[HN Gopher] Show HN: I made a customizable iOS browser for minim...
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Show HN: I made a customizable iOS browser for minimalists and
myself
Hello HN! So early this year I decided to build an iOS browser
offering a large range of customization options, to accommodate
anyone's usage and visual preferences. Been using it as my default
browser for 6 months and not looking back. On first launch it
looks and behaves a bit like Safari, but to give you an idea, here
are the various ways I customized it on my phone. - More screen
real estate for the webpage, less for the toolbar. - A compact
toolbar containing only the buttons for actions I use the most: new
tab, close tab, open tab list. Since I use them hundred times a
day, I need them available with button taps instead of swipe
gestures. - A toolbar button layout adapted to my left-handedness.
- A toolbar that disappears on scroll to allow full-screen reading.
- The toolbar and address bar at the bottom, as they should be. -
A popup menu showing the full URL and the buttons I use less
frequently: back/forward (already available as screen edge
gestures), share, reload, settings, etc. - Showing the page title
in the toolbar. - Read time estimation for each tab. - Opening
the keyboard automatically when I open a new tab. - Sorting tabs
by read time, so that I can decide what to read based on how much
time and focus I have. - Grouping tabs by domain. - A flat,
condensed tab list, without snapshots. - A full-black toolbar in
dark mode to read at night. It's still early days but things like
content blockers, reader mode, iPad support, and more should arrive
soon enough. And of course, no analytics/monitoring/telemetry, no
account creation, no backend. It's not open source, but you can
also inspect the app's web views with Safari developer tools to see
what's going on under the hood. Would love to hear if the level of
personalization my app provides resonates with like-minded people.
Have a great day!
Author : nckh
Score : 156 points
Date : 2023-07-23 12:30 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (apps.apple.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (apps.apple.com)
| orr721 wrote:
| Hi I like it very much, it reminds me of Firefox Focus
| (https://apps.apple.com/us/app/firefox-focus-privacy-
| browser/...). Please add optional toolbar buttons to force web
| page text size increase/decrease like in MacOS Safari. You can
| consider it an accesibility option for us older people with
| worsening eyesight. Thanks!
| franze wrote:
| Is there a way to get the toolbar to the top?
|
| Never liked it down blow.
| nckh wrote:
| Not yet, but this will come when I add iPad support. I'd love
| to know why you prefer it at the top. Can you please elaborate,
| here or by email?
| FollowingTheDao wrote:
| When I am reading a book, the chapter and title are at the
| top of the page.
| nckh wrote:
| Good point for the address/title bar. But would you also
| want the toolbar buttons at the top?
| FollowingTheDao wrote:
| Yes, because I turn my book pages from the top right
| corner as well. :)
| nckh wrote:
| I see your point now :) Thanks for sharing!
| franze wrote:
| Cause I read down the page, and I don't want there any text
| (adressbar where I prefer the full URL) to distract me.
| nckh wrote:
| Oh same for me :) Then you can setup the toolbar to hide on
| scroll: Settings - Display - Behavior on Scroll - Hide
| prh8 wrote:
| This looks really great! Would love to get Kagi as a search
| engine option
| jasonjmcghee wrote:
| Piece of feedback- the screenshots in the App Store look like
| fake iPhones (wrong shape) which (I believe) hurts the overall
| polish / trustworthiness of the app.
|
| (After a quick browse in App Store) Splitwise and Feedly do this
| well. AllTrails is a bit more abstract but gets the shape right.
| benabbottnz wrote:
| I agree, and find it quite overstimulating too. I'm not even
| sure what it's trying to show me.
| nckh wrote:
| That's a very good point. That's a tradeoff I made to get some
| extra space inside those constrained landscape screenshots, but
| I will probably revert to actual device frames once I revert to
| portrait screenshots. Thanks for the great examples!
| sunnybeetroot wrote:
| I wouldn't bother changing it. IMO the average user won't
| notice or even care.
| djcannabiz wrote:
| What I see so far, I like very much. However, there are 2
| features that are stopping me from using it as my main browser.
| an adblocker, and swiping the tab bar to switch between tabs. But
| what you have created so far, I really like!
