What would you want in a web browser?

[ki4jgt]

Simply put, Mozilla and now Chrome allow their users to customize the browser by installing apps. What would you like to see in a web browser that these apps could or could not do?

[MisterGaribaldi]

We all benefit when there's competition. That being said, FireFox pretty much takes care of all my needs.

[roggenschrotbrot]

keyboard navigation. currently only the mouseless-browsing addon for firefox can somewhat satisfy me, even more so then most textbrowsers imho.

a lightweight browser with full keyboard navigation and the ability to display websites as the were intended is pretty much my most wanted application atm.

[ki4jgt]

keyboard navigation. currently only the mouseless-browsing addon for firefox can somewhat satisfy me, even more so then most textbrowsers imho.

a lightweight browser with full keyboard navigation and the ability to display websites as the were intended is pretty much my most wanted application atm.

I actually like that idea. I've used that app in FF. I didn't know it was still around.

[Hur Dur]

The ability to browse the web quickly, with no bloat. As an example, Netsurf and Dillo are my favorites, because they use less than 1mb RAM, and they do not include any bloat (They have no dependencies.)

As for something innovative, a terminal browser that supports plugins.

[handy]

I've got much more than I need in Firefox plus some add-ons.

I like the layout, the speed is good enough for me, though apparently v4. is much faster.

So I need no more than what I've got.

[MisterGaribaldi]

I've been running the betas of FF4 for a while now, and it works fairly well, though sometimes it can bog down. It'll be interesting to see what eventuates.

Chrome is nice and all that, but I still prefer FF.

As far as the "nearly 0 overhead" browsers are concerned, how can they really be that resource-lean and be able to do all the proper rendering of elements on web pages these days, especially in light of such things as HTML 4.x, CSS, Flash, Javascript, etc.? And also, isn't rendering more or less a fight between what the creators want, the tweaks they have to make to make things work with the different browsers, and the different browsers themselves?

I'm so glad I'm not a web designer. I wouldn't have the patience to deal with any of that stuff.

[pi3.1415926535...]

Personally it would be nice to see a basic reader, or even editor of ODFs. Chrome now has a .txt reader, which is nice, but something for ODFs would allow one to use Ubuntu One or Dropbox instead of Google Docs.

[Breambutt]

Running Firesux stripped down to a bare minimum of visible controls, back/next & location/search on the same row with file/edit/view. The only addon being NoScript to strip even more pointless crap around the interweb.

Can't say that I need anything else, but maybe I'm just not a hardcore surfer enough. Chrome just didn't feel like home especially without a NoScript type of whitelister when I tried it.

[uRock]

I'd like a browser that loads the pages I want to see at the exact moment I want. But it needs to be safe and have a setting that acknowledges when kids or employers are around.

Seriously, Firefox does everything I want, but more speed would make me smile more.

[Quadunit404]

I like a browser that lets me customize it without acting like I'm taking a car and steering it by pulling at the wheels rather than with the steering wheel a la Firefox and has plenty of useful features that I am probably going to use in the long run built-in, which is why I use Opera.

It uses a lot of memory, but considering how I have 4GB of RAM...

[jerenept]

I'd like a browser that loads the pages I want to see at the exact moment I want. But it needs to be safe and have a setting that acknowledges when kids or employers are around.

Seriously, Firefox does everything I want, but more speed would make me smile more.

I consider Firefox4 and Opera 11 to be speed demons. (Iron/Chromium too)

[uRock]

I consider Firefox4 and Opera 11 to be speed demons. (Iron/Chromium too)

I haven't used FF4 yet. Waiting until it comes from Ubuntu's repos. Chrome is way faster on my machine, but it doesn't work well with my school's sites, so I usually stick with FF for everything.

[handy]

I'd like a browser that loads the pages I want to see at the exact moment I want. But it needs to be safe and have a setting that acknowledges when kids or employers are around.

Seriously, Firefox does everything I want, but more speed would make me smile more.

You probably wouldn't like the following (particularly the prefetch part) then uRock :):

By setting network.http.sendRefererHeader in Firefox preferences (about:config) to zero, then whenever you visit a link from one site, the destination site doesn't know the original site you were referred from.

This in effect makes the Firefox add-on RefControl redundant.

Also, by setting network.prefetch-next to false it brings about the following:

Link prefetching is when a webpage hints to the browser that certain pages are likely to be visited, so the browser downloads them immediately so they can be displayed immediately when the user requests it. This preference controls whether link prefetching is enabled.

