[HN Gopher] Launch HN: SigmaOS (YC S21) - A MacOS web browser de...
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Launch HN: SigmaOS (YC S21) - A MacOS web browser designed for
faster work
Hey everyone Mahyad from SigmaOS (https://sigmaos.com) here, a
pleasure to meet all of you. SigmaOS is a new type of browser,
designed to make you better and faster working on the web. If
you're anything like us, you work hours a day on the web, buried in
a sea of tabs and web apps, constantly losing context and always
one click away from being distracted. We believe that a radically
different UX can help with this and that's what we're making.
Here's a demo video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ae_XfTSsaAA.
This project is the overlap of our obsessions. I have always been
obsessed with organizing because of my ADHD, and became a power
user of software that could organize and clean up my workflow, like
Superhuman and Notion. I was frustrated by how cluttered my desktop
was with irrelevant Safari windows and tabs that I didn't need for
my work right then. Also, I always felt overwhelmed by the constant
switching of windows and apps to save information I was finding or
send stuff to people I was working with. This led to the idea: what
if there could be a much more organized browser, and you could
easily access any app or tab or note directly from within the
browser without needing to change to a different window? Ali has
always been into neo-browsers. Rockmelt (released when he was 11)
was the first piece of software he deeply cared about and referred
his friends to. Since Rockmelt's shutdown, multiple different neo-
browsers came out, but none were as mind-blowing to him. He is also
a power user of Photoshop and loves their single-key keyboard
shortcuts. Saurav rarely cares about software but is a massive Vim
fan. He is obsessed with how fast and powerful Vim makes him at
text-editing. So, if you think Rockmelt crossed with Notion crossed
with Vim, that's basically what we're working on :) SigmaOS users
create workspaces that hold apps and pages related to a project or
task. We present those apps and pages in a list format. Users have
3 main actions to go through tasks quickly: they can mark a page as
done, snooze a page when they don't need it right away, and move a
page once it is no longer required for that task but maybe for some
other one. We help solve the problem of information loss and
overload with our search tool called Lazy Search. You can quickly
find pages in your history and already-open pages across
workspaces. This makes it easier to find anything you have opened
or searched before and navigate to it quickly. We have a split-
screen feature to quickly open a second webpage, for example for a
quick new search you want to do or multitask by working on two
pages at a time. This cuts down on opening unnecessary tabs and
navigating away from what you are focused on. One of the most
straightforward but also most powerful aspects of SigmaOS that
we've put a ton of thought into, is an intuitive and easy-to-learn
repertoire of keyboard shortcuts for all the most-used commands and
actions. This makes you a lot faster at your work on the web and
feels like the other tools (cf. Vim above) that you're
traditionally productive in. SigmaOS connects your web apps and
your browsing activity to understand the context around your
actions and searches. Your information is organized by projects,
your work is shareable and collaborative, and information retrieval
feels effortless. We charge $15 per month, no ads, and no data
monetization. Thanks for taking the time to read our post. We
appreciate any and all feedback on what you think is the best thing
about SigmaOS and what might not be so great. Please download
SigmaOS from our website and give it a try yourself and let us know
what you think here :)
Author : MahyadGhassemi
Score : 116 points
Date : 2021-08-16 13:03 UTC (9 hours ago)
| garyrob wrote:
| I've been using SigmaOS for the last half hour for my active
| work, after having gone through the tutorial. I quite like it. I
| can imagine that I may feel it's worth the money, but I have to
| spend more time with it before I could know.
|
| I do want to mention that I ran into a couple of glitches (as I
| would expect with any such brand-new product). Somehow in using
| the Find function I got a freeze where I had to Force Quit. Also,
| I wish that it would indicate that it got matches and how many
| matches it found when I typed into the search box.
|
| To start things off, I imported from Safari. It looks like it
| create a "workspace" for every Safari page. But I had so many
| Safari pages open that the workspace for the tutorial page had
| scrolled so far down the list that it was off the page. So that
| confused me for a while when doing the tutorial. (In the end I
| closed all the workspaces that had come from Safari pages.)
|
| I think the workspace-specific todos is a really nice feature
| with potential to be quite useful.
| sauravmitra wrote:
| Heya, really appreciate the product feedback!
|
| For bugs, you can report them using the question mark at the
| bottom left of the app. Or join our Slack community :D
|
| Super weird that the Find is freezing. If it was working, it
| would show how many matches it found when you press enter. That
| sounds like an urgent fix.
|
| Great point regarding import! Will make sure the workspaces you
| import get added after the tutorial.
| garyrob wrote:
| Hmm... hadn't tried hitting Enter on the search. I'm used to
| seeing feedback from search strings as I typed. Hitting
| Enter, it works fine, but I'd prefer to not have to hit
| Enter.
|
| Sounds good re putting imported workspaces after tutorial.
| sauravmitra wrote:
| Yup, should definitely improve that so it's automatic.
| Thanks for reporting!
| dwb wrote:
| I'm so, so in for browser modernisation, I really like the look
| of what you're doing, I'm a devoted vim addict, and I'll be
| trying the demo later. But honestly $15/month is extremely
| pushing it, to the point that I probably won't go for it.
|
| Presumably i[Pad]OS is on the roadmap?
| MahyadGhassemi wrote:
| Thanks for the comment and yes iOS and iPadOS are on the road
| map. In terms of pricing we are still workshoping this since we
| are a very young company (under a year still). Pricing isn't
| set in stone, but we try to work with our users feedback.
| dwb wrote:
| Cool, thanks. Good luck in any case, I think there's a lot of
| potential in this area!
| idreyn wrote:
| > Oh, and we don't sell your data
|
| > Wondering why browsers are usually free?
|
| There's a heavy implication here that most browser vendors sell
| your browsing data, but you don't state it outright because
| (aside from Chrome, arguably) I don't think it's actually true.
| Let's look at the others:
|
| - Edge is probably sending all kinds of invasive telemetry to
| Microsoft
|
| - Firefox is maybe(?) sending your email address to Pocket if you
| have an account with them
|
| - Safari is a product that you pay through the nose for
|
| None of these things are the same thing as selling data the
| browser collects. If you have any evidence that this _is_
| happening, you should put it on your website, because I 'd love
| to hear about it! If you don't, you should probably not prey on
| people's deep confusion about who is tracking them on the web,
| and how.
|
| Let's not shift established expectations away from the idea that
| there ought to be a browser that's both free to use and free of
| spyware when we already have such a browser in Firefox.
| danpalmer wrote:
| > Edge is probably sending all kinds of invasive telemetry to
| Microsoft
|
| I think there's a useful distinction between product analytics,
| which might include basic details about web usage but likely in
| a privacy preserving way, and actual web history.
|
| All of the browsers, Sigma OS included, are going to do product
| analytics. But I'm not sure that any are going to actually
| track web history. They'll track what web features you're
| using, and Chrome is known to track domains but I believe in a
| statistical way that doesn't give perfect info on who's using
| what. They all sync some state if you sign in, but that's a
| feature not analytics, if you trust them, and Sigma is no
| different here.
|
| Apart from browsers like Brave selling ad space or dodgy
| Android browsers selling full web history, I'm not sure that
| any of the major players are actually doing anything
| fundamentally different to what Sigma is here. Firefox and
| Safari push the privacy side a little harder in their own ways,
| but are still roughly equivalent I think.
| idreyn wrote:
| Totally. I don't think Google is necessarily doing anything
| as blatant as directly selling your browsing history to third
| parties.
|
| Since I went to go check, I might as well share what I found:
| in my Google account "Activity controls" there is a toggle
| (off for me, not sure what the default is) that grants them
| permission to use Chrome history for "faster searches, better
| recommendations, and more personalized experiences". As I
| understand it, this is not selling away your data so much as
| letting them use it to auction your attention to advertisers.
| danpalmer wrote:
| Yeah exactly. Third parties can bid on keywords as they
| have always been able to do, and Google might give you
| better ads based on that data, but they aren't telling the
| third party why. That's a pretty big difference!
| throwawayswede wrote:
| Suggestion: don't do marketing gimmick like "psst. want to know a
| secret?" it's very clickbaity and makes me (probably
| unreasonably) aloof to the whole thing.
|
| I commend the attempt at coming up with a "better" browser, but
| like others have said, this is too expensive. One time purchase
| expensive is ok as long as I own a copy of that version forever,
| but subscription and cloud crap, I'm out. I like the idea of
| keyboard first and workspaces (haven't tested yet, but hopefully
| something almost as good as savestate on a VM), but these are
| things that make me want to try it at least, but not at this
| price.
|
| Edit: just realized it's only mac OS? Can't use Linux makes me
| even more out. Good luck though, I don't know who your target
| market, but it's not people to whom "the browser is a primary
| tool", but only a minor subset of them.
| tusharpandey13 wrote:
| Honestly, this just seems like a cheap rip-off of Vivaldi. All of
| the features(yes, all of them) are already present in Vivaldi,
| including the split screen, tree style tabs, sync, global search,
| full keyboard support. Slapping some UI makeup on top of an
| already existing product does not warrant a hefty fee of $15 in
| my view. Also, I don't see any proof that my data is secure. For
| all I know, you guys will sell off my data after 3 years when
| this doesn't work out.
|
| >We charge $15 per month, no ads, and no data monetization. Isn't
| it kinda strange that a browser is promising us no ads in the UI,
| for a price? Like, wasn't that already established? I don't see
| any other browsers that show ads in the UI(regarding the new tab
| content, you can easily turn them off). This looks like snake oil
| the more I look at it.
|
| >You can quickly find pages in your history and already-open
| pages across workspaces. Have you ever typed anything in a
| chromium address bar?
|
| Apart from the snooze and done features, tell me one thing that
| this browser achieves that isn't already available through free,
| open-source, trustworthy extensions whose code I can see and
| audit.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| This is a particularly nasty comment that has no business being
| at the top.
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| > Apart from the snooze and done features, tell me one thing
| that this browser achieves that isn't already available through
| free, open-source, trustworthy extensions whose code I can see
| and audit.
|
| Is there a Spotlight/Alfred extension for Chrome/ium/Firefox? I
| haven't seen that UX in a browser yet.
| azinman2 wrote:
| While I don't think this browser is for me, cobbling it all
| together with extensions isn't the same thing as having a
| unified product. Only with a unified product can you have a
| completely consistent experience across all of the features..
| like having sharing come into its own workspace next to the
| ones you created.. and then being able to share via shortcuts
| into someone else's shared inbox.
|
| I'm not sure this product is fully differentiated yet, but
| that doesn't mean extensions are the real competition. The
| real competition is the default browser.
| Nullabillity wrote:
| Firefox integrates straight into KDE's KRunner framework, for
| one.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Yes. Vivaldi has one that can be invoked with F2, by default.
| entropie wrote:
| I was curious. F2 does nothing for me.
| nhooyr wrote:
| I think the parent is asking whether there is an extension
| for Alfred/Safari can search tabs in Chromium/Firefox. Not
| an Alfred like UI in Chromium/Firefox.