| nckh wrote:
| Thank you so so much for those nice words! During the beta
| period I was totally amazed that quick tab swiping was the
| absolute #1 most requested feature :)
| eyelidlessness wrote:
| At least for me, it's one of those things I never knew I
| needed... until I had it, and now it's like second nature.
| It's like a much better version of the "switch tabs with
| scroll wheel" extensions I used to use on desktop.
| djcannabiz wrote:
| I totally agree. Brave on ios does an interesting thing,
| where you can drag to switch tabs. It's much quicker to
| switch many tabs, but i found myself overshooting and
| ending up on the wrong tab. I also like how the default
| safari shows you the edges of other tabs to make it clear
| what you can switch to.
| nckh wrote:
| Wow I never noticed that tab switching gesture thing on
| Brave. Quite lacking precision as you said though. Thanks
| for pointing it out!
| heinstrom wrote:
| Have we not all just migrated to DNS based ad blocking yet?
| manuelmoreale wrote:
| The best solution is to run both at the same time.
| oefnak wrote:
| No, that doesn't block YouTube ads (for example) and with DNS
| over Https will stop working soon anyway.
| the_gipsy wrote:
| That only does the bare minimum.
| www_harka_com wrote:
| I'd kill to have something like this on Android.
| user_7832 wrote:
| Have you looked at Kiwi and Soul browsers? They've got
| different strengths.
| nckh wrote:
| That's the nicest thing someone has ever said to me <3 Thanks a
| lot!!
| www_harka_com wrote:
| Thank _You_! <3 I love minimal UIs and customizability.
|
| Is there any way I can keep updated if that ever happens?
| nckh wrote:
| You can follow on Twitter and Mastodon! Would it work for
| you? Do you prefer newsletters maybe?
| www_harka_com wrote:
| I'd prefer a newsletter as I'm not actively using
| Twitter, but give me your handle and I'll follow you for
| the time being.
| nckh wrote:
| Understood, I'll think about starting a newsletter then
| :) Please follow @quichebrowser on Twitter.
| www_harka_com wrote:
| Thanks! Followed. Keep up the good work!
| yoavm wrote:
| Really? It sure looks like the OP did a great job with this
| browser, but it's still iOS... On Android I can use Firefox for
| Android with uBlock Origin, Bypass Paywall, Cookie Auto Delete,
| and more. Whenever I try browsing on an iPhone I'm reminded
| it's always Safari behind the scenes, without extensions,
| making web browsing so painful.
|
| Again - great job with with the OP's browser. Android is just
| so much customizable to begin with, IMHO.
| nckh wrote:
| Thank you! I won't deny you can customize and extend greatly
| on Android, but to be fair, my little browser is precisely
| about UI customization.
| hxii wrote:
| Looks great so far! Really looking forward to content/ad
| blocking.
|
| Any chance you're planning on adding tab groups?
| nckh wrote:
| Thanks a lot! I'd love tab groups as well, but I would like to
| come up with something a bit more efficient than Safari, and
| this will take a lot of time to experiment.
| galuggus wrote:
| Looks good. How about adding some more screenshots/a video on the
| appstore page?
| nckh wrote:
| Thank you! I totally agree and am planning to revamp the
| screenshots for the next release. Initially I went with
| landscape screenshots in order to show multiple toolbar
| variations at a decent size, but the tradeoff is I couldn't
| show settings screens. A video would be great but I'm gonna
| have to grow some video editing skills first :)
| thex10 wrote:
| About to download this for the easy access to "Close Tab" alone,
| thanks for sharing!
| nckh wrote:
| Haha thanks a lot! As stupid as it may sound, that close tab
| button has been a total game changer to my daily browsing :)
| throwaway72762 wrote:
| Adblock? I've been hoping for an iOS browser with adblock that
| isn't bloated.
| nckh wrote:
| That's the next big feature on the todo list :)
| D4ckard wrote:
| Just installed it on my phone and played around with the
| configuration options for a few seconds. I really that there are
| so may themes and presets already installed. While I think that
| the ability to configure software is great software that doesn't
| _need_ configuration is obviously still better. Carefully
| designed presets can be a good middle ground between personal and
| niece preferences and shipping a product that 's actually
| finished.
