Qutebrowser: A keyboard-driven, Vim-like browser

https://github.com/qutebrowser/qutebrowser

by AbuAssar • 2 years ago

135 76 2 years ago

sylware8• 2 years ago

Please, tackle the _real_ issue: we need an implementation of a modern 'web browsers' using a 'simple computer language' (for instance C99+, namle C99 with few bits of c11 for modern architecture programming).

dotancohen• 2 years ago

I understand the sentiment, but who are the "we" who "need" that?

sylware8• 2 years ago

Humanity, not AI bots.

bramhaag2• 2 years ago

Why do "we" need this?

ramon156• 2 years ago

Because "we" need a browser that doesn't need a rewrite in the next 20 years

sylware8• 2 years ago

See above.

orbisvicis2• 2 years ago

Don't forget lisp! This is particularly relevant because of the Nyxt browser which was also recently posted here.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisp_machine

Also c23 is supposed to have better unicode support but I've never really bothered internalizing the "translation character set" and whatnot.

sylware8• 2 years ago

Come on, this was about the language syntax, not some external massive util library. Ofc, this web engine would implement mostly its own utils, since dependency on external kludge like unistring or ICU or even worse harfbuzz(c++!)... would nullify the advantage to depend on a simple computer language.

I did not look that much into it but I can bet that 'lisp' browser is actually just a 'lisp front-end' to big tech web engines... namely a scam, please prove me wrong.

I would write a browser in RISC-V assembly with a small macro pre-processor, but the issue with the web is its infinite scope killing any non big tech, real-life, alternative attempt, and not for the good reasons.

ComputerGuru• 2 years ago

Who is “we” and why do we need it in a “simple” language prone to memory errors where people have to non-portably reinvent every wheel?

Signed,

someone that writes and distributes apps/tools written in “less simple” languages and apps/tools written in zero-dependency and even libc-free C.

sourcepluck4• 2 years ago

Nyxt already exists, and fits your description perfectly

sylware8• 2 years ago

Indulge me and let me be lazy and answer this question: Is Nyxt _NOT_ just a front-end to one of the Big Tech web engines? (blink|geeko|webkit)

I would be super pleased to be wrong...

sourcepluck4• 2 years ago

Nyxt is basically a front-end to the Big Tech web engines, yes, but one that (I think sincerely, from my not-overly-technical standpoint) attempts to re-empower the user.

I didn't understand your original point about needing "a modern web browser" with "a simple language" (I'm not sure it was clear, by itself...), but I read your other comments, and I understand your point better now, I think.

I agree that "open source" itself is absolutely not enough, and that another prerequisite to fighting for practical computing freedom is to have "human"-sized tools. Fully on board with that (I wonder if you've seen the malleable systems forum, actually...).

I think Nyxt would love to provide that, eventually, and are trying to fight that fight, on a stacked battleground, in an imperfect world.

For example, gopher and gemini are supported. And they're trying to support different renderers. They're trying to make the browser fully configurable and programmable as far as they can, in spite of the shortcomings of the web.

Tell me if this is completely beside your point, but in case it helps you in seeing what they're about, have a look at:

https://nyxt-browser.com/article/command-line-programs.org

Or, much more technical, too technical for me, and it's a bit dated so the exact design might have changed, but maybe you'll get something from the overview nonetheless:

https://nyxt-browser.com/article/technical-design.org

Maybe that's not enough, and you think the solution has to be more radical, but I don't know what it would be, other than a new set of networking protocols comes along and somehow supercedes the ones we have now. Which could happen, I don't know, I'm only still only learning about the ones we currently have :D

Also, have you seen surfraw? Or do you have examples of the kind of thing you'd like to see being attempted in the wild? I'd be curious to see them.

p.s. I responded to a point you made 8 days ago about email in a different thread [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42287607] and thought I'd say to you here in case you'd be interested in elaborating over there!

graiz• 2 years ago

Chrome extension - vimium does the same thing. I've been using it for years.

bramhaag2• 2 years ago

Qutebrowser fixes the main issue I have with Vimium: you cannot control the browser itself well. Vimium does not work in certain places due to limitations imposed by web extensions and this is incredibly frustrating for me.

Timothee2• 2 years ago

I’ve used both for many years. I’ve stopped using qutebrowser because it has some limitations due to be a bit behind on the web engine, which leads to problems with some sites. I still think it’s brilliant.

I wouldn’t say they do the same thing exactly. Vimium is similar to a vim-mode in something like VS Code, while qutebrowser is more like Vim itself. The Vim “spirit” is built-in and is the expectation rather than a layer added on top. The qutebrowser UI, already minimalistic, is also very configurable and scriptable.

