you like it, and thanks for those nice words :)

haint_ 3y ago

Why does the app store not allow clicking the screenshots to enlarge them? It's annoying such basic feature is not there.

nckh 3y ago
Indeed it's not possible when looking at the product page on the browser, but it does on iOS :)

ssss11 3y ago

What’s the tech? Does it use WebKit? Is it chromium?

darknavi 3y ago
If it's in the AppStore it uses WebKit.

kasdi 3y ago

Really like the customizability approach! It’s Safari, for the advanced user. For example, the option to hide the toolbar entirely which Safari had but removed it during beta. Well done! Biggest missing feature for me are the swiping gestures to switch tabs and enter tab overview, already mentioned by others. Main reason why I can’t switch to any other browser, including Orion which has it but the static animation doesn’t match the swiping movement. Also caching (no page reload) and extensions are missing but these seem to be system-level restrictions which is understandable. Also sooner or later I’d be missing the advanced features, like font zoom, request desktop website, long press on buttons like back/forward to select point in history, etc. Nitpick: the address bar font seems to be much bolder than in Safari, would be great to (be able to) tone it down.

nckh 3y ago
Thank you so much for the detailed feedback and the great feature requests, they're golden!

siddbudd 3y ago

only spent 3 minutes with it (Quiche v1.1 on iOS 17.0 21A5277j) so far, good first impressions. couple bugs though: 1. "Opening the keyboard automatically when I open a new tab." This does not work for me, new tab opens and the (empty) address bar is on the very bottom, close keyboard button on the right, but there is no keyboard to close, I still need to click inside the address bar for the keyboard to show up. Once the keyboard is open, I tap the close keyboard button on the right, click again inside the search field, the keyboard starts opening, but closes right away, leaving again just a search field and a close keyboard button on the very bottom, but no actual keyboard. As you can see I am running iOS 17 Beta, but I don't experience similar keyboard bugs in any other app, so probably not related to the Beta itself. 2. On another note, when clicking a bookmark and going to the tab switcher right away before the page has loaded, the preview of the tab is totally black and no tab name appears under it either. Not even if I stay on the tab selector page. I actually need to tap it again and then return to the tab selector. This might not be an issue for a single tab, but I just tested opening 5 pages in new in a row, and had no idea which tab is which in the tab selector. If I then tapped one of the tabs that has obviously loaded in the meanwhile, still only the thumbnail preview and name of that one tab was updated on the tab selector, not the other tabs, those were all still black and nameless. My suggestion is either take over the bookmark name as tab name temporarily, until the actual tab name is loaded and/or auto-refresh the tab selector page with thumbnail preview and tab name every once in a short while (100ms?).

nckh 3y ago
Thank you very much for the feedback! 1. This is actually related to the Beta and does not happen on iOS 16. I will make sure it doesn't happen anymore when iOS 17 RC approaches. 2. Will try to reproduce and see what I can do. Thanks a lot!
- StockHuman 3y ago
  I’ll second that; the beta introduced massive keyboard issues related to stare reporting, dismissal and height.

Alifatisk 3y ago

Love the simple yet beautiful design

nckh 3y ago
Thank you! Glad you like it :)

bartvk 3y ago

What do you use to block ads, cookie nags and email-subscription popovers? Or you just live with them?

nckh 3y ago
For now, yes. But content blockers are the next big feature on my todo list.
- snazz 3y ago
  Is it possible for third-party browser apps to integrate with content blockers for Safari, or would you have to integrate your own content blocker into your app?
  - nckh 3y ago
    Unfortunately this is not possible. Unless Apple opens that up, it's up to each app to embed its own content blocker.
    - simbolit 3y ago
      The blocklists used by uBlock origin are freely available: https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uAssets/tree/master/filters https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uAssets/tree/master/filters
      - nckh 3y ago
        Thanks! I have to review whether they can be easily converted to WebKit's JSON-based content blocker format. But I suppose DuckDuckGo blockers can also be used as-is.
steedsofwar 3y ago
This is one of my foremost requirements from a browser these days; how well does it block ads. As much as I like Safari it doesn’t seem to block ads as well as Brave, so Brave is my daily driver.

djcannabiz 3y ago

What I see so far, I like very much. However, there are 2 features that are stopping me from using it as my main browser. an adblocker, and swiping the tab bar to switch between tabs. But what you have created so far, I really like!