| nckh wrote:
| Honestly I agree. I'd like to make buttons arrangement easier,
| but also something like an assistant that could come up with
| your ideal toolbar and menu. Plenty of work to do, but so much
| fun!
| Ziggy_Zaggy wrote:
| Support for script-driven fullscreen mode is a big plus. You keep
| support for that and I will keep the browser.
| nckh wrote:
| Can you please elaborate what do you mean by "script-driven
| fullscreen mode"? Does any other iOS browser have such feature?
| Ziggy_Zaggy wrote:
| So the problem is that the "user gestures" break any JS that
| attempts to engage or disgage fullscreen on a video object.
|
| Imagine!!! ...there eixsts an app that implements a playlist
| using video objects (.mp4s). This app will NOT be able to
| engage/disengage fullscreen in Chrome/Edge without some
| serious hacks.
|
| Potential solution: - Simply implement a brower setting that
| enables/disables user-gestures for specific URL(s).
|
| Edge error: Failed to execute 'requestFullscreen' on
| 'Element': API can only be initiated by a user-gesture.
|
| MDN Docs fullscreen link: - https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
| US/docs/Web/API/Element/req... MDN Docs user gesture link: -
| https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
| US/docs/Web/API/Web_Audio_A... MDN Docs gesture event link: -
| https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
| US/docs/Web/API/GestureEven... Stack Overflow Link: -
| https://stackoverflow.com/questions/27649264/run-chrome-
| in-f...
|
| "Does any other iOS browser have such feature?" - Not to my
| knowledge?
|
| Can you dig it?
| marssantoso wrote:
| Hi. Nice browser. Looking forward to daily drive this.
|
| One thing that caught me off guard after using safari is swiping
| up the address bar doesn't bring up the tabs in this. Idk, I
| guess it's more intuitive that way.
| nckh wrote:
| Thanks for your feedback! Safari gestures do work very well and
| really became the benchmark on iOS. It may be a bit trickier to
| pull out in my case when the address bar is very narrow, and
| become less convenient to pull and drag around. I'll see what I
| can do :)
| tomekw wrote:
| This comment has been written on Quiche Browser. Testing. Looks
| great!
|
| So far the only thing I'm missing is to undo closing the tab (for
| 5 seconds?)
| filoleg wrote:
| Thanks for the post, this is very nice. While I am not switching
| browsers yet, this is looking very promising, and so far I love
| the direction you are taking with this.
|
| Incidentally, discovered your reader app[0] thanks to this post,
| and it looks exactly like what I've been looking for for quite a
| while. And the fact that it is on macOS as well is a very welcome
| cherry on top.
|
| 0. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/quiche-reader/id1387881185
| nckh wrote:
| Haha that proves my reach has been extremely bad: I released
| the reader's v1 four years and half ago :) Thanks a lot though!
| I've got a few ideas on how to make the browser and reader work
| together smoothly.
| filoleg wrote:
| To be fair, I am not sure it was your perceived lack of reach
| in my specific case. I simply got burned out on trying to use
| reader apps, given there are so many of them out there, all
| just not feeling quite right to me at the end of the day
| (similar to how there are bajillion different todo apps of
| all kinds and sizes).
|
| So it isn't like i had some specific set of requirements that
| i was looking for in a reader app and was actively searching
| for it. It was more of a case of "i don't know what i
| actually want until i see it, and i gave up on actively
| searching for it". Tastefully opinionated defaults and
| workflows draw me in, can't argue with that.
|
| Realistically, no matter how wide your reach could've been, I
| probably wouldn't have noticed the app unless I saw an HN
| thread about it like this one. That's a datapoint of one
| though.
| LynxInLA wrote:
| Does the reader have dark mode? Or does that depend on the
| website's implementation?
| thih9 wrote:
| Excellent. I especially like all the customization options. As
| well as the privacy policy.
|
| One thing I'm missing - I couldn't find a way to search for a
| text in page.
