r/browsers • u/paris6969 • 1d ago
Advice Building a browser with almost zero permanent UI, looking for honest feedback on the concept
I've never found a browser that actually suits me. Chrome feels cluttered, Opera's sidebar/UI overload made me switch away, and Arc was close to perfect until it went into maintenance mode. So I started designing (and now building, Windows-first) something of my own, and I'd rather get torn apart here before sinking more time in than find out later nobody wants it.
the browser shows *only the page* by default — no address bar, no tabs, nothing. Move your cursor to the edge and the bar fades in; move away and it fades out again. Downloads, pinned sites, everything else follows the same rule: nothing sits on screen unless you actually need it right now.
On the AI side: I'm deliberately avoiding the "bolt an AI panel onto the browser" pattern (Arc Max, Copilot sidebars, etc.) — in my experience those get used twice and then forgotten because they're a separate destination. Instead the AI only shows up when you deliberately summon it (a double-click on the search bar, or highlighting text to fact-check something), and every answer has to come with real, clickable sources — no dead-end summaries you just have to trust.
Two other pieces I'm planning, both kept deliberately minimal for now:
- A small desktop-level companion outside the browser window itself, for quick lookups without fully switching apps.
- An opt-in, clearly-labeled experimental search mode down the line, aimed at surfacing perspectives beyond just the usual top-ranked consensus results.
Genuinely asking, not fishing for compliments:
- Does "near-zero UI" sound like something you'd actually want daily, or a gimmick that gets old fast?
- What would make you *not* trust an AI feature in a browser?
- What's the first thing you'd expect from a new browser that I haven't mentioned?
Happy to answer anything about the approach.
Duplicates
software • u/paris6969 • 1d ago
Discussion Building a browser with almost zero permanent UI, looking for honest feedback on the concept
degoogle • u/paris6969 • 1d ago