[HN Gopher] Vieb - Vim Inspired Electron Browser
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       Vieb - Vim Inspired Electron Browser
        
       Author : bwidlar
       Score  : 89 points
       Date   : 2021-08-15 08:40 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (vieb.dev)
 (TXT) w3m dump (vieb.dev)
        
       | cosmojg wrote:
       | How does the built-in adblocker compare to Qutebrowser's?
        
       | samlader wrote:
       | FWIW the Vimium extension offers similar features for Chrome
       | users.
       | 
       | https://vimium.github.io/
        
         | szszrk wrote:
         | Well, for firefox as well. Although on both it lacks the
         | flexibility it used to, due to browser limitations.
        
           | calvinmorrison wrote:
           | It mostly works still, navigation, scrolling and link jumping
           | work fine and cover 90% of what I do
        
             | alpaca128 wrote:
             | Not sure about Chromium, but in Firefox Vim plugins only
             | work if a page is loaded in the current tab. It doesn't
             | work while the site is loading(e.g. to switch tabs), it
             | doesn't work if the page failed to load, it doesn't work in
             | an empty tab, ...
             | 
             | A Vim-based browser doesn't have any of those issues
             | because the whole UI is focused on those controls.
        
               | szszrk wrote:
               | Correct, that is exactly what I was referring to. Back in
               | the old days of addons to Firefox it used to be possible
               | there as well.
               | 
               | Vieb looks cool, but I've already learned Vimium and
               | likely won't switch. Same as with screen and tmux. Maybe
               | tmux is better, but why do I have to learn a tool every
               | 15 years, right?
               | 
               | UI of Vieb is gorgeous. So slick, restrained. Love it.
        
         | codetrotter wrote:
         | Some ~10 years ago I used to use a Firefox extension called
         | Vimperator [0]. I then switched to a fork of Vimperator named
         | Pentadactyl [1], because the latter was more complete and
         | stable at the time. And even later I used the Vimium extension
         | on Google Chrome.
         | 
         | But even though I enjoyed these types of extensions, Vim key
         | bindings in the browser powered by these add-ons has always
         | been fragile and prone to stop working all together at times
         | and that eventually caused me to stop using any of them even
         | though I remain a user of Vim and of IDEs with Vim-emulation.
         | 
         | Perhaps these are stable enough today, perhaps not. If I were
         | inclined to go back to having Vim keybindings also in my
         | browser then I would probably want to check out Vieb, as the
         | idea of having it properly integrated into the browser does
         | seem a good idea to me and with Vieb we'd still be getting the
         | Blink engine that Chrome etc is using.
         | 
         | But these days I like to use Brave as my main browser on my
         | MacBook Pro M1, because of the privacy enhancing features that
         | Brave has built into it alongside other nice things. On my
         | iPhone I just use Safari. Occasionally I use Safari on my
         | laptop as well. For example, I have Brave configured to turn
         | all pages into dark mode but some sites become unreadable and
         | then my simple solution because this happens rarely enough to
         | not be distracting is that then I open the page in Safari
         | instead.
         | 
         | Also my usage pattern of browsers has changed. I used to sit on
         | the desktop and read a lot of things. These days I most often
         | read stuff on the phone, and I use the browser on the laptop
         | mainly for looking up things quickly and for using web
         | applications like Google Docs and such. So it's like, one of
         | the main reasons that I used to use Vimperator etc, to navigate
         | by keyboard instead of by mouse, is not as relevant any longer.
         | And even on the laptop, scrolling up and down is smoother and
         | simpler using the touchpad and the spacebar than using
         | Vimperator etc.
         | 
         | When I have the MacBook Pro M1 connected to external keyboard,
         | mouse and monitor I might still benefit a little bit from
         | something like Vimperator. But not enough to be worth the
         | bother anymore, because of the things I mentioned.
         | 
         | [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vimperator
         | 
         | [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentadactyl
        