| 1023bytes wrote:
| Looks nice, only thing I miss from stock Safari are the gestures
| - being able to swipe on the toolbar to switch between tabs
| PartiallyTyped wrote:
| My one caveat is that I wanted to use Kagi but that wasn't
| possible.
| achr2 wrote:
| I love this. My number one ask is to add a context menu action to
| open an image in a new tab.
| nckh wrote:
| Adding to the todo list. Should not be too hard to implement :)
| Thanks for the suggestion!
| achr2 wrote:
| Amazing! It's a good differentiator also as this was removed
| in safari.
| de_nied wrote:
| Any chance you could implement WebBLE capability?
| nckh wrote:
| Not in the immediate future, but I'm hoping Apple will add
| support into WebKit at some point, and I can just inherit from
| it.
| samuelfekete wrote:
| Does it save the content of open tabs?
|
| This is my number one frustration with existing iOS browsers -
| when I come back to tabs without an internet connection
| everything is gone.
| the_gipsy wrote:
| All iOS browsers just use some webview under the hood. I doubt
| they have any control at all over this extremely irritating
| behavior.
| eviks wrote:
| Buy why can't they store page cache as local data and
| continue to use webview to open it?
| Tagbert wrote:
| It is likely the OS that is clearing those tabs from
| memory. The app may not get any notifications. IOS does not
| have virtual memory that can be saved to storage and
| restores on request. IPadOS does now have that on the newer
| M1 processor versions. They also have 8GB of RAM so they
| are less likely to need to purge or swap.
| the_gipsy wrote:
| Because it's some opaque component, and it's the only thing
| you can use on iOS. Firefox and chrome are just
| chrome/shells around safari's engine and all suffer from
| this problem.
| nckh wrote:
| It should remember the scroll position, and the content of
| <input> and <textarea> tags.
| LynxInLA wrote:
| Does it re-request contents when it reload tabs after the app
| is suspended? Safari makes it very difficult to read content
| later if you don't have service.
| nckh wrote:
| It does. Not sure WebKit has an easy solution for that
| specific scenario at the moment, besides saving a web
| archive to disk.
| nangtrongvuon wrote:
| Great app!
|
| I've noticed on iOS 17 beta the keyboard doesn't show when
| tapping the address bar once. Other than that, feels very nice to
| use.
| nckh wrote:
| Thank you very much! An adventurous friend on iOS 17 reported
| me that as well, but it seems Safari has the same problem as
| well? Anyhow I'll make sure it works well when the iOS 17 RC is
| released.
| uni_baconcat wrote:
| Lovely app! Thanks.
| user_7832 wrote:
| Thanks for linking your app! While I'd love to try it, there's
| unfortunately an issue - it requires iOS 16.4 or later. I
| understand that this is a really minor/insignificant thing for
| 99%+ of users, but as someone on iOS 14/15 (iPad/phone), I can't
| use it :( Are there any iOS 16 specific APIs used, and/or does
| Apple prevent targeting older versions of iOS?
|
| Btw I'd also recommend looking at Soul & Kiwi browser for android
| if anyone's interested, they're great too.
| novok wrote:
| As an iOS dev, every year there are significant amounts of APIs
| that make doing your day to day job easier that you can't use
| if you don't stay on the latest, especially with actively
| developed ones like SwiftUI. So probably nothing needed
| specifically, but definitely something productive.
| layer8 wrote:
| Same here.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| Interesting meta-observation - This thread is filled with people
| satisfied with this new web browser, and not a single mention of
| the engine.
|
| IMHO this apps existence proves that you can build a new web
| browser with innovative features on top of the engine
| restrictions on iOS, and consumers are not harmed because this
| runs WebKit.
| nckh wrote:
| 100% agree. WebKit is incredible, and people underestimate all
| the great things you get out of the box for free. That means
| more time to experiment with creating something different
| _around_ the web views.
| jwells89 wrote:
| Yeah, as someone who's built a WebKit browser for kicks in
| the past, WebKit is designed to have applications built
| around it and you can definitely feel that when working with
| it.
