
Refresh: concept for a new kind of web browser - davidbarker
https://refresh.study
======
boramalper
This looks really nice, kudos! Here are my few (hopefully constructive)
comments:

\- The website looks great but quite heavy:

    
    
      29 requests, 17.66 MB transferred, Finish: 40.09 s
    
      Maybe see if you can re-encode `history-device.mp4` and `spaces-device.mp4` since they constitute the 78% of the traffic. =)
    

\- I liked all the features you've introduced, but _loved_ the way you've
designed them!

\- Kudos for getting the tagging right! Many developers expect users to tag
their content, and tags were the next-big-thing at some point where there were
tag-based file systems[0], photo and video galleries that expected you to tag
each of your photos, and so on; but what really worked was automating the
process of tagging! Everyone can agree that Google or Apple Photos are miles
ahead of digiKam or Picasa when it comes to finding what you are looking for.
I am glad that you didn't delegate that responsibility to the user.

\- I think you should've put it on the AppStore first before sharing it; I
would download it right away right now, as with many other people, but how
many of us would remember Refresh a month later?

\- I'd love to have _branching_ history as well: so I have a tab and it has a
_linear_ history through which I can either go "forward" or "backward". Now,
if I move backward in history, and click on a different link in that page, the
history should _branch_ at that point so that I won't loose the track of my
previous "forward" pages when I click on a link in a previous page.

\- Maybe not as satisfying, but I'd also consider developing add-ons for
Chrome and Mozilla; some people would be reluctant to change their browser,
but they'd be more comfortable adding exciting add-ons on a reliable browser.

All the best!

[0]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tagsistant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tagsistant)

~~~
skrebbel
> _I think you should 've put it on the AppStore first before sharing it_

It's not a browser. It's a _browser design_. (plus a bunch of not-really-
functional prototypes).

I hope it becomes reality but so far this is basically the The William[0] of
browsers. The William also never happened even though we all really wanted it
to.

[0]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wBe3SDCcz8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wBe3SDCcz8)

~~~
TeMPOraL
Holy hell! Never seen that before, and I very much want it now. Do you know
why it didn't happen?

~~~
3stadt
It was never meant to become a real product.

The concept was made by Greg Beck, a dude from Ohio, as some sort of a "hey,
wouldn't it be nice if..." thing. Or maybe as part of his showreel as a
product designer.

Sadly, his website[0] is down, but you can find a version without images in
the archive[1].

The domain name is still registered though. You could write him an email and
ask what happened. ;)

[0] [http://becktothefuture.com/](http://becktothefuture.com/)

[1]
[https://web.archive.org/web/20111208083212/http://www.beckto...](https://web.archive.org/web/20111208083212/http://www.becktothefuture.com/projects/The-
William.html)

~~~
TeMPOraL
Thanks! I sent him an e-mail!

~~~
saidinesh5
Iirc Electrolux was working on a fairly similar concept back in 2012-2013.
Can't find the exact link for the touch screen one but these demos should be
fairly similar:

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dK1IVk_NiGY#](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dK1IVk_NiGY#)

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qboMSdgxZ4s#](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qboMSdgxZ4s#)

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QSJzq8rbR2c](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QSJzq8rbR2c)

------
spython
Glad to see the concept of work spaces realized quite thoroughly - I wrote
about the need for such an approach before:
[https://rybakov.com/blog/open_tabs_are_cognitive_spaces/](https://rybakov.com/blog/open_tabs_are_cognitive_spaces/)

I am intrigued, though, how well the browsing history concept scales up to
dozens of tabs. In my experience, I only use the newest tab on mobile, while
the other open tabs become some kind of living bookmarks.

~~~
erikpukinskis
This is correct. Browsers need to become “spacers”.

The spaces need to be publishable and moderateable and multiuser and all the
other things we expect for web objects though.

Nice progress made on this project.

~~~
workona
You should check out Workona's workspaces. We've built some of what you've
mentioned as a Chrome extension backed by a web app.

Our workspaces (persistent windows with names) remember your tabs
automatically, are multiuser/collaborative, and even have a URL (like any good
web object). You can also access your workspaces on multiple computers, so you
can start a project at work and finish it at home.

We're officially launching out of beta next month, but you can sign up now if
you're interested:

[https://workona.com](https://workona.com)

~~~
VladimirGolovin
Just tried it -- this is a great idea. Unfortunately, I can't use it because
Workona spaces don't "containerize" accounts I'm logged into.

For example, I need multiple spaces where each space is "dedicated" to a
single Google account -- it has multiple tabs open that are logged into that
particular Google account.

