
Ask HN: What native features would you like to see in a browser - ThomPete
Hi all,<p>Leaving the HTML&#x2F;CSS rendering alone for a while, if you could decide, what native features would you like to see in your browser that isn&#x27;t already there?
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networked
— Trails! They are a branching history feature implemented in the TrailBlazer
browser [1] and later in the Trailblazer add-on for Chrome [2]. A recent
article from Mozilla [3] describes the concept well enough. (Mozilla is
experimenting with trails in their Servo-based browser research project.)

— Attaching persistent notes to parts of the page.

— Bookmarks that let you add a comment.

[1]
[https://www-s.acm.illinois.edu/macwarriors/projects/trailbla...](https://www-s.acm.illinois.edu/macwarriors/projects/trailblazer/)

[2] [http://www.trailblazer.io/](http://www.trailblazer.io/)

[3] [https://medium.freecodecamp.org/lossless-web-navigation-
with...](https://medium.freecodecamp.org/lossless-web-navigation-with-
trails-9cd48c0abb56)

~~~
severine
Thanks a lot for the trails links.

I've come to desire that all desktop apps had a dedicated persistent
scratchpad attached, it feels great to see your ideas and links, go you! and
trails!

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27182818284
* Native ad blocking and script blocking (I think Brave is doing a good job at this right now with their UI/UX where you can raise and lower shields)

* Better reading modes

* Better selection modes. There have been a lot of tools/extensions made over the years to help you do things like extract every image on the page or copy out a single column of values from a table and it might be time to think of making some of these native features.

* Great screenshot ability: Firefox has this worked out pretty well now enabling you take the picture of the entire page natively rather than having to install a 3rd party extension

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cphoover
I would like a unified standard for defining voice interfaces. A unified
standard across the web would allow for easily transferring from one voice
interface to another seamlessly. It could also allow devices like Alexa, and
Google home to do more than just search the web to answer your question.

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tropo
I want resource usage confirmation.

Limit each site to a megabyte. If it wants more, it can wait until I approve a
doubling. Each doubling needs my approval. For example, upon hitting 128 MiB,
the site should freeze up until I give the OK for going up to 256 MiB.

Limit each site to a single thread. Let me approve more or just force the site
to live within a limit.

Limit each site to running in the foreground. (only the visible tab of the
currently focused window runs) If I really want something to run in the
background, let me indicate that with a right-click menu on the tab.

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leejoramo
Better long term caching long term shared resources such as jQuery and web
fonts. I use Decentraleyes for this in Firefox, but I would love to see this
built in to the browser.

[https://decentraleyes.org](https://decentraleyes.org)

Many of these could even be pre-bundled with the browser.

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kitsunesoba
Built in per-site custom stylesheets, much like Stylish (sans spyware). The
only browser I’ve seen that does this is the now barely maintained OmniWeb,
which is a shame. It’s such a basic feature that one shouldn’t need an add on
for it.

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LUmBULtERA
In addition to what others have said, I'd love it if a dark-mode type feature
was included natively. Not just dark theme, but something that can darken
websites like the Dark Reader extension for Chrome and Firefox.

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mabynogy
A lightweight browser doing only a reader mode or a design like Wikipedia. A
such browser wouldn't use any existing engine.

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sethammons
better history. I want full content search of things I've looked at, including
images. "Google" for my personal history.

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Rjevski
Built-in ad/cancer blocking.

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billconan
access to low level gpu apis, vulkan and cuda for example.