The flip side to me is that some of the experience will be nicer with Chrome, the same way VS Code can be nicer and easier to manage.

porphyra• 2 years ago

Configuring the qutebrowser UI is a major reason I used qutebrowser for some years. I love ricing my system and saving screen real estate with a minimal UI bloat is nice.

The-Compiler13• 2 years ago

I’ve stopped using qutebrowser because it has some limitations due to be a bit behind on the web engine, which leads to problems with some sites.

Assuming you're on Linux, that's usually more of a problem with Linux distributions being behind on QtWebEngine. Though yeah, sometimes things are tight with QtWebEngine only updating their Chromium baseline once every 6 months. I try to ship workarounds (in the form of polyfills) with qutebrowser when I know about breakage, but usually for me things run smoothly.

lillesvin• 2 years ago

Been using Vimium for years too and it's great, but it's really not the same. The late, great Vimperator extension was more comparable to QuteBrowser but it stopped functioning (on Firefox) when they switched from XUL to web extensions.

Vimium mainly gives you keyboard navigation, but QuteBrowser removes the address, tab and bookmark bars and instead gives you keyboard access to everything via the very Vim-like status bar at the bottom. Incidentally this also frees up quite a bit of vertical screen real estate, which is a big deal to me. Browser settings, scripts, etc. are also all accessible via the keyboard — Vim style.

Edit: The lack of a solid Bitwarden integration in QuteBrowser is kind of hurting though.

dijit2• 2 years ago

I really enjoy using qutebrowser.

It’s a shame that I often end up using more than 100GiB of RAM with a few dozen tabs, almost like it leaks memory. I’m aware of the inherent fragmentation of memory with python over time- so could be that.

There’s also been a few times where the limitations of using qtwebengine (chromium wrapper) underneath were frustrating - though I can barely remember what they are at this point.

The python config is great too, I use it to disable javascript conditionally. :)

Theres also some magic feeling when pressing “o” and having access to the world.

cma• 2 years ago

Was it 100GiB of RAM, or 100GiB of forked processes sharing lots of memory pages? Python reference counting destroys forked process sharing, but only for the the Python parts.

dijit2• 2 years ago

actual usage, 100G of resident memory.

shimonabi• 2 years ago

When I tried to install the Windows release, I got a message that it contains the Vigram.A virus.

The-Compiler13• 2 years ago

See https://github.com/qutebrowser/qutebrowser/issues/8389 - unfortunately there's a lot of stupid false-positives especially with PyInstaller (packaging a Python application into an .exe). Happens a few times a year, unfortunately there isn't much I can do other than submitting a report to Microsoft and hoping they'll react ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

_kst_• 2 years ago

I got the same thing and worked around it by installing the previous release.

shubhamkrm• 2 years ago

Oh! This takes me back. I used it as my primary browser during the Firefox 57 saga, and continues to use it for over an year. The developer was very responsive to bug reports, and fixed the issues right away. Unfortunately, I moved away from the Linux ecosystem as my primary computing environment, but I would still recommend this if someone wants to try a Vim-based browsing experience and is willing to try out a new browser.

The-Compiler13• 2 years ago

FWIW there are Windows/macOS builds too.

JadeNB• 2 years ago

I used it as my primary browser during the Firefox 57 saga

As an early lover of Firefox, I'm sorry to see its progression away from its ideals, and can't keep track of which part of the saga happened when. Was that when they removed XUL?

iLoveOncall• 2 years ago

How is this not extremely inefficient to use? I guess you can use the "hints" as shown in https://github.com/qutebrowser/qutebrowser/blob/main/doc/img... but this is such a poor experience I can't fathom someone wanting this.

All browsers already support keyboard shortcuts for 90% of the common browser operations (next / previous page, focusing the address bar, etc.), and anything on the page itself seems like a massive chore (except scrolling, which browsers also support).

IshKebab3• 2 years ago

My theory is that some people see use of a mouse as a sign of noobery - which is true in some cases! Who do you think is more pro - the person who clicks Edit->Copy, or the person who clicks Ctrl-C?

So their lizard brain thinks "mouse=stupid, keyboard=smart" and then they optimise for a sense of superiority.

vunderba• 2 years ago

Or you know could be:

- a user who prefers to minimize switching from mouse to keyboard, or vice versa

- a user who has some RSI issues related to the index finger when clicking a mouse

etc. etc.