I tried to create that setup, but the accounts "leak" between spaces: logging
into a Google account in one space doesn't allow tabs in other spaces to be
logged into a different Google account.

If you ever implement proper account isolation per space, please notify me:
I'd like to be a beta tester.

~~~
workona
Glad you like the concept. You're correct that we don't attempt to do account
isolation as that isn't the purpose of our workspaces. Our workspaces are
meant to be used at the project/meeting/workflow level, not at the Example
Inc./Acme Inc./Home level.

As another person suggested, you can use Chrome profiles with Workona
installed on each, but that likely isn't what you're after.

------
ksec
I love the concept, but...

Ever since the early Internet; pre Firefox era, I have been a heavy Tab user.
I am possibly on the higher end of spectrum, my Safari currently has 410 Tabs
opened. It sort of expands and shrink during the weekend. In some days they
could blow up to 500+ Tabs, more like a reading list.

Quite a few of them are youtube links that are acting like a mini playlist or
file selection of music. So having a Video as group selection shown in this
concept is a godsend. I have been wondering why Safari Multi Tab page doesn't
have this. ( And Safari Tab Overview is kind of stupid, it reloads / reactive
all the tab you have when you press overview, making huge memory and CPU spike
as well as jack )

But over the years I have came to the conclusion, most of the consumers don't
use Tab like us. That is why those mini Tabs in Chrome that shrinks to
ridiculously small size don't annoy them. They don't check email on the web.
Nor do they do much comparison. Their web browsing flow is very linear. While
my web browsing flow is extremely jumpy. Reading on something could bring up
dozens of other questions in my head.

So I am wondering if there is enough market for this browser? Don't get me
wrong I love innovation in the browser UI space and I love the new History
timeline. But I am slightly worry about its sustainability.

~~~
glandium
To support your point, data gathered from the Firefox user population a few
years ago showed that, IIRC, the median number of tabs was somewhere around 2.
And a _lot_ (I don't remember the proportion but it was unexpectedly large) of
browser sessions lasted a couple minutes. As if lots of people opened links
from outside the browser, read it, and closed the browser shortly after.

~~~
Qwertie
Comments like this remind me how out of touch I am with the average user.

------
shawn
Here’s an interesting question to turn over this lovely Sunday afternoon.

What stops you from implementing this yourself? Why?

Chrome is supposedly open source. So is Firefox.

It’s an important question, because the answers lead to the reasons why we’re
subservient to megacorps. And it also shows merely being open source and free
to use isn’t enough to ensure freedom.

We tend to believe that (a) browsers are an open ecosystem, yet (b) we can’t
modify them. This is a contradiction.

~~~
codedokode
Building Chrome requires a supercomputer and not everyone has one around.

Why is that so? Because there are enough crazy people who cannot stop writing
new web standards. For example, things like Shadow DOM and web components,
that are not really necessary and can be implemented using existing specs.

~~~
antt
>Building Chrome requires a supercomputer and not everyone has one around.

What?

[http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/view/cvs/xsoft/chromium...](http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/view/cvs/xsoft/chromium.html)

Chromium comes in at 120 SBU, which while large isn't impossible. That comes
to about 3-4 hours on my laptop.

Building software is not some esoteric pursuit only high priests can perform.
It's good practice for software you're familiar with, require performance from
and esoteric options most people don't care about.

~~~
mmphosis
_Warning_

 _Ninja, by default, sets the number of jobs to the number of available
threads. If your machine is memory constrained, with regard to number of
threads, you should reduce the number of jobs by passing the -j# switch to the
ninja command below. Plan for roughly 1.25GB per thread while linking WebKit
to avoid out of memory errors._

My laptop is memory constrained, I have yet to build Chromuium from source.
How much RAM on your laptop? I've been looking for a laptop with 32GB RAM.

~~~
antt
>My laptop is memory constrained

 _you should reduce the number of jobs by passing the -j# switch to the ninja
command below._

I have had builds of linpack back in the day taking 24h+ on tiny systems.
Again, building software isn't rocket science and you don't need super
computers for it.

------
xasd4
I want to see something like
[https://web.hypothes.is](https://web.hypothes.is) made native in browsers, so
you can have community overlays on websites and commenting based on a group
you subscribe to, automate common operations teams perform on web pages and
leave notes for them etc. with out the websites itself being entirely in
control of the entire ux and functionality.

