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OpenCiv3: Open-source, cross-platform reimagining of Civilization III

https://openciv3.org/
510•klaussilveira•8h ago•141 comments

The Waymo World Model

https://waymo.com/blog/2026/02/the-waymo-world-model-a-new-frontier-for-autonomous-driving-simula...
849•xnx•14h ago•507 comments

How we made geo joins 400× faster with H3 indexes

https://floedb.ai/blog/how-we-made-geo-joins-400-faster-with-h3-indexes
61•matheusalmeida•1d ago•12 comments

Show HN: Look Ma, No Linux: Shell, App Installer, Vi, Cc on ESP32-S3 / BreezyBox

https://github.com/valdanylchuk/breezydemo
168•isitcontent•9h ago•20 comments

Monty: A minimal, secure Python interpreter written in Rust for use by AI

https://github.com/pydantic/monty
171•dmpetrov•9h ago•77 comments

Show HN: I spent 4 years building a UI design tool with only the features I use

https://vecti.com
282•vecti•11h ago•127 comments

Dark Alley Mathematics

https://blog.szczepan.org/blog/three-points/
64•quibono•4d ago•11 comments

Microsoft open-sources LiteBox, a security-focused library OS

https://github.com/microsoft/litebox
340•aktau•15h ago•165 comments

Show HN: If you lose your memory, how to regain access to your computer?

https://eljojo.github.io/rememory/
228•eljojo•11h ago•142 comments

Sheldon Brown's Bicycle Technical Info

https://www.sheldonbrown.com/
333•ostacke•15h ago•90 comments

Hackers (1995) Animated Experience

https://hackers-1995.vercel.app/
425•todsacerdoti•16h ago•221 comments

Unseen Footage of Atari Battlezone Arcade Cabinet Production

https://arcadeblogger.com/2026/02/02/unseen-footage-of-atari-battlezone-cabinet-production/
4•videotopia•3d ago•0 comments

An Update on Heroku

https://www.heroku.com/blog/an-update-on-heroku/
365•lstoll•15h ago•253 comments

PC Floppy Copy Protection: Vault Prolok

https://martypc.blogspot.com/2024/09/pc-floppy-copy-protection-vault-prolok.html
35•kmm•4d ago•2 comments

Delimited Continuations vs. Lwt for Threads

https://mirageos.org/blog/delimcc-vs-lwt
11•romes•4d ago•1 comments

Show HN: ARM64 Android Dev Kit

https://github.com/denuoweb/ARM64-ADK
12•denuoweb•1d ago•1 comments

Why I Joined OpenAI

https://www.brendangregg.com/blog/2026-02-07/why-i-joined-openai.html
85•SerCe•4h ago•66 comments

How to effectively write quality code with AI

https://heidenstedt.org/posts/2026/how-to-effectively-write-quality-code-with-ai/
214•i5heu•11h ago•160 comments

Show HN: R3forth, a ColorForth-inspired language with a tiny VM

https://github.com/phreda4/r3
59•phreda4•8h ago•11 comments

Introducing the Developer Knowledge API and MCP Server

https://developers.googleblog.com/introducing-the-developer-knowledge-api-and-mcp-server/
35•gfortaine•6h ago•9 comments

Female Asian Elephant Calf Born at the Smithsonian National Zoo

https://www.si.edu/newsdesk/releases/female-asian-elephant-calf-born-smithsonians-national-zoo-an...
16•gmays•4h ago•2 comments

I spent 5 years in DevOps – Solutions engineering gave me what I was missing

https://infisical.com/blog/devops-to-solutions-engineering
123•vmatsiiako•13h ago•51 comments

Learning from context is harder than we thought

https://hy.tencent.com/research/100025?langVersion=en
160•limoce•3d ago•80 comments

Understanding Neural Network, Visually

https://visualrambling.space/neural-network/
258•surprisetalk•3d ago•34 comments

I now assume that all ads on Apple news are scams

https://kirkville.com/i-now-assume-that-all-ads-on-apple-news-are-scams/
1022•cdrnsf•18h ago•425 comments

FORTH? Really!?

https://rescrv.net/w/2026/02/06/associative
53•rescrv•16h ago•17 comments

Evaluating and mitigating the growing risk of LLM-discovered 0-days

https://red.anthropic.com/2026/zero-days/
44•lebovic•1d ago•13 comments

WebView performance significantly slower than PWA

https://issues.chromium.org/issues/40817676
14•denysonique•5h ago•1 comments

I'm going to cure my girlfriend's brain tumor

https://andrewjrod.substack.com/p/im-going-to-cure-my-girlfriends-brain
99•ray__•5h ago•49 comments

