Nook Browser

[LoganDark]

I think I like the idea, but the structure of the code doesn't look the best. What most sticks out to me is the "Managers" directory. I've seen similar patterns before, even at my current place of work, but they seem to correlate with less experienced implementations. For instance, I clicked on one of them randomly and already found an issue: https://github.com/nook-browser/Nook/blob/09a4c6957a2e9fd7c5...

I guess `www.` (and only `www.`) is always special, and the only TLDs with two components are `"co.uk", "co.jp", "com.au", "co.nz", "com.br"`?

I don't know how critical this "Manager" is (what even is a "boost"?), but a web browser should absolutely have a proper list of TLDs!

[SoKamil]

> What most sticks out to me is the "Managers" directory. I've seen similar patterns before, even at my current place of work, but they seem to correlate with less experienced implementations

What is wrong with such structure? How would you structure this code? Genuinely asking

[grodriguez100]

Uh oh. Looks bad.

[normie3000]

> the only TLDs with two components are `"co.uk", "co.jp", "com.au", "co.nz", "com.br".

Is this sarcasm? The public suffix list will give some ideas for omissions: https://publicsuffix.org/list/public_suffix_list.dat

[GaryBluto]

I see we're heading back to the days of MDI web browsers, slowly but surely. It's really strange to me how web browsers used to allow so much configuration (like the option to use MDI tab/window management or just generic tiling) but don't anymore. I've been hoping a browser comes out that is just Opera 8/9 but with the ability to browse the modern web so maybe with the advent of all these new browsers I should start taking a look.

[GaryBluto]

To reply to a comment that was deleted by the time I finished writing:

"I've been experimenting with old UNIX systems recently and have come to somewhat similar conclusions. (Regarding software like window managers becoming more simplistic and some programs having to poorly attempt to pick up the slack themselves)

It feels like open source software projects shifted from making 'program' and instead tried to make "alternative version of windows program". Looking at these old systems I see all these options and intuitive ideas, even down the metaphors used to describe actions. Last time I used a modern UNIX desktop environment it felt like everything was just trying to be a simplistic Windows alternative instead of a good operating system."

[nicman23]

killing xul was the worst decision after the australis redesign

[art0rz]

Opera 9 was peak browser

[amadeuspagel]

You can right-click on a tab in chrome to "add tab to split view" now. You can then choose another tab to display together with this one.

[paradox460]

Vivaldi has had tiling for a while now. It's not quite free form mdi, but it beats opening two windows next to each other

[hdjrudni]

Vivaldi allows quite a bit of customization...

[paradox460]

Vivaldi has had tiling for a while now. It's not quite free form mdi, but it beats opening two windows next to each other

[Suppafly]

I'm sure Barnes and Noble will have no problem with the name.

[sph]

New browser starter pack:

* Fancy logo

* Blink engine so it's basically Chrome like every other alternative browser

* Mention of AI somewhere on the website

* Minimal UI clearly inspired by Safari

* Heartfelt promises of speed and privacy

* macOS only

[frizlab]

The engine of this browser is Webkit.

[ares623]

* made with <3 by humans

[RestartKernel]

> Minimal UI clearly inspired by Safari

More like Arc † nowadays.

[KitN]

I was looking for a good browser. I’m finally interning, and Brave has taken over as my official browser(I don’t like the concept of workspaces/profiles). I used Comet for a while but found it extremely annoying. I like Zen, but I’m not a fan of sidebars in browsers. Currently settled on Helium. This would have been good, but I can’t seem to understand the obsession with sidebars.

[splatter9859]

I need someone to explain to me, at length, at some point in my life the value proposition of Brave and what it brings to the table that other browsers do not.

For example, most of the key differentiators of Brave could be accomplished similarly in Firebox with a litany of extensions -- such as UBlock Origin as just one example -- or Privacy Badger if you'd like to be less 'heavy handed'.

The only other differentiator I see is the use of cryptocurrency as a way of compensating users for watching ads and the use of a crypto wallet; which if your not interested in such functionality is meaningless.

Yet I see very educated, competent, and intellegent people I've known for years be advocates and at some points "zealots" over the browser.

I would love to understand this. I'm honestly open to discussing this in good faith as I would like to understand the benefit here, and if I am somehow missing something will be the first to admit I was ignorant.

[TomMasz]

Interestingly enough, Kagi has a new browser, Orion, that's also WebKit-based. Besides the obvious macOS, it's in Alpha for Linux and "in development" for Windows. May the best non-Chromium browser win!

https://blog.kagi.com/orion

[cyber_kinetist]

Kinda interesting that they were able to resurrect the WebKit engine on Windows, might have been quite an engineering feat. In the past (2007-2012) Apple distributed a Windows version of Safari, but it's been more than a decade since it was deprecated and the engine only supported Apple's ecosystem.

[monooso]

Both the browser and the website look remarkably similar to https://zen-browser.app/.

[pmkary]

Because both are trying to be response to the death of Browser Company's Arc. (https://arc.net)

[robot-wrangler]

Switched to zen recently, and although I only expected a slightly different experience to firefox, it's hugely better. Profiles/containers/workspaces especially are great.. this level or organization fits my mental model much better and and I never need to manage bookmarks or use multiple windows. (Performance with large numbers of tabs seems much better too, presumably inactive workspaces are reclaiming the memory in smart ways).

[jakozaur]

Looks like Arc, would love to migrate out of it after migration, but always worry about maintenance. Creating a browser is "easy", keeping it up to date is a lot of work, and many open-source browsers look semi-abandoned to me.