SanjayMehta 3y ago
I didn’t notice the lack of adblocking until this comment, thanks to a DNS based adblocker. I wonder if it’s possible to support all Safari extensions seamlessly? There are a number I use which make it hard to switch completely.
- hxii 3y ago
  I’m using Orion but it seems like extensions here are either hit or miss for the most part. Can you share which extensions you are using with Safari?
  - SanjayMehta 3y ago
    Vinegar Banish Dark Knight 1Blocker Scripts StopTheMadness The last two are essential for me, can live without the others.
nckh 3y ago
Thank you so so much for those nice words! During the beta period I was totally amazed that quick tab swiping was the absolute #1 most requested feature :)
- eyelidlessness 3y ago
  At least for me, it’s one of those things I never knew I needed… until I had it, and now it’s like second nature. It’s like a much better version of the “switch tabs with scroll wheel” extensions I used to use on desktop.
  - 3y ago

hxii 3y ago

Looks great so far! Really looking forward to content/ad blocking. Any chance you're planning on adding tab groups?

nckh 3y ago
Thanks a lot! I'd love tab groups as well, but I would like to come up with something a bit more efficient than Safari, and this will take a lot of time to experiment.

thex10 3y ago

About to download this for the easy access to "Close Tab" alone, thanks for sharing!

nckh 3y ago
Haha thanks a lot! As stupid as it may sound, that close tab button has been a total game changer to my daily browsing :)
- shinycode 3y ago
  I use a lot the left/right swipe gesture on the address bar to switch tabs on Safari. It saves many clicks from the show all tabs button. This plus the close tab is a perfect combo for minimalism and fast browsing ! Great UI options

D4ckard 3y ago

Just installed it on my phone and played around with the configuration options for a few seconds. I really that there are so may themes and presets already installed. While I think that the ability to configure software is great software that doesn't need configuration is obviously still better. Carefully designed presets can be a good middle ground between personal and niece preferences and shipping a product that's actually finished.

nckh 3y ago
Honestly I agree. I'd like to make buttons arrangement easier, but also something like an assistant that could come up with your ideal toolbar and menu. Plenty of work to do, but so much fun!

samuelfekete 3y ago

Does it save the content of open tabs? This is my number one frustration with existing iOS browsers - when I come back to tabs without an internet connection everything is gone.

nckh 3y ago
It should remember the scroll position, and the content of <input> and <textarea> tags.
- LynxInLA 3y ago
  Does it re-request contents when it reload tabs after the app is suspended? Safari makes it very difficult to read content later if you don’t have service.
  - nckh 3y ago
    It does. Not sure WebKit has an easy solution for that specific scenario at the moment, besides saving a web archive to disk.
the_gipsy 3y ago
All iOS browsers just use some webview under the hood. I doubt they have any control at all over this extremely irritating behavior.
- eviks 3y ago
  Buy why can't they store page cache as local data and continue to use webview to open it?
  - Tagbert 3y ago
    It is likely the OS that is clearing those tabs from memory. The app may not get any notifications. IOS does not have virtual memory that can be saved to storage and restores on request. IPadOS does now have that on the newer M1 processor versions. They also have 8GB of RAM so they are less likely to need to purge or swap.

keepamovin 3y ago

I love this, man! Looks great! make me smile! :) I hope you go really far with this!!! :) [like all the way to browser-killer far] It's got that "je ne sais quoi" of a good product. Some sort of internal coherence and a deja vu type feeling where you feel you've used this before / or it should exist so it seems it already must have. Well fluffin done!!! :) BTW - technical question, how did you write it? I'm just getting into iOS dev myself wonder how you made the UI look so good? What lang, framework, etc??

nckh 3y ago
Thanks so much for those super kind words! The app was made with good ol' Swift+UIKit+WebKit+Core Data, with some sprinkles of hosted SwiftUI views. Throw me an email from the support link in the app if you need more details :)
- keepamovin 3y ago
  Will do! :) It was a pleasure, and you're welcome. It ain't that kind if it's true, and in this case, it's true! I think so anyway.

magicseth 3y ago

Awesome! Thank you for sharing. Here’s a tiny little feature idea I’ve always wanted: when a link opens a new tab, the back button should close the tab and take you back where you were! Congratulations on launching!

layer8 3y ago
In addition, it would be great if after going back that way there would be a way to go forward again (= undo the going back and closing the tab), in particular if the tab one has returned to has no other forward history. I frequently miss this in Safari.
madeofpalk 3y ago
(For what it’s worth, Safari on iOS does that)
- nckh 3y ago
  Absolutely! That's something I would like to implement as well.
- eyelidlessness 3y ago
  It does, but it’s really quirky! Any browser getting it right without so many weird quirks would be a compelling option for me.

www_harka_com 3y ago

I'd kill to have something like this on Android.