Show HN: Smooth CLI – Token-efficient browser for AI agents

https://docs.smooth.sh/cli/overview
81•antves•1d ago•59 comments
Open in hackernews

Nook Browser

https://browsewithnook.com
138•ray__•2mo ago

Comments

idle_zealot•2mo ago
What's up with all the Arc clones? Did people really like the 3-tier tab sidebar thing that much?
hjkl0•2mo ago
Yes
chrysoprace•2mo ago
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.
orbital-decay•2mo ago
Does it do anything that Sidebery doesn't?
chrysoprace•2mo ago
An integrated experience. In the past I found that the vertical tab options in Firefox had the tabs duplicated across the side and the top, which I always found to be a subpar experience. Again, probably something you could accomplish with user.js and user.css but there's a good chance an update could break your modifications.
gcr•2mo ago
If you haven't tried firefox' vertical tabs recently, try it again. Firefox's default vertical tabs UI is quite nice now.
chrysoprace•2mo ago
Seems quite similar to Zen's experience, except it seems to be missing folders (which I admittedly don't use often, but they're sometimes handy to group a Jira ticket with a PR, or similar). I'll probably still stick with Zen while it's around, and maybe I'll hop over to LibreWolf as I'm not too happy about Mozilla's recent stance on privacy.
FuturisticGoo•2mo ago
Is it similar to tab groups? It's available on Firefox Nightly, don't know about stable.
chrysoprace•2mo ago
Maybe! Folders in Zen let you group, label and collapse tabs, so if that's the same thing then yes.
irilesscent•2mo ago
I found it too buggy in my usage, it just doesn't compare to the polish in Zen or the other forks. Better just to use the horizontal tabs IMO.
forgotpwd16•2mo ago
>there's a good chance an update

Using TST and have tabs hidden few years now. So although there's a chance, it certainly isn't something that happens often.

anjel•2mo ago
Who knew you could yearn so much for mousewheel scrolling?
dartharva•2mo ago
Precisely what I was wondering
linkage•2mo ago
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•2mo ago
uBlock is still as efficient if you're using Mozilla, blame the browser not the extension
darthcircuit•2mo ago
Very correct. I’m on Zen and UBO works great for me. Chrome based browsers are screwed for ads
LoganDark•2mo ago
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!

normie3000•2mo ago
> 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

LoganDark•2mo ago
That was me pointing out what was plainly implemented in the code snippet I linked. It is obviously nowhere near the truth.
monerozcash•2mo ago
> and the only TLDs with two components are `"co.uk", "co.jp", "com.au", "co.nz", "com.br"`?

There are a plenty of reasons why you might want to treat the most common two part TLDs as special, while not doing that with the less common ones.

ziml77•2mo ago
And those reasons would be...?
valleyer•2mo ago
Right; top-level comment is saying that those are all missing from the linked code.
grodriguez100•2mo ago
Uh oh. Looks bad.
SoKamil•2mo ago
> 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

LoganDark•2mo ago
There are no peer-reviewed studies yet for me to corroborate this with, but I've seen this pattern primarily from a specific type of autistic, and it's similar to an actor pattern: a Manager is expected to entirely "manage" whatever feature it's concerned with. This is usually different from a simple module by not collecting related functionality regarding the feature, but rather trying to contain the entire feature itself.

This typically creates artifacts like each "Manager" owning too much of its implementation (not benefiting from or contributing to shared structures, such as a proper domain suffix list), inconsistency between different parts of the app (since different "Managers" don't necessarily share common patterns between them), and tons of hooks into random "Managers" all over the code.

To me, it feels a bit like an "emotionally driven" architecture, where the organization of the code is based on the list of features of the app, and not based on the implementation of those features. So rather than having, for example, a drag and drop component for the tabs to use, you would have, for example, a ReorderingTabsManager, and the implementation may behave differently than drag and drop in other places. So rather than factoring out code into modules for deduplication, you're making modules ("Managers") based on where they are in the product, and duplicating functionality across each module, to varying standards of completeness and/or quality.

Now I don't know if this project is quite that egregious, but it hopefully illustrates why I raise an eyebrow when I see a project architected this way.