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| More specifically, if there was a F2-like extension for
| Safari or Chrome.
|
| I didn't realize Vivaldi had it and it seems like one
| genuinely useful feature from this that I would use.
| jayparth wrote:
| I wonder what it is about hacker news that brings out this
| incessant negativity in people. Have you considered that:
|
| - This product might only be a couple of months old and they
| have bigger plans for it over the next year?
|
| - The founders don't have all the answers and they're learning
| just as much as we are right now?
|
| - Even though YOU might not see enough value to warrant the
| price tag, there might be people (or businesses) who do?
|
| Maybe you just can't empathize because you haven't build
| something from 0 -> 1 yet. I am the same age as you but I have
| failed building a couple of things before, where it looks like
| you have had a bunch of jobs. I don't cast scorn on people who
| are early on building things, because I've been in their shoes.
| Maybe you're right and there's nothing here. Or maybe in two
| years, their browser is miles ahead of the extension you're
| referring to.
|
| > tell me one thing that this browser achieves that isn't
| already available through free, open-source, trustworthy
| extensions whose code I can see and audit.
|
| They don't have to tell you anything. Go use your browser
| extension. You aren't the market.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Maybe they shouldn't charge $15/month for a product that's
| incomplete. The only reason I'm not the target audience here
| is because I won't use a subscription-based browser, much
| less one that has fewer features than my current browser. I
| respect people who build software, but you _have_ to get
| pricing right if you want people to care.
|
| > I wonder what it is about hacker news that brings out this
| incessant negativity in people.
|
| It's an incubator site. We're here to offer our advice on
| upcoming products, and many people post their products
| explicitly to hear what they might be doing wrong. It's a
| trial-by-fire, but rapid iteration will almost always yield a
| better product.
| csilverman wrote:
| Agreed. The subscription pricing model alone is an instant
| disqualifier.
|
| $15 for a one-time purchase? I'd absolutely consider it.
| $15/month? Never.
| etothepii wrote:
| The comparison of one time vs subscription wouldn't be
| $15 vs $15 but more like $500 vs $15.
| gruez wrote:
| In what world is a browser worth $500? For comparison, a
| complete operating system (eg. windows) has cost around
| $200, and this was applicable even in windows 98 days,
| before microsoft was trying to monetize it using
| ads/telemetry.
| xrisk wrote:
| Probably more like $5000. Have you considered how
| insanely complicated browsers are? It's a miracle they're
| free.
| gruez wrote:
| Well the reality is that there are two browser engines
| that are free and open source. If they built their own
| that was better than the incumbents (eg. from
| performance/privacy point of view), then I might consider
| it. But I'm not paying $5000 for a chrome reskin, just
| like I won't pay $5000 for a debian reskin.
| xrisk wrote:
| I'm saying it's a miracle that Chrome/FF is free.
| djrogers wrote:
| 3 - Chromium/Blink, Webkit, and Firefox.
| bdcravens wrote:
| Not a miracle. Just Google.
| etothepii wrote:
| When buying software the cost is heavily impacted by the
| number of users that benefit. Windows is used by >100m
| users, a new browser is probably doing well if it's used
| by >100. Of course the price is different.
| csilverman wrote:
| Yeah, and that's why app subscriptions make no sense to
| me at all. I don't have a problem paying for resources I
| use--storage space, web-based functionality--but being
| charged every month just so they don't shut off my
| software is lunacy, and I will never support that.
|
| I'm fine supporting good software. If this app served my
| needs well, I'd happily pay $50-60 for it. Once.
| danenania wrote:
| The problem is that the crew who reflexively post negative
| comments on Show/Launch HNs are mostly a loud (and smug)
| but unrepresentative minority with idiosyncratic tastes.
| Sure, you can learn something from any feedback, but most
| products would be made worse if the creators took these
| comments too much to heart, _especially_ when it comes to
| pricing.
|
| That said, you can obviously get a lot of great feedback on
| HN too! But no one grumbling about $15/mo being too much to
| pay for X or subscriptions in general being bad is likely
| to be very helpful.
| BlissWaves wrote:
| Best cure for that is "treat others as you would want
| yourself to be treated". In this case I would really
| appreciate it if someone told me that my idea wasn't
| novel at all, sucked or that I was charging exorbitant
| fees for some minor improvement of my productivity.
|
| A lot of times in life, kindness doesn't look like
| kindness.
| chipotle_coyote wrote:
| "Someone told me my idea sucked" is not in and of itself
| any more of a useful signal than "someone told me my idea
| is brilliant"; one person's opinion is, well, one
| person's opinion. Who that person is makes a difference.
| In the case of SigmaOS here, the "(YC S21)" suggests that
| they've had at least one very positive signal:
| YCombinator accepted them. "The most famous seed funding
| group in the tech world likes us enough to work with us"
| is probably more of a meaningful signal than
| "SnarkyTechGuy1337 left us a cutting comment on Hacker
| News".
| danenania wrote:
| "In this case I would really appreciate it if someone
| told me that my idea wasn't novel at all, sucked or that
| I was charging exorbitant fees for some minor improvement
| of my productivity."
|
| Ok, but if the reason you think something "sucks" is
| because of an uncommon opinion that you hold, like a good
| UI isn't important or worth paying extra for, then your
| comment isn't very helpful to the creator. It says much
| more about you than the product.
|
| Similarly, most people in tech/knowledge work would not
| consider $15 per month for software that makes them more
| productive to be "exorbitant", and I think we all know
| that. If you feel that way, fine, but it's not relevant
| to the discussion.
| throwawayswede wrote:
| Almost every Show/Launch HN post that has a slightly
| abrasive comment (which is not the same thing as negative
| or nonconstructive) gets a few comments in the same vein
| from the "people are negative" to the "people are toxic"
| kinds, which honestly speaking appears way more smug to
| me.
| danenania wrote:
| It's not just about being abrasive. It's about posting
| negative comments when you have nothing to offer. If your
| reaction to something new is that you have absolutely no
| interest or wouldn't pay a few cappuccinos per month for
| it then guess what: no one cares. You're just polluting
| the thread with noise.
|
| Helpful: this is interesting, but I tried it and it's
| missing these features that I would need to consider
| paying for it.
|
| Not helpful: subscriptions are the devil!
| detaro wrote:
| The comment all this is under is not just "subscriptions
| are the devil!". Some responses seem more "reflexively
| negative" (against any criticism) than the comments they
| respond to.
|
| _you don 't seem to offer much value over free
| competitors_ and _why should we trust you_ might be hard
| points to address, but are important.
| danenania wrote:
| "you don't seem to offer much value over free competitors
| and why should we trust you might be hard points to
| address, but are important."
|
| I agree with you on those points. But dismissing improved
| UI/UX as "makeup" is not helpful.
| codetrotter wrote:
| > Maybe they shouldn't charge $15/month for a product
| that's incomplete
|
| How do you expect them to ever finish the browser if they
| don't have any income from working on it?
| bdcravens wrote:
| No matter what the industry or the product is, that's not
| the consumer's problem.
| throwaway1777 wrote:
| Let me tell you about a thing called Ycombinator. They
| help you raise this thing called venture capital for
| exactly this purpose...
| somebodythere wrote:
| Investors like to see revenue, when they are looking to
| make an investment.
| codetrotter wrote:
| That's what I'm thinking too. But my experience with
| investors is very limited so far. The investor in the
| startup that me and a couple of others founded agreed to
| contribute funds (in exchange for ownership of a
| percentage of the company), but in our case the condition
| was that these funds are for things like marketing and
| other expenses, and not for paying salaries to ourselves.
| So until our company is making a profit we are not
| getting paid a salary at all. But I don't know if this is
| actually common or not, and how for example Silicon
| Valley is with regards to this compared to our
| geographical location.
| asimpletune wrote:
| That's what investors are for, ostensibly, no?
|
| Another way to phrase this is how can you expect people
| to buy something at a price below it's value?
|
| Actually, haha, I just realized there's an answer.
| Because they'll expense it at work.
| tw04 wrote:
| > They don't have to tell you anything. Go use your browser
| extension. You aren't the market.
|
| I'm guessing what he wrote resonates with a vast majority of
| the HN crowd even if the tone of the message doesn't. The
| whole point of ShowHN is to get feedback, critical or
| otherwise. You criticizing his feedback kinds of defeats the
| entire purpose IMO.
| xrisk wrote:
| I don't see the point of building for the sake of building.
| SkyMarshal wrote:
| And yet you're on a hacker forum...
| throwawayswede wrote:
| Although I party agree with you in terms of tone, positivity
| for positivity's sake is also bad, if not worse. I saw the
| previous comment as constructive, although I might not phrase
| it like that myself, but to each their way. OP posted as
| Luanch HN to get feedback, not just praise. Previous
| commentator was not being negative or critical with no
| reason. Aggressive and baseless anti-toxicity is as bad as
| real toxic behavior. You're free to "love loving" things, but
| you can't make others conform to your lifestyle.
| adar wrote:
| While I agree about not just being positive for the sake of
| it and this product is certainly not for me, I'm not sure
| what's constructive about calling something a "cheap
| ripoff" of something else (what does "cheap" even mean here
| other than an insult?)
| andy_ppp wrote:
| Oh wow! You've built a social network and integrated it into the
| browser, I can't wait to see the potential of surveillance
| capitalism to advertise everything I ever wanted to me with
| SigmaOS!
| sauravmitra wrote:
| Haha, no intention to build a social network here. Just a way
| to send pages to people, targeted for work.
|
| And to be frank, SigmaOS does not and will never allow
| advertising to our users through the app.
| simonvc wrote:
| Been beta testing this (full disclosure, angel invester) and i
| can honestly say i miss it when i'm not on my Big Sur machine.
| Vim keybindings are such a win, and Sigma does it better than all
| previous attempts at a vim-like browser because it's properly
| modal. You hit i to Insert (interact) with a page and escape to
| go back to controlling the browser. Or you can ignore all that
| and just use it as a tabs-on-the-sed browser.
| verdverm wrote:
| You can use the Vimium extension for chrome. Works great and is
| cross platform, been using it for years.
|
| Also, most other OSes have native splitting of windows.
| secondcoming wrote:
| Except vim's interface is confusing
|
| https://stackoverflow.blog/2017/05/23/stack-overflow-helping...
| sauravmitra wrote:
| The biggest issue with Vim is that early learners feel
| punished and feel slower using it than their original tool.
| That post about quitting is hilarious, I just found it a a
| few weeks ago :P
|
| We're working hard to make sure users don't feel punished
| when switching to SigmaOS, and only feeling faster from
| there. Part of the inspiration is from Vim, but that doesn't
| mean we aren't learning from its mistakes :)
| WA wrote:
| I'm probably not in the target market, but the slowest thing in
| a browser these days, for me, is the obnoxious closing of
| cookie banners and newsletter popups.
|
| Hence, uBlock Origin + cosmetic filter list. The productivity
| boost is more than any keyboard assignment can ever do I guess.
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| Still think it was a mistake of gigantic proportions when
| Apple removed the legacy extension support. Their content
| blockers replacement is nowhere near comparable to uBlock
| Origin used to be.
|
| Currently there is no way to block YouTube ads on Safari
| MacOS and all the advice for extensions that do just sends
| you in a loop of the same few (many of which are paid for)
| that don't manage to do it for the past few months.
| WA wrote:
| Yes that's why I switched from Safari to Firefox.
| sauravmitra wrote:
| Yes, they're very annoying. I'm working on implementing
| extensions ASAP so you can use those on SigmaOS (or maybe
| even built-in natively? ;p)
| srcreigh wrote:
| Why did you choose to feature ~100% non-work distractions in your
| demo video? Reverse psychology? Hahaha.
|
| Nevertheless I am intrigued :-) I always use Chrome Omnibar to
| navigate to bookmarks/history. I wish it could show me the
| bookmark 1st, but I usually just <down><down><down> to the right
| suggestion.
| spicybright wrote:
| Are there no settings for this? I'm pretty sure firefox does
| (at least the previous version did)
| sauravmitra wrote:
| Honestly, just for fun :D
|
| Yes, I use my browser mainly for work, but product demos are
| usually a bit boring. Also, I was hoping for a little Vim vs
| Emacs flame war (which didn't happen) and "Backwards Hippo" is
| just great :D
| quadcore wrote:
| Congrats, I think you are working on something very important.
| Recently I watched the Ds conferences with Steve Jobs to get a
| new eye on them. At some point he explains that the minute the
| user get to see the file system, the learning curve goes everest.
| And so they made splotlight notably.
|
| I think now that was really spot on and that it ultimately goes
| even further. Look at your desktop computer screen and tell me:
| how much information is there? A freaking lot. Even a window
| contains so much information (coords, sizes, 3 buttons, a scroll
| bar), that's a lot compared to what you find on mobile. The
| iphone experience is actually pretty different from the desktop
| experience in that sense, there is an order of magnitude less
| information on the screen of an iphone.