nckh 3y ago
That's the nicest thing someone has ever said to me <3 Thanks a lot!!
- www_harka_com 3y ago
  Thank You! <3 I love minimal UIs and customizability. Is there any way I can keep updated if that ever happens?
  - nckh 3y ago
    You can follow on Twitter and Mastodon! Would it work for you? Do you prefer newsletters maybe?
    - www_harka_com 3y ago
      I'd prefer a newsletter as I'm not actively using Twitter, but give me your handle and I'll follow you for the time being.
      - nckh 3y ago
        Understood, I'll think about starting a newsletter then :) Please follow @quichebrowser on Twitter.
        www_harka_com 3y ago
        Thanks! Followed. Keep up the good work!
yoavm 3y ago
Really? It sure looks like the OP did a great job with this browser, but it's still iOS... On Android I can use Firefox for Android with uBlock Origin, Bypass Paywall, Cookie Auto Delete, and more. Whenever I try browsing on an iPhone I'm reminded it's always Safari behind the scenes, without extensions, making web browsing so painful. Again - great job with with the OP's browser. Android is just so much customizable to begin with, IMHO.

galuggus 3y ago

Looks good. How about adding some more screenshots/a video on the appstore page?

nckh 3y ago
Thank you! I totally agree and am planning to revamp the screenshots for the next release. Initially I went with landscape screenshots in order to show multiple toolbar variations at a decent size, but the tradeoff is I couldn't show settings screens. A video would be great but I'm gonna have to grow some video editing skills first :)

franze 3y ago

Is there a way to get the toolbar to the top? Never liked it down blow.

nckh 3y ago
Not yet, but this will come when I add iPad support. I'd love to know why you prefer it at the top. Can you please elaborate, here or by email?
- FollowingTheDao 3y ago
  When I am reading a book, the chapter and title are at the top of the page.
  - nckh 3y ago
    Good point for the address/title bar. But would you also want the toolbar buttons at the top?
    - FollowingTheDao 3y ago
      Yes, because I turn my book pages from the top right corner as well. :)
      - nckh 3y ago
        I see your point now :) Thanks for sharing!
- franze 3y ago
  Cause I read down the page, and I don't want there any text (adressbar where I prefer the full URL) to distract me.
  - nckh 3y ago
    Oh same for me :) Then you can setup the toolbar to hide on scroll: Settings → Display → Behavior on Scroll → Hide

madeofpalk 3y ago

Interesting meta-observation - This thread is filled with people satisfied with this new web browser, and not a single mention of the engine. IMHO this apps existence proves that you can build a new web browser with innovative features on top of the engine restrictions on iOS, and consumers are not harmed because this runs WebKit.

cole-k 3y ago
If I may offer an explanation, I think it's because the OP is upfront about the browser being about customization and personalization. I clicked on the link first thinking "another reskin" and expecting to see the comments you were probably also expecting. When I saw that being a good reskin was the whole point my attitude changed. (somewhat orthogonal to this post): Although I think your meta-observation is also true for other browsers like Brave (which I've seen gaining traction recently). While I bet a power user on HN could go and make chromium (or firefox) comparable, would it look the same? Would it be as easy as just installing a new one? Although although I think a lot of the "reskin" complainers are sad or upset that chromium is dominating (has dominated?) the web, and I can commiserate with them.
hahn-kev 3y ago
Except it still sucks to develop websites for it and they often get a worse experience because of that.
nckh 3y ago
100% agree. WebKit is incredible, and people underestimate all the great things you get out of the box for free. That means more time to experiment with creating something different around the web views.
- jwells89 3y ago
  Yeah, as someone who’s built a WebKit browser for kicks in the past, WebKit is designed to have applications built around it and you can definitely feel that when working with it. It may have changed since then, but last I knew a good example of this is its multiprocess architecture. In WebKit, that’s part of the engine while with Blink it’s part of the browser. So while using WebKit gets you multiprocess regardless of how your app is built, if you’re using Blink you need to bring Chromium along for the ride or roll your own to get that. And of course Gecko is joined at the hip with XUL, so to do anything with it your only real choice is fork Firefox. Really hoping Ladybird turns out well and/or Servo takes off because there’s a dearth of properly embeddable web engines right now.

coin 3y ago

Any reason why it needs iOS 16.4?

nckh 3y ago
The minimum version should have been iOS 16.0, but a bug with keyboard layout guides got fixed by Apple only on iOS 16.4.
- csoup2 3y ago
  Wanted to try it out on my SE 2016, but I guess I'm out of luck. :)
  - nckh 3y ago
    Sincerely sorry about that :/ I work on this browser alone and sometimes have to take shortcuts and leverage features from the latest SDKs to ship faster.

