Alt-Browser

Internet user needs have changed as digital interactions became default for a large percentage of people worldwide, but browsers and the web not changed to meet them.

The biggest browsers are a homogenous group in some ways - products from a few companies with >100m MAU and fairly rigid boundaries around what a browser is or can be.

The biggest browsers are often the least willing to imagine new ways of making and using the web.

Let's explore alternatives.

For this post I'll define browsers as "alternative" if they meet any of the following criteria:

• Exclusive focus on a specific web task/theme, or subclass of web user
• Abandons the tab+window metaphors entirely
• Expands protocol support beyond just HTTP
• The browser engine is not on the end-user's computer

While some browsers with over 100m MAU may have met some of these criteria, I'm explictly not covering:

• Chrome
• Safari
• Edge
• Opera
• Firefox

HTTP and…

• Puma
• Agregore

Web3/Dapp Launchers

• Ledger
• Frame.sh

Knowledge Mgmt

• Quark/Bloop Browser
• Beamapp

Can have embedded web views?

• Logseq https://logseq.com/
• Heptabase (YC22) https://twitter.com/Heptabase
• Roam
• Obsidian

Developer focused

• Polypane - "the browser for ambitious developers" https://polypane.app/
• Bonsai - "Web-browser for research that helps programmers think clearly." https://bonsaibrowser.com/
• Nyxt - https://nyxt.atlas.engineer/

Alternate visual metaphors

• Stack Browser - instead of tabs in windows, it has cards in stacks in spaces. https://stackbrowser.com

Keyboard focused navigation

• https://nyxt.atlas.engineer/

Embedded / High Performance

• https://twitter.com/FlowBrowser
• WPE Webkit?

TODO

• Mighty (dead)
• https://alohabrowser.com/
• Hybrid (agregore fork) https://github.com/HybridWare/hybrid-browser/tree/main
• ARC (Browser Company)
• Kiwi browser
• CENO https://censorship.no
• https://minbrowser.org/
• https://github.com/Rajaniraiyn/awesome-electron-browsers
• https://twitter.com/Mises001
• https://github.com/dothq/browser-desktop/
• https://github.com/plateaukao/einkbro
• https://stackbrowser.com/
• https://www.meetsidekick.com/https://www.meetsidekick.com/
• https://thorium.rocks/