|
| I'm aging. Now whenever I come in front of a desktop computer
| screen, my heart starts beating, I'm stressed. Thats just too
| much for me. Whereas the opposite is true with my smartphone,
| there is something zen about the experience of it all.
| quadcore wrote:
| Another feedback I would have is
|
| _Fly through your work._
|
| Yeah I love that, flying is zen and green.
|
| _The browser that makes you faster and better at working on
| the web._
|
| Faster and better at working? What experience is that exactly?
| A burnout experience?
|
| All I'm saying is, you are making an OS, learn from the best.
| Steve Jobs knew that computer programs are crap by default (he
| says "developing software is hard" - think twice about that
| one) and so he was always selling the user experience. What is
| my experience in front of your program?
| [deleted]
| sauravmitra wrote:
| Thanks for the feedback! Simplicity is key, and we hope you
| feel faster using SigmaOS without adding unnecessary
| complexity.
| latexr wrote:
| You assert it's "Used by people at [four images]".
|
| That's pretty vague. If you're going to claim your product is
| used by people at Apple and CERN, there should be context to back
| it up.
| ushakov wrote:
| probably someone with @apple.com address signed up
| sauravmitra wrote:
| Hmm, interesting point.
|
| I presume specific user testimonials might help? What were you
| thinking?
| akshaynathr wrote:
| A free version with limited features would be great
| MahyadGhassemi wrote:
| Heya, yep this is something we are workshoping, to make sure we
| still give a great experience on the free version without you
| feeling unnecessary restricted. But for now you will have 14
| days free so you can use it and feel how the product is :)
| yashasolutions wrote:
| It looks awesome!
|
| My main 2 concerns would be :
|
| 1. Performance
|
| If it is slow, or a memory hog, like many browser before, that
| would definitely be a major issue.
|
| 2. Privacy
|
| It's 2021, claiming privacy won't cut it anymore. We know the
| drill.
|
| Do you have have a way to ensure you have no visibility of what
| people browse? Because else, I am sure you'd become an
| interesting target for various groups who need or want this data.
|
| Even if you have no interest in using this data, you can be
| coerced in providing to various bodies, or it can be hacked,
| which it probably will be, as we can see nowadays with every
| company with valuable private data.
|
| So the best protection is not have this data on the first
| place...
|
| Just my 2 cents anyway. Don't listen to people on the Internet :)
| sauravmitra wrote:
| Thanks!
|
| Performance: We use WebKit for the actual pages, so similar to
| Safari in speed and memory usage (much better than Chrome), and
| our UX should be pretty fast (we did a performance update right
| before this launch!)
|
| Privacy: The app obviously knows what pages are on it since
| it's loading them. Our server doesn't have any of that data
| unless you choose to upload it for cloud syncing. That data is
| encrypted so shouldn't be trivial to access (though we want to
| move over to iCloud to avoid this problem). What do you think?
| danpalmer wrote:
| Using Azure AppCenter and its analytics SDK isn't ideal from
| a privacy perspective. I think it's reasonable for product
| development, but if you want to sell based on privacy I think
| it would need to go.
| sauravmitra wrote:
| Hmm, you might be right. AppCenter is super useful for
| crash logs, but do you think it would be an issue for users
| when concerned with privacy? We don't identify the reports
| at all, so literally anonymous crash logs.
|
| (And AppAnalytics is needed for it to work with SwiftUI, I
| think? Might be why we're using that.)
| danpalmer wrote:
| I think there are levels to it. Best for privacy would be
| no crash reporting, but obviously that comes at the cost
| of no crash logs and needing to do a lot more testing and
| QA before shipping to get equivalent quality, and that's
| an engineering trade-off.
|
| Custom crash-reporting, where the server is controlled by
| you, is likely a bit better because it's not going to a
| third party, but that's another engineering cost.
|
| Having crash reporting is probably fine - I put crash
| reporting in the apps and services I work on, and I
| expect them as a user - but it is definitely worse for
| privacy and if an app is marketing on being good for
| privacy it's not a great fit. As for analytics, again, I
| can see the reasoning, but I think it would be good to
| not do it.
|
| As far as privacy is concerned, shipping the binary and
| it doing any networking is the same impact, regardless of
| the tagging that you may or may not be doing. MS might be
| tagging connections/IPs, correlating users,
| fingerprinting, etc. There's also the risk that private
| data accidentally ends up getting sent to AppCenter (in
| crashes or analytics) just from values on the stack or
| the particular code paths that users are executing.
|
| Honestly, I don't think you should be selling based on
| privacy. I don't think Sigma OS is fundamentally better
| than Firefox/Safari, and it takes a LOT of work and
| giving up a lot of useful data to do it correctly. I'd
| put product analytics in (but not too much), keep the
| crash reporting, don't sell data, don't sell ads, don't
| advertise as being any more private than that, and use
| your product analytics to inform your product process and
| build better features.
| sauravmitra wrote:
| Awesome, thanks for the case-by-case advice, and a good
| point on the marketing aspect of things. Really really
| appreciate it :)
| cube2222 wrote:
| Could you describe what you are actually adding on top of the new
| Safari?
|
| Tab groups are there, sync of them too, keyboard operation too,
| sharing as well (your improved sharing does only seem to work
| when both the sender and receiver have your browser, so for a
| niche tool, it probably won't be useful that often).
|
| Which would mean, based on your landing page, that I'd be paying
| 15$ per month for split-screen.
|
| Don't get me wrong, I think innovating on the browser and trying
| to find new paths, different to those that have been treaded for
| years is great! 15$/mo is also ok for a big value-add. But I
| don't see much innovation here that's not also in the status quo.
|
| Please show me what I'm missing though, as I probably don't have
| the full picture.
| atttali wrote:
| Hey there! Thanks for your comment :)
|
| Here's my take on tab groups (Safari) vs workspaces (SigmaOS):
| they seem similar, but they feel very different.
|
| e.g.
|
| * you don't always see all your tab groups = no behaviour
| change, people will still pile up tabs they don't need. Think
| of Slack: when you're done with a workspace, you delete it. But
| if you're done with a tab group, you just leave it there to
| clutter your browser, like many people do with Bookmarks.
|
| * you don't need to work from tab groups = most people won't
| organise their work, and still feel overwhelmed
|
| We're trying to rethink the UX of how to work on browsers. It's
| not just about the indidividual features. So what are you
| missing?
|
| * Every page / web-app is like a task on a to-do list. You can
| mark it as done, snooze it for later, or move it to another
| workspace
|
| * SigmaOS' keyboard shortcut system is designed to make you
| feel fast and still allows you to use shortcuts on web-apps
|
| * When you do research and command-click on pages, they open as
| "sub-pages" showing you where you come from
|
| * You can rename your pages to organize yourself and find them
| faster
|
| * Split screen is really awesome for multitasking (but you knew
| that) :)
|
| All in all, it can be difficult to explain how different it is,
| without trying it out. It would be great if you could try it
| out and give us feedback :) Really curious what you think!
| athenot wrote:
| A lot of this functionality can be done by using multiple
| windows in Safari. Drag a tab out into its own window: boom!
| split browsing. (But in Safari I'm not limited to 2)
|
| I use that a lot for the same use-case as the "sub pages"
| here: drag a tab into its own window, then command-click to
| my heart's content. When I'm done, the whole window gets
| closed. (Also this is without even using tab groups)
|
| And Apple's Handoff already does the work of maintaining a
| seamless browsing experience between devices.
|
| I do wish you luck and hope you find some true value
| differentiators.
| thewebcount wrote:
| Yeah, I concur. Furthermore, I can use macOS's spaces for
| different workspaces and put different browser tabs and
| windows into different spaces for work, fun, etc.
|
| To the OP: I will say that seeing the tree of how I got to
| the current page sounds interesting if I'm researching
| something. However, the vast majority of my browsing is
| just that - browsing. I'm not usually researching
| something. (So maybe I'm not the target audience?)
|
| > You can rename your pages to organize yourself and find
| them faster
|
| Yeah, I don't want a tool that makes me do more work. I'm
| never going to rename my pages, just like I'm not going to
| tag all of my photos or emails or files so that the Find
| function can be more efficient. I just don't have time for
| that. If there's no way to automate it, then I don't need
| that feature.
|
| Also, just want to say that your logo looks an awful lot
| like Apple's SiriShortcuts app logo. Might be worth
| changing it up.
| cube2222 wrote:
| Thanks for the extensive answer! Makes much more sense now.
| Will let you know what I think if I have time to try it out.
| pseingatl wrote:
| No Linux? No Windows? No 32-bit? No thank you.
| sauravmitra wrote:
| We're a small team, and we've focused on MacOS for now. But
| we'll start building for other operating systems as soon as we
| can!
| mwcampbell wrote:
| Try not to let the shallow dismissal get you down. While this
| product is not for me, as I'm not a routine Mac user, I
| appreciate that you went with a native app (presumably based
| on WebKit) rather than Electron or CEF. I do wonder what
| you'll do when/if you decide to do a Windows port, since
| WebKit on Windows isn't a popular combination.
| sauravmitra wrote:
| Thanks! Yes, we're full native using SwiftUI and WebKit :D
|
| Windows port will be a problem for future me, both
| fortunately and unfortunately.
| qwerty456127 wrote:
| This makes me feel rickrolled. I clicked and only see a Mac
| version download link. The title should mention the platform if
| it's single-platform.
|
| In fact I even have a Mac but it's High Sierra and I'm not
| updating to Big Sur with all the questionable changes just to
| try a new browser.
| sauravmitra wrote:
| Oh, sorry about that!
|
| Hopefully you give it a try when you update eventually :)
| qwerty456127 wrote:
| I will. Thank you for doing a great job anyway. I don't
| actually feel angry or demand anything from you, although I
| might sound this way. I just expressed my thoughts which
| many people obviously share.
|
| May I, however, ask if there is a serious reason to require
| Big Sur instead of supporting Catalina, Mojave and High
| Sierra also? I understand you probably don't want to waste
| resources on actually supporting them but perhaps you could
| just build against them and let users use it on their own
| risk?
| sauravmitra wrote:
| We're using SwiftUI and WebKit features that were added
| quite recently (MacOS doesn't get nearly as much love
| from Apple as iOS). This keeps our product iteration
| cycle quite high, and the worry is having to implement
| cumbersome solutions if supporting previous OSs.
|
| I'll have to look into it again to see if I can go back
| just a bit maybe and assess how much time it would take
| to support those versions.
|
| We're a pretty small team :)
| oidar wrote:
| I would have lobed to try this out as well, but I'm stuck
| in 32 bit land for the foreseeable future - so I am
| staying with Mojave.
| sauravmitra wrote:
| Ah, what a shame. Hopefully I figure out a workaround to
| support Mojave :D
| qwerty456127 wrote:
| I see. Thank you for your time.
| sauravmitra wrote:
| Changed the title!
| qwerty456127 wrote:
| I can speculate this can actually attract even more of the
| target audience to you. Mac people probably feel more
| enthusiastic about Mac-specific software announcements and
| are steadier to go and take a look at something Mac-
| specific than at yet another generic browser. And for the
| conversion rate - this probably even is a serious boost.
| sauravmitra wrote:
| We have been getting slightly more constructive comments
| since changing the title, so thanks :D
| freediver wrote:
| And those enthusiastic about Mac, also care about things
| like how 'macOS' is written. Attention to detail matters
| and shows your own level of dilligence.
| sauravmitra wrote:
| Interesting. I typically write it as macOS in
| conversation, but wasn't aware it was seen as correct to
| capitalise the M.
|
| Thanks!
| cassianoleal wrote:
| No source code? No tech details? No reason to trust you with my
| browsing? For all I know, this could be MITM'ing my sessions
| and exfiltrating my data.
|
| Being a paid product gives me exactly one guarantee: that I
| will be that much poorer. It doesn't increase my trust in the
| product in any way, it doesn't say anything about what the
| product is doing for my privacy or security.
|
| This is a very poor marketing piece.
|
| > Wondering why browsers are usually free?
|
| Let's say I am. Care to answer the question rather than
| passive-aggressively hurting my choice of browser?
| sauravmitra wrote:
| Can't change your mind on that.
|
| I can only tell you that your session data is yours alone,
| and that we will never monetise our users' data.
|
| Free browsers typically make their money from search engine
| royalties.
|
| Users will only pay us if they think the value we're giving
| them is worth it, and that will keep us developing the
| product towards what users will benefit from, faster than
| traditional browsers.
| threatofrain wrote:
| But it appears that Apple already stole your thunder on
| consumer privacy, and that they will be Very Hard to catch
| up to; private relay is basically TOR lite for grandma,
| private email is email aliases that ordinary users can use,
| etc.
|
| Plus no discussion on ad blocking extensions or password
| management?
|
| If this is a browser that is launching on Apple's ecosystem
| while charging $$, then you have to swing harder than just
| vaguely insinuating that other companies are sellouts on
| privacy.
|
| And is there any plan to open source so that communities
| can actually vet anything?