throwaway72762 3y ago

Adblock? I've been hoping for an iOS browser with adblock that isn't bloated.

nckh 3y ago
That's the next big feature on the todo list :)

filoleg 3y ago

Thanks for the post, this is very nice. While I am not switching browsers yet, this is looking very promising, and so far I love the direction you are taking with this. Incidentally, discovered your reader app[0] thanks to this post, and it looks exactly like what I've been looking for for quite a while. And the fact that it is on macOS as well is a very welcome cherry on top. 0. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/quiche-reader/id1387881185 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/quiche-reader/id1387881185

nckh 3y ago
Haha that proves my reach has been extremely bad: I released the reader's v1 four years and half ago :) Thanks a lot though! I've got a few ideas on how to make the browser and reader work together smoothly.
- filoleg 3y ago
  To be fair, I am not sure it was your perceived lack of reach in my specific case. I simply got burned out on trying to use reader apps, given there are so many of them out there, all just not feeling quite right to me at the end of the day (similar to how there are bajillion different todo apps of all kinds and sizes). So it isn't like i had some specific set of requirements that i was looking for in a reader app and was actively searching for it. It was more of a case of "i don't know what i actually want until i see it, and i gave up on actively searching for it". Tastefully opinionated defaults and workflows draw me in, can't argue with that. Realistically, no matter how wide your reach could've been, I probably wouldn't have noticed the app unless I saw an HN thread about it like this one. That's a datapoint of one though.
- LynxInLA 3y ago
  Does the reader have dark mode? Or does that depend on the website’s implementation?
  - nckh 3y ago
    Not yet, but that's a feature I would like to bring to both apps for sure.

de_nied 3y ago

Any chance you could implement WebBLE capability?

nckh 3y ago
Not in the immediate future, but I'm hoping Apple will add support into WebKit at some point, and I can just inherit from it.

jasonjmcghee 3y ago

Piece of feedback- the screenshots in the App Store look like fake iPhones (wrong shape) which (I believe) hurts the overall polish / trustworthiness of the app. (After a quick browse in App Store) Splitwise and Feedly do this well. AllTrails is a bit more abstract but gets the shape right.

nckh 3y ago
That's a very good point. That's a tradeoff I made to get some extra space inside those constrained landscape screenshots, but I will probably revert to actual device frames once I revert to portrait screenshots. Thanks for the great examples!
- sunnybeetroot 3y ago
  I wouldn’t bother changing it. IMO the average user won’t notice or even care.
benabbottnz 3y ago
I agree, and find it quite overstimulating too. I’m not even sure what it’s trying to show me.
- nckh 3y ago
  Got it. I will try to make them more self explicit :)

marssantoso 3y ago

Hi. Nice browser. Looking forward to daily drive this. One thing that caught me off guard after using safari is swiping up the address bar doesn't bring up the tabs in this. Idk, I guess it's more intuitive that way.

kasdi 3y ago
Missing this too. Swiping up feels much more natural than pressing a button. Similar to opening iOS multitasking - multitasking for web apps.
nckh 3y ago
Thanks for your feedback! Safari gestures do work very well and really became the benchmark on iOS. It may be a bit trickier to pull out in my case when the address bar is very narrow, and become less convenient to pull and drag around. I'll see what I can do :)

nangtrongvuon 3y ago

Great app! I've noticed on iOS 17 beta the keyboard doesn't show when tapping the address bar once. Other than that, feels very nice to use.

nckh 3y ago
Thank you very much! An adventurous friend on iOS 17 reported me that as well, but it seems Safari has the same problem as well? Anyhow I'll make sure it works well when the iOS 17 RC is released.

alin23 3y ago

I've been wanting something like this for a long time: fullscreen with a full address bar available on scroll, reload button beside the address, full URL etc. Really really great job on this! But unfortunately I'm already dependent on some Safari extensions, and the missing extensions seems to be the problem of all custom iOS browsers right now. I'll still keep it for a few websites that don't have ads and I like to use in fullscreen. With all my hacks [0], I still can't install all the websites I need as PWAs [0] https://notes.alinpanaitiu.com/Install%20any%20website%20as%20PWA%20on%20iOS https://notes.alinpanaitiu.com/Install%20any%20website%20as%...