[bpavuk]

Zen is actually solid these days. being a Firefox-based browser, it has its quirks, (i.e. Theo complained about gradient rendering or whatever, but who cares?) but it's still the best Arc-like we currently have.

plus, you get synchronization across desktop (Zen) and mobile (Firefox for iPhone/Android). since Google limited theirs only to official Chrome, this feature is basically exclusive to Firefox and forks, Arc <-> Arc Search, and Chrome for desktop <-> Chrome for mobile.

[udave]

the sidebar was the best feature in Arc imo. I gave zen a shot just because of that and it was not a great experience to be honest. First, migration was buggy, then the sidebar lacked some basic features like renaming the tabs even though it looked similar. Nook seems to follow in the same footsteps I just hope that they nail the sidebar like Arc. Tab management is a mess and this has so much potential. All the best to both Zen and Nook.

[bpavuk]

modern Zen is a lot better than then :)

the only missing from the sidebar thing is Library as a central place to manage downloads, spaces, and history. and although the downloads window looks a bit unsexy, it's totally enough

[gitmagic]

> When enabled, they provide helpful tools such as chat assistance, summaries, up-to-date web insights, and more.

I find this sentence to be a little odd. Who are “they”?

[jb1991]

The previous sentence introduces the subject.

[petesergeant]

AI features, presumably

[amitav1]

The AI.

[rezaprima]

"This software does not run on macOS versions older than Sequoia.". Is there any reason I should upgrade from Sonoma ?

[65]

It's nice, but it feels like Yet Another Browser.

I'm interested in seeing all the new browsers that will come out in the next few years that are based off Ladybird. Or alternatively what Ladybird will enable in terms of customization. I think the days of Chromium/WebKit/Gecko forks are numbered.

[normie3000]

> I think the days of Chromium/WebKit/Gecko forks are numbered.

I'm going out on a limb here and betting they're numbered in the high thousands minimum.

[jollyjerry]

Lot of nostalgia today. This brings me back to compiling Camino, a gecko based browser, on my iBook G4.

[stuartd]

I loved Camino. I think I still have the binary on my MBA just to look at the icon and sigh

[wyre]

Am I the only one that thinks "No selling of browsing data. Ever." implies that you're still harvesting browsing data? That is a level of telemetry that I don't want my browser having.

[aorth]

Right, as I read that I also thought, "Wait a sec, do they have the user's browsing data?" They should say "Your browsing data is local and we don't even have it!" instead.

[jonathantf2]

Thought this was a browser for my e-reader

[neilv]

I won't be surprised if B&N does a C&D on this particular trademark infringement.

Nook is a well-known brand in consumer tech, ereaders aren't that far removed from Web browsers, Nooks have a Web browser, and B&N also has a "Nook for Web".

[Hackbraten]

I was hoping for an Animal Crossing themed browser where instead of an AI assistant, we'd get Tom Nook.

[normie3000]

I still want something constructive to do with mine - what a sweet bit of hardware.

[cjohnson318]

Same.

[Zambyte]

The website says:

> Open-source forever

> Transparent code, permissive license, and a community-driven roadmap.

Which I was going to mention is contradictory, because the point of permissive licenses is that it does not have to be Free forever. But the license is actually GPLv3 instead. So still contradictory wording, but the "permissive" is the part that isn't correct :-)

[dragonwriter]

> Which I was going to mention is contradictory, because the point of permissive licenses is that it does not have to be Free forever.

No, the point of permissive licenses is that third-party derivatives, which have no impact on the licensing of the original, don't have to be free ever, while the point of copyleft licenses is that they do.

Neither has any effect whatsoever on what future first-party licensing can be; a commitment to "open source forever" by the copyright owner is mostly orthogonal to what kind of open source license the copyright owner offers. (Now, its true that if the owner accepted contributions under a copyright license rather than under a CLA, they would likely have no practical choice but copyleft now and forever, but that's an issue of the license they accept on what they can offer, not an effect of what they offer itself.)

(OTOH, using "permissive" for GPLv3, a copyleft license, is actually contradictory, as you correctly note.)

[prmoustache]

The license of the code released under a permissive license is guaranteed to stay the same.

Only the code that is yet to be released is not.

From an end user perspective BSD/MIT and GPLvX licences offer the same guarantees. It only is different if you are a contributor or if you intend to distribute modified or unmodified code yourself.

[enthdegree]

Another thing called nook? Another browser? Bad, presumptuous name. How many months will this project last?

[balamatom]

inb4 rebrand to "nuke"

[linkage]

How is built-in ad blocking not the foremost priority? Brave and Comet both have it. uBlock Origin is not as effective as it used to be as of Manifest v3.

[TheRoque]

uBlock is still as efficient if you're using Mozilla, blame the browser not the extension

[idle_zealot]

What's up with all the Arc clones? Did people really like the 3-tier tab sidebar thing that much?

[chrysoprace]

Zen (Firefox-based) has been really refreshing. You could probably accomplish the same thing with some user scripts and user CSS, but the concern with those has always been that they could break at any time with a new update. That shouldn't happen with a fork like Zen as they have control over updates.

[anjel]

Who knew you could yearn so much for mousewheel scrolling?

[dartharva]

Precisely what I was wondering

[hjkl0]

Yes

[bdcravens]

Given the background color of the site, I initially thought it was a Barnes and Noble project.

[theoldgreybeard]

This looks exactly like Zen...?

[forgotpwd16]

Similar to Zen, it's an open source Arc* clone but WebKit rather Blink/Gecko-based that Arc/Zen are. *Explains "not owned by Atlassian" in about since Arc/Dia dev company was bought by Atlassian.