BigBoiKahuna•2mo ago
What the hell are you talking about?
LoganDark•1mo ago
I don't mind explaining, but can you elaborate on what part of my comment is confusing to you?
Zambyte•2mo ago
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•2mo ago
> 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.)

Zambyte•2mo ago
You keep saying "no" and then agreeing with me.

> 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.

This should read "Yes, [...]".

The point of permissive licenses is for people to sublicense it. You can use this to sublicense the software using a license that actually enforces it must remain Free (see Redict for an example) but it is almost always the case that someone uses this headlining feature of permissive licenses to lock the code up and extract rent.

Your next paragraph frames single contributor or CLA as the two primary development patterns, when that those are absolutely the exception, especially if we exclude repos for things like AoC our homework, which are mostly single contributor.

prmoustache•2mo ago
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.

Zambyte•2mo ago
> The license of the code released under a permissive license is guaranteed to stay the same.

It's guaranteed to have at least the terms of the permissive license (usually requiring attribution), but no, it does not guarantee code released under a permissive license will remain available under permissive terms. That is literally the point of the permissive terms: so people can apply more terms under a sublicense.

> From an end user perspective BSD/MIT and GPLvX licences offer the same guarantees.

No they don't. I can decide to stop distributing a BSD/MIT licensed application in both source and binary form, in favor of only distributing it in binary form under a sublicense. As a user, this is not "open source forever". This is "open source until we use the distinguishing feature of the license to make it not open source".

GPL, assuming multiple contributors and no CLA (both of which are extremely common) ensures this cannot legally happen (unless they somehow get all contributors to agree against their exercised rights).

jonathantf2•2mo ago
Thought this was a browser for my e-reader
cjohnson318•2mo ago
Same.
normie3000•2mo ago
I still want something constructive to do with mine - what a sweet bit of hardware.
1317•2mo ago
read books?
neilv•2mo ago
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•2mo ago
I was hoping for an Animal Crossing themed browser where instead of an AI assistant, we'd get Tom Nook.
monooso•2mo ago
Both the browser and the website look remarkably similar to https://zen-browser.app/.
pmkary•2mo ago
Because both are trying to be response to the death of Browser Company's Arc. (https://arc.net)
twostorytower•2mo ago
The browser designs look identical to Arc, yes, but the website of these two new “Arc responses” also look the same, down to the background color.
irilesscent•2mo ago
The only difference is zen is Firefox based while arc and nook are chromium based.
arthurfm•2mo ago
According to their FAQ, Nook is WebKit-based.
irilesscent•2mo ago
Oops I misunderstood, I thought the fact that it ran chrome extensions meant it was chromium based. Thanks.
robot-wrangler•2mo ago
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).
bdcravens•2mo ago
Given the background color of the site, I initially thought it was a Barnes and Noble project.
65•2mo ago
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•2mo ago
> 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.

agoodusername63•2mo ago
chromium/blink is going to be ship of theseus'd before it "dies" imo
theoldgreybeard•2mo ago
This looks exactly like Zen...?
forgotpwd16•2mo ago
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.
enthdegree•2mo ago
Another thing called nook? Another browser? Bad, presumptuous name. How many months will this project last?
balamatom•2mo ago
inb4 rebrand to "nuke"
GaryBluto•2mo ago
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.
art0rz•2mo ago
Opera 9 was peak browser
jauntywundrkind•2mo ago
Opera 10 was getting into some wild stuff. 9 was obviously just winning. But I loved how 10 literally gave you the user your own endpoints on the web. The browser is the server (by way of proxy)! Massively inspirational decentralization. https://www.ctrl.blog/entry/opera-unite.html
andrewl-hn•2mo ago
Other parts were legendary, too.

* They came with a mail and chat (IRC) clients, a download manager, a set of browser dev tools, and in the age of limited internet traffic all of that was smaller than a single download of Firefox.

* Their dev tools were the first that allowed remote debugging. You could run Opera on your phone (Symbian, Windows Mobile, early Android) and debug your website from a computer.

* They were the first browser to sync your bookmarks, settings, history, extensions across devices.

* They were the first to add process isolation, albeit initially on Linux only. If an extension crashed your page it didn't take the whole browser down with it. This was later added first by Microsoft in IE8 and then by Google in Chrome.

Their browser was a brilliant piece of tech and a brilliant product. Too bad that the product couldn't survive under pressure.

GaryBluto•2mo ago
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."