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| > and that we will never monetise our users' data.
|
| This is already telling; you're admitting that you gather
| user's data. Is there a clear consent form for that in
| place? Does your application and your company's data
| handling conform to GDPR rules?
| sauravmitra wrote:
| We actually don't gather our users' data.
|
| But if you want to sync your data across devices, you'd
| have to upload your data (though we're trying to move to
| iCloud for this so we don't have to keep it).
|
| Our privacy policy is available on our website and on the
| app before you login/signup, and we make sure to handle
| the data according to GDPR rules (though parts of GDPR
| are a bit lax, so I'd like to say better), considering
| it's illegal not to :P
| smoldesu wrote:
| iCloud synchronization is a security risk at my
| organization, are there options to sync using secure
| clouds?
| sauravmitra wrote:
| Hmm, I'm not sure how we'd go about allowing that at the
| moment without having to integrate each solution
| ourselves.
|
| How about the sync generating a file where you want it
| to, and you can sync that file using your current cloud
| storage solution? Would that work for you?
| cassianoleal wrote:
| > Free browsers typically make their money from search
| engine royalties.
|
| Please name names and map them to that.
|
| I know that Chrome is owned by Google. I also know that
| Firefox makes money from Google _for having it as the
| default search engine_. I configure my browser to use DDG.
| How is your product any better in terms of preserving my
| data?
| freediver wrote:
| > No source code? No tech details? No reason to trust you
| with my browsing? For all I know, this could be MITM'ing my
| sessions and exfiltrating my data.
|
| If open-source is what instills trust, then Chromium would be
| the most trusted browser. Instead, in practice, we should
| look at actual 'phoning home' habits and browser's business
| model to tell us what it real agenda is.
|
| Luckily we do need source code at all to check if any browser
| is sending data anywhere. A simple network proxy will do and
| is much easier and more accurate than supposedly going
| through millions(?) lines of code.
|
| In case of SigmaOS, at least the business model is more
| likely to not create privacy-related friction. I haven't
| checked it with network proxy, but somebody pointed out that
| crash logs are automatically sent to Microsoft which is not a
| good sign. Those are the things I would focus on.
| janus24 wrote:
| > No 32-bit?
|
| What's the market share for this one ?
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| At the moment, older model Raspberry Pi's and other ARM-based
| devices - everything else has moved on to 64 bits already. I
| don't think 32 bits needs to be supported anymore for
| consumer applications.
| Narishma wrote:
| I still use a couple of 32-bit netbooks.
| itisit wrote:
| Serious question: what are you doing (or can you do) to prevent
| your company from getting sherlocked out of existence?
| sauravmitra wrote:
| Sorry, I didn't quite get the question.
|
| Are you referring to another company copying our features?
| itisit wrote:
| > Are you referring to another company copying our features?
|
| Yes, Apple. All/many of your great features can (and perhaps
| will) find their way into Safari. Any thoughts on this? Not
| being pessimistic or confrontational; I'm genuinely curious.
| Apple has been "sherlocking" for decades, and your browser
| IMO is a classic target.
|
| More on "sherlocking":
|
| - https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/06/08/apple-strikes-
| aga...
|
| - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherlock_(software)#Sherlocke
| d...
|
| - https://www.howtogeek.com/297651/what-does-it-mean-when-a-
| co...
| atttali wrote:
| Well - Safari UX updates only come once every few years
| because they have loads of users and can't afford massive
| changes. Imo that's the reason why the tab group feature
| won't work (c.f. my comment to cube2222).
|
| Smaller companies can update every week, and hence always
| stay ahead, until they're big enough and then can compete
| more traditionally!
| itisit wrote:
| With all due respect, this is a bit naive. Good luck.
| Bernard_Chan wrote:
| Sigma has been an amazing browser and has increased my
| productivity significantly since I started using it.
|
| Being able to split my tabs into individual workspaces means I
| can finally find the website that I was previously reading.
|
| They seem to push an update almost every week or so with new
| features and bug fixes.
|
| Really impressed and would definitely recommend trying it out.
| atttali wrote:
| Thanks for being a great beta user :) Keep the feedback coming!
| mattl wrote:
| - What is the OS part of your name?
|
| - What is a neo-browser?
| MahyadGhassemi wrote:
| The OS part is more of the vision for the future of our product
| and where it can go (as well as the fact sigma.com was taken
| ;(). A neo-browser are browser that essentially try to have a
| new take on how a web broser should or could be
| mattl wrote:
| You plan to make your own operating system? How will that
| work given your reliance on OS X?
| MahyadGhassemi wrote:
| Hey Matt, sorry for causing confusion. We will not create a
| full on operating system that you would need to install on
| a separate device. It is more in the sense of the way of
| working how it is very much sitting behind all your web
| apps and connects it to your local activities.
| steviedotboston wrote:
| So, not an operating system... You shouldn't call your
| product an "OS" then
| steviedotboston wrote:
| This isn't ever going to be an operating system, that makes
| no sense.
|
| Also "neo-browser" is a dumb term. This is just a browser.
| Slightly different than others, but fundamentally it's a tool
| for viewing web pages.
| Matthias1 wrote:
| Since a couple of comments have made the comparison to Vivaldi, I
| thought I'd chime in, having used Vivaldi as my primary browser
| for 3-4 years now. Vivaldi's extreme customizability and rich
| feature sets makes it possible to mimic the functionality
| described here. (I love organizing tabs vertically on the left,
| something only Vivaldi was doing.)
|
| In another comment, the original poster mentioned that the
| keyboard shortcut to close a tab isn't cmd+w, because they don't
| want users to think about them as "tabs" and don't want to think
| about "closing" them, they're trying to organize things as items
| in a TODO list.
|
| The value that this provides then, isn't in actual features. All
| of these features can at least be mimicked in other browsers,
| either natively in Vivaldi's case, or with extensions and OS
| features. This browser's value would be in streamlined usability
| and new way of thinking about organizing things. For that reason,
| Hacker News in general isn't really the target market. Power-
| users don't want a new way of thinking about browsing or a
| streamlined experience, they want the customizability of Vivaldi.
|
| I think the marketing here needs to re-framed from focusing on
| "faster at your work," comparisons to vim, and extolling the
| virtues of keyboard shortcuts. The people that are interested in
| that are using Vivaldi or Vieb (https://vieb.dev) or have their
| own Firefox setup configured just right. You should focus on
| providing an opinionated way to organize and simplify browsing,
| letting the browser handle tab management. Reminders for tabs I
| think is a good idea that no other browser is doing. But can I
| make reminders for arbitrary text content? A 'browser with
| keyboard shortcuts' has been done before. A 'browser that is also
| a TODO list' is more interesting.
|
| Just my 2 cents.
| sauravmitra wrote:
| Thanks for the extensive feedback! Really appreciate it.
|
| We'll have to check out how we're marketing it. It's
| interesting. I'm a developer who'd call himself a power-user
| (my .vimrc is fly as fuck), but I'd much rather a product that
| streamlines the experience as long as it does it well. Which is
| what we want users to give us feedback on :D
|
| Yes, you can actually have todos for arbitrary text content and
| you can add your current page to the context of the todo. That
| way, you know where you were when you created the todo in the
| first place, which can be quite useful.
| 3r8Oltr0ziouVDM wrote:
| A closed-source browser is unacceptable from security/privacy
| point of view. Use a non-free license, but open the code.
| Enzo-YC wrote:
| Cool concept, I wonder removing the price from the website will
| help with conversion (a la superhuman). A lot of people are
| probably not even trying it because they haven't see the value of
| the product yet.
| MahyadGhassemi wrote:
| Heya, appreciate this. We hope people are at least honest
| enough with their feedback that they try something before
| making judgment on it :)
| BlissWaves wrote:
| This is pretty much solving a problem that doesn't exist at all.
| vptr wrote:
| That's how you make $$$ in USA.
|
| 1. Invent a problem. 2. Market like crazy to make people
| believe that there's a problem. 3. Charge for a solution to a
| non-existent problem. 4. Repeat.
| fourseventy wrote:
| No its not
| BlissWaves wrote:
| Show me one example which has worked with that formula and
| has generated significant amount of revenue?
| maccolgan wrote:
| lmao almost all of the garbage crypto"currency" (most of
| them want to be a store of value and even fail at that)
| projects
| breakfastduck wrote:
| You think the desire to have decentralised currency is a
| non/madeup problem?
| downvote_korok wrote:
| looks nice. is it chromium based ? what about supporting other
| platforms
| sauravmitra wrote:
| Thanks! It's based on WebKit directly.
|
| We definitely want to support Windows and Linux eventually, but
| for now we're focusing on MacOS.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Chromium also includes the V8 Javascript engine; what do you
| use for JS?
| sauravmitra wrote:
| I think it's called JavaScriptCore? It's Apple's and works
| with WebKit.
| Jyaif wrote:
| To the people saying $15 is too much: SigmaOS is almost certainly
| targeting companies, not individual users.
|
| If this makes employees save 30 minutes per month, it's worth it
| for the company.
|
| Speaking of browser-related productivity, I recently learned
| about this very useful Chrome shortcut that allows you to search
| among your open tabs: ctrl-shift-A (windows), command-shift-A
| (macOS)
| deltasixeight wrote:
| > To the people saying $15 is too much: SigmaOS is almost
| certainly targeting companies, not individual users.
|
| Doubtful, individual signups and education discounts show
| otherwise.
|
| Even as a company I'd be reluctant to purchase this.
| MahyadGhassemi wrote:
| Heya, actually our main target audience are prosumers who pay
| for productivity tools within teams and companies. As
| mentioned this is a tool made more for work specifically,
| like notion, Airtable and the tools like this.
| verdverm wrote:
| You expect companies to dictate which browser I should use
| as an employee?
|
| Can the team benefits be realized in a poly-browser
| environment?
| 41209 wrote:
| 15$ a month is a ton of money.
|
| I'd prefer 50$ one time if possible. The other issue is I simply
| don't know y'all. You could be keylogging everything for all I
| know.
|
| Even now I tend to use Chrome for secure browsing and Brave for
| AdBlocked browsing
| JediPig wrote:
| right now, its not worth $15 a month, or even $9. I see this as
| a cash grab from a non supported browsers that is a browser
| theme.
| MattGaiser wrote:
| If your income is based on productivity, especially micro
| optimizations in productivity (decidedly not the case for
| employees, but perhaps for contractors and freelancers), it
| might be worth it.
| sauravmitra wrote:
| Fair point, can't convince you we're trustworthy just by
| telling you, but I can still say it anyways :P
|
| We don't use keyloggers. We don't sell your data.
|
| If we did, it would be a breach of our privacy policy and you
| could sue us, right? (Don't know if I should be suggesting you
| sue us, but since you won't have a reason to, think we're safe
| :p)
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| > _Don 't know if I should be suggesting you sue us, but
| since you won't have a reason to, think we're safe :p_
|
| This is _the_ strongest, most credible privacy guarantee,
| imo. Ask your lawyer to make you as ridiculously vulnerable
| as possible, perhaps with a small "good faith error" clause.
