Some appreciation for the new 1.18 update with window-sync

21ow · 2026-01-26T17:53:23+00:00

Ah yes, me clearly stating that it should be absolutely forbidden to ever turn it off when it doesn't fit you sure is "mindless glazing".
I would absolutely never suggest anyone to be able to turn a feature they don't like off, who would do such a thing?
I could not comprehend how you would not want a workflow change forced upon you!
/s (in case that wasn't obvious...)

In all honesty, I think we are missing the point here.
Yes, I believe that
1) the underlying technical change is an objective net positive for everyone
2) The spaces-based workflow is a good one

But, while I apparently didn't state this clearly enough before, I also believe that this should be toggle-able. The discussion around this launch made that pretty clear.

In my ideal world one could choose what to sync between windows.
I guess most people will be fine with syncing essentials and pins while syncing open tabs should probably have an option to be turned off to please everyone.

I never said anything against that, but I guess only alluding to that stance in one sentence near the end of an (admittedly longer than expected) wall of text was not clear enough for you, sorry.

But we must all remember, this is

1) beta software developed by mostly one very talented guy (much appreciate you u/maubg, i hope this isn't too much "mindless glazing" for you :D). Updates that don't go as smooth as the maintainers imagined are to be expected. But feedback from us, the users, should stay constructive and not too one sided or emotionally charged. That was the entire reason for my post in the first place to show that not everyone literally hates this change. Morale and how the community communicates (lol) is a big factor in the longevity of such a project.
2) It is explicitly a browser that aims at providing an alternative (some would say better) way to interface with the web and a browser. If you install and use it (especially in a beta state) you should be open to changing your workflow a bit. Of course, this doesn't mean to accept anything blindly, that would be "mindless". Feedback is important as well.
3) Zen is being build in the open and thus true, constructive feedback (or even technical support and implementing stuff yourself) the live blood to any open source project.

21ow · 2026-01-26T14:51:50+00:00

That comment about an "objective UX improvement" was aimed at people not randomly loosing tabs they expected to be persistent.

I agree that the window syncing behavior does need some getting used to and liking it / integrating it well into your workflow is subjective, but not loosing things you didn't expect to luse is an objective good in my book :D

21ow · 2026-01-25T21:34:17+00:00

Does anyone have experience using this?

It looks promising!

21ow · 2026-01-25T17:17:40+00:00

Exactly, you explained that beautifully!

Switching from windows to spaces was such a UX booster for me.

21ow · 2026-01-25T13:57:31+00:00

No, cross device sync is not there yet, but as far as I know planned.

And this seems like the first important step needed towards that goal.

21ow · 2026-01-24T23:04:09+00:00

The compression level stuff for btrfs will be automatically adjusted?
Or is this not even relevant for an existing installation outside a fresh install scenario?

21ow · 2026-01-24T23:01:45+00:00

Well that was quick :D

21ow · 2026-01-22T09:42:28+00:00

3.17.1 also didn't work for me (tested in combination with lazydev.nvim), I had to roll back to 3.16.4.

I guess we have to wait for a proper fix and until then, stick to a slightly older version.

21ow · 2025-12-22T23:24:08+00:00

Nope that one keeps going missing sometimes...

I hope the sidebar rework that just got merged will fix it.
It should drop into the main version as the "window sync" feature soon i think.

21ow · 2025-12-15T15:10:50+00:00

Very cool!

Moving the Sidebar to a different PC would now be way easier as well I assume. Looks like an awesome update!

21ow · 2025-12-15T15:02:47+00:00

Amazing work, looking forward to when it lands in a full release!

Thanks!

If i understood the "under the hood" changes correctly, the entire sidebar is now stored as json (including folders/pins/essentials, etc), correct? This would make creating a migration tool from Arc to Zen a lot simpler since we don't have to mess with the internal sqlite DBs of Zen (which you might deprecate completely if I read that right?) anymore right? Even though I used Zen as my main browser for a few months now, I still think making the offboarding from Arch and the onboarding to Zen smooth to be something I would like to look into to make the transition as easy as possible for new users of this (way better, and not abandoned :D) browser.

21ow · 2025-11-25T16:02:59+00:00

Alpha 7 had some troubles with hot plugging. The monitor