Suggestions for "should be unnecessary yet desirable" web browser features?

[mikeymikec]

I suggest a feature to disable the loop in videos that have looped content in.

Any other suggestions?

 

[Red Squirrel]

Make it so each bookmark, well more specificly, each website, is treated as a sandbox. So say you open google, and open another website, make it so Google can't spy on what you're doing on that other website. This would solve the issue where everybody is trying to spy on us. Facebook, Google etc. They know every single site you visit. There should be security built at the browser level to stop that. Oh and don't allow websites to read cookies set by other websites. Maybe even encrypted cookies, so that a key is used by the website when setting a cookie, and it needs that key to read it back. Downside is if they did this as a user you would not be able to read cookies. There are times where this is useful.

Another feature would be for the entire browser to also run in a sandbox as far as the OS is concerned. Almost like if it was running in a VM, but make it more seamless. That way if some javascript or java or w/e code tries to put a trojan on your machine or otherwise do something malicious, it would not have access to do it. The sandbox's OS would reset every time it's launched too. Suppose you could do that with a VM, but it should be something built in.

Basically browsers need more built in security by default.

 

[Ottonomous]

Extreme incognito mode and ai-powered history management

 

[shortylickens]

Make it so each bookmark, well more specificly, each website, is treated as a sandbox. So say you open google, and open another website, make it so Google can't spy on what you're doing on that other website. This would solve the issue where everybody is trying to spy on us. Facebook, Google etc. They know every single site you visit. There should be security built at the browser level to stop that. Oh and don't allow websites to read cookies set by other websites. Maybe even encrypted cookies, so that a key is used by the website when setting a cookie, and it needs that key to read it back. Downside is if they did this as a user you would not be able to read cookies. There are times where this is useful.

Another feature would be for the entire browser to also run in a sandbox as far as the OS is concerned. Almost like if it was running in a VM, but make it more seamless. That way if some javascript or java or w/e code tries to put a trojan on your machine or otherwise do something malicious, it would not have access to do it. The sandbox's OS would reset every time it's launched too. Suppose you could do that with a VM, but it should be something built in.

Basically browsers need more built in security by default.

then how can each of them sell your data to everybody else?

 

[Red Squirrel]

then how can each of them sell your data to everybody else?

That's part of the issue too, they should not even be allowed to. Yet everything is built around that these days. I even wonder if these companies pay money to browser makers to make sure that they can continue to exploit us through bad design.

 

[Mayne]

I need a dark mode feature for any image I see. I can't see anything with a white background.

 

[balloonshark]

Make it so each bookmark, well more specificly, each website, is treated as a sandbox. So say you open google, and open another website, make it so Google can't spy on what you're doing on that other website. This would solve the issue where everybody is trying to spy on us. Facebook, Google etc. They know every single site you visit. There should be security built at the browser level to stop that. Oh and don't allow websites to read cookies set by other websites. Maybe even encrypted cookies, so that a key is used by the website when setting a cookie, and it needs that key to read it back. Downside is if they did this as a user you would not be able to read cookies. There are times where this is useful.

Another feature would be for the entire browser to also run in a sandbox as far as the OS is concerned. Almost like if it was running in a VM, but make it more seamless. That way if some javascript or java or w/e code tries to put a trojan on your machine or otherwise do something malicious, it would not have access to do it. The sandbox's OS would reset every time it's launched too. Suppose you could do that with a VM, but it should be something built in.

Basically browsers need more built in security by default.

Check this out Red. https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/firefox-container-extensions-improve-privacy.2554499/

Also, I've been using Sandboxie for years to sandbox my internet facing Windows apps. https://www.sandboxie.com/

 

[Red Squirrel]

Check this out Red. https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/firefox-container-extensions-improve-privacy.2554499/

Also, I've been using Sandboxie for years to sandbox my internet facing Windows apps. https://www.sandboxie.com/

Yeah but I'm saying it should be built in, instead of having to deal with extra extensions. The features should be made part of the browser. There's a bazillion security extensions and it's near impossible to keep up with all of them or remember them all when installing a new system.

 

[mikeymikec]

I need a dark mode feature for any image I see. I can't see anything with a white background.

Firefox does that. Dark grey background by default when viewing images. Furthermore it wouldn't surprise me if there was an about:config way to change the background colour should you want that.

- edit - Chromium does it too. What web browser are you using?

 

[gorcorps]

automatically load the mp4 equivalent video when somebody posts a gif image

The gif file sizes are enormous for what they are, and are a terrible way of sharing videos. The amount of electricity and data wasted on the billions of gifs that are out there is truly astounding. The same thing shown as a video file is a fraction of the file size, and generally runs better anyway.

 

[PliotronX]

I'm good with the new tab FlappyBird add on for Firefox.

 

[rh71]

Also, I've been using Sandboxie for years to sandbox my internet facing Windows apps. https://www.sandboxie.com/

That helps privacy? I thought all that does is protect your OS from corruption, unintended changes, etc.

 

[balloonshark]

That helps privacy? I thought all that does is protect your OS from corruption, unintended changes, etc.

I mainly mentioned it because Red mentioned sandboxing browsers. You can however set up restrictions to keep whatever is running in the sandbox from accessing certain files, folders or disks. That should help keep apps or malware from accessing private data.

 

[Red Squirrel]

automatically load the mp4 equivalent video when somebody posts a gif image

The gif file sizes are enormous for what they are, and are a terrible way of sharing videos. The amount of electricity and data wasted on the billions of gifs that are out there is truly astounding. The same thing shown as a video file is a fraction of the file size, and generally runs better anyway.

What is up with this gif trend anyway, people post entire videos as gifs. Why not just post the original video at that point?

 

[FeuerFrei]

I was going to suggest further options for clearing history - but then I read this https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/delete-browsing-search-download-history-firefox
I'm good.

I support anything that squelches tracking across sites.

What is up with this gif trend anyway, people post entire videos as gifs. Why not just post the original video at that point?

They also post still images as videos.

 

[gorcorps]

What is up with this gif trend anyway, people post entire videos as gifs. Why not just post the original video at that point?

I don't get it either

I hate it

 

[Red Squirrel]

I was going to suggest further options for clearing history - but then I read this https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/delete-browsing-search-download-history-firefox
I'm good.

I support anything that squelches tracking across sites.


They also post still images as videos.

Lol I noticed that too! Not as popular of a trend but I have seen it. Makes no sense. Probably some idiotic reason behind it.

 

[CZroe]

When I need to Find in Page across several pages (sometimes a hundred+!) I want to be able to just click through each page until I find it. That’s a lot of CTEL+F-ing the Home + Click-ing.

Because I’m sometimes looking for a few permutations of something I really need a list where I can just keep loading pages and it will notify me of a hit when it sees any of those words.

 

[CZroe]

If I’ve seen it before I should be able to search my history for it. History search seems so freakin’ broken in most browsers.

 

[NoTine42]

I guess there is another way, but when I’m asked if I want to update my saved password for a website, I’d like a “No and delete my old password” button (in addition to yes and no).

And when I download (to browse) a giant dataset that all have different .endings (instead of file type) why can’t I have a “use text editor” instead of letting Microsoft search or choose a program.

 

[ultimatebob]

Am automated page refresh option, for those super paranoid sites that log you out automatically after 2 minutes of inactivity.

They already have browser plugins for this, but it would be nice if something was built in. Like if you press and hold the refresh button, a timer pops up.