|
| When you get big, you will turn evil. Bind the company now,
| and it will remain trustworthy for many more years.
| sauravmitra wrote:
| Honestly, agree 100%. How do you communicate that to users
| though? The trust is hard to gain.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| You don't need to communicate it to users. If they ask,
| and you can truthfully reply:
|
| > We are contractually forbidden from doing this, and if
| we do, you're entitled to [insert compensation plan that
| would cripple the company, without a private equity-style
| (or other) takeover being able to game it for profit] -
| on top of any legal obligations.
|
| then they'll probably sing your praises... if they
| believe you. So maybe publish a blog post or something
| about how you bullet-proofed the commitment (with lots of
| details)? Added bonus: I'd learn how you managed it,
| because it's too hard a legal problem for my amateur mind
| to solve.
| sauravmitra wrote:
| if they believe us, indeed :p
|
| Hey, if we figure out how to do that, I'll make a post
| outlining how to do it for others as well :)
| threatofrain wrote:
| Is this how you defend your marketing claims on privacy? Sue
| us if we have a data breach?
| MahyadGhassemi wrote:
| Well it is not a marketing claim, everything is stored
| locally on your device for now, and later would be using
| Apple's cloud system for cross device syncing. A data
| breach is very different from us misusing your data or
| monetizing it to be clear
| sauravmitra wrote:
| Haha, not how I meant to phrase it at least. I was merely
| pointing out that I can't convince you when I say that "we
| handle your data safely", so was proposing another
| reasoning for why we have to make sure any and all data is
| handled properly.
| deltasixeight wrote:
| Whats up with the name? Are you trying to get this thing to be a
| a complete layer over the OS?
| MahyadGhassemi wrote:
| What we hope to achieve someday is to make this a layer between
| your operating system and your web apps. Sorry for my
| pretencious phrasing, but essentially we want to be like an
| operating system for your web-apps. hope that makes a bit
| clearer
| mattl wrote:
| It doesn't sound clear at all. It sounds nothing like an
| operating system.
| nullspace wrote:
| The negativity in this thread is extremely distasteful. :/
|
| Just want to say, I think what can differentiate this from other
| browsers + extensions will come down to how well-integrated all
| of it is. Tab fatigue for work browsers is real and if this helps
| solve that, then it's worth it. From what I see on your landing
| page, the UX / workflow looks extremely attractive.
|
| Couple of things,
|
| a) I do think the $15 per month is a bit too high for my use case
| - this is the same price as Intellij - which provides enormous
| value (edit: over alternatives). b) there does not appear to be
| any dev tooling at least on your landing page.
|
| Both of those together probably means I'm not going to use it,
| but hope you find your niche market. Good luck!
| sauravmitra wrote:
| Thanks!
|
| We're still workshopping the pricing model, but do give the
| free trial a go and let us know what you think!
|
| There's the standard web inspector at the moment. What would
| you like to see for dev tools?
| nullspace wrote:
| Heh! I don't have Big Sur on my work laptop yet :)
|
| So, I'll give it a shot as soon as I can upgrade. The
| standard chrome dev should be good enough, if that's what it
| is.
| sauravmitra wrote:
| Ah, shame! Hope you update soon :)
|
| It's standard Safari dev as SigmaOS is based on WebKit.
| cvburgess wrote:
| Does it have standards parity with Safari or Safari
| Developer Preview?
| sauravmitra wrote:
| Hmm, to be honest, I'm not sure, but I think it's just
| the inspector and the tools you can access from there.
| Cyberdog wrote:
| > The negativity in this thread is extremely distasteful. :/
|
| Is it? Product launch threads on HN tend to be rife with
| questions along the lines of "how is this better than existing
| products?" or "how do you justify the cost over other
| alternatives?" In some threads those questions are stated a
| little more... plainly than in other threads, yes, but when
| someone starts a thread about a product with a subscription
| model (already not a popular prospect on HN) in a space where
| there are already a dozen decent alternatives for free, of
| course there's going to be some balking and questioning along
| those lines.
|
| At any rate, people post product threads on HN because they
| think HN's technical audience in particular will be interested
| in their product - and ultimately in paying for it in one way
| or another. In that sense we're kind of doing them a disservice
| if we just blindly cheerlead their product and don't provide
| any feedback as to why it actually might not be hitting the
| mark with this audience.
| vptr wrote:
| $15/month? get out of here. Who do you think is going to pay $15
| for a browser? PER MONTH!
| yugen101 wrote:
| The initial popup, asking about making the browser as default and
| to import the bookmarks from other browsers: I deselected both
| options, and the button became disabled, hinting that I had to at
| least select one option. But it was still possible to click
| outside the popup to close it.
|
| These kind of UI patterns make me stop using a product
| immediately.
| atttali wrote:
| The button wasn't disabled, it's meant to become a "Skip" and
| hence isn't a primary button. Fair enough that we should change
| that up, thanks for the feedback :)
| sauravmitra wrote:
| Yeah, sorry it seemed like it was disabled! As Ali mentioned,
| when you deselect both options, the button says "I'll do this
| later", which you can click to skip.
| tmikaeld wrote:
| You'll probably get too few monthly subscriptions to make it
| sustainable..
|
| Suggestion -> Make the basics free, add the collaboration
| features as an addon.
| MahyadGhassemi wrote:
| Thanks for the suggestions, we are seriously considering these
| options, as mentioned under few of the other comments, the
| pricing isn't written in stone for us since again we are
| workshoping that currently :)
| ftio wrote:
| Having watched the demo video, I think this looks interesting. A
| lot of the (overly nasty) comments here are talking about the
| pricing for this from a consumer/individual perspective. Frankly,
| they're right: I think that, for individuals, the benefit over
| using a vanilla browser is pretty limited.
|
| What piqued my interest in the demo are the 'multiplayer'
| features like super-fast sharing. Today, Sigma seems mildly
| simpler/faster at that than vanilla browsers, but I think there
| is a lot of room for growth and innovation here: browsers are
| mostly 'single player', but work is not.
|
| OP, if I were you, I'd be leaning _heavily_ into the more
| collaborative /social features of this thing and pivoting your
| GTM efforts toward companies rather than targeting individuals. I
| think there's merit to some of the comments here that $15/mo for
| an individual user is expensive. My advice: make it free or
| insanely cheap for individuals, but limit the collaborative
| features to paid business users.
|
| You're a Slack replacement, not a browser replacement.
| burlesona wrote:
| I largely agree with this. Also worth noting that Slack
| includes a relatively generous free tier so that people can
| form habits around it without needing to overcome the payment
| barrier. Once those habits are formed, the improved paid
| experience feels much easier to justify.
| jmercouris wrote:
| Good luck, I can only assume you are using WKWebView, you'll
| quickly run into limitations if you want to do truly
| sophisticated things. Please let me know if you would like to
| connect, I would enjoy talking about browsers together.
| mythz wrote:
| It looks like the primary redeeming tab groups feature could've
| been implemented as a browser extension which I personally still
| wouldn't use as I don't see that it adds any value over my
| current natural setup of having my "tab groups" basically grouped
| across across multiple browser windows and virtual desktops. So
| all sites I frequent are already open and I just use the OS
| shortcuts for opening the preferred browser window and CTRL+NUM
| to navigate tabs which IMO beats twiddling with a permanent
| sidebar that takes up valuable real-estate.
|
| It seems like what sets this browser apart is it wanting to
| charge $15/mo for a platform restricted browser with a tiny
| featureset and no extensions? Even free, it'd be hard to justify
| why anyone would choose to use it over other indie browsers like
| Vivaldi and its history of constantly shipping novel features.
|
| To justify charging any $$ would require providing some kind of
| premium hosting service like a secure VPN, but even that should
| be no more than $5/mo. $15 /mo would be more than I'm paying for
| any software, even more than my JetBrains All Products Pack
| subscription (with continuity discount) for which I'm currently
| making use of 11 of their best-in-class products - Unfortunately
| I don't see anything here to justify anywhere near $15 /mo.
| Although I really can't see myself ever paying a subscription to
| use a browser so I'm definitely not the target market.
| [deleted]
| Osiris wrote:
| Also tab grouping already exists in the free Vivaldi browser so
| it's an even less compelling feature to pay for.
| AkshitGarg wrote:
| Tab groups also exist in chrome, brave and edge (was behind a
| flag last time I checked), and presumably other chromium-
| based browsers too
| threatofrain wrote:
| Since the app is launching on Apple's ecosystem, it also
| makes sense to compare to Safari where we're already
| getting tab groups and syncing.
|
| Plus, there's the usual stuff of password management, email
| aliases (nice for not giving out your email), and private
| relay, which is basically TOR lite for grandma. And what
| about ad blocking?
| smoldesu wrote:
| Normally we don't compare real browsers to Safari for
| fear of completely embarrassing it. Are you suggesting we
| pull the gloves off? Monterey has given me all sorts of
| gripes that I'd love to get out, I was just hoping an HN
| thread wouldn't be the place.
| Grustaf wrote:
| Safari is not a real browser? I've been using it
| exclusively for half almost a decade, working as a
| developer and in finance. What have I missed?
| sixothree wrote:
| I use tab groups on Edge. I consider it a killer feature.
|
| I especially like the auto group feature. I start a search
| and every link I open in a new tab is added to the group
| (which is collapsible).
|
| I do a lot of spec digging doe my work. It's not uncommon
| to have 3 or 4 tabs per data type with many data types.
| bugmen0t wrote:
| And Firefox
| i_am_proteus wrote:
| Does anyone here identify as the target market for this product?
| I feel like "professional users" use Vivaldi or configure Firefox
| to do everything that this product tries to do.
|
| Very curious why YC backed this and what market share they were
| trying to capture.
| mbreese wrote:
| While we are giving constructive feedback...
|
| The sign up form is really annoying to me. I'm already not happy
| that I need to sign in to use a web browser (and likely to not
| pay $15/mo for one). But the sign up form keeps adding fields
| that must be answered before you're done. I'm okay filling out a
| form... but don't keep teasing that I'm done when I have 10 other
| questions to finish. This is not a very user friendly pattern.
| sauravmitra wrote:
| Heya, thanks for the feedback!
|
| We were trying to replicate a Typeform-like feel (questions,
| one by one) to make it more palatable but the goal isn't to
| bait you into thinking you're done.
|
| Do you think we're missing something to replicate the feeling
| of a nice Typeform, or do you think Typeforms in general are
| similarly annoying for you?
| mbreese wrote:
| It was just not knowing how long the form was... it felt like
| it was a choose your own adventure where my answered dictated
| what the next question was (which was obviously not the case,
| just the feeling I had).
|
| I think something like a (1/10, 2/10, etc...) in front or
| behind the question would have been helpful. Then you at
| least know how many more questions there are.
|
| Congrats on the launch -- first contact with potential
| customers must have a lot of little things like this.
| sauravmitra wrote:
| Thanks! Will try and add that in then.
| auiya wrote:
| You've reinvented Spotlight and tab-grouping by encroaching on
| the entire content space w/ nested layers of UI elements? If
| you're targeting the MacOS platform, you may want to reconsider
| this approach.
| agd wrote:
| Hey, just want to say good luck and keep at it. Lots of skeptical
| comments here, but that's always the case for different ideas.
| Stay positive :)
| atttali wrote:
| Thank you, really appreciate the kind words :)
|
| Would love to hear your thoughts on the product if you give it
| a shot!
| agd wrote:
| Yep, I'll give it a try.
| sauravmitra wrote:
| Thanks!
|
| I do appreciate the skepticism. Most of it seems healthy.
|
| If anyone is skeptical, try it out and let us know if the
| experience sucked (though we don't think it will), and we'll
| improve it from your feedback :D
| mouzogu wrote:
| A subscription model for a browser seems like a very, very niche
| market to me - but then that's the vim angle.