~~~
juliussohn
We actually thought about adding a similar function in the beginning, but
discarded it later since we wanted to focus on the existing key problems,
rather than adding productivity features for power users. Nevertheless it is
an interesting topic worth exploring.

~~~
spython
In the same vein it would be interesting to explore mechanisms of automatic
discovery - e.g. proposing tabs that have close horizontal proximity in other
people's collections. Sure, it opens up the questions of privacy and data
collection, but it could provide a much needed alternative to using search
engines for discovery.

------
vinceguidry
Moving back in time was the most interesting new idea in the preso to me.
Makes what you do in the browser quite accessible. Between this and web
archival it might become possible to have easy, on-demand access to just about
any personal web history. Imagine being able to travel back in time 10 years
and see the websites you perused.

~~~
naravara
>Moving back in time was the most interesting new idea in the preso to me.
Makes what you do in the browser quite accessible. Between this and web
archival it might become possible to have easy, on-demand access to just about
any personal web history. Imagine being able to travel back in time 10 years
and see the websites you perused.

That was a killer feature as presented. In practice it might wind up a little
iffy though. Web links aren't static, so the "history" you see might not
actually be the pages you were reading. Especially for landing pages for news
sites.

I can also imagine it becoming a memory hog for people with certain types of
browsing habits. My wife, for example, basically never closes tabs. She just
lets them purge on occasions when she needs to restart, which is basically
just for OS updates.

------
classichasclass
Maybe it's the curmudgeon in me, but while I salute the ingenuity in this
UI/UX idea, I think we need a new kind of browser _engine_ at least as much as
a new kind of browser interface, perhaps more.

I used to worry that WebKit would eat the world, for awhile Trident _did_ eat
the world, and now I worry about Blink.

~~~
tehabe
Maybe you should take a look at Servo from Mozilla:
[https://servo.org/](https://servo.org/)

A few things from Servo were integrated in Firefox 57. But the project is far
from complete I think.

~~~
classichasclass
I'm aware of Servo. Servo is neat to play with, though it's pretty bad with
older legacy HTML pages. Also, I'm not sure how likely Mozilla is to develop
it into a product; it seems more like a testbed for later Gecko evolution
(which, to be sure, is still a good thing).

~~~
jonathanyc
Firefox already includes parts of Servo, so it’s not a question of “how
likely” it is to be used in production.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_(Mozilla)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_\(Mozilla\))

~~~
kodablah
> so it’s not a question of “how likely” it is to be used in production.

I believe you misunderstood the comment unless it was changed. The commenter
questioned the likelihood of it being developed into a product and you
responded as of they had questioned the likelihood of any of it being used in
production.

Fwiw, I agree with the commenter and am unsure how likely Mozilla is to
develop it into a product. They do seem to incorporate pieces though.

~~~
jonathanyc
I think you and the commenter share some misunderstanding. Could you
distinguish what you mean by developing Servo into a product vs.
“incorporating pieces”?

Are you saying that Mozilla eventually replacing Gecko’s style system, DOM,
compositor, and networking system with Servo’s (as the article I linked
describes) is just incorporating “pieces” of Servo?

The product that Mozilla is developing Servo into is Firefox. I don’t know
what you expect—for Mozilla to replace Gecko with Servo all at once? For
Mozilla to do the same thing they are doing now but just give it a new name?

~~~
kodablah
> Could you distinguish what you mean by developing Servo into a product vs.
> “incorporating pieces”?

Do you remember seeing screenshots of "servo"? Running a Servo executable (or
browserhtml or whatever) is/was a thing. It was branded as being developed as
an alternative browser to FF. It was even using cannibalizing FF pieces (e.g.
Spider Monkey) not the other way around.

> The product that Mozilla is developing Servo into is Firefox. I don’t know
> what you expect—for Mozilla to replace Gecko with Servo all at once? For
> Mozilla to do the same thing they are doing now but just give it a new name?

That is the case now, though they have names for the pieces, the name "Servo"
still seems to be the name of the full browser (coopted by the VR group IIRC).
It was what everyone expected to not necessarily replace FF all at once, but
be developed alongside as an alternative. This history was clear, the name
Servo as a whole browser was clear, and the misunderstanding is pretending
that was not the case.

~~~
jonathanyc
Not only is your understanding of history at odds with the facts, which anyone
can look up for themselves, but I am _extremely_ confused at why the ill-
defined concept of “Servo as a whole browser” is important at all.

Servo is a browser engine, not some VR project (where the heck did you get
that? Go to [https://github.com/servo/servo](https://github.com/servo/servo)
); what’s more, Firefox _is_ “Servo as a whole browser,” whatever that is
supposed to mean. Of _course_ you are able to run Servo “by itself,” how the
heck do you expect Servo developers to be able to test their browser engine?

I’m not sure what weird dramatization of history you are trying to create, but
it’s all the more bizarre in that (1) this all happened in the open, so you
should easily be able to see what you are saying is and was simply not the
case, and in that (2) far from Servo being killed, it is the future of
Firefox, _so what on earth is there to be upset about?_ This has been surreal;
good luck.

------
evo_9
Pretty nice. I use a Safari add-in called Sessions to create sets of browser
tabs I can recall later. Super handy when you are researching something new or
just want to persevere your current multi-tab browsing session for later.

[https://sessions-extension.github.io/Sessions/](https://sessions-
extension.github.io/Sessions/)

