Abort browser-base

I started implementing browser-base last Friday and made good progress before switching focus in the afternoon to work on Nix. I have been using the prototype with the New Tab Override extension, however, and there are unfortunately many issues.

• When opening a new tab, a new tab opens and closes very quickly before yet another new tab opens with the browser-base UI. Perhaps this is the only way to implement custom new tab pages in current versions of Firefox. This is not a huge issue, but neither is it attractive.

• When using the browser-base UI to open a link in a different container, the link is opened in another new tab, as that is how links in different containers are opened. The browser-base tab stays open. I may be able to automatically close the browser-base tab using JavaScript after opening such a link, but that solution would not be attractive.

• The history of recently closed tabs is polluted by all of the closed tabs, including extension tabs as well as browser-base tabs. This is a major issue.

Note that Firefox Home does not have any of these issues. Since it is a built-in part of the browser, Firefox Home tabs are not assigned a container, and all links open in the same tab no matter what container they are in. Firefox Home tabs are also not included in the history.

I do not know of a way to resolve these issues, as the problem is with Firefox, not browser-base. I have therefore decided to abort the project.

I am increasingly dissatisfied with Firefox, but I do not know of a better option for my needs. (I cannot imagine using a browser without containers, and I do not want to use a browser that uses Chromium.) Perhaps I will revive browser-base in the future if Firefox brings back support for custom new tab pages or I switch browsers.

In the meantime, I discovered that the keyword.enabled setting can be used to turn off the search functionality of the address bar. I will miss the (keyboard-based) efficiency of browser-base, but I am going to implement a new project that addresses this issue. I will introduce it in a separate blog entry.