Vieb – Vim Inspired Electron Browser | Hacker News Reader

Vieb – Vim Inspired Electron Browser

vieb.dev

96 pointsbwidlar22 comments

Posting this from Vieb which I've been using for a few minutes. It looks like a pretty complete Vim UI implementation, down to splits, which work really well.

Ironically textareas don't have a Vim mode, hopefully that's addressed soon. I can really see myself using this.

Edit: kind of sad that the buffer/window dichotomy is not implemented, I'd really like a browser that allows me to manipulate webpages as easily as I can manipulate files in a Vim session, and do things like :bufdo etc.

Edit2: I wonder if it would be feasible to hack something like Neovide (https://github.com/neovide/neovide) with webviews instead of text editing buffers.

Edit3: I was wrong, buffer/windows work just like in Vim! This is great!

Probably not a good idea with something as security sensitive as a browser.

Electron lags behind Chrome versions, and requires deliberate effort to secure [0].

Also, on GitHub, Vieb has just one main developer so you'd be trusting him with everything from your reading habits to bank credentials.

[0]: https://github.com/electron/electron/blob/main/docs/tutorial...

You're not wrong about Vieb, but Electron actually is (and has been for awhile) 100% synced with latest Chromium. Electron Alpha channel => Chrome Dev (both atm at Chromium m94), Beta = Beta, etc.

Very similar to qutebrowser. But instead of being electron it's on qt-webengine.

https://qutebrowser.org/

Are there any more differences with qute? I've found the best solution to the web being broken is to use as little of the web as possible, but qute was the closest I think I came to tolerating it. Would I prefer Vieb?

Having used this for about 30 minutes total, I can tell you this goes MUCH further than any Vim-inspired browser I've ever tried, and I (think) I tried them all.

The window/buffer management in particular is very good, but UI-wise in general it's a very smooth experience. I really see myself using this, it's really very good.

FWIW the Vimium extension offers similar features for Chrome users.

https://vimium.github.io/

Well, for firefox as well. Although on both it lacks the flexibility it used to, due to browser limitations.

It mostly works still, navigation, scrolling and link jumping work fine and cover 90% of what I do

Not sure about Chromium, but in Firefox Vim plugins only work if a page is loaded in the current tab. It doesn't work while the site is loading(e.g. to switch tabs), it doesn't work if the page failed to load, it doesn't work in an empty tab, ...

A Vim-based browser doesn't have any of those issues because the whole UI is focused on those controls.

Correct, that is exactly what I was referring to. Back in the old days of addons to Firefox it used to be possible there as well.

Vieb looks cool, but I've already learned Vimium and likely won't switch. Same as with screen and tmux. Maybe tmux is better, but why do I have to learn a tool every 15 years, right?

UI of Vieb is gorgeous. So slick, restrained. Love it.

Recently discovered this and have been enjoying it a lot. There are some edges but overall works quite well. Also, available for Safari : https://github.com/televator-apps/vimari

I found Vimium C [0] works better for Firefox (some features were broken on Vimium), and it's on Chrome too.

[0]: https://github.com/gdh1995/vimium-c

I am using Vimium-FF and I don't experience any issues. What are the issues you encountered ?

There was a problem with the find command '/' [0] I had for months, so I switched to Vimium C as someone pointed out in that thread it was fixed on C already and had other features. I now see that issue was finally fixed last month.

Reading the updated thread now, I see it turned political, and I guess maybe that's why I was downvoted for linking to Vimium C.

[0]: https://github.com/philc/vimium/issues/3774

Same reason I switched to Vimium-C.

Also there is:

Surfing Keys: https://github.com/brookhong/Surfingkeys

Tridactyl: https://github.com/tridactyl/tridactyl

Both target Firefox, but may have Chrome versions as well.

Some ~10 years ago I used to use a Firefox extension called Vimperator [0]. I then switched to a fork of Vimperator named Pentadactyl [1], because the latter was more complete and stable at the time. And even later I used the Vimium extension on Google Chrome.

But even though I enjoyed these types of extensions, Vim key bindings in the browser powered by these add-ons has always been fragile and prone to stop working all together at times and that eventually caused me to stop using any of them even though I remain a user of Vim and of IDEs with Vim-emulation.

Perhaps these are stable enough today, perhaps not. If I were inclined to go back to having Vim keybindings also in my browser then I would probably want to check out Vieb, as the idea of having it properly integrated into the browser does seem a good idea to me and with Vieb we'd still be getting the Blink engine that Chrome etc is using.

But these days I like to use Brave as my main browser on my MacBook Pro M1, because of the privacy enhancing features that Brave has built into it alongside other nice things. On my iPhone I just use Safari. Occasionally I use Safari on my laptop as well. For example, I have Brave configured to turn all pages into dark mode but some sites become unreadable and then my simple solution because this happens rarely enough to not be distracting is that then I open the page in Safari instead.

Also my usage pattern of browsers has changed. I used to sit on the desktop and read a lot of things. These days I most often read stuff on the phone, and I use the browser on the laptop mainly for looking up things quickly and for using web applications like Google Docs and such. So it's like, one of the main reasons that I used to use Vimperator etc, to navigate by keyboard instead of by mouse, is not as relevant any longer. And even on the laptop, scrolling up and down is smoother and simpler using the touchpad and the spacebar than using Vimperator etc.

When I have the MacBook Pro M1 connected to external keyboard, mouse and monitor I might still benefit a little bit from something like Vimperator. But not enough to be worth the bother anymore, because of the things I mentioned.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vimperator

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentadactyl

Also

LinkHints: https://lydell.github.io/LinkHints

How does the built-in adblocker compare to Qutebrowser's?

Why not just using Vimium extension for Chrome?

There are several differences. For one, this browser implements a WHOLE lot more than the vimium extension. While vimium just adds vim key mappings, vieb is an entire vim-styled browser. It also has some nice things such as built-int split screens and adblocker.

For some people, Vimium is absolutely a better experience, but if you want a really minimal, vim-style browser give it a try!

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