nckh 3y ago
Thank you very much for the nice words! Besides ad/content blockers, can I ask what are your must-have extensions?
- deleted 3y ago
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- alin23 3y ago
  1Password is a must have nowadays for me, which is why I couldn't use even Orion [0] which supposedly has support for both Chrome and Firefox extensions. I miss automatic password saving and instant 2FA autofill without the extension. Mate Translate is another. The builtin translate feature of Safari is good but it supports very few languages. The others are nice-to-haves, but I could live without: - uBlacklist: block websites from appearing in search results - Rekt: removes annoying "use our app" popups - Dark Reader: well-made dark mode for websites that don't support it - Super Agent: automatically accepts cookies and hides those cookie nags and popups [0] https://browser.kagi.com/ https://browser.kagi.com/
  - nckh 3y ago
    Thanks a lot for sharing! I'm afraid I can't do much regarding automatic password saving until Apple extends support to third-party browsers, but I'll see if I can implement your nice-to-haves on my end!

achr2 3y ago

I love this. My number one ask is to add a context menu action to open an image in a new tab.

nckh 3y ago
Adding to the todo list. Should not be too hard to implement :) Thanks for the suggestion!
- achr2 3y ago
  Amazing! It’s a good differentiator also as this was removed in safari.

therealalexz 3y ago

Dashlane seems compatible with the browser. As well as Omnivore. I want to be able to set Kagi as my primary search engine. Also, the input fields seem to be wiped if I switch tabs. I think I will try to switch for a while.

nckh 3y ago
In theory the state of input fields is preserved, but maybe some websites mess up with that. Can you please share which website did you try with?
- therealalexz 3y ago
  This website actually. :)
  - nckh 3y ago
    Hmmm I gave it a try and it does not work 100% of the time. I'll have a look. Thanks a lot, good catch! :)

Ziggy_Zaggy 3y ago

Support for script-driven fullscreen mode is a big plus. You keep support for that and I will keep the browser.

nckh 3y ago
Can you please elaborate what do you mean by "script-driven fullscreen mode"? Does any other iOS browser have such feature?
- Ziggy_Zaggy 3y ago
  So the problem is that the "user gestures" break any JS that attempts to engage or disgage fullscreen on a video object. Imagine!!! ...there eixsts an app that implements a playlist using video objects (.mp4s). This app will NOT be able to engage/disengage fullscreen in Chrome/Edge without some serious hacks. Potential solution: - Simply implement a brower setting that enables/disables user-gestures for specific URL(s). Edge error: Failed to execute 'requestFullscreen' on 'Element': API can only be initiated by a user-gesture. MDN Docs fullscreen link: - https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Element/requestFullScreen https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Element/req... MDN Docs user gesture link: - https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Web_Audio_API/Best_practices https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Web_Audio_A... MDN Docs gesture event link: - https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/GestureEvent https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/GestureEven... Stack Overflow Link: - https://stackoverflow.com/questions/27649264/run-chrome-in-fullscreen-mode-on-windows https://stackoverflow.com/questions/27649264/run-chrome-in-f... "Does any other iOS browser have such feature?" - Not to my knowledge? Can you dig it?

user_7832 3y ago

Thanks for linking your app! While I'd love to try it, there's unfortunately an issue - it requires iOS 16.4 or later. I understand that this is a really minor/insignificant thing for 99%+ of users, but as someone on iOS 14/15 (iPad/phone), I can't use it :( Are there any iOS 16 specific APIs used, and/or does Apple prevent targeting older versions of iOS? Btw I'd also recommend looking at Soul & Kiwi browser for android if anyone's interested, they're great too.

layer8 3y ago
Same here.
novok 3y ago
As an iOS dev, every year there are significant amounts of APIs that make doing your day to day job easier that you can't use if you don't stay on the latest, especially with actively developed ones like SwiftUI. So probably nothing needed specifically, but definitely something productive.
- nckh 3y ago
  A few reasons below :) - iOS 15 introduced a "proper" way to restore scroll position and page state. - iOS 16 introduced the super nice "expanded" font width, used in certain address bar setup. - iOS 16.4 fixed a bug where the address bar could not be properly attached to the keyboard.
- user_7832 3y ago
  That’s quite understandable, thanks!

orr721 3y ago

Hi I like it very much, it reminds me of Firefox Focus (https://apps.apple.com/us/app/firefox-focus-privacy-browser/id1055677337 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/firefox-focus-privacy-browser/...). Please add optional toolbar buttons to force web page text size increase/decrease like in MacOS Safari. You can consider it an accesibility option for us older people with worsening eyesight. Thanks!

nckh 3y ago
Hello and thanks for the great suggestion! May I ask if you would prefer having -/+ buttons in the toolbar, or in the menu instead?
- pseudo_meta 3y ago
  I also support this issue. Love the browser, will switch as soon as I can increase font size! Buttons in the menu are fine. Though some setting for a minimum font size might also be a good solution
  - nckh 3y ago
    Very well noted! Bumping that feature higher on my priority list then :) Thanks for the nice words.