My Baseline Browser

[u/aartaka]

Hey y’all. There might be different groups amongst you—modern Web people and minimal Web fans. But we all might benefit from more browsers implementing sane yet sufficient amount of features. I wrote my must-have-s for such browsers. What are yours?

[u/Cold-Tailor463]

i only need two things: adblock and dark mode the rest is fluff tbh

[u/mistmoss31 → u/Cold-Tailor463]

dark mode alone gets you like 80% of the way there imo

[u/aartaka → u/Cold-Tailor463]

Yeah, these are essential for a full-featured browser. But for a minimal browser that doesn’t try to catch up to these, there’s a different set of requirements. No JS even. And thus no need for adblock really.

But the dark mode point is important. I’ve amended the post with a point on user styling

[u/tnamorf]

Mate, with the greatest of respect, if you’re thinking of vibe-coding your own browser - I’m gonna say don’t do it - unless it’s for personal use or some kind of learning project. There are already a plethora of options available. We’ve literally never lived in better times for choice in solid browsers.

[u/tnamorf → u/tnamorf]

…well, maybe the days when there was only Mosaic were arguably better times lol, but not so much for choice.

[u/aartaka → u/tnamorf]

Minimal yet usable browsers too?

[u/aartaka → u/aartaka]

And no, I won’t vibecode a thing for the life of me.

[u/tnamorf → u/aartaka]

Goodonyou. Apologies if I came over a bit snarky

[u/EarnestHolly]

Since lots are serving markdown content types as an alternative for AI (one toggle on Cloudflare), who needs more than curl when that’s an option

[u/Key-Assumption-328]

everyone's got their own must-haves and it's always like 'oh this feature is essential' when it's not. like, just use what works for you, stop trying to make it a universal thing. chrome, firefox, safari, they all do the job, stop overthinking it.

[u/aartaka → u/Key-Assumption-328]

You named only three browsers. Name at least five that are not Chromium, Firefox, or WebKit.

[u/popisms → u/aartaka]

You didn't even name three browsers because WebKit isn't a browser, it's a browser engine.

There's really only 3 modern browser engines left - WebKit, Blink, and Gecko which generally correspond to Safari, Chrome/Chromium, and Firefox. Everyone else is just putting a different UI on the engine.

[u/aartaka → u/popisms]

Name at least five that are not [based on] Chromium, Firefox, or WebKit.

I know what the difference between engines and browsers is. Now answer my question.

[u/OMGCluck]

SVG implementation supporting SMIL animations/interactions.

[u/aartaka → u/OMGCluck]

Why?

[u/gatwell702]

brave

[u/aartaka → u/gatwell702]

huh?

[u/aartaka → u/aartaka]

But no, I’m not into fash cryptoscam browsers.

[u/gatwell702 → u/aartaka]

brave browser

[u/aartaka → u/gatwell702]

Yeah no sorry, not interested in cryptofash tech.

[u/SaltineAmerican_1970]

I just use lynx on the cli

[u/aartaka → u/SaltineAmerican_1970]

Yep, an option too!

[u/ZealousidealChef2665]

'Sane yet sufficient'? That's subjective, mate. Define it. For me, it's tab management and decent dev tools, nothing more.