4 ms·

What features or benefits would a small fraction of people love in an alt browser? What would HN folk love in a browser?

xrd 3y ago
Lots of HN people are fascinated by Arc. That's a good place to start looking.
- phatskat 3y ago
  Can second this - Arc is my daily driver now
grishka 3y ago
> What would HN folk love in a browser? A setting to completely disable support for media elements per-origin would be nice. Not this "we try to determine whether a video is eligible for autoplaying" bullshit. I want an "I wasn't asking" approach of the browser literally treating <video> and <audio> as unknown tags when this setting is off. Native support for Flash via Ruffle would also be nice. If it's a mobile browser, I really, REALLY want a setting to just completely annihilate all the PWA stuff. No, I don't want to add this random news website to my home screen, thank you very much. More broadly, I want most of the "progress" of the web platform undone. Sure, new CSS features, like flexbox and grid, are nice. But all those new JS APIs that (try to) turn a hypertext document viewer into a (terrible) operating system? No thanks. I want my clear boundary between the "document" and the "application" back, hence the Flash thing.
- usrusr 3y ago
  Something less annoying to opt into web features would really be an improvement. Perhaps some "upgrade icon" next to that https lock icon? This already is the place were we take away the permission when we accidentally allowed some we did not want, and the "upgrade" would be somewhat parseable as all three of "upgrade to local(ish) installation", "upgrade to more site features" (push) and "allow more data upload" (location). All implicitly connected to the hostname.
- sourcegrift 3y ago
  for first: firefox + umatrix, you're welcome
imron 3y ago
Being able to browse the web and not have pages render incorrectly, slowly or not at all is the big one.
aeternum 3y ago
Mouse gestures, opera had these back in the day. The right-left click to go back, ability to close a tab from anywhere on the page with just a single hand, etc. Maybe it's no longer possible due to all the click hijacking introduced by web2.
- gear54rus 3y ago
  you still have this on keyboard with 1 hand tho
- plorkyeran 3y ago
  Vivaldi and Firefox (via extensions) still have mouse gestures and there aren't any problems with it.
squigglydonut 3y ago
Not tracking me and selling data to ad network buyers.

xrd 3y ago

Lots of HN people are fascinated by Arc. That's a good place to start looking.

phatskat 3y ago
Can second this - Arc is my daily driver now

grishka 3y ago

> What would HN folk love in a browser? A setting to completely disable support for media elements per-origin would be nice. Not this "we try to determine whether a video is eligible for autoplaying" bullshit. I want an "I wasn't asking" approach of the browser literally treating <video> and <audio> as unknown tags when this setting is off. Native support for Flash via Ruffle would also be nice. If it's a mobile browser, I really, REALLY want a setting to just completely annihilate all the PWA stuff. No, I don't want to add this random news website to my home screen, thank you very much. More broadly, I want most of the "progress" of the web platform undone. Sure, new CSS features, like flexbox and grid, are nice. But all those new JS APIs that (try to) turn a hypertext document viewer into a (terrible) operating system? No thanks. I want my clear boundary between the "document" and the "application" back, hence the Flash thing.

usrusr 3y ago
Something less annoying to opt into web features would really be an improvement. Perhaps some "upgrade icon" next to that https lock icon? This already is the place were we take away the permission when we accidentally allowed some we did not want, and the "upgrade" would be somewhat parseable as all three of "upgrade to local(ish) installation", "upgrade to more site features" (push) and "allow more data upload" (location). All implicitly connected to the hostname.
sourcegrift 3y ago
for first: firefox + umatrix, you're welcome

imron 3y ago

Being able to browse the web and not have pages render incorrectly, slowly or not at all is the big one.

aeternum 3y ago

Mouse gestures, opera had these back in the day. The right-left click to go back, ability to close a tab from anywhere on the page with just a single hand, etc. Maybe it's no longer possible due to all the click hijacking introduced by web2.

gear54rus 3y ago
you still have this on keyboard with 1 hand tho
plorkyeran 3y ago
Vivaldi and Firefox (via extensions) still have mouse gestures and there aren't any problems with it.

squigglydonut 3y ago

Not tracking me and selling data to ad network buyers.