|
| It may have changed since then, but last I knew a good
| example of this is its multiprocess architecture. In WebKit,
| that's part of the engine while with Blink it's part of the
| browser. So while using WebKit gets you multiprocess
| regardless of how your app is built, if you're using Blink
| you need to bring Chromium along for the ride or roll your
| own to get that.
|
| And of course Gecko is joined at the hip with XUL, so to do
| anything with it your only real choice is fork Firefox.
|
| Really hoping Ladybird turns out well and/or Servo takes off
| because there's a dearth of properly embeddable web engines
| right now.
| cole-k wrote:
| If I may offer an explanation, I think it's because the OP is
| upfront about the browser being about customization and
| personalization.
|
| I clicked on the link first thinking "another reskin" and
| expecting to see the comments you were probably also expecting.
| When I saw that being a good reskin was the whole point my
| attitude changed.
|
| (somewhat orthogonal to this post):
|
| Although I think your meta-observation is also true for other
| browsers like Brave (which I've seen gaining traction
| recently). While I bet a power user on HN could go and make
| chromium (or firefox) comparable, would it look the same? Would
| it be as easy as just installing a new one?
|
| Although although I think a lot of the "reskin" complainers are
| sad or upset that chromium is dominating (has dominated?) the
| web, and I can commiserate with them.
| Etheryte wrote:
| I'm not sure if this observation is as novel as you make it
| sound: every product that's successful is so because of what it
| does, not because of the technology it's built on. Your
| SaaS/webshop/etc can be powered by scribbles on the back of a
| napkin, as long as it does what the customers need they don't
| care.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| Well, yeah I didn't think it was particularly novel, and it
| reaffirmed my belief that iOS restricting non-WebKit browsers
| isn't actually a big issue.
|
| I was genuinely surprised to find no other mention of the
| engine restrictions in the comments though!
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| The commenters in a story about an iOS app won't know what
| they're missing by not having access to non-Webkit
| browsers, which is one reason they use iOS to begin with.
| hahn-kev wrote:
| Except it still sucks to develop websites for it and they often
| get a worse experience because of that.
| coin wrote:
| Any reason why it needs iOS 16.4?
| nckh wrote:
| The minimum version should have been iOS 16.0, but a bug with
| keyboard layout guides got fixed by Apple only on iOS 16.4.
| csoup2 wrote:
| Wanted to try it out on my SE 2016, but I guess I'm out of
| luck. :)
| nckh wrote:
| Sincerely sorry about that :/ I work on this browser alone
| and sometimes have to take shortcuts and leverage features
| from the latest SDKs to ship faster.
| bartvk wrote:
| What do you use to block ads, cookie nags and email-subscription
| popovers? Or you just live with them?
| steedsofwar wrote:
| This is one of my foremost requirements from a browser these
| days; how well does it block ads. As much as I like Safari it
| doesn't seem to block ads as well as Brave, so Brave is my
| daily driver.
| nckh wrote:
| Safari doesn't have an adblocker, but delegates to the ones
| you can install from the App Store.
|
| I totally understand that lacking a content blocker can be a
| deal breaker for some people. I wanted to ship my app to the
| App Store quickly in order to get user feedback.
| nckh wrote:
| For now, yes. But content blockers are the next big feature on
| my todo list.
| snazz wrote:
| Is it possible for third-party browser apps to integrate with
| content blockers for Safari, or would you have to integrate
| your own content blocker into your app?
| nckh wrote:
| Unfortunately this is not possible. Unless Apple opens that
| up, it's up to each app to embed its own content blocker.
| simbolit wrote:
| The blocklists used by uBlock origin are freely
| available: https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uAssets/tree/m
| aster/filters
| nckh wrote:
| Thanks! I have to review whether they can be easily
| converted to WebKit's JSON-based content blocker format.
| But I suppose DuckDuckGo blockers can also be used as-is.
| keepamovin wrote:
| I love this, man! Looks great! make me smile! :) I hope you go
| _really far_ with this!!! :) [like all the way to browser-killer
| far]
|
| It's got that "je ne sais quoi" of a good product. Some sort of
| internal coherence and a deja vu type feeling where you feel
| you've used this before / or it should exist so it seems it
| already must have.