I prefer this disabled personally, for a variety of reasons.

I lifted the above from this sub-forum:

http://www.spiralinear.org/forumdisplay.php?fid=17&page=1

[Copper Bezel]

I like a browser that lets me customize it without acting like I'm taking a car and steering it by pulling at the wheels rather than with the steering wheel a la Firefox and has plenty of useful features that I am probably going to use in the long run built-in, which is why I use Opera.

It uses a lot of memory, but considering how I have 4GB of RAM...

It's not even that heavy memory-wise. Having been turned off Opera a couple of years ago, I hadn't been using it until one of the recent web-browser-related topics, but I'm really liking it. I didn't know what I wanted in a browser, but this turned out to be it. It seems at least as fast as Chrome, it has some extra features (unlike Chrome) that are actually useful (unlike Firefox), and it actually looks modern, with things like the tab previews and tab switcher. Better font smoothing, better smooth scrolling, better tab management, etc.

If it could deal with Flash or had more than three add-ons, it'd be perfect.

[uRock]

You probably wouldn't like the following (particularly the prefetch part) then uRock :):

By setting network.http.sendRefererHeader in Firefox preferences (about:config) to zero, then whenever you visit a link from one site, the destination site doesn't know the original site you were referred from.

This in effect makes the Firefox add-on RefControl redundant.

Also, by setting network.prefetch-next to false it brings about the following:

Link prefetching is when a webpage hints to the browser that certain pages are likely to be visited, so the browser downloads them immediately so they can be displayed immediately when the user requests it. This preference controls whether link prefetching is enabled.

I prefer this disabled personally, for a variety of reasons.

I lifted the above from this sub-forum:

http://www.spiralinear.org/forumdisplay.php?fid=17&page=1
Yeah, that sounds like a security nightmare, but I am sure there are many who use it and like it.

[jerenept]

It's not even that heavy memory-wise. Having been turned off Opera a couple of years ago, I hadn't been using it until one of the recent web-browser-related topics, but I'm really liking it. I didn't know what I wanted in a browser, but this turned out to be it. It seems at least as fast as Chrome, it has some extra features (unlike Chrome) that are actually useful (unlike Firefox), and it actually looks modern, with things like the tab previews and tab switcher. Better font smoothing, better smooth scrolling, better tab management, etc.

If it could deal with Flash or had more than three add-ons, it'd be perfect.

Set it to only enable flash on demand (Preferences>Advanced>Content>Enable Plug-ins only on demand)

Now THAT is a brilliant feature.

[Copper Bezel]

Ooh, that's ... that's really nice. Thanks!

[Lucradia]

Complete inability to use Flash, but able to compatibilize it via HTML5 somehow, thus vastly reducing the amount of resources needed for the browser.

NO WEBKIT. Webkit has some serious issues on some of the websites I visit. So does Trident. (Bestbuy.com, DHTML heavy, etc.)

FULL GREASEMONKEY API as an add-on (For Homestar All-In-One to work; since it can only work on the original version of Greasemonkey for Firefox. The coder for Homestar All-In-One said he cannot possibly re-code it to not use the API that's included with greasemonkey, and therefore, there will never be compatible versions of it for such browsers as Opera, Midori, Chrome, etc.)

Minimize tabs so that only a sliver of them appear in the tab area, to save valuable space. When you hover over them, they'd ease out and show the full tab.

No Omnibar anymore. The bar should only be used for address input, do not store corrections or recently entered information. Add an option to search via the bar, but do not put back the omnibar functions.

The loading progress should be on each tab, not in its own place, therefore, the tip of the tabs should show a small line progression or a pie (like Firefox 4) in each tab. Though, with the above minimizing of tabs, a line progression would be better, and wouldn't obstruct the loading site ico file.

LIVE Tab previews, as in, when a video is playing in a preview, it should be showing as playing, NOT a black box. On these tab previews, the tab preview should expand from the tab when you hover over it for a certain amount of time (indicated by a line on the right side of said tab, slowly moving downward until it hits the end of the tab height, in which, the tab will expand to show a preview fully on screen as if it were an open tab. Clicking anywhere on this "preview" would cause it to become the active tab, removing the right-side progress line on the tab, then minimizing it like above.)

No support for theme/UI customization (except for re-arrangement of buttons, etc). This often is one of the biggest hits to the performance of said browser. This means: No special colors, images, etc.

Automatically dis-approve any, and all, extensions that add: Smiley functionality to things, WYSIWYG BBCode editors, etc. If admins of forums wanted to enable these things, then they would have, don't allow us to do it for them.

