5 ms·

Fiber UI Experiments

41 points by jrepin 11y ago

sarreph 11y ago
Does anyone happen to know if there is a pre-release? I couldn't find anything with a cursory Google search...
- mianosm 11y ago
  Seems like there is not: http://www.phoronix.com/forums/forum/phoronix/latest-phoronix-articles/811763-fiber-yet-another-web-browser-for-qt-kde http://www.phoronix.com/forums/forum/phoronix/latest-phoroni... Source code or GTFO was the response, and seemingly its all theory so far....
seibelj 11y ago
Is the only innovation in how customizable the UI is? I guess it's way too hard to write a new rendering engine. With the existing ecosystem of chrome / Firefox / safari extensions it will be difficult to gain traction.
- adrusi 11y ago
  Note that this is a kde based browser. I got the impression the the author didn't even plan on porting it to non-linux OSs. Its not looking for mainstream adoption, it looks like its just trying to be the next kde web browser, one that integrates well with the kde desktop environment, like epiphany on gnome.
- userbinator 11y ago
  While more new rendering engines are good too, having more flexible and customisable UIs is something that mainstream browsers seem to be actively moving away from, so a new UI on an existing rendering engine isn't such a bad idea.
brador 11y ago
There's a gap in the market for a simple and fast browser that takes privacy seriously.
- butterfi 11y ago
  Epic?
  - brador 11y ago
    Not open source, so it needs to be asked, what's their business model?
- minthd 11y ago
  Firefox with extensions ?
  - brador 11y ago
    Firefox has the code that secretly sends a hash of every file you download, with your IP and computer fingerprint, to Google for "verification". I only found out after a post about it here on HN. But I'm interested, what Firefox extensions are good for privacy?
    - diafygi 11y ago
      I think if you uncheck the "block reported forgeries/attacks" options in security settings it won't make the requests.
    - wtallis 11y ago
      BetterPrivacy to manage Flash Cookies Cookie Monster to manage regular cookies HTTPS Everywhere DNSSEC/TLSA Validator RequestPolicy Continued to control third-party requests NoScript for selectively allowing first-party JS, and keeping third-party scripts blocked when other third-party requests are allowed through RequestPolicy, and for its other always-on features like XSS protection, permanently forcing encryption for cookies set over HTTPS, etc. µMatrix has apparently been available for Firefox for a few months now, and is probably a viable substitute for RequestPolicy, but not a complete replacement for NoScript.
serverholic 11y ago
I'd love a web browser that uses an idea similar to vim's tabs and buffers. Each tab would be a grouping of sites and you could use Ctrl+P to open a fuzzy search for sites in that tab. Edit: And maybe there could be a mode where you fuzzy search the contents of the site too.
- sirn 11y ago
  I think Vimperator/Pentadactyl with Panorama (aka Firefox's Tab Group) might fit this requirement. Currently I have two Panorama groups, general and work. I can use Ctrl-N/Ctrl-P to switch between each tabs in the group, and can navigate to other Panorama group with Ctrl-Space. All of these are also accessible via Vimperator command b where it will list all buffers and I can filter or navigate to it by tab number of tab name.[1] A dedicated browser that does this out of the box would be nice, though. [1]: http://i.imgur.com/svKZh23.png http://i.imgur.com/svKZh23.png Edit: Or even Firefox with Panorama alone, since I think Firefox now jumps to tab when you search in the navigation bar.
romanovcode 11y ago
Really nothing new with tabs on the side. As I remember IE did this on IE9? It wasn't too good so they reverted it back.
jafingi 11y ago
Looks great. But really need a tab sidebar. This works really great on big monitors when you have many tabs open. Instead of stacking up in the top bar.
curiousjorge 11y ago
so another browser? what makes this one different? would it be safe from drive by downloads and other exploits? do you have a team and an army of QA to make sure new patches are released on time and make sure vulnerabilities don't linger?
userbinator 11y ago
"Tabs on Side" is more accurately described as "tabs stuffed into the address bar." This is what I think of as being "tabs on side", and it works great on a widescreen monitors: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tree-style-tab/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tree-style-ta...
- lewisl9029 11y ago
  I'm a long time user of Tree Style Tabs also, but I wish it had a better autohide implementation. The current implementation performs poorly (seems to rerender the tree structure animations on every unhide), and isn't responsive to touch input for unhiding (although Firefox for Desktop just sucks for touch in general, so there's not a huge loss here). Tabs on side with autohide is the best of both worlds, in my humble opinion. With static tabs on side, the loss of horizontal pixels is mostly inconsequential when running the browser maximized, but really hurts when you want to snap the browser to one side of the screen on a 1080p monitor (and have dev tools on the other side, for instance). I wish some browser vendor would implement something like this natively to make the feature more discoverable. I'm sure it'll be a hit amongst power users and be a powerful differentiator. I remember Chrome having side tabs in development at one point, but it was scrapped for reasons I no longer remember.
mc_hammer 11y ago
are the tabs done in QML? as a qml developer i would really love to be able to use that code if they are! any plans on sharing it?
sergiotapia 11y ago
There's room for a third browser that is 100% open source, built on desktop technologies (non of this HTML/JS nonsense) that takes privacy to absurd levels. I wonder why one hasn't popped up yet, there are lots of people in the tech industry who would switch in a heart beat. I would still use Chrome for my dev work but the only URL Google would see is localhost.
- dominotw 11y ago
  >I wonder why one hasn't popped up yet Because all the sites need html/js nonsense ?
  - sergiotapia 11y ago
    You misunderstood. I meant browsers built with something like QT or .NET - another other than HTML and JS. See Atom's performance for why it's a bad idea to use web technologies for something that needs performance.
    - lewisl9029 11y ago
      I've rewrote so many similar replies that I think I'll just copy and paste from now on. See here for more context: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9813873 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9813873 > See Atom's performance for why it's a bad idea to use web technologies for something that needs performance. This sentiment, that Atom is not performant because it's built on web technologies, gets repeated a lot, but it's provably false. Light Table and VS Code both use the exact same HTML/CSS/JS stack on top of Electron. Both are much more performant than Atom. Whatever performance issues plaguing Atom are more likely caused by flawed architecture and/or lack of optimization. The underlying web technologies it's built on have been demonstrated to be capable of delivering highly performant text editors.
    - NeutronBoy 11y ago
      Part of the reason is that once you write it in QT or .NET, performance might cease to be an issue, but now you have significant issues with platform compatibility and ease of porting.
clinta 11y ago
I really wish that Microsoft and Apple would introduce tabbed windows for the entire OS with some good extensibility and customization options so that application developers aren't pressured into implementing window management as part of their application. Having every application implement tabs differently is a frustrating experience. Those who've fallen in love with tiling window managers on Linux will sympathize.