But no, let's go with the deliberately antagonistic strawman.

nosioptar• 2 years ago

I prefer the keyboard due to severe tendonitis in my wrist and arthritis in my hands. I can use a keyboard all day with no problem. A few hours with a mouse leaves me all swollen and in pain.

jwiz• 2 years ago

Switching back and forth between keyboard and mouse is a pain. I used QB a lot at my last job but current one has too many things which need passwords entered frequently so I am reduced to vimium and chrome.

greggyb• 2 years ago

If you are looking at a link you want to follow, you press a single hotkey (default 'f'), and just type the two letters that appear directly where you're looking. If you want to open a lot of links in the background, e.g. if you're looking at the front page of HN, you can use the rapid follow action (default ';r') and just type a couple letters for each link you'd like to follow.

Personally, this is much easier on my RSI than mousing to each link. Especially on a laptop with a trackpad.

Additionally, the browser is fully configurable in Python, to a much greater degree than what you get from Firefox or Chrome.

One seemingly small thing that I find quite convenient is that I can use reader mode or open a PDF and still keep hjkl for scrolling. I also use Tridactyl in Firefox, but Firefox's reader mode and opening PDFs turns disable extensions in the tab, so you can't use these scrolling keys.

As for next and previous page, I think you're referring to history navigation forward and back. Qutebrowser includes built-in functionality to navigate in multi-page documents to the next page and previous page, e.g. documentation sites or html books. That shortcut is '[[' for previous and ']]' for next. So, for example, if I am on this section of SICP: https://sarabander.github.io/sicp/html/1_002e3.xhtml#g_t1_00... and I press ']]' I immediately go to https://sarabander.github.io/sicp/html/Chapter-2.xhtml#Chapt... . This happens regardless of browser history. "Back" and "Forward" are different from "Previous" and "Next". I do not know of a similar piece of functionality in other mainstream browsers.

This is all highly opinionated. I like vim-style shortcuts. I vastly prefer the experience of using qutebrowser (or a vim-like extension for another browser) over using a mouse exclusively or a mouse and keyboard mixed.

If you, or someone else, prefers a different style of interaction with the browser, that's fine. It's not about right or wrong or better and worse, at least not in the abstract. It's about a user interaction paradigm that works well for an individual.

bovine3dom• 2 years ago

FWIW I got some of the way through embedding a PDF viewer in Tridactyl [1] so that the keys would still work there, but I backed off because I was a bit scared by how frequently pdf.js gets updated. In Tridactyl it'd get updated about twice a year so we might end up with unresolved security issues.

Maybe there's a solution I've not thought of (CDN?).

[1] https://github.com/tridactyl/tridactyl/issues/541#issuecomme...

Izkata• 2 years ago

press a single hotkey (default 'f'), and just type the two letters that appear directly where you're looking

This has a mental speed bump that I really don't like, that tends to make these features annoying to use: you have to pause after hitting "f" to wait for those letters to appear, read them, then type them.

Vimperator (the one that died with Firefox Quantum) handled links where you'd hit "f" then type the text in the link itself, with numbers to disambiguate if the filtering didn't reduce it to one match. With no pause and the link text already in your mind by the time you hit "f" it was very fast and fluid to use, and I was very happy after learning Tridactyl could be configured the same way.

Does this have the same thing?

ykonstant• 2 years ago

I tried really hard with QB, and still use it for some tasks, but the lack of Ublock Origin makes browsing random sites horrible. People say the builtin ad blockers are good enough; for me, they are not even remotely good enough :(

alrs• 2 years ago

I've had good results running alt-browsers behind Privoxy.

https://www.privoxy.org/

dalai• 2 years ago

It is a real pity that the major browsers don’t support better keyboard navigation out of the box. Due to work restrictions, I can only really use firefox, chrome or edge and no addons/extensions. There’s a 14 year old ticket for firefox (still open), but the reaction back then was that it is a niche feature better suited for an addon.

monroewalker• 2 years ago

I tried an extension once that provided these navigation shortcuts for all the links on a page. It was really convenient but then I was on an admin page for our team and accidentally hit a couple keys that pressed some random button. The page was full of buttons that had irreversible effects which were executed without confirmation. Of course that’s an issue itself for the page but that’s kept me from trying this again.

The convenience those shortcuts provide also makes it concerningly easy to press something on accident. Much more likely than accidentally clicking something. Having extra leader keys or some other approach to reduce accidental presses would detract from the convenience…

Curious if anyone else has run into this or configured their setup in a way that maintains the convenience but reduces the accident likeliness. Holding a modifier key or adding leader keys actually does seem like I’d go a long way in reducing accidents with minimal hit to effectiveness

michaelbuckbee• 2 years ago

I've used the Vimium chromium extension for years and it has a keypress to activate the search links and you can also disable it per domain.

fleaaa2• 2 years ago

With Vimium, you can toggle the type to navigate mode so that it doesn't invoke unwarranted shortcut

dmytrish• 2 years ago

Yes, I find it easier to press single quote in vanilla Firefox, start typing the most unique looking part of the link text, see it become green, press Enter to confirm. The link search feature in Firefox is one of the reasons that keep me using it.

