Show HN: An experimental Web Browser

https://github.com/hexapode/zenbrowser

by pierre • 11 years ago

59 34 11 years ago

github.com

z3t4• 11 years ago

You should put a screen-shot at the info page!

pierre6• 11 years ago

Thanks! That's now fixed.

jonrx• 11 years ago

I smiled when I saw that a javascript browser has no javascript support. :)

I like it. I tend to usually remove the style when I read longer documents. This is prettier while doing the same thing.

What are your next goals with it?

pierre6• 11 years ago

Thanks for your feedback :) I also have an issue with the explosion of 'designs' in the web and this is my first tentative at imagining what a 'sober' web could look like.

I think that to be useful to have predefined template per style of pages. For example for now the hacker news page do not render correctly, and I should add a 'Link List' template.

I could also improve the content detection. On some site it still do not catch all the main article / or catch some ads.

I should also fix some bugs first (as I rush it, it really need more polish).

S4M2• 11 years ago

Actually, since javascript has an eval function, shouldn't it be straightforward to support it in the browser?

themeek• 11 years ago

I think it would still be non-trivial as event bindings, DOM bindings and others things would not work out of the box. It's a super neat idea though.

0x0• 11 years ago

Straight-up eval() would be the most blatant case of a remote code execution vulnerability the web has ever seen. I don't think it's easy or even possible to build a foolproof sandbox out of eval(). And even then you open yourself to a denial of service since you cannot interrupt the eval().

pierre6• 11 years ago

Actually the non-js part is here by choice. The goal is to do a browser that let you only read things, not interacting, and no distractions.

twerkmonsta• 11 years ago

I think supporting such a small feature-set of the web is basically rolling back the clock. This is putting people back in the Web 1.0 days, although with a browser built using more modern tools. Even with performance in mind, you might achieve better performance with a closer-to-the-metal language than JS.

I commend the effort but I'm not sure about the ultimate goal. If "trying To show the important content only" is the main goal then you are discarding a lot of the richness of the modern web. The web is not strictly about the text content of pages. That was what BBS's were all about. Even then people used ASCII and ANSI art to make pages feel more illustrative and rich.

I'd be more interested in someone tackling the complexity and un-elegance of the modern website tech. CSS is pretty un-elegant, but there definitely exists a strong desire to dictate style, how a page is laid out, and to present models outside the text + image article format.

I'd love someone to re-engineer the status quo of the code content of webpages, effectively making modern complex and un-elegant browser implementations unnecessary. I don't think the world needs a more minimalistic browser, we've already been down that road in the past, but rather a more minimalistic coding system for webpages in general.

pierre6• 11 years ago

I think supporting such a small feature-set of the web is basically rolling back the clock. This is putting people back in the Web 1.0 days, although with a browser built using more modern tools. Even with performance in mind, you might achieve better performance with a closer-to-the-metal language than JS.

The goal is not to support the whole web experience, just the news reading / information seeking part. Recently, more and more site are getting into the way of the content by adding distraction that can break your flow when you try to inform yourself. Did your eyes never get attracted by a Taboola 'Read more story here' or a buzzfeed '10 most productive trick for programers' link when you was reading some news?

As for JS, I choose it so I can prototype fast, I optimise implementation time vs performance (it take me a couple of hours vs ??? if I have try to do that in C for examples).

I don't think the world needs a more minimalistic browser, we've already been down that road in the past, but rather a more minimalistic coding system for webpages in general.

I agree with you, CSS/HTML/DOM is a pain, but it seems to be the best we have today. I prefer wrote some interface using them than Qt, X or SDL.

sfeng• 11 years ago

Did your eyes never get attracted by a Taboola 'Read more story here' or a buzzfeed '10 most productive trick for programers' link when you was reading some news?

It sounds like you just need an ad blocking extension perhaps?

drivers99• 11 years ago

"No AD"

What does AD stand for here?

pierre6• 11 years ago

It stands for Ads. I fixed that, Thanks!

jitl• 11 years ago

Briefly reminded me of Vivaldi, a browser built in NodeWebKit (or Atom?) with a React-based UI.

https://vivaldi.com/

hodwik2• 11 years ago

Vivaldi is miserably slow

tacone• 11 years ago

Yet it's got a great name.

That said, I'm defiant of any browser that's not on Github.

hodwik2• 11 years ago

I love this sort of functionality.

I feel like I just saw this recently in another browser, either Firefox, Chromium, or Midori. I can't recall which. You press a button and it switches to reader mode, press again and it goes back to the normal layout.

Can anyone remind me what browser that is?

callahad• 11 years ago

The latest release of Firefox added support for Reader View :)

joshuapants• 11 years ago

Safari has it also, along with Microsoft Edge (formerly Project Spartan)

guard-of-terra• 11 years ago

Why not just use Dillo? It's around since forever and it renders web pages vitrually before you strike enter. Description seems to match Dillo exactly.

panic• 11 years ago

Dillo is also much smaller than the Node WebKit stack. It's a little silly to call this a minimal browser.

pierre6• 11 years ago

My goal are not the same. Dillo optimise for the smallest footprint. I try to do a proof of concept of a web browser that will render web page in a way that will make it almost impossible to display ad, social network or merchants sites.

Also I used Nw.js not in search of speed or performance, but in search of fast implementation (it take me ±3hours to code the browser)

FalconOut• 11 years ago

Although it is a good idea to focus on "important: content, this browser seems to be something from the 90s. We should be creating new, beautiful and simple technology and not going back to an uglier tech age that we are glad we are out of.

nfoz• 11 years ago

Finally. I've been wanting this for ages.

Sanddancer• 11 years ago

I'm curious if you've ever used Firefox's reader view. It's a bit spotty as to what sites it can simplify to the core of what's being described, but it seems like a better way to get just the facts, while keeping a more featureful browser for pages that need it.

task_queue• 11 years ago

A web browser built on a single thread, a web browser I'd like to use.

braythwayt• 11 years ago

  No wireless.
  Less space than a Nomad.
  Lame.

And, I’ll bet, a lot of fun to make, a real learning experience, and the code is instructive for others who want to look at it, play with it, or try their hand at extending it.

Unlike an iPod, this is not a product designed by a Fortune 500 company that must become #1 in its market or be considered an abject failure.

Bravo.

romanovcode• 11 years ago

Ironic that browser that is built on javascript has no javascript support.

barakstout• 11 years ago

I think we can't have a web today without JavaScript. We keep trying to go back to what things were, instead of moving forward and excepting the web for what it is.

Show HN: An experimental Web Browser

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