|
| Well fluffin done!!! :)
|
| BTW - technical question, how did you write it? I'm just getting
| into iOS dev myself wonder how you made the UI look so good? What
| lang, framework, etc??
| nckh wrote:
| Thanks so much for those super kind words!
|
| The app was made with good ol' Swift+UIKit+WebKit+Core Data,
| with some sprinkles of hosted SwiftUI views. Throw me an email
| from the support link in the app if you need more details :)
| keepamovin wrote:
| Will do! :) It was a pleasure, and you're welcome. It ain't
| _that_ kind if it 's true, and in this case, it's true! I
| think so anyway.
| elashri wrote:
| It would be more suitable to allow to add search engines
| manually. instead of restricting the users to only 4.
| magicseth wrote:
| Awesome! Thank you for sharing. Here's a tiny little feature idea
| I've always wanted: when a link opens a new tab, the back button
| should close the tab and take you back where you were!
|
| Congratulations on launching!
| layer8 wrote:
| In addition, it would be great if after going back that way
| there would be a way to go forward again (= undo the going back
| and closing the tab), in particular if the tab one has returned
| to has no other forward history. I frequently miss this in
| Safari.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| (For what it's worth, Safari on iOS does that)
| eyelidlessness wrote:
| It does, but it's _really quirky_! Any browser getting it
| right without so many weird quirks would be a compelling
| option for me.
| nckh wrote:
| Absolutely! That's something I would like to implement as
| well.
| alin23 wrote:
| I've been wanting something like this for a long time: fullscreen
| with a full address bar available on scroll, reload button beside
| the address, full URL etc. Really really great job on this!
|
| But unfortunately I'm already dependent on some Safari
| extensions, and the missing extensions seems to be the problem of
| all custom iOS browsers right now.
|
| I'll still keep it for a few websites that don't have ads and I
| like to use in fullscreen. With all my hacks [0], I still can't
| install all the websites I need as PWAs
|
| [0]
| https://notes.alinpanaitiu.com/Install%20any%20website%20as%...
| nckh wrote:
| Thank you very much for the nice words! Besides ad/content
| blockers, can I ask what are your must-have extensions?
| [deleted]
| alin23 wrote:
| 1Password is a must have nowadays for me, which is why I
| couldn't use even Orion [0] which supposedly has support for
| both Chrome and Firefox extensions. I miss automatic password
| saving and instant 2FA autofill without the extension.
|
| Mate Translate is another. The builtin translate feature of
| Safari is good but it supports very few languages.
|
| The others are nice-to-haves, but I could live without:
| - uBlacklist: block websites from appearing in search results
| - Rekt: removes annoying "use our app" popups - Dark
| Reader: well-made dark mode for websites that don't support
| it - Super Agent: automatically accepts cookies and
| hides those cookie nags and popups
|
| [0] https://browser.kagi.com/
| nckh wrote:
| Thanks a lot for sharing! I'm afraid I can't do much
| regarding automatic password saving until Apple extends
| support to third-party browsers, but I'll see if I can
| implement your nice-to-haves on my end!
| freediver wrote:
| 1Password will support Orion with the next release (already
| available in nightly)
| alin23 wrote:
| Ooh thanks for letting me know! I'll give it another try
| then.
| novoreorx wrote:
| I would replace Safari with this if it supports dark reader
| puresick wrote:
| Great app! I already liked using your app Quiche Reader and
| Quiche Browser keeps the same level of quality. :)
|
| What I am missing besides all the customization is the
| possibility to set a custom search engine. Would be great to see
| this coming in an update.
|
| Keep up the great work!
| therealalexz wrote:
| Dashlane seems compatible with the browser. As well as Omnivore.
| I want to be able to set Kagi as my primary search engine.
|
| Also, the input fields seem to be wiped if I switch tabs.
|
| I think I will try to switch for a while.
| nckh wrote:
| In theory the state of input fields is preserved, but maybe
| some websites mess up with that. Can you please share which
| website did you try with?
| therealalexz wrote:
| This website actually. :)
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