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Is this a part of a (very slowly) building trend towards a chrome-less browser? Long ago we used to "login" to a site using BasicAuth and the browser defined l

Is this a part of a (very slowly) building trend towards a chrome-less browser? Long ago we used to "login" to a site using BasicAuth and the browser defined login box.... it wasn't flexible/pretty enough so we started using <form>s and integrated them into the page. We had a path-like URL structure that we used to get to our documents, but our documents became more complex and the path-like structure became less human friendly and more like a unique id that should be under the hood. We had back (and forward) buttons to navigate through our mainly hierarchical sites, but our sites became less linear so we used javascript to jump around. Our complex non-linear documents became so complex that we didn't want to reload them all at once, so we started fetching parts of the page and needed to build our own progress indicators within the page. Soon: Very little of the browser chrome will be relevant to the way we use the web.

NathanKP 13y ago
Very interesting idea. I can definitely see the progression towards a more minimal browser that offloads functionality which used to be part of the browser into the page. However, I think we have reached a minimal point where browsers have already stripped down as far as they can. Looking at a browser like Google Chrome basically all that is left is tabs, forward and back buttons, refresh button, search/url bar, HTTPS indicator, and right hand menu button. We couldn't get rid of the back and forward buttons because while JavaScript navigation works inside the page, it doesn't work very well to go back from your site to the site that the user came from, because security is designed to prevent you from easily reading history. Additionally the refresh button couldn't be replaced by an in page control because if the JavaScript in the page has an error and stops working the refresh also stops working, which would make people unable to refresh the page. I wouldn't trust an HTTPS icon that was powered by JavaScript inside the page so that also has to be part of the chrome. The only item on that list that could be removed is the right hand menu button. And since that does stuff like print, bookmark, and settings that also doesn't work as part of the webpage itself. But who knows? Maybe I'm wrong and we'll find a way to strip the browser down even more, but I don't think that will happen until we develop voice, gesture, or thought controlled interface devices that are faster and more efficient than typing into a search bar or clicking a button. Then we can get rid of all the buttons and controls completely. But at that point the entire experience of browsing would be extremely different, not just the browser chrome.
adyus 13y ago
I think this direction can better be described as reaching toward a "native" experience, such as on mobile devices. You see this in Windows 8's full screen apps, they tend to be isolated containers, even though some are written using web technologies.

NathanKP 13y ago

Very interesting idea. I can definitely see the progression towards a more minimal browser that offloads functionality which used to be part of the browser into the page. However, I think we have reached a minimal point where browsers have already stripped down as far as they can. Looking at a browser like Google Chrome basically all that is left is tabs, forward and back buttons, refresh button, search/url bar, HTTPS indicator, and right hand menu button. We couldn't get rid of the back and forward buttons because while JavaScript navigation works inside the page, it doesn't work very well to go back from your site to the site that the user came from, because security is designed to prevent you from easily reading history. Additionally the refresh button couldn't be replaced by an in page control because if the JavaScript in the page has an error and stops working the refresh also stops working, which would make people unable to refresh the page. I wouldn't trust an HTTPS icon that was powered by JavaScript inside the page so that also has to be part of the chrome. The only item on that list that could be removed is the right hand menu button. And since that does stuff like print, bookmark, and settings that also doesn't work as part of the webpage itself. But who knows? Maybe I'm wrong and we'll find a way to strip the browser down even more, but I don't think that will happen until we develop voice, gesture, or thought controlled interface devices that are faster and more efficient than typing into a search bar or clicking a button. Then we can get rid of all the buttons and controls completely. But at that point the entire experience of browsing would be extremely different, not just the browser chrome.

adyus 13y ago

I think this direction can better be described as reaching toward a "native" experience, such as on mobile devices. You see this in Windows 8's full screen apps, they tend to be isolated containers, even though some are written using web technologies.