         | manibatra wrote:
         | Recently discovered this and have been enjoying it a lot. There
         | are some edges but overall works quite well. Also, available
         | for Safari : https://github.com/televator-apps/vimari
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | bwidlar wrote:
         | Also
         | 
         | LinkHints: https://lydell.github.io/LinkHints
        
         | avnigo wrote:
         | I found Vimium C [0] works better for Firefox (some features
         | were broken on Vimium), and it's on Chrome too.
         | 
         | [0]: https://github.com/gdh1995/vimium-c
        
           | cassepipe wrote:
           | I am using Vimium-FF and I don't experience any issues. What
           | are the issues you encountered ?
        
             | avnigo wrote:
             | There was a problem with the find command '/' [0] I had for
             | months, so I switched to Vimium C as someone pointed out in
             | that thread it was fixed on C already and had other
             | features. I now see that issue was finally fixed last
             | month.
             | 
             | Reading the updated thread now, I see it turned political,
             | and I guess maybe that's why I was downvoted for linking to
             | Vimium C.
             | 
             | [0]: https://github.com/philc/vimium/issues/3774
        
               | rasfincher wrote:
               | Same reason I switched to Vimium-C.
        
         | Miner49er wrote:
         | Also there is:
         | 
         | Surfing Keys: https://github.com/brookhong/Surfingkeys
         | 
         | Tridactyl: https://github.com/tridactyl/tridactyl
         | 
         | Both target Firefox, but may have Chrome versions as well.
        
       | Foxboron wrote:
       | Very similar to qutebrowser. But instead of being electron it's
       | on qt-webengine.
       | 
       | https://qutebrowser.org/
        
         | toomanyducks wrote:
         | Are there any more differences with qute? I've found the best
         | solution to the web being broken is to use as little of the web
         | as possible, but qute was the closest I think I came to
         | tolerating it. Would I prefer Vieb?
        
           | lambdaba wrote:
           | Having used this for about 30 minutes total, I can tell you
           | this goes MUCH further than any Vim-inspired browser I've
           | ever tried, and I (think) I tried them all.
           | 
           | The window/buffer management in particular is very good, but
           | UI-wise in general it's a very smooth experience. I really
           | see myself using this, it's really very good.
        
       | sktrdie wrote:
       | Why not just using Vimium extension for Chrome?
        
       | lambdaba wrote:
       | Posting this from Vieb which I've been using for a few minutes.
       | It looks like a pretty complete Vim UI implementation, down to
       | splits, which work really well.
       | 
       | Ironically textareas don't have a Vim mode, hopefully that's
       | addressed soon. I can really see myself using this.
       | 
       | Edit: kind of sad that the buffer/window dichotomy is not
       | implemented, I'd really like a browser that allows me to
       | manipulate webpages as easily as I can manipulate files in a Vim
       | session, and do things like :bufdo etc.
       | 
       | Edit2: I wonder if it would be feasible to hack something like
       | Neovide (https://github.com/neovide/neovide) with webviews
       | instead of text editing buffers.
       | 
       | Edit3: I was wrong, buffer/windows work just like in Vim! This is
       | great!
        
       | maltalex wrote:
       | Probably not a good idea with something as security sensitive as
       | a browser.
       | 
       | Electron lags behind Chrome versions, and requires deliberate
       | effort to secure [0].
       | 
       | Also, on GitHub, Vieb has just one main developer so you'd be
       | trusting him with everything from your reading habits to bank
       | credentials.
       | 
       | [0]:
       | https://github.com/electron/electron/blob/main/docs/tutorial...
        
         | anaisbetts wrote:
         | You're not wrong about Vieb, but Electron actually is (and has
         | been for awhile) 100% synced with latest Chromium. Electron
         | Alpha channel => Chrome Dev (both atm at Chromium m94), Beta =
         | Beta, etc.
        
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       (page generated 2021-08-16 23:01 UTC)