SSLy•2mo ago
It's painful how good WindowMaker could've been
jauntywundrkind•2mo ago
I've spent decades being unclear about what the WindowMaker value proposition is.

Is there something deeper here? Because on the surface it primarily looks like some desktop widgets/dock-apps. Which isn't bad, it's more than the irrelevancy of the desktop today! widgets are great!

But I always feel like there was something more weird & implied with WindowMaker. Maybe just that it was taken as heir apparent to NeXTSTEP. But did it actually have interesting data systems, could apps talk? Or was it still lots of isolated micro-apps/desktop widgets?

actionfromafar•2mo ago
To me I always assumed it was heir apparent to NeXTSTEP. I feel like there was a lot of missed opportunities back in the day. Imagine all the manpower going into Gnome and/or KDE going into GNUStep and keeping up with Apple APIs + embrace/extend of Apple APIs.
SSLy•2mo ago
Precisely. Gnome, KDE, XFCE, and literally any other Free Software DE implement the Windows kind of desktop organisation. While WindowMaker/GNUStep show what the unexplored future could've been.
jauntywundrkind•1mo ago
I hear this a lot, but I don't know why that's exciting. I remember using WindowMaker a bit as a kid & thinking it was fun & cool, liking the widgets, but it didn't strike me as radically different a desktop from everything else.

NeXTSTEP's own "Features and Benefits"[1] 6 pager doesn't particularly feel illuminating / compelling either. I'm interested in object integration, object persistence, and object linking, but I don't really know in practice what that was like or what was really there & used. The rest sounds fine & maybe quite advanced for it's age, but it's not clear to me that there was a bunch of material left unexplored over time. Other than what remains a really interesting but abstract idea, that I don't know how was used, of there being objects, somewhere, which plenty of programs individually have & which COM & DCOM had in Windows for years, which CORBA, DCOP, DBus and others also had.

I want a lot to know more. But I just don't know what exactly people are excited over. I don't know what remains novel, what got abandoned. It feels like an early version of a modern desktop, in any decent Linux compositor / display server.

[1] https://www.levenez.com/NeXTSTEP/NeXTSTEP.pdf

nicman23•2mo ago
killing xul was the worst decision after the australis redesign
m000•2mo ago
People seem to be forgetting how clunky and resource intensive XUL was, and how many times they had to kill xulrunner.exe just to keep their desktop running.
nicman23•2mo ago
literally never
hdjrudni•2mo ago
Vivaldi allows quite a bit of customization...
paradox460•2mo ago
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
paradox460•2mo ago
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
amadeuspagel•2mo ago
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.
Suppafly•2mo ago
they added tabs to tabs
gitmagic•2mo ago
> 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”?

petesergeant•2mo ago
AI features, presumably
jb1991•2mo ago
The previous sentence introduces the subject.
amitav1•2mo ago
The AI.
udave•2mo ago
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•2mo ago
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

jakozaur•2mo ago
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•2mo ago
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.

SSLy•2mo ago
Well, Vivaldi and Brave also can sync with mobile products.
bpavuk•2mo ago
yeah, but you have to download their mobile counterpart as well. you can't have e.g. Chrome desktop and Brave mobile work together. meanwhile, any Firefox syncs with any Firefox
tamimio•2mo ago
Zen was solid, after a while it turned to a browser full of bugs, crashes, and too much UI changes it rendered it unstable for me had to ditch it. And reporting the bugs goes to nothing and never getting resolved, one simple bug was the pinned tab, where it supposedly to be pinned but scrolling will take it out of your view, and it was never resolved for months last time I used the browser.
wyre•2mo ago
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•2mo ago
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.
KitN•2mo ago
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•2mo ago
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.

marcwebbie•2mo ago
For me the reasons for using brave for over an year now are: - no ads, no trackers and they are transparent about it - I can install chrome extensions - I don’t feel like I am handing all my data to Google - overall feels faster even with dozens for tabs open
splatter9859•2mo ago
I get that and it makes sense. What distinguishing features does it have that keeps you coming back to Brave that, say, Edge or Chrome or even Firefox doesn't bring? I ask because most of the items you listed could be accomplished in other browsers with extensions.

Just trying to find the secret sauce that keeps people coming back specifically to Brave.

I really appreciate you engaging and listing your reasons! Thank you for sharing your viewpoint and why you enjoy Brave.

theandrewbailey•2mo ago
> I ask because most of the items you listed could be accomplished in other browsers with extensions.