~~~
Moter8
Unfortunately:

>Sessions will not install on Safari 12 or later, as Apple has officially
deprecated Safari Extensions.

~~~
protomyth
Which is being replaced by Safari App Extension Platform. Did I read it
correctly that App Extensions can only be downloaded from the Mac App Store?

~~~
gsnedders
Yes.

------
PurpleRamen
Looks like Tab Groups or Tab Trees, just 10 Years later.

~~~
superkuh
That's exactly what I thought until I saw the proposed timeline mechanism for
exploring session history. That feature looks very useful.

~~~
sigi45
It looked entreating but i still can't come up with a use case; I'm very very
rarely browse through my history. I only search for a specific item

~~~
mynameisvlad
Trip planning comes to mind. If you have a bunch of booking sites, along with
hotel information open, then you switch contexts to something like airfare
booking. It's conceivable you want to eventually come back to the hotels if
you haven't finished booking, and getting all X tabs open again would be
helpful in that case so you don't have to individually remember all the hotels
you were looking at.

~~~
codethief
If only sessions on travel-related websites didn't expire already after half
an hour.

~~~
mynameisvlad
That's a good point, although some will re-search once the session is expired.
It still helps with reference sites (like the hotel's/airline's/cruise's/etc
page).

------
TinyPants
I'd love to see this built out - I was disappointed there was no download
link.

------
bugmen0t
Reminds me of Firefox Container Tabs and other advanced ffeatures

------
arikr
I hope they build this!

Making web browser software can be very profitable if you get a large
userbase. Mozilla had $520 million of revenue in 2016!

More browser innovation would be great, considering how many human hours are
spent browsing the web. Small browser level increases in efficiency with
better tools for web browsing could have massive impact.

And, building browser companies can be a path to making lots of money, so it's
not a charity.

------
slifin
On desktop chrome you can press ctrl+f find a link on a page using search then
press escape and then press enter to follow the link without a mouse

I wish any browser on iOS could allow this, I use an iPad and I can shortcut
myself to anything on safari with my hardware keyboard, except clicking links,
it's really jarring to jab the screen for that part

~~~
Tehnix
Really need something like Vimari/Vimium for iOS Safari with hardware
keyboard. I wonder if there are any custom browsers that support that.

------
vxNsr
Looks really cool. I wish there were more of these types of fully fleshed out
design thesis. A couple years ago someone did one on Windows 8 and it had an
outsized effect on the development of windows 10, someone had a similar idea
for office, but I don't know how much of an effect it had. either way it was
fun to read and look over.

------
nickjj
Some of those features can be done today with any browser, such as spaces.

Just create a virtual desktop for each space.

It really does save a lot of time in the long run. The added benefits of
virtual desktops is you can also recall more than just browser tabs.

On Windows 10, all you have to do is hit CTRL + Win Key + Right arrow to
launch a new desktop.

~~~
konart
This is entirely different concept and has no implementation on mobile which
looks like to be a target platform.

------
ibdf
Interesting concept. Looks like a bunch of ideas from other extensions and
apps that are already doing these things.

Tab management: Pin tabs seems to do this already.

Saving & recalling: Tons of "spaces" extensions already exist.

I'm not a big fan of the netflix layout.

Smart link previews: Nice to have an image preview but the auto categorization
of links would probably not work so well. So this would be probably only be
used for main well known sites.

Browsing History: That timeline actually looks really nice. Not sure how well
it would work, but that's actually innovative for a browser.

Tagging: So... a bookmarking system?

Focus on whats important: Nope nope nope. I don't want my browser to become an
app that strips out what makes a website unique. Most often this functionality
just breaks the UI or strips away code that breaks the functionality.

~~~
jacekm
> Focus on whats important

Firefox has such feature (reader's view) and it works surprisingly well. It
really helps, especially when the text is difficult to read (contrast issues,
small fonts, etc) or when a page contains lots of elements that try to
distract you from main content.

------
tr33house
Just wanted to point out that Chrome has Chrome Profiles which can be used for
"work" "thailand" etc spaces.