|
| For me, hard to justify $15 for a relativity feature-lite
| browser. You would need a stronger value proposition.
|
| I think most of these features can be reproduced for free on any
| other browser. Split view is neat but I do that already with
| chrome and spectacle, both free.
| sauravmitra wrote:
| Vim is awesome because it makes me fast at what I do. I use Vim
| for everything when I code, except for Swift (Xcode).
|
| I feel fast when I'm using SigmaOS. And we hope our users do
| too.
|
| We'll be adding features that our users need as we go forward.
| VPN would definitely be great.
|
| While you're here, anything else you think would be cool?
| sauravmitra wrote:
| I found out Spectacle was deprecated when I got the new
| machine, but Rectangle seems to be its successor. Awesome
| tools! :D
| mouzogu wrote:
| Thanks for sharing, didn't know about that.
| sauravmitra wrote:
| Getting used to the new keyboard shortcuts (you can choose
| the old Spectacle shortcuts as well) took a few days but
| had less conflicts and I prefer it now :)
| meerita wrote:
| Unisntalled after being requested email and 14 day trial.
| MahyadGhassemi wrote:
| Sorry to hear that, in terms of the trial we wouldn't take your
| payment details until your trial runs out. In terms of your
| email we don't use it for marketing or spam, it is more for
| being able to record your feedbacks you send us in app. But as
| soon as you want them delted you can request it and we quickly
| delete everything for u
| meerita wrote:
| No ofense, but I wish you all luck with this model. It is not
| meant for us who work on IT, we have to work with several
| browsers. This is more for the end consumer like.
| MahyadGhassemi wrote:
| No offence taken at all. really appreciate you still taking
| the time to check us out :)
| jasonshen wrote:
| I get the vision. You're building Superhuman but for browsers.
| Power tools for power users who are willing to invest the $$ and
| the effort to reimagine the most frequently used tool on their
| computer. Bravo!
| sauravmitra wrote:
| Thank you :)
| imharkunwar wrote:
| It's really expensive for Indian audience.
| dannyeei wrote:
| I was tempted then saw it costs $15 and immediately decided I'd
| never pay for this.
|
| If you're targeting it as a browser why aren't you just planning
| on getting to the size where Google pays you to be the default
| search engine?
| lucasfmsarmento wrote:
| hey there! SigmaOS does look amazing and like something I'd use.
| one question though.... I wasn't able to create a new window, I
| use multiple screens. when I do "cmd+n" it prompts me to try "W"
| which creates a new Workspace. Am i missing anything here? or it
| is impossible to use SigmaOS on different screens at the same
| time.
|
| Thanks and congrats on the launch!
| sauravmitra wrote:
| Heya, glad you're liking it! You can't open multiple windows of
| SigmaOS at the moment. This is something we would like to add
| especially for users using multiple monitors.
| lucasfmsarmento wrote:
| cool, I understand that the problem of having multiple
| browser windows open is exactly what you guys are trying to
| address... but it is crucial when using multiple screens
| sauravmitra wrote:
| Yup, totally get you. We'll be picking this task up soon
| hopefully.
|
| You can help speed this process up by reporting the issue
| using the question mark at the bottom-left of the app. It
| increases the count of how many of our users need this so
| we can prioritize our tasks :)
| danpalmer wrote:
| While I'm glad to see someone experimenting with what browsers
| can be, I feel like this particular featureset is underwhelming.
|
| - Tab groups - common in other browsers and extensions.
|
| - Split screen - OS feature.
|
| - Share integration - OS feature.
|
| - Snoozing tabs, neat. My task list does this, but this is handy.
|
| - Keyboard shortcuts, are they that much better than other
| browsers?
|
| - Sync - how many people have multiple Macs? how many of those
| want to sync state between their personal life and work life? I
| don't.
|
| - Doesn't sell data - typical for most browsers, usually funded
| by Google search (Chrome/Firefox/Safari).
|
| - No ads - typical for most browsers.
|
| I don't really know what the sell is here. Having slightly better
| keyboard shortcuts just isn't worth $15 a month. There are free
| browser extensions that do all of this, or if you want fancy tab
| management then something like Workona will do it for $7.
|
| Browsers aren't perfect, but as a browser power user this solves
| none of my problems.
|
| As for subscription pricing, I can understand that for a browser
| engine where staying up to date is critical to the web usability,
| but for a browser shell, it's a push, even with a good feature
| set.
| [deleted]
| dahfizz wrote:
| I always feel so strange when the topic of tabs comes up. There
| is an assumption that everyone has hundreds of tabs open all the
| time. Is that really true? I honestly can't imagine needing more
| than email, chat, github, and maybe some documentation or
| something while you are working. What do you people need all
| these open tabs for??
| sauravmitra wrote:
| I've had 100+ for sure. When I used Safari, I had about 15-20
| windows open.
|
| And honestly, I think SigmaOS is still great (biased ofc :p)
| when you have a few pages open, just from the ability to
| organise those pages.
| agd wrote:
| I understand your sentiment, however whenever I look at
| colleagues' or friends' browsers, they do indeed have an
| endless stream of tabs. Often 30+.
| SkyMarshal wrote:
| Fyi, there's a minor typo on the landing page, the little guy in
| the bottom left says "Psst... wanna now a secret?"
| sauravmitra wrote:
| Thanks, fixing it now!
| cvburgess wrote:
| So, bucking the trend... but i think this is really well executed
| and I'm a huge fan. I don't use vivaldi but i dont find it to be
| as nice of a UX as this.
|
| Im a Firefox guy mostly on principal, but if you had a solid free
| trial on this I would give it a go.
|
| Best of luck to you, remember you don't need to do something
| totally new to do it in a way that makes peoples lives better.
|
| I'd consider dropping the prices a bit, $9/mo seems more
| reasonable to me than $15 but as you add features im sure that
| will change.
| sauravmitra wrote:
| Thanks, appreciate it!
|
| We do have a 14-day free trial, and you don't have to put your
| card details when you sign up.
|
| Yeah, as Mahyad has mentioned, we're still workshopping price
| and pricing models.
|
| Let us know what you think!
| prakashqwerty wrote:
| I liked the idea.it seems to have potential,considering the raise
| of bloatware browser tools in day to day life of an dev.
|
| but what makes me skeptical about it is, i don't see any user
| reviews about your product.
|
| whenever you are making bold claim about your product, it's
| existing /early users must verify it is true,which creates trust
| when potential customers sees it.
|
| Have you beta tested your product?
| sauravmitra wrote:
| Thanks!
|
| So we launched into private beta in May, and have been
| iterating every week ever since. We have a Slack community you
| can join to talk to our current users as well :)
|
| Can I ask where you'd want to see user reviews?
| pembrook wrote:
| Interesting take on a problem that many startups are trying to
| solve from different angles.
|
| As everybody moves to web-based, cloud-native Saas tools, we're
| starting to run into the issue that browsers just aren't built
| for complex work in the same way MacOS/Windows are.
|
| As you can see already in the comments here, the most savvy, HN-
| type users have come up with a variety of convoluted and hacky
| solutions to this problem already (reminiscent of that hilarious
| Dropbox launch comment, _on Linux you can set up a system like
| this yourself quite trivially..._ ).
|
| So clearly it's a problem. Is this the right solution though? I
| don't know.
|
| Some companies have created an electron wrapper for accessing
| multiple web apps, others have created browser extensions for
| existing browsers, others are building new browsers from the
| ground-up (Vivaldi, these guys, etc). Meanwhile incumbents are
| adding features, ableit extremely slowly, in this direction as
| well.
|
| Browser extensions are the easiest distribution strategy, but
| they are going to run into feature limits pretty fast.
|
| The electron wrapper options out there have worked for me thus
| far, but I have to admit I'm not loving them.
|
| Vivaldi is interesting, but its clear to me the team working on
| it lacks taste and is throwing features at the wall with no real
| cohesive strategy.
|
| I commend you for trying to tackle this problem on hard mode. I
| think the biggest problem aside from distribution will be
| competing with the extension marketplaces of existing browsers.
| If you can crack that nut, and are good at fundraising, I think
| you might have a chance at gaining some market-share slowly but
| surely.
| parhamn wrote:
| Solid break down. Is there a way to contact you?
| ignoramous wrote:
| > _...reminiscent of that hilarious Dropbox launch comment, on
| Linux you can set up a system like this yourself quite
| trivially._
|
| Well, to be fair, folks on news.yc weren't exactly the kind of
| first adopters dropbox was after. The same is true for SigmaOS
| (and other YC companies in the browser space like
| usemotion.com, mighty.app, and insightbrowser.com). I mean,
| imagine a superhuman.com launch hn...
|
| Besides, many here question the price point given the
| alternatives (which is a valid concern). That said, the
| prevalent sentiment on news.yc has never been an indicator of
| any company's success. news.yc is a place for tech-savvy
| enthusiasts, who ironically, react with hostility towards not-
| yet-obvious disruptions. And to be fair, most disruptions start
| out on the fringes. And by definition, very few believe in
| fringe.
| [deleted]
| sauravmitra wrote:
| Damn, that's a great breakdown, and discusses a lot of the
| things we've been thinking about and what led us towards
| building SigmaOS the way we are.
|
| I'm actually implementing the Chrome extensions API, so SigmaOS
| will have the same extensions available as Chrome :D
| garyrob wrote:
| I probably can't see SigmaOS becoming my main browswer
| without being able to use some basic extensions like
| Instapaper. Do you have a timeline for extensions?
| sauravmitra wrote:
| By mid-September, I think.
| traceroute66 wrote:
| Mandatory login to a web browser ? $15/month ? Right off the bat
| you are putting up obstacles.
| elpax wrote:
| I literally never post comments on HN but what is this product.
| Is this $15/month browser for MacOS ? Fancy browser with grouped
| tabs, split-screen and sharing but still just browser. I think
| I'm just too poor to understand. I hope that your product will
| succeed because then I will know that in this world you can sell
| ice to an eskimo.
| MahyadGhassemi wrote:
| Thanks for taking the time to make us the first post to post a
| comment about. The one thing to keep mind is this a browser
| designed for professionals more than personal use. Example
| would be WhatsApp vs Slack. Granted some people use even
| WhatsApp for work, but at companies and within teams Slack is
| used more because of the structure it gives. Now yes there is a
| freemium version of Slack but to get the most out of it for
| teams, you need to updated to organisation pricing which at
| that point it is paid. Again appreciate taking the time to let
| us know what you think
| csilverman wrote:
| I'm a professional. The way you described it initially caught
| my attention as something I could use.
|
| Make it a one-time payment and I'd think about it. Subware is
| not something I support.
| bdcravens wrote:
| Slack's paid tier starts at $6.67/user. Google Workspace
| (Gmail, Drive, etc) starts at $6/user. Microsoft 365 starts
| at $5/user. Dropbox starts at $10/user.
| smoldesu wrote:
| The difference is that Slack actually gives you things when
| you pay: they host your company's photos, chats, and
| everything else. SigmaOS is literally flipping zero-margin
| utility, and I have a hard time imagining a "professional"
| who feels the need to pay $15/month for something they
| already use for free (and cannot be used on their other
| devices). Slack is cheaper, cross-platform, and actually
| provides some form of value.
| garciasn wrote:
| I make enough money to support $180/annual for a product;
| however, I see no reason to pay that kind of money for a web
| browser. It costs the same as a full-priced Windows 10 Pro
| license.
|
| I'm sure there are folks who are willing to pay that kind of
| money for this experience, I'm just not one of them.
| creshal wrote:
| > I'm sure there are folks who are willing to pay that kind
| of money for this experience
|
| I hope those folks are aware that Vivaldi gives them the same
| experience for free.
| avinassh wrote:
| > It costs the same as a full-priced Windows 10 Pro license.