Having functionality in extensions adds friction. You'll have to remember which ones you used and install them separately when you do a new install. Also remember that Android and iOS browsers (usually) don't have extensions, so having adblock built-in is advantageous.

pseudo_meta•2mo ago
I use Brave, and for me it's really just the least bad option.

Firefox-based browsers do not support macOS automation (AppleScript/JXA). Safari lacks features/extensions. Orion/Vivaldi had bugs any time I tried them.

From the Chrimium-based browsers I tried, Brave blocks ads, supports PWAs, the crypto stuff can be turned off, and is stable. Brave does not excite me, but it's good enough.

linkage•2mo ago
At least a year ago, Chromium-based browsers were significantly more secure than Firefox, as measured by the rate at which high severity vulnerabilities were discovered every month and the ease with which Firefox would be hacked in competitions.

The trouble with Chrome is that it is deliberately configured to maximize Google's ad revenue. The omnibar does not show you recently visited websites when you start typing something because they want you to do another Google search so they can serve you more ads. The new extension model deliberately neutered the most effective ad blockers available.

Brave is Chrome without the perverse incentives. Their developers take a security-first approach to everything, to the extent of explicitly _not_ having a centralized sync service for bookmarks, passwords, etc. They have an excellent content blocker built in, thereby doing an end-run around Chrome's new extension model. The crypto wallet and Brave ads are optional - you can disable both in the settings very easily. And since it's a Chromium variant, you can use all of the existing Chrome extensions for third party software like 1Password and the like.

chasil•2mo ago
I will admit to you that Brave historically had many problems with bad behavior:

https://old.reddit.com/r/browsers/comments/1j1pq7b/list_of_b...

The lobste.rs site has taken hostile speps towards Brave:

https://lobste.rs/s/iopw1d/what_s_up_with_lobste_rs_blocking...

Still, Brave does offer a few unique advantages.

- it is equivalent to Chrome on sites that require it, and does not have the compatibility problems of Firefox

- Ad block is built in

- it is easily available if you are not running Play and GMS

- it is a mature browser, where most everything works as expected

- the bad aesthetic choices that have been introduced to Brave so far are easily undone

No, it's not perfect, but there are use cases.

monerozcash•2mo ago
None of those seem like unique advantages. In fact, the only advantage there seems to be "Ad block is built in", which is still a dubious advantage at best.
chasil•2mo ago
To you, perhaps.
monerozcash•2mo ago
You could install Brave, or you could install adblock for the browser you're already using. It doesn't seem like much of an advantage for Brave to ship with adblock built-in, given that everybody already uses a web browser.
chasil•2mo ago
So it might seem to you.
monerozcash•2mo ago
Do you come on HN just to troll? Why even bother hitting the reply button if you don't have an actual reply to offer?

If you enjoy HN, consider that if comments like yours were the norm, nobody would use this website and it would die.

chasil•2mo ago
Why, do you?

Perhaps quibbling over an upvoted comment is a pattern that tires me.

You karma cumulative karma is around 120 if I read it correctly. Mine is 7356. I think I know how to turn a popular idiom.

monerozcash•2mo ago
A second spent thinking about HN karma is one too many.

>Perhaps quibbling over an upvoted comment is a pattern that tires me.

You could just simply not reply if you think I'm not engaging in good faith, as opposed to actively sabotaging the forum with pointless trolling. What's the point?

chasil•2mo ago
Because you are an interesting target.
lynndotpy•2mo ago
I use Brave, and I second the sentiment that it's the least bad of many bad choices. I say this as an opinionated person who has put a lot of effort into looking at alternatives. I've even spent time trying to use Epiphany and Lynx as my daily drivers.

I assume we would both already exclude the likes of Chrome, Edge, Opera, Safari, etc.

This will be a long reply though.

The TLDR is: Security is number one, so extensions are bad and built-in features are good. I hate the cryptocoin/adware/AI features but the degrading act of disabling it all is mercifully short. It also has to run on Linux, so I can't even consider browsers like Nook. Most important to me are the (1) Chrome features and (2) the Shields feature tacked on. I use profiles and shields very extensively.

The TLDR TLDR is: Shields good

---

Caveat with the below is that Brave is full of bullshit to disable, with a new piece of bullshit added every year or so. That disparaging term is not one I use lightly!

The bad aspects are made worse by the fact the CEO of Brave is a person who I generally don't trust. I've been using Brave for years with the understanding I might have to jump ship at any moment.