Maybe we can extend this with a better UI + ability to move pages between
profiles (this creates some serious security problems though)

~~~
dijit
Well, I think most of the concepts are design-centric.

We have history, tagging and bookmarks but I barely use them in modern
browsers.

This UI makes it more orthogonal (it seems).

------
kiechu
That's a browser I would love to use on my desktop. Two thumbs up!

------
benoror
FWIW, you can get similar "Spaces" functionality with Toby extension:
[https://www.gettoby.com/](https://www.gettoby.com/)

~~~
Vinnl
Panorama view for Firefox: [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/panorama-view...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/panorama-view/)

------
HaHa31
Nice idea, I have definitely felt that the browser market space has become to
stagnant and bland. I am surprised you are using cookies for what mostly seems
to be a product outline.

------
hello_asdf
Wow, looks great, good job. I really wish this was available.

~~~
asdfasdfdavid
Yeah, I so want this. Funny how these features take so long to arrive then
seems obvious afterwards.

------
tuxidomasx
I made it 3/4 of the way through the video, then clicked around the website in
frustration looking for the download button.

------
huntie
This reminds me a lot of Firefox tab groups/panorama which was removed a few
years ago. I like the history idea, there are some really good ideas there. I
tried finding something in my history on Firefox recently and it was an awful
experience, so maybe someone will be inspired by this.

~~~
Vinnl
> This reminds me a lot of Firefox tab groups/panorama which was removed a few
> years ago

It's back: [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/panorama-
view...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/panorama-view/)

~~~
huntie
I tried that addon, and it is not the same thing. Panorama was an overlay, but
this opens a new tab to view your groups. This doesn't really work when you
have hundreds of tabs. I'm pretty sure that the old Panorama view is not
possible with webextensions, although I haven't really looked into it.

~~~
Vinnl
I don't get what the difference is, except that in the old version there was
no tab bar in the overview, whereas in the new version the tab bar is still
there with just a single tab that says "Panorama view"? I don't see how that
interferes with the number of tabs you have? I have quite a few tabs as well,
no problem there.

This is what it looks like if you press Ctrl+Shift+F:
[https://addons.cdn.mozilla.net/user-
media/previews/full/200/...](https://addons.cdn.mozilla.net/user-
media/previews/full/200/200289.png?modified=1530209514)

If you then click one of the tabs, the tab bar gets populated by the tabs in
that group.

(Perhaps you tried this extension before the tab hiding Web Extension API
arrived? That only arrived in the latest version of Firefox, IIRC.)

~~~
huntie
>Perhaps you tried this before tab hiding

I might have done so. The problem I had is that I was in the middle of a few
hundred tabs and opening panorama opened a new tab at the end of the list
making me lose my place. If it hides all tabs when you open panorama it might
work well enough.

I'll try it again, thanks for letting me know.

~~~
Vinnl
In that case I think you're going to like the extension now - I did :)

------
sAbakumoff
>> And while the web itself has undergone big changes in the last twenty
years, browsers have remained largely the same.

Yeah, it's largely the same : we open app, enter the URL and it shows a web
page..But cmon, stating that IE6 is largely the same as Chrome or Brave is
kinda exagreggation.

------
nitinreddy88
Containers is available in Firefox, however the usability and ease of usage
should be something like shown in video. Its pretty awesome to shift between
containers.

Timeline seems like barrowed from Windows. This will be another awesome
feature I love to see

~~~
avshyz
I used to use containers all the time (tab groups per activity/mind state is a
thing I've always craved for) But they're buggy. Really buggy. Twice I've lost
a trace of all the containers and tabs that were open (over 40).

------
tanilama
Kinda confusing TBH. Browsing should be simple, why convolute it with the
Productivity App ideas?

------
bytematic
Great design and media, got me interested!

------
LukeB42
Interesting triplet of Chrome extensions.

------
mathandy
It's like Netflix for tabs

------
baby
Did this has tabs on the side?

------
abakker
I'd use it.

------
Rjevski
Disappointing that a website about making the web better still wants to track
me with cookies for god knows what reason (also non-GDPR compliant despite
them being based in Germany).

~~~
elliottcarlson
They clearly state that they use cookies for analytics. They are not
collecting PII. Their Google Analytics implementation uses `anonymizeIp`.

~~~
Rjevski
I would not trust a company whose bottom line is proportional to how much
personal data they collect to just honour an "anonymise" argument.

Not to mention, analytics still wouldn't require a cookie unless they want to
know which other sites I visited, which is none of their business.

~~~
juliussohn
The cookies are also used to distinguish visitors. I'd recommend using private
browsing or a GA blocker plugin if you're not comfortable with that.