|
| I believe Windows Pro license is a one time fee, so SigmaOS
| is more expensive than Windows
| fishtoaster wrote:
| It doesn't really matter whether it's a browser or not - what
| matters is the value it provides. I pay $15/mo for netflix even
| though I get some amount of free cable tv from my ISP. Google
| Analytics is free, but I use a paid competitor that I prefer
| more. There are a ton of free email clients, but I used a paid
| one because it has features I can't get in the free ones. None
| of those are "selling ice to an eskimo."
|
| Likewise, there's nothing inherent to browsers that mean they
| always need to be free, just because the dominant ones
| currently are.
|
| Now, that said, I don't think this product is worth anywhere
| near $15/mo to me, but maybe that'll change over time. A
| browser that actually makes me significantly faster at my work
| vs chrome/etc could easily be worth that much to me.
| freeplay wrote:
| Same boat. I have no problem with the price if it provides
| value for that price. Currently I'm paying:
|
| $10/month for Spotify because it's easier than maintaining my
| own music library and syncing it across devices.
|
| $10/month for Lightroom and Photoshop because it's vastly
| better than its competition
|
| I just don't see how this is /that/ much better than the
| competition (Firefox + extensions) or makes my life easier in
| any significant way.
|
| At current prices, for $15/month you need to provide some
| serious value because most people will do the direct
| comparison to other subscriptions they are familiar with.
| sturza wrote:
| I opened 3 suggested workspaces and it took 3.5GB of memory + my
| fans started blowing (MBPr 15")
| sauravmitra wrote:
| That sounds like a bug. Will look into it ASAP. If you report
| the issue using the question mark on the bottom-left of the
| app, I'll be able to follow up with you directly :)
| spuz wrote:
| How often do "Sigma male" memes go around your office?
| Tabular-Iceberg wrote:
| That was my first thought, thinking it was some kind of
| operating system for neckbeards.
|
| The second thought was if this was some kind of a Motorola
| spin-off.
| beebeepka wrote:
| Honestly, targeting Apple users does not seem like an unwinnable
| bet given what the product is.
| splatcollision wrote:
| Big Sur only (You have macOS 10.15. The application requires
| macOS 11.0 or later.)
| sauravmitra wrote:
| Yeah, we're using new frameworks that help keep our performance
| fast and product iteration high.
|
| Hopefully you'll be able to upgrade to try it out :)
| tagolli wrote:
| The multitasking seems great. Can you just Shift Click any link
| and it will open it in the same tab?
|
| I'm wondering about workspaces. It feels like a thing that sounds
| like a good idea but then in practice isn't used much. My
| browsing is mostly chaotic and I don't really wanna spend time
| neatly organizing everything. Wondering what your experience with
| it has been. Good luck with everything!
| sauravmitra wrote:
| If you shift-click a link, it will open it in your split
| screen!
|
| I actually have 4 or 5 work-related workspaces (different
| features I might be working on, one for Kanban board), I have
| two for personal (1 for DnD, 1 for Youtube videos), and most of
| my other browsing is quite ephemeral, so the page is closed
| pretty quickly after opening.
|
| We also want to implement rules for workspaces, so for example
| you can set certain domains to always open in specific
| workspaces.
|
| Try it out and let us know what you think and if it helps you!
| atttali wrote:
| If you like shift-click, you should also try out our command-
| click, opens pages as "sub-pages" :)
| 0x62 wrote:
| Absolutely no chance I'm paying $15/mo for a browser without:
|
| - Extensions - Adblock - No support for CMD+W (?)
| sauravmitra wrote:
| Good points!
|
| We're working on extensions and Adblock right now, so should be
| out soon!
|
| For CMD-W, we're trying to change how you think about pages to
| something you "mark as done" as opposed to just "close", and
| changing the shortcut helps make that change for users.
|
| Try it out and let me know if you think it's necessary to
| support CMD-W :)
| neilalexander wrote:
| > For CMD-W, we're trying to change how you think about pages
| to something you "mark as done" as opposed to just "close",
| and changing the shortcut helps make that change for users.
|
| Please don't force users to un-learn years of what they
| already know. It doesn't matter if you call it "closing" a
| page or "marking it as done" but _please_ make well-known
| keyboard shortcuts do roughly what a user would expect.
| sauravmitra wrote:
| We definitely don't want to punish our users or make the
| app feel worse.
|
| We're testing out a classic mode at the moment that allows
| your current shortcuts to work as well :)
| bern4444 wrote:
| You can change what happens when a user hits CMD-w. But CMD-w
| should still be the trigger.
|
| Everyone expects a very specific thing, make the current
| thing go away. Its the same reason you likely picked CMD-k as
| the shortcut to your pop up window. That's what Slack does
| along with several other applications.
|
| If you want to map this shortcut to your implementation of
| "going away" that's fine but it should be the same command.
| sauravmitra wrote:
| This is a fair point.
|
| Right now, it shows a message on the bottom-left asking if
| you meant to close a page and suggesting "D" as the
| shortcut instead.
|
| I think adding a classic mode with those shortcuts enabled
| should solve the issue. What do you think?
| verdverm wrote:
| What happens when a user thinks they are in an input
| field and hits 'd'?
|
| I've experienced the likely same outcome with Vimium and
| 'x'
|
| I suspect you will want to have modifier keys be the
| default. Something to ask users rather than forcing them
| to adopt to what you think is best
| sauravmitra wrote:
| Hmm, I want to look further into how often this happens.
| Was this a big issue for you with Vimium?
|
| Right now, if you accidentally close a page, you can
| quickly "Z" (or click the undo button that shows up) to
| bring the page back.
| verdverm wrote:
| I've experienced the loss of input when I habitually hit
| escape to exit input mode and then x to delete text.
| (Normal on vim, does not carrier over the same with
| Vimium)
|
| This closes the tab, and on restore, the partial input is
| lost. Had this hit me more than once on Confluence
| sauravmitra wrote:
| Good point. Currently though, if you "z" a page you've
| closed, it preserves your input. The system isn't
| perfect, but it prevents any fear of accidental closing.
| mwcampbell wrote:
| > We're working on extensions and Adblock right now, so
| should be out soon!
|
| Do you find that your decision to use WebKit is getting in
| your way here?
|
| As it happens, my company is also working on a browser for a
| niche userbase (not competing with you!), and I decided to go
| with Electron rather than Microsoft's WebView2 because it
| seemed to me that that option would give us more flexibility
| to deeply customize both the chrome and the content. Our
| target user base is mostly on Windows, not Mac, so Apple
| WebKit wasn't on the table for us.
| sauravmitra wrote:
| Hmm, not familiar with WebView2 myself.
|
| I think WebKit helped a lot initially getting everything
| running. Not having access to extensions and other
| limitations imposed by Apple is a bit of a bummer (which
| I'm working around), but I think it's been much better than
| using Chromium/Electron still (especially on performance!)
| neurotrace wrote:
| Are you planning to adopt an existing browser extension API
| or will extensions need to be rebuilt for Sigma?
| sauravmitra wrote:
| I'm working on building it from scratch for SigmaOS :P.
| Should have it out in a couple weeks!
|
| edit: implementing Chrome extension API. All Chrome
| extensions will be available :)
| neurotrace wrote:
| What made you decide to build it from scratch? By
| following a different system you're leaving a lot of free
| work on the table. For example, I extensively use Vimium,
| Dark Reader, Stylus, TamperMonkey, and LastPass. By doing
| it from scratch, all of those extensions would need to be
| re-implemented in the SigmaOS API. I love the idea of
| SigmaOS but I can't abandon Chrome/Firefox if I can't
| have LastPass, for example.
| sauravmitra wrote:
| Whoops, I might have not explained myself properly. I'm
| implementing the Chrome extensions API from scratch. When
| I'm done, you'll have access to all of your Chrome
| extensions!
| neurotrace wrote:
| Oh perfect. Thanks! Great work on the project by the way
| sauravmitra wrote:
| Thanks!
| cfree04 wrote:
| Love it so far. When I think about all of the time and tasks lost
| because of my mountain of tabs, $15 is an infinitesimally small
| price to pay given my workload and schedule. If it's not for you
| it's not for you but at least just try it.
|
| This will actually make me money and help me clock our earlier
| aside from the headaches I won't have. My life feels more
| organized and I am happy to have a team that is dedicated to
| building and improving a product. I have been a
| freeware/opensource nut for years but as I grow older I have
| learned the value of my time/happiness vs money. Everything is an
| investment and I am trading a little bit of cash for a better
| quality of life at work and time. That is going to be worth it 8
| days a week.
| blackout191 wrote:
| "Product is so positively life changing that people are
| creating accounts just to share their experience."
| atttali wrote:
| That's awesome, thanks for the kind words and keep the feedback
| coming!
| whydoineedthis wrote:
| Workona tab manager does most of that for free. It doesn't have
| split screen, but it has better bookmark management.
|
| Without personal discipline, niether of them solve my real
| problem of tab diahria as I go down 6 nested rabbit holes trying
| to solve multiple problems, some which do get solved, and some
| need exploring later, some which need to be archived.
|
| Please, for the love of God ditch messaging. I don't need 1 more
| place to get a message from someone. If they are too lazy to copy
| pasta a link, I don't need to see it.
| sauravmitra wrote:
| I agree on the personal discipline side, but I also think
| browsers can guide you towards a behavior with their design.
|
| Give it a go and tell me if it improved your flow or not.
|
| I get you on the whole messaging aspect, though I personally
| find it so useful for work. Ali and Mahyad can just send me
| pages without having to pollute Slack with a bunch of links.
| burlesona wrote:
| So I watched the demo, read the pitch, and read this whole thread
| trying to understand why anyone would think that a subscription
| browser could work as a business, and I think I finally see where
| they could go that might be interesting. It's right there in the
| name.
|
| A steadily increasing fraction of work is happening in web apps -
| especially Electron apps that we download and run as "sort of
| real apps." The HN crowd, including me, loves to bemoan this as
| "real native apps" generally run faster and offer a better user
| experience.
|
| But the thing about all the electron apps out there is that the
| majority are really native to the browser, and the electron
| version doesn't offer that much enhancement to what you get just
| running it in a browser tab. The reason most of us stop running
| those "always on" apps in browser tabs is more because it's
| clutter rather than because running the desktop app makes a huge
| user experience difference.
|
| What might be possible if you designed a browser specifically for
| running many web apps at a time? A web-app OS. You could converge
| on better universal keyboard shortcuts. Get better performance
| and less disk space by not having a dozen full copies of chromium
| hanging out on your computer. Keep things organized as they've
| shown with workspaces.
|
| But you could probably also bundle a lot of enterprise features
| in over time. What if the browser had SSO/SAML baked in so that
| when the company provisions the laptop employees are
| automatically logged in to all web based services with 2FA etc?
| Zero trust isn't easy for lower-tech users, and corporate
| security is worth a lot of money.
|
| In a way it's like, what if ChromeOS wasn't an attempt at a full
| replacement operating system (which can work for many use cases,
| but it's a hard transition), and instead "SigmaOS" can be the
| virtual machine that you live your web-app life in without
| cutting you off from your "traditional" operating system?
|
| It's an interesting idea, and I'm curious to see where it goes.
|
| Now back to pricing, I find it really hard to believe this makes
| sense for individuals to pay $15/mo for. But companies? Maybe.
| So, my advice to the Sigma team would be to keep testing pricing,
| and if you want to validate the idea that pro users will pay
| maybe try something like $15/_year_ as an "early access price"
| for individuals, with "team plans coming soon," or something like
| that.
| maccolgan wrote:
| >But you could probably also bundle a lot of enterprise
| features in over time. What if the browser had SSO/SAML baked
| in so that when the company provisions the laptop employees are
| automatically logged in to all web based services with 2FA etc?
| Zero trust isn't easy for lower-tech users, and corporate
| security is worth a lot of money.
|
| Stuff like this can't be standardized across the web, so you
| will end up with a new platform, essentially making people
| build for that platform and that platform only (depending on
| those features, unless you can make them optional), which is
| near impossible.
| sauravmitra wrote:
| High praise for reading through this entire thing. And even
| more for the detailed analysis. :D
|
| A web-app OS is definitely part of our long-term goal here, and
| you've covered a bunch of our thought process.
