

Show HN: I am building a next-gen browser - ashraful
http://ashraful.org/introducing-browsr/

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patrickaljord
Couldn't that be done as a browser extension? It's a lot of work to maintain a
browser and you will reach many more people by doing it as an extension.

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SimHacker
But THIS Browsr is Diffrnt! It does not have an "e" before the final "r". So
it WILL be Vry Successfl! Just like all the other companis that leav the e out
of their nams.

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irahul
That is totally uncalled for. I am sure you can and should articulate your
differences with a lot less sarcasm, and a lot more substance.

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CrazedGeek
Honest question: What's the difference between this and Chrome with the
profile switcher enabled, minus the auto-URL bar hiding? It seems very similar
to me.

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pdaddyo
Chrome can also do the auto-URL bar hiding; certainly in the latest dev build.

about:flags --> enable Compact Navigation

*edit: this was introduced in chrome v10 so is available on all channels, on windows at least.

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CrazedGeek
It's not available on the Dev channel on Chrome OS, sadly.

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wisp558
Regardless of whether or not this actually qualifies as 'next-gen', I find the
current trend of naming things by misspelling words to be somewhat...
disturbing. 'Browsr'? Really? I don't want to have all of the technology I use
require a [sic] tag. :(

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tszming
>> The URL bar appears only when the user wants to open a new tab. Double
clicking an existing tab lets users display and change the URL of the current
tab.

My concern would be security related issues (e.g. Phishing), HTTP vs HTTPS
etc.

Actually, the new Opera is hiding the full URL in the address bar, and a lot
of users complained ([http://my.opera.com/Tamil/blog/show-full-url-in-the-
opera-ad...](http://my.opera.com/Tamil/blog/show-full-url-in-the-opera-
address-bar))

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ashraful
Secure URLs can show a lock icon in the tab.

Phishing is a more serious concern, and its something I'm thinking hard about.
Black-lists might be part of the solution. Another solution might be be
displaying the URL bar only when the website has form fields for usernames,
passwords, or payment info, but it might be easy to trick the browser.

I might end up adding a separate URL bar if I can't find a feasible solution

~~~
sid0
_Secure URLs can show a lock icon in the tab._

Careful, careful. Most browsers have gotten rid of the lock icon for SSL-
enabled sites because it simply isn't accurate.

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chubs
To make a break from all the (constructive) criticism here: Good on you! The
world needs another open source browser to compete with firefox. It'd be
awesome if you completed one. I know its a daunting task, but hey imagine if
you finished it. I like people who think big like this! And, hey, if you only
got half way, at least try to structure your code so it'd be useful in other
projects eg chrome, firefox. You never know, you might get a job offer from
either of them.

~~~
ashraful
Thanks a lot. I really hope to be able to complete this project, although I'll
need a lot of help. I will post some more details explaining the entire
concept to get more people interested in the project and perhaps contributing
to it.

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Ragnis
Maybe you could implement it using Mozilla's Chromeless:
<http://mozillalabs.com/chromeless/>

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systemizer
I wouldn't call this a next generation browser. What I'd like to see is a
browser that eliminates the url bar. I don't know how that would be done and
you'd probably lose functionality along the way, but from a UX standpoint, it
sounds awesome.

I would like to browse the internet with only a touch screen; maybe integrate
the zoom-in touchpad movement with link previews. Anyone?

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civilian
What?! I'm so against this-- I think that my first understanding of the
internet really came from looking at url structures as I surfed. It made me
realize where I could explore, what subsections I could change to get
different results. Sure, it's meaningless to the general populace, but it's
still a good feature. Additionally, if there wasn't a url bar then it might be
harder to detect phishing.

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systemizer
You're thinking in way too much detail here. What I proposed is such an
abstract idea to interact with the internet, and you're talking about phishing
attacks.

Don't be so critical about crazy ideas; people who invent are only successful
if they think outside the box and don't carry much concern for the constraints
that currently exist in present day systems (like phising, url structures....
forget about that)

~~~
civilian
Phishing attacks were a good example, but I don't feel like I'n being too
critical! It's a good concern.

Similarly: I'm hoping that you're also someone who's annoyed when Windows
hides extensions. Yes, you can figure out how to restore extensions so you
always have the extra piece of information--- but can your mother? Can your
nephew? These computer users are learning less about files has "conveniences"
them with simpler filenames.

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ashraful
More information about my plans here:

<http://ashraful.org/browser-features/>

While I realize that my entire vision depends on third parties like Facebook
and Google giving up their control of the data, I think its inevitable. As
open services become better and better, users will move away from closed
systems.

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ChadNYC
After reading all of the comments on this post I think I finally understand
what you are setting out to achieve. I am intrigued by the ideas of "multiple
identities" and keeping control of identity related data by storing it on my
computer rather then the websites server but, in your initial post, that
wasn't very clear. The follow up post cleared it up some, but not much.

Additionally, I think it would be best to focus on these issues rather then
any UX or UI changes. What you've presented isn't game changing enough and, as
you can see below, most people are indifferent to it.

All of that said, I am certainly interested in being a part of this project.
I'll contact you for more information.

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dlan1000
Beyond managing your identity/s, the most compelling notion this brings to my
mind is that sites should reduce transmission of redundant data: You specify
the structure once then only the data is transmitted (what someone else
referred to as "like iOS apps"). To an extent we are already moving in this
direction with asynchronous update technologies, but rather than a next-gen
browser, it seems like we need a next-gen language that places a primary
emphasis on reducing wasteful transmission of redundant information. E.g., On
iOS I update my FB app when there is a change to its structure and then I do
so exactly once; Why am I re-downloading its structure in my browser window
multiple times a day?

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polyfractal
Do those extra 20 kilobytes really matter though? In the age of gigabyte
streaming video, who cares if you redownload facebook's UI a few times a day?

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dlan1000
Sure the relative lost efficiency from that extra 20kb may be

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dlan1000
may be minor compared to other use, but I bet it accounts for a fair
proportion of the time to page render.

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chrischen
If you want to be next-gen you've got to integrate web apps into the native
system OS, instead of still running them inside a browser that's running as a
windowed app within the OS.