Onto the good things:

One of the necessary things it provides is a browser which I can use to browse the internet, including captchas. For my mileage, Firefox has been broken for me on every platform I've used it on, every time I've tried to get back into using it, for years. I've exhausted all the time I ever wish to spend trying to fix a browser. Since I could not use Firefox to browse, it was not an option for me.

A second necessary requirement is that the browser should be available on the major desktop and mobile OSes, especially Linux. So, Orion, Nook, etc. don't count as browsers to me.

A third necessary requirement are timely security updates. Last I checked, Brave got security fixes from Chrome on a timely basis. Nice.

Then, there are a bunch of nice to haves. Brave has the Chromes profile which I use heavily (although Firefox is set to get a clone of Chrome's profiles soon-- the existing 'profiles' and 'containers' solutions were not usable alternatives.)

A second nice-to-have is telemetry - how often is my browser making requests unrelated to browsing, and to how many parties? I last checked this years ago, but I remember Brave performing well here.

The third nice thing is the Shields feature, which I've come to rely on. (If Firefox copied this wholesale, like they're doing with Chrome profiles, that would be a major improvement.) It's an easy-to-use interface to block ads and JavaScript. It works on mobile as well, which is a huge advantage.

Shields can be replicated with extensions, but I try to minimize the extensions I use. Each extension requires permissions for every site (!!!) So, if just one of these extensions developers were compromised, or the extension itself had a vulnerability, then I would be compromised too.

pixelmelt•2mo ago
Would use Firefox on the main workstation if it had better devtools, other then that it just works and has some useful features, see: Tor and ipfs integration.
lachiflippi•2mo ago
Here's an exhaustive list of why I, personally, have been using Brave for years:

- vertical tabs

- maintained by more than a single person

- support for extensions

- not owned by China

- not Firefox

- not Edge*

All the AI and crypto slop can be turned off completely, so I don't care at all about features I never see after initial install.

*Edge is fine if properly configured via GPO, which I can neither be bothered to figure out how to do under Linux nor have the patience to do on my private Windows machines. Works great at work though.

sph•2mo ago
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

RestartKernel•2mo ago
> Minimal UI clearly inspired by Safari

More like Arc † nowadays.

frizlab•2mo ago
The engine of this browser is Webkit.
integricho•2mo ago
Anyone can slap a fancy UI on an existing engine and claim they made a browser. So many of them exist now, they don't matter anymore at all. This one will die in the crowd like every other wannabe browser. Build your own goddamn engine and then claim you made a browser, at least the Servo and Ladybird devs are doing some concrete work, not just pointless marketing and empty claims.
eviks•2mo ago
> Anyone can slap a fancy UI

It's the opposite, anyone can slap an existing good engine to a bad UI that works well on many sites because it already works for some major browser. Almost no one can slap a fancy UI, and none of these newly sprangeld browsers offer any, they are way closer to the basic fails for Chrome/Firefox where even changing the default keybinds in an exercise in futility, and all the other stuff is similarly bad - for example, in this browser while the have vertical tabs, the 9to5mac example website doesn't fit the tab name and has the … symbol, which is not fancy at all on its own (fancy UI would be something like non-space-wasting fade out instead of text replacement), but also is part of the same low-density-whitespace-wasteful UI nonsense you see everwhere else - while there is enough whitespace in the tabbbar to fit whole ~two next words "...Mac Rumours breaki"

Suppafly•2mo ago
>The engine of this browser is Webkit.

Thank you, I looked all over their site trying to figure out which engine they were using.

frizlab•2mo ago
My pleasure!

It’s hidden in the first answer in the FAQ at the bottom.

eviks•2mo ago
It's "hidden"in the very first feature point

> Fast by design … powered by WebKit.

frizlab•2mo ago
Oh yeah, somehow I missed it here ^^
ares623•2mo ago
* made with <3 by humans
jollyjerry•2mo ago
Lot of nostalgia today. This brings me back to compiling Camino, a gecko based browser, on my iBook G4.
stuartd•2mo ago
I loved Camino. I think I still have the binary on my MBA just to look at the icon and sigh
rezaprima•2mo ago
"This software does not run on macOS versions older than Sequoia.". Is there any reason I should upgrade from Sonoma ?
Suppafly•2mo ago
I'm sure Barnes and Noble will have no problem with the name.
TomMasz•2mo ago
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•2mo ago
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.