Show HN: I am building a next-gen browser

http://ashraful.org/introducing-browsr/

by ashraful • 15 years ago

68 55 15 years ago

ashraful.org

highriseo• 15 years ago

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

ashraful14• 15 years ago

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.

CrazedGeek2• 15 years ago

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.

ashraful14• 15 years ago

Its similar to Chrome's profile switcher. But Chrome profiles lets users have separate bookmarks, extensions, etc.

Browsr's aliases are entirely separate identities. You can use fake names, addresses etc and provide these data to web services if you choose.

For example, for websites integrate "Browsr Connect", users can visit them for the first time and can be automatically sign-in without ever needing to register. The web service can automatically request information (like name, address, gender etc.) and Browsr provides these based on the alias selected by the user.

So Chrome profiles are basically for multiple users using the same browser, but Browsr is for the same user using multiple identities on the internet.

pdaddyo• 15 years ago

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.

CrazedGeek2• 15 years ago

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

pero• 15 years ago

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.

yariang• 15 years ago

Really? I see she used all the time. It doesn't necessarily valorize anything; it's just like using he for a hypothetical user.

ashraful14• 15 years ago

Years ago, I read an article (probably on HN) that advocated using "she" as a pronoun. The article itself was slightly sexist, reasoning that women will complain about gender equality when writers use "he" to refer to the reader, but men won't complain when "she" is used, but it was good advice.

Androsynth• 15 years ago

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.

losvedir• 15 years ago

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.

sadlyNess• 15 years ago

Can't find any reference online, but remember that some US grammar teacher had proposed using him'er and his'er but just never caught on.

tszming• 15 years ago

>> 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...)

ashraful14• 15 years ago

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• 15 years ago

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.

4J7z0Fgt63dTZbs• 15 years ago

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

ashraful14• 15 years ago

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

patrickaljord• 15 years ago

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.

ashraful14• 15 years ago

I will try to provide it as an extension as well, but I'm not sure if all the features can be implemented properly.

Browsr is more than just a password manager and a homepage. Lots of modifications are needed under the hood. Particularly installing native apps and storing all data on the user's end.

sliverstorm• 15 years ago

Not to mention a lot of the browser wars right now are about core performance, as UI cues are rapidly picked up by every competitor. You can't directly compete with entire teams on that playing field.

alexwyser3• 15 years ago

Its more than just a new UI.

Read here: http://ashraful.org/browser-features/

SimHacker• 15 years ago

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.

irahul• 15 years ago

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.

ashraful14• 15 years ago

Browsr is just a codename for the project. I didn't want to waste time coming up with a cool name. I figured I can do that after I actually complete building the browser.

chrischen2• 15 years ago

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.

ashraful14• 15 years ago

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...

chrischen2• 15 years ago

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.

systemizer2• 15 years ago

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?

ashraful14• 15 years ago

Removing the URL bar entirely is not possible now, since typing in URLs is still fairly common. De-emphasizing it (like I do in Browsr) is a step towards what you are talking about.

onli• 15 years ago

But why exactly are you doing that? I fail to see how a de-emphasizing of the url-bar helps. Especially from an UX-point of view.

I see only one advantage:

* less screenspace used

But some drawbacks:

* The primary way of navigation is not seeable on start of the thought to go somewhere else anymore (note: maybe not the most common way to go somewhere, given the bookmarks on the startpage and people using only google, but still the primary way when you want to go anywhere now and you understand urls)

* Relying on people understanding tabs

* Introduction of a hidden feature and usage of an already used interaction (double-click on tab)

It seems you want to enforce the opening of a tab when you go somewhere, especially since you have no dedicated and always seeable search-field. And your answer to the comment above implies you maybe want to think about a different navigation concept. Which all is fine in some part, opening tabs when going somewhere fits to my usage-pattern.

But i think that this development (as other browser-vendors try to hide the url too) is aimed at a specific class of users (google-only-users + bookmark-only-users + power-users reconfiguring their browser like they want), letting many other (e.g. all struggling users who just discovered the url) behind.

civilian2• 15 years ago

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.

systemizer2• 15 years ago

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)

runjake• 15 years ago

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

ashraful14• 15 years ago

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• 15 years ago

> 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.

power78• 15 years ago

Not really. Do you even know the mission of the Flock browser?

agilebyte• 15 years ago

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?

ashraful14• 15 years ago

I'll use webkit.

perlgeek• 15 years ago

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.

chubs• 15 years ago

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.

ashraful14• 15 years ago

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.

Ragnis• 15 years ago

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

llambda• 15 years ago

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

ashraful14• 15 years ago

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.

ashraful14• 15 years ago

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.

wisp558• 15 years ago

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. :(

dlan10003• 15 years ago

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?

alexwyser3• 15 years ago

This is exactly what I'm planning, and have wrote about in my follow-up post: http://ashraful.org/browser-features/

In particular, you can install these native apps and no longer need to download the UI again and again, instead just get the updated data. And access the past data even when you're offline.

polyfractal• 15 years ago

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?

dlan10003• 15 years ago

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

Yxven• 15 years ago

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?

alexwyser3• 15 years ago

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.

ChadNYC• 15 years ago

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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