~~~
ashraful
What you're talking about is basically an entire OS.

I have considered it but its too complex to implement for me. And it might be
too big a leap for most users.

Maybe once Windows 8 is launched...

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chrischen
No that's not what I'm talking about. The last thing you should do is reinvent
the OS. Simply, make web apps run like and behave like native OS apps instead
of like web sites.

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highriseo
A lot of these features remind me of what mozilla is trying to do with
browserID (<https://browserid.org/>)

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ashraful
In terms of single sign-in, BrowserID is more advanced, but also more complex.

The single sign-in in Browsr does not require any email address. You simply
need a username and a password. And while third-parties can implement Browsr
for a seamless sign in experience, they don't HAVE to. Users can save
username/passwords for each of their services and Browsr logs them in
automatically, making it useful from the get go.

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Yxven
This is really cool man.

Would you expand more on what you're planning for local apps?

One trend I see now is the reproduction of GUI toolkits in javascript. I feel
like the better way would be to properly sandbox python (or whatever) and
leverage the toolkits already available. Do you plan on enabling anything like
that?

~~~
alexwyser
From <http://ashraful.org/browser-features/>:

Nowadays almost any website you use has a lot of information about you. Google
knows your search history, Microsoft has your emails, Facebook has your social
graph and photos, Last.FM has your music history, Foursquare has your check-
ins. And even though you are the owner, you cannot take your data with you.

You should be able to take your search history from Google with you, so you
can use Bing and still get relevant results. You should be able to take your
photos with you from Facebook to Google Plus so you can share it with your
friends. You should be able to take your emails from Hotmail to Gmail so you
can search through it more easily. And most importantly you should have the
right to deny access to your data to any web service.

Browsr tries to provide you with complete control over your data by storing
all our information locally. Instead of storing your information on some
server that you don’t have access to, all of it is stored on your PC. And you
can do whatever you want with it: back it up, put it on Dropbox, or provide
access to any web service you choose. Having control over your data means you
can quickly get started with new web services you want to use, with all your
past data right there with you.

On top of that, Browsr also lets you keep your social connections with you by
using the identity manager. Your entire social graph stays with you regardless
of what social network you are using.

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runjake
I wouldn't call it next-generation. To me, it really resembles what the Flock
browser was trying to accomplish.

~~~
ashraful
Flock was more interested in integrating other social networks directly into
the browser.

Browsr doesn't do that, although native web apps provide a similar
convenience.

Browsr main objective is to make the browsers that default place to keep user
data. Instead of you social connections being on Facebook's server or Google's
server, it should be on your PC. Users can let other services access this info
(or even store it) but they don't get tied in to these services.

~~~
idm
> Browsr main objective is to make the browsers that default place to keep
> user data. Instead of you social connections being on Facebook's server or
> Google's server, it should be on your PC.

This. You describe browsr as being "like an operating system" in the post, but
I think what you've said here is way closer to what you are demonstrating.

Also, I like this concept.

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agilebyte
When you say you are building a browser, do you mean you will implement a new
way of rendering the documents as well, or are you "simply" slapping a new UI
on say webkit?

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ashraful
I'll use webkit.

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perlgeek
If you're looking for inspiration code-wise, look at uzbl (see
<http://uzbl.org/> ) which is basically the simplest browser you can possibly
build on top of webkit.

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llambda
Interesting, but is this actually available yet or just a concept? (i.e. are
we looking at vaporware?)

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ashraful
I am basically just starting out on building this. I probably won't be able to
complete it on my own though, would be glad if anyone wants to help out.

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4J7z0Fgt63dTZbs
Looks nice, but no Mac? No go. Nothing will ever convince me out of using
Macs.

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ashraful
These are mockups not actual screenshots. I hope to make the browser work on
both PCs and Macs.

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pero
Don't know if this is intentional, but I really like the use of _she_ in
reference to the _user_ in the blogpost. I've never seen that before and it's
very refreshing, seemingly valorizing the user as if they were a country or a
vessel. Consider it "borrowed"; thank you.

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Androsynth
It seems like everyone these days is using she. Its perfectly acceptable
english to use 'they'. For example: Once a user is signed in, they are
taken... Much better imo, as the gender is meaningless in that sentence.

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losvedir
Absolutely. People complain about it being plural, but words in English have
both number and gender, and I don't see why being "wrong" on the number is any
worse than being "wrong" on gender.

That said, it's not "wrong" at all because English has a long history of using
the word "they" for a generic pronoun. It's basically a different word from
the "they" in "they are my friends", just written and pronounced the same.

