Qutebrowser: A keyboard-driven, Vim-like browser

Florian Bruhin (AKA the-compiler, the author of qutebrowser) is one of the kindest and most dedicated open-source maintainers I&#x27;ve ever had the pleasure to interact with.<p>I&#x27;ve used qutebrowser extensively in the past, and reported a few bugs, each of which has been met with interest and engagement. Some of them even uncovered bugs in the upstream software (e.g. QtWebEngine) which were reported there.<p>I eventually stopped using it when YouTube ads became too invasive, and went back to Firefox + Vimium + uBlockOrigin. I sometimes miss the programmibility of qutebrowser, but Vimium at least gives me the basic Vim-like browsing features.

Someone was triggered by the Nyxt post getting so much attention... =D<p>I like Qutebrowser very much, though. Used it for a good spell and was very happy. I&#x27;d some bug I couldn&#x27;t fix which was driving everything really bonkers, but I honestly did not investigate it that hard, I&#x27;d been using it for a while at that stage (over a year, I&#x27;d guess, anyway) and was ready to move on and try something different, so I solved that bug the old fashioned way.<p>Nyxt scratches the same itch now, but moreso, and it has Common Lisp behind it, which is much more interesting [to me <i>personally</i>!] than Python.

I tried an extension once that provided these navigation shortcuts for all the links on a page. It was really convenient but then I was on an admin page for our team and accidentally hit a couple keys that pressed some random button. The page was full of buttons that had irreversible effects which were executed without confirmation. Of course that’s an issue itself for the page but that’s kept me from trying this again.<p>The convenience those shortcuts provide also makes it concerningly easy to press something on accident. Much more likely than accidentally clicking something. Having extra leader keys or some other approach to reduce accidental presses would detract from the convenience…<p>Curious if anyone else has run into this or configured their setup in a way that maintains the convenience but reduces the accident likeliness. Holding a modifier key or adding leader keys actually does seem like I’d go a long way in reducing accidents with minimal hit to effectiveness

I tried really hard with QB, and still use it for some tasks, but the lack of Ublock Origin makes browsing random sites horrible. People say the builtin ad blockers are good enough; for me, they are not even remotely good enough :(

I really enjoy using qutebrowser.<p>It’s a shame that I often end up using more than 100GiB of RAM with a few dozen tabs, almost like it leaks memory. I’m aware of the inherent fragmentation of memory with python over time- so could be that.<p>There’s also been a few times where the limitations of using qtwebengine (chromium wrapper) underneath were frustrating - though I can barely remember what they are at this point.<p>The python config is great too, I use it to disable javascript conditionally. :)<p>Theres also some magic feeling when pressing “o” and having access to the world.

Chrome extension - vimium does the same thing. I&#x27;ve been using it for years.

It is a real pity that the major browsers don’t support better keyboard navigation out of the box. Due to work restrictions, I can only really use firefox, chrome or edge and no addons&#x2F;extensions. There’s a 14 year old ticket for firefox (still open), but the reaction back then was that it is a niche feature better suited for an addon.

Oh! This takes me back. I used it as my primary browser during the Firefox 57 saga, and continues to use it for over an year. The developer was very responsive to bug reports, and fixed the issues right away. Unfortunately, I moved away from the Linux ecosystem as my primary computing environment, but I would still recommend this if someone wants to try a Vim-based browsing experience and is willing to try out a new browser.

Qutebrowser is a prime example of how to fix the user experience of a somehow not optimal software (the web browser).<p>Of course you need to understand vi as a prerequisite, a few hours to configure it and maybe a few weeks to really get you use to it.<p>But damn the benefits after are enormous.<p>Congratulations to the developers !

Vimium does the same but it&#x27;s just an extension so you can keep the goodies without switching the browser

1. It&#x27;s QtWebEngine + Python tying the chrome together.<p>2. I wonder... how good is its Right-to-Left support?

I&#x27;d love to use this but a key problem seems to be that they don&#x27;t get updated as soon as a security fix is released, which for browser engines is quite often...

I love qutebrowser but it still relies on a very old Webkit and is not usable on a substantial fraction of sites...

The README mentions some ad-blocker integration. Is there an element zapper (click on element on the page to remove it temporarily)?

When I tried to install the Windows release, I got a message that it contains the Vigram.A virus.

Amazing project, very useful

Please, tackle the _real_ issue: we need an implementation of a modern &#x27;web browsers&#x27; using a &#x27;simple computer language&#x27; (for instance C99+, namle C99 with few bits of c11 for modern architecture programming).

How is this not extremely inefficient to use? I guess you can use the &quot;hints&quot; as shown in <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;qutebrowser&#x2F;qutebrowser&#x2F;blob&#x2F;main&#x2F;doc&#x2F;img&#x2F;hints.png">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;qutebrowser&#x2F;qutebrowser&#x2F;blob&#x2F;main&#x2F;doc&#x2F;img...</a> but this is such a poor experience I can&#x27;t fathom someone wanting this.<p>All browsers already support keyboard shortcuts for 90% of the common browser operations (next &#x2F; previous page, focusing the address bar, etc.), and anything on the page itself seems like a massive chore (except scrolling, which browsers also support).