Disable CTRL+Click (Firefox only) to select elements for viewing in source. Only enable CTRL+Select for multi-selecting across paragraphs.

Remove the source viewing portion of the browser, and only have it as an add-on for those who really need it. Same with the Java Console / Error Console, Page Info, Image Info, etc. These should be part of a "Developer Tools" Add-on.

I could go into more, but I'm really tired.

[ki4jgt]

Complete inability to use Flash, but able to compatibilize it via HTML5 somehow, thus vastly reducing the amount of resources needed for the browser.

NO WEBKIT. Webkit has some serious issues on some of the websites I visit. So does Trident. (Bestbuy.com, DHTML heavy, etc.)

FULL GREASEMONKEY API as an add-on (For Homestar All-In-One to work; since it can only work on the original version of Greasemonkey for Firefox. The coder for Homestar All-In-One said he cannot possibly re-code it to not use the API that's included with greasemonkey, and therefore, there will never be compatible versions of it for such browsers as Opera, Midori, Chrome, etc.)

Minimize tabs so that only a sliver of them appear in the tab area, to save valuable space. When you hover over them, they'd ease out and show the full tab.

No Omnibar anymore. The bar should only be used for address input, do not store corrections or recently entered information. Add an option to search via the bar, but do not put back the omnibar functions.

The loading progress should be on each tab, not in its own place, therefore, the tip of the tabs should show a small line progression or a pie (like Firefox 4) in each tab. Though, with the above minimizing of tabs, a line progression would be better, and wouldn't obstruct the loading site ico file.

LIVE Tab previews, as in, when a video is playing in a preview, it should be showing as playing, NOT a black box. On these tab previews, the tab preview should expand from the tab when you hover over it for a certain amount of time (indicated by a line on the right side of said tab, slowly moving downward until it hits the end of the tab height, in which, the tab will expand to show a preview fully on screen as if it were an open tab. Clicking anywhere on this "preview" would cause it to become the active tab, removing the right-side progress line on the tab, then minimizing it like above.)

No support for theme/UI customization (except for re-arrangement of buttons, etc). This often is one of the biggest hits to the performance of said browser. This means: No special colors, images, etc.

Automatically dis-approve any, and all, extensions that add: Smiley functionality to things, WYSIWYG BBCode editors, etc. If admins of forums wanted to enable these things, then they would have, don't allow us to do it for them.

Disable CTRL+Click (Firefox only) to select elements for viewing in source. Only enable CTRL+Select for multi-selecting across paragraphs.

Remove the source viewing portion of the browser, and only have it as an add-on for those who really need it. Same with the Java Console / Error Console, Page Info, Image Info, etc. These should be part of a "Developer Tools" Add-on.

I could go into more, but I'm really tired.

I like this, however, I am going to have to use webkit. I've tested it and found nothing wrong with the sites I visit, Could you provide a site where I might be able to see what is going on? The loading bar is at the bottom of the screen and disappears after page loads. How about doing away with tabs altogether? Or relacating them to the same bar the address bar is located on? Doesn't waste any space this way.

[Copper Bezel]

Some of those ideas make sense, and I get that all of them are of course just your personal preferences, not actual suggestions for making a browser better objectively, but can I ask why no auto-complete for the address bar? Also, live previews for tabs would consume a great deal more resources than UI skinning (although I agree with the result, just not the rationale.)

And what's your beef with View Source? Admittedly, it isn't useful to anyone who isn't at least an amateur developer, but I'm curious.

[Lucradia]

Some of those ideas make sense, and I get that all of them are of course just your personal preferences, not actual suggestions for making a browser better objectively, but can I ask why no auto-complete for the address bar? Also, live previews for tabs would consume a great deal more resources than UI skinning (although I agree with the result, just not the rationale.)

And what's your beef with View Source? Admittedly, it isn't useful to anyone who isn't at least an amateur developer, but I'm curious.

1. The auto-complete is not really needed as a forced-option by default. It's rather annoying going into Firefox's about:config all the time just to search for maxRichResults, and set it to 0. But I guess that's my preference.

2. Not if the program uses 2D Acceleration rather than 3D (But this would disallow Aero to take-advantage of it easily.) The live previews would use the Window system, rather than the GUI / API of Firefox. It would have Windows or X-Window call to gecko directly.

3. View source is often used on newgrounds.com so that people can download SWFs so that they can view the SWF raw (to bypass locking out flash menus in case the SWF doesn't play.)