41 points by jrepin 11y ago

sarreph 11y ago

Does anyone happen to know if there is a pre-release? I couldn't find anything with a cursory Google search...

mianosm 11y ago
Seems like there is not: http://www.phoronix.com/forums/forum/phoronix/latest-phoronix-articles/811763-fiber-yet-another-web-browser-for-qt-kde http://www.phoronix.com/forums/forum/phoronix/latest-phoroni... Source code or GTFO was the response, and seemingly its all theory so far....

seibelj 11y ago

Is the only innovation in how customizable the UI is? I guess it's way too hard to write a new rendering engine. With the existing ecosystem of chrome / Firefox / safari extensions it will be difficult to gain traction.

adrusi 11y ago
Note that this is a kde based browser. I got the impression the the author didn't even plan on porting it to non-linux OSs. Its not looking for mainstream adoption, it looks like its just trying to be the next kde web browser, one that integrates well with the kde desktop environment, like epiphany on gnome.
userbinator 11y ago
While more new rendering engines are good too, having more flexible and customisable UIs is something that mainstream browsers seem to be actively moving away from, so a new UI on an existing rendering engine isn't such a bad idea.

brador 11y ago

There's a gap in the market for a simple and fast browser that takes privacy seriously.

butterfi 11y ago
Epic?
- brador 11y ago
  Not open source, so it needs to be asked, what's their business model?
minthd 11y ago
Firefox with extensions ?
- brador 11y ago
  Firefox has the code that secretly sends a hash of every file you download, with your IP and computer fingerprint, to Google for "verification". I only found out after a post about it here on HN. But I'm interested, what Firefox extensions are good for privacy?
  - diafygi 11y ago
    I think if you uncheck the "block reported forgeries/attacks" options in security settings it won't make the requests.
  - wtallis 11y ago
    BetterPrivacy to manage Flash Cookies Cookie Monster to manage regular cookies HTTPS Everywhere DNSSEC/TLSA Validator RequestPolicy Continued to control third-party requests NoScript for selectively allowing first-party JS, and keeping third-party scripts blocked when other third-party requests are allowed through RequestPolicy, and for its other always-on features like XSS protection, permanently forcing encryption for cookies set over HTTPS, etc. µMatrix has apparently been available for Firefox for a few months now, and is probably a viable substitute for RequestPolicy, but not a complete replacement for NoScript.