|
| Right now, we're targeting individuals and they recommend it to
| their co-workers and their colleagues, which allows us to get
| it to teams in a very natural way.
|
| Of course, we're still workshopping our pricing model. We
| appreciate the advice :)
| lwn wrote:
| $15 a month is too much for me to consider switching from Safari.
| Although I'm looking for a decent browser-replacement, because of
| the <Safari - OS - hardware> update interlock.
|
| I don't mind paying for software, but for $15 I'd expect Browser
| + full blown google internet search alternative + privacy.
| freediver wrote:
| Have a look at Kagi + Orion ;)
| sauravmitra wrote:
| We're still workshopping pricing models. We have a 14-day free
| trial, so please give it a go and tell us what you think!
| lwn wrote:
| Will do!
| mosselman wrote:
| The "Used by people at..." bit is curious and suspicious,
| especially in relation to their privacy claims.
|
| Lets say it is true, there are a few scenario's.
|
| One scenario is harmless: these people work there, are friends
| and told the makers they use the browser and are happy for them
| to use this info on the site.
|
| Most other scenario's: they found this out from e-mail addresses
| or through some other means and are now using this tidbit on the
| site to sell their product. This isn't selling information, but
| it is pretty close to it. It shows that they mine your
| information and use it to their own benefit. It isn't very
| nefarious, but it isn't exactly super privacy conscious. "Oh...
| and we don't sell your data." oh, but we do look through it and
| see what we can use four ourselves.
| sauravmitra wrote:
| Fair point to check. All harmless here though :P
|
| These are all users who joined during our private beta and who
| we spoke to personally :)
| caslon wrote:
| This really feels like it would have had a better time with a
| smaller "meet the batch" thread. Given that which startups get to
| be featured in one of those threads rather than a standalone
| thread is decided by dang, it almost feels like this thread was
| intentionally greenlit standalone to start a flamewar. The odds
| of that are slim, probably, but it seems impossible that anyone
| thought this was a good idea to give its own thread rather than a
| smaller and more under-the-radar spot in a group thread.
|
| It's so early that it has support for effectively a single
| version of a single operating system (it isn't even an _OS X_ web
| browser, it 's a macOS browser), it doesn't have ad blocking or
| extensions, it doesn't look like it fits the HIG of _any_
| operating system, let alone the one it was apparently purpose-
| built for, it really drastically needs a designer, and to top it
| off it 's got a subscription model in a genre of software that
| has never worked well at even a one-time price.
|
| There has never been an iteration of HN that would have given
| this product at this stage of its development anything but a
| disaster of a thread. I'm not going to insult the product (I
| doubt I'd say anything that someone else hadn't already said),
| but I can't see how anything productive or useful would have or
| _could have_ possibly came about from this thread.
| dang wrote:
| Of course I didn't pick it to intentionally start a flamewar.
| The things you guys come up with!
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
| caslon wrote:
| I know the rules! I said the odds of it were slim!
|
| What _was_ your reasoning, though, over all of the other
| candidates for standalone posts that instead got a group
| "meet the batch" thread? I can't think of something more like
| gasoline than this product/stage-of-development/thread
| combination.
| dang wrote:
| I'm just guessing at what you all might find interesting.
| They're informed guesses, but guesses still.
|
| In this case, these guys are working on something big and
| the background from which they're approaching the problem
| seems solid to me.
|
| There's an interesting delta here between how YC thinks
| about startups and how HN thinks about startups. I'll try
| to come back and add more to this comment because it's
| something I've been meaning to write about for a long time.
|
| Edit: here it is...
|
| Think of the current state of a product like this as a
| point on a plane. When YC funds a startup, they're not so
| much looking at that point, but rather at the vector it's
| part of. That includes, yes, current position, but also
| direction (how it might develop over time) and momentum
| (how fast it's developing, how capable the founders seem).
|
| When HN evaluates a startup, people really just look at the
| current product point: how valuable it is right now, i.e.
| how ready to fill important use cases and how good a
| business those make for. That's a perfectly fine thing to
| assess, but it's a totally different assessment. This is
| the delta that I mentioned above.
|
| Partly this is because of a difference in the amount of
| information available (YC gets detailed applications, gets
| to interview founders, works closely with founders during a
| batch, and so on--HN posts don't provide any of that). But
| partly also it's a difference in mentality. YC is making
| decisions from a place of high uncertainty. HN, or at least
| the critical side of HN, only values what can be
| demonstrated today and has low tolerance for uncertainty.
|
| For YC, the home runs are funding a company that starts out
| looking like a toy and ends up developing into a big
| business. But if the startup does a Launch HN while still
| at the "toy" stage, HN tends to have a big allergic
| reaction: "how could YC fund such a thing?", etc. etc.
| Well, YC is funding such things all the time. That's the
| core of the business. A few go on to get big and then the
| startup (or YC) gets to point back at threads like this and
| say "I told you so". More, of course, never amount to much,
| and in those cases it's the commenters who get to point
| back at threads like this and say "I told you so". It's
| hindsight fallacy in both cases though.
|
| The lesson for Launch HNs might be that it's in a startup's
| interest not to come to HN while still at the tadpole
| stage, when people say things like "I can't see how
| anything productive or useful could have possibly come
| about from this thread". On the other hand: those are just
| comments, and only part of the comments at that. There are
| also bound to be a lot of users who are interested in the
| vision and willing to try the new thing even if it's in an
| immature state. So it's actually not so easy to say what's
| in the startup's best interest.
|
| It's much easier to say what's in HN's best interest:
| interesting conversation. I'd say we got that here.
| Alternative/future web browsers are an interesting theme,
| and while the reception has been mixed, I wouldn't call it
| a flamewar. It was a bit unpleasant at the negative end,
| but then other commenters have shown up to compensate for
| that. That is the natural cycle of many HN threads (https:/
| /hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...).
| [deleted]
| letchuga4 wrote:
| I've been beta testing this and I can honestly say that I love
| it! I don't use too many web apps (except Notion) but still
| usually have about 50 tabs open on safari. With sigma, I've been
| able to organise all these tabs in different workspaces because I
| work on a lot of different projects and just this already has,
| imo, made me much more efficient. I can focus on specific tabs
| without having to move around like crazy like I usually do on
| safari. I also love the split screen feature - I read a lot of
| research papers and sigma makes taking notes while reading so
| simple. You can also send feedback or request features! Lastly,
| the design is beautiful and clear, something you don't always
| find elsewhere. Keep up the good work Sigma!
| atttali wrote:
| Thanks for the kind words and for trying out SigmaOS. Glad we
| could improve your workflow :)
| rvin wrote:
| One thing that I've noticed is when the comments for a Launch HN
| or Show HN is overwhelmingly negative, that usually the product
| captures a usecase that people have wanted or hacked together
| themselves but haven't productionized or monetized. Sometimes, it
| works out and sometimes it doesn't but it definitely makes me
| want to judge for myself.
|
| Watched the video and the product looks great! I'll definitely
| give it a spin and congrats to everyone @ SigmaOS for a great
| launch.
| sauravmitra wrote:
| Thanks a lot! Hopefully it works out :D
|
| Let us know what you think :)
| nimish wrote:
| Potentially very useful but $15 per month is a lot to ask. A full
| Office 365 subscription with apps is less than this :(
| Eric_WVGG wrote:
| In your mandatory signup form, I am told "Looks like you missed
| one of the required fields: [facepalm] Problems". I do not suffer
| from any of the listed problems.
|
| ... and now I have to dig up this login link? really testing my
| patience here...
| sauravmitra wrote:
| Thanks for the feedback! Will make the change to the form so it
| covers your case.
|
| Regarding the login flow, would you use Google Sign-In if we
| had it?
| Eric_WVGG wrote:
| No, I prefer email signups.
|
| I think you've just got too many "okay next" steps. Also, is
| account activation really necessary? Couldn't I just start
| using the app immediately and activate within X days?
| sauravmitra wrote:
| So our login flow requires email login to authorise because
| we also allow you to sync your data across multiple devices
| (if you choose to do so).
|
| It's true that the signup could be simpler but then I'd
| worry in the case that someone uses someone else's email,
| that the real owner of the email when logging in would get
| access to the original user's session if they chose to
| sync.
|
| Maybe we could have a more complex solution given some
| time. Any ideas?
| spiderice wrote:
| I type in my email and click "Login" and nothing happens. No
| visual indicator, nothing. Just sits there and lets me keep
| clicking the "Login" button.
| sauravmitra wrote:
| Hey, that shouldn't be happening :(
|
| Have you signed up? If you have and it's still not working,
| email me at saurav@sigmaos.com with the email address you
| used, and I can look into it.
| have_faith wrote:
| This is a very hard sell. As a potential user I'm being asked to
| abandon my free browser that I trust and exchange it for
| something that costs money where I would lose access if I stopped
| paying. I think conceptually what you're building has a niche
| worth pursuing (productivity focused, project based navigation of
| the web) but it's going to take a lot of thought to make that
| more compelling than installing free extensions on an existing
| browser.
|
| On reflection if the core functionality (organising
| projects/bookmarks as a key part of the browser experience) was
| made into a paid browser extension I'd be more likely to consider
| using it.
| wazoox wrote:
| I'm not the target (I use almost only Linux professionally) but
| from a quick glance this looks very much like my firefox setup
| (grouping tabs: tree style tabs + sharing quickly through many
| apps: share backported + split screen: Nifty Split).
|
| I know it sounds like the famous Dropbox rebuttal comment, and
| I'm obviously not the target demographic, but I'm puzzled :)
| MahyadGhassemi wrote:
| Heya, no thanks very much for mentioning this. There a lot of
| pro users who have great set ups which we take a lot of
| inspiration from. The fact of the matter is a lot of teams
| don't use linux necessary and it won't make sense for those
| people to have complicated setup. we make that productive set
| up for them just easier to do
| inshadows wrote:
| What support does this project (and other "Launch HN" ones) get
| from YCombinator? How much money for the runway?
| mceoin wrote:
| Congratulations on the launch @MahyadGhassemi!
|
| Thrilled to a startup tackling browser innovation with such a
| strong emphasis on speed within information workflow. Best of
| luck with the years ahead.
| ThinkBeat wrote:
| What engine is this a skin for?
|
| If they built their own engine from scratch I can see the $15
| being worth it just to encourage more competition and innovation.
|
| SigmaOS is certainly an ambitious name. At present it does not
| make much sense to me, but down the line it might.
| sauravmitra wrote:
| The engine is WebKit.
|
| It is our long-term goal for that name to make more and more
| sense :)
| freediver wrote:
| Congrats on the launch, the vision to create something different,
| to lead with Mac, to base it on WebKit, and to charge for it. Not
| many companies dare do that.
|
| My first advice will be to market this as a productivity tool and
| not a browser. This is much closer in nature to something like
| Sidekick or Workona vs something like Safari. Writing a browser
| from scratch (even if you have a good rendering engine for
| 'free') is unbelievably hard and you probably do not want to go
| down that rabbit hole. On the other hand working next on features
| like calendar integration and meeting invite scheduling seem to
| be more 'in character'.
|
| Even if focused on productivity, you will still need to provide
| many browser-like functionality like syncing across all devices
| including iOS, iPadOS and Android (because the paying user may
| have Mac Desktop and an Android phone, and they would expect they
| can pick up same work where they left it on all their devices).
| These three apps alone will be monumental underataking because
| getting productivity on mobile right is much harder and your
| 'killer' feature - keyboard shorcuts - is already DOA.
|
| Second advice is to summon your initial vision and keep it by
| your side all the time. What is the main reason you decided to
| build this? Focus on this. Read all the comments and advice you
| get, but stay true to the real reason you are building this.
|
| And third, hoping to raise additional money so you can see the
| vision come through is not a good position to be in. Are you
| ready to execute on it even if you don't raise additional round?
| These things may take years to mature.
|
| Good luck!
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