[m348e912]

old.reddit.com and it's imminent disappearance underscores that there is a still need for a user-centric web browser designed to combat user-hostile web ui. Here are some features I think the browser should have by default (without plugins)

Short feature list:

- Overwrite website code and display a user-hostile UI of popular sites like reddit/Facebook (this warrants a whole list in itself)

- offer a reader view of any website including pay walled websites

- easy access to archive a page using archive.today and to view already archived versions

- Right-click anything to download, images/videos/audio, even when sites like instagram and twitter make it difficult to do.

- Bypass field restrictions. Ever seen a password field where you can't paste text for whatever reason. That would not be a thing.

- Tab freeze for tabs not in focus - save CPU and battery energy

- Click the back button and end up at the same place on the page you clicked from instead of having to scroll endlessly to find where you were before

- Use a common user-agent so the browser doesn't get blacklisted by websites

- Accept only essential cookies by default

- Easy right-click and delete of paywall style overlays or other elements

- Ad block may not need to be built-in by default, but the ability to right-click and nuke a banner ad (especially the ones that don't disappear and block text even when you click the "x")

-Respect new lines when posting comments instead of users having to constantly go back, edit their comments, and add new lines to break up a wall of text

[djcannabiz]

I would love this. Almost all of these can be achieved using Firefox and tons of extensions, but its to much for some of my relatives who feel the same way about the web but don't have the technical knowledge to set everything up.

for example, bypass paywalls clean was removed from most (all?) web extension stores and now has to be sideloaded. I don't think most non techies would be comfortable doing this, so maybe something like a firefox distribution (a la librewolf) would be ideal, so you could build off the other extensions there, and the anti tracking tech built into firefox.

[snvzz]

There's some appeal on doing this client side, but I do not hate the Nitter approach.

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

> Ever seen a password field where you can't paste text for whatever reason. That would not be a thing.

Can anyone explain this one to me? My passwords are impossible to type/memorize, and the password manager's Firefox extension sucks too much to rely on it. It's clearing the clipboard 10 seconds later anyway, so they website's not protecting me.

[dangus]

> offer a reader view of any website including pay walled websites

Not really possible if a paywalled website is a true paywall. Many paywalled websites don't even expose their content to crawlers.

I also think that, philosophically, the majority of the user base being able to bypass paywall isn't healthy for the Internet. It will only make content quality decrease and advertisement aggression increase. You can see this effect come into play with pages that use anti-adblocking tools, where you can't see anything until you disable ad blocking.

> Tab freeze for tabs not in focus - save CPU and battery energy

Chrome energy saver mode? Safari seems to effectively do this, tabs seem to be pretty dead until you are using them. I would also ask what kind of need there is to save battery life above and beyond present technology. Modern laptops sold on the market now can be in a web browser for an entire workday (e.g., ASUS Zenbook 13 OLED, any MacBook M1/M2).

Almost everything on this list is already available with browser extensions or existing browsers.

[djcannabiz]

Anecdotally i have never had a problem with anti adblockers with UBOs anti-anti-adblocker list turned on, but maybe anti-adblock will get better if more people start using adblockers.

[swalling]

If a link is paywalled and/or the content is not able to be crawled/archived for a reader mode, a browser that warned me before I wasted time opening a tab whose content is totally inaccessible would be appreciated. Contextual lock icons on links or a hover state with a preview.

If paywall status was exposed via a standardized API to the browser, it could further make it more seamless to buy a subscription iOS-style that I know I can cancel easily later. Looking at you, NYT and other new sites.