serverholic 11y ago

I'd love a web browser that uses an idea similar to vim's tabs and buffers. Each tab would be a grouping of sites and you could use Ctrl+P to open a fuzzy search for sites in that tab. Edit: And maybe there could be a mode where you fuzzy search the contents of the site too.

sirn 11y ago
I think Vimperator/Pentadactyl with Panorama (aka Firefox's Tab Group) might fit this requirement. Currently I have two Panorama groups, general and work. I can use Ctrl-N/Ctrl-P to switch between each tabs in the group, and can navigate to other Panorama group with Ctrl-Space. All of these are also accessible via Vimperator command b where it will list all buffers and I can filter or navigate to it by tab number of tab name.[1] A dedicated browser that does this out of the box would be nice, though. [1]: http://i.imgur.com/svKZh23.png http://i.imgur.com/svKZh23.png Edit: Or even Firefox with Panorama alone, since I think Firefox now jumps to tab when you search in the navigation bar.

romanovcode 11y ago

Really nothing new with tabs on the side. As I remember IE did this on IE9? It wasn't too good so they reverted it back.

jafingi 11y ago

Looks great. But really need a tab sidebar. This works really great on big monitors when you have many tabs open. Instead of stacking up in the top bar.

curiousjorge 11y ago

so another browser? what makes this one different? would it be safe from drive by downloads and other exploits? do you have a team and an army of QA to make sure new patches are released on time and make sure vulnerabilities don't linger?

userbinator 11y ago

"Tabs on Side" is more accurately described as "tabs stuffed into the address bar." This is what I think of as being "tabs on side", and it works great on a widescreen monitors: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tree-style-tab/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tree-style-ta...

lewisl9029 11y ago
I'm a long time user of Tree Style Tabs also, but I wish it had a better autohide implementation. The current implementation performs poorly (seems to rerender the tree structure animations on every unhide), and isn't responsive to touch input for unhiding (although Firefox for Desktop just sucks for touch in general, so there's not a huge loss here). Tabs on side with autohide is the best of both worlds, in my humble opinion. With static tabs on side, the loss of horizontal pixels is mostly inconsequential when running the browser maximized, but really hurts when you want to snap the browser to one side of the screen on a 1080p monitor (and have dev tools on the other side, for instance). I wish some browser vendor would implement something like this natively to make the feature more discoverable. I'm sure it'll be a hit amongst power users and be a powerful differentiator. I remember Chrome having side tabs in development at one point, but it was scrapped for reasons I no longer remember.

mc_hammer 11y ago

are the tabs done in QML? as a qml developer i would really love to be able to use that code if they are! any plans on sharing it?

sergiotapia 11y ago

There's room for a third browser that is 100% open source, built on desktop technologies (non of this HTML/JS nonsense) that takes privacy to absurd levels. I wonder why one hasn't popped up yet, there are lots of people in the tech industry who would switch in a heart beat. I would still use Chrome for my dev work but the only URL Google would see is localhost.

dominotw 11y ago
>I wonder why one hasn't popped up yet Because all the sites need html/js nonsense ?
- sergiotapia 11y ago
  You misunderstood. I meant browsers built with something like QT or .NET - another other than HTML and JS. See Atom's performance for why it's a bad idea to use web technologies for something that needs performance.
  - lewisl9029 11y ago
    I've rewrote so many similar replies that I think I'll just copy and paste from now on. See here for more context: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9813873 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9813873 > See Atom's performance for why it's a bad idea to use web technologies for something that needs performance. This sentiment, that Atom is not performant because it's built on web technologies, gets repeated a lot, but it's provably false. Light Table and VS Code both use the exact same HTML/CSS/JS stack on top of Electron. Both are much more performant than Atom. Whatever performance issues plaguing Atom are more likely caused by flawed architecture and/or lack of optimization. The underlying web technologies it's built on have been demonstrated to be capable of delivering highly performant text editors.
  - NeutronBoy 11y ago
    Part of the reason is that once you write it in QT or .NET, performance might cease to be an issue, but now you have significant issues with platform compatibility and ease of porting.

clinta 11y ago

I really wish that Microsoft and Apple would introduce tabbed windows for the entire OS with some good extensibility and customization options so that application developers aren't pressured into implementing window management as part of their application. Having every application implement tabs differently is a frustrating experience. Those who've fallen in love with tiling window managers on Linux will sympathize.