The-Compiler13• 2 years ago

I had no idea that existed, that's pretty cool!

sourcepluck4• 2 years ago

Someone was triggered by the Nyxt post getting so much attention... =D

I like Qutebrowser very much, though. Used it for a good spell and was very happy. I'd some bug I couldn't fix which was driving everything really bonkers, but I honestly did not investigate it that hard, I'd been using it for a while at that stage (over a year, I'd guess, anyway) and was ready to move on and try something different, so I solved that bug the old fashioned way.

Nyxt scratches the same itch now, but moreso, and it has Common Lisp behind it, which is much more interesting [to me personally!] than Python.

einpoklum2• 2 years ago

Must be the cutting-edge-pun-not-intended browser compeition day...

fleaaa2• 2 years ago

Vimium does the same but it's just an extension so you can keep the goodies without switching the browser

w4rh4wk5• 2 years ago

The README mentions some ad-blocker integration. Is there an element zapper (click on element on the page to remove it temporarily)?

The-Compiler13• 2 years ago

The devtools let you do that FWIW.

bheadmaster• 2 years ago

Florian Bruhin (AKA the-compiler, the author of qutebrowser) is one of the kindest and most dedicated open-source maintainers I've ever had the pleasure to interact with.

I've used qutebrowser extensively in the past, and reported a few bugs, each of which has been met with interest and engagement. Some of them even uncovered bugs in the upstream software (e.g. QtWebEngine) which were reported there.

I eventually stopped using it when YouTube ads became too invasive, and went back to Firefox + Vimium + uBlockOrigin. I sometimes miss the programmibility of qutebrowser, but Vimium at least gives me the basic Vim-like browsing features.

The-Compiler13• 2 years ago

einpoklum2• 2 years ago

1. It's QtWebEngine + Python tying the chrome together.

2. I wonder... how good is its Right-to-Left support?

The-Compiler13• 2 years ago

RTL support should be as good as Chromium's for web contents (as QtWebEngine is based on Chromium), and as good as Qt's for the UI. Admittedly I never tested, but if you notice something in the UI that doesn't look right, I'd be happy to have a look and see if there's something that can be improved there.

metta2uall• 2 years ago

I'd love to use this but a key problem seems to be that they don't get updated as soon as a security fix is released, which for browser engines is quite often...

The-Compiler13• 2 years ago

Note that on Linux, the browser engine (QtWebEngine) is installed/updated separately from qutebrowser. They have a new feature release (updating to a new Chromium baseline) every 6 months, with patch releases backporting security fixes every 1-2 months. Not optimal, but some Linux distributions also backport security fixes as soon as they happen, which is much more often: https://codereview.qt-project.org/q/project:qt/qtwebengine-c...

Then there is the issue of "stable" Linux distributions (mostly Debian/Ubuntu) which never get those updates to you unfortunately, and don't seem to care about those being security-relevant either. Not much either qutebrowser and Qt can do about that sadly, but you can install Qt from somewhere else, e.g. from the PyQt binary builds if you don't mind losing proprietary codec support: https://qutebrowser.org/doc/install.html#tox

As soon as a new Qt/PyQt is out, there is usually also a new qutebrowser release bundling it for Windows/macOS releases.

krobelus• 2 years ago

Amazing project, very useful

sunshine-o• 2 years ago

Qutebrowser is a prime example of how to fix the user experience of a somehow not optimal software (the web browser).

Of course you need to understand vi as a prerequisite, a few hours to configure it and maybe a few weeks to really get you use to it.

But damn the benefits after are enormous.

Congratulations to the developers !

The-Compiler13• 2 years ago

Thanks for the nice words! :)

telmac• 2 years ago

I love qutebrowser but it still relies on a very old Webkit and is not usable on a substantial fraction of sites...

The-Compiler13• 2 years ago

Huh‽ While running with QtWebKit still happens to work, qutebrowser has supported QtWebEngine (based on Chromium) since 2016 or so, and it's been the default since v1.0.0 in 2017. If you're still using it with QtWebKit despite the warning being displayed about it, or using a heavily outdated qutebrowser version, that's on you and not qutebrowser...

If you're running an up-to-date Qt and qutebrowser, that'll currently be based on Chromium 122 from April 2024 (with security patches up to Chromium 131).

tvshtr3• 2 years ago

Servo when?

Qutebrowser: A keyboard-driven, Vim-like browser

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