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by basch 2489 days ago
has it ever come up to run something similar to Opera's old community driven javascript site patch library/database?

I think it would be amazing to have a browser, that instead of just blocking ads, had a way for you to set "whatever the community thinks is best" and have the browser pull down the best stylish/tampermonkeyish patches for a site, or completely new css. (you would also have a drop down with "see other popular views, and "set this view as default for this site, along with the ability to rank/vote on which template applies best for that site.) Or the user could have an option on first run that asks "ideally what would sites look like" and then have it pull the most appropriate modification to match that template. A user could lean towards "let the site express its identity and clean it up a little bit" OR "strip it down to just the essentials" OR "just fix the bugs."

In an ideal world, I would prefer to use a browser that, by default, homogenizes as much of the layout of a site as possible, with a one click option to "see it how it was intended." I think reader modes go a little too far, because they destroy content layout and nav in the process of cleanup. It would be nice for some elements, like navigation to come through, but in a standardized way, so the menu bar at new york times and washington post render identically, but still let me bounce between their different verticals. RSS readers sort of accomplish that, but I would rather be able to also BROWSE the web. RSS readers clean up one layer deep, but in a hyperlinked world dont let you get very far.

1 comments

Greaselion is coming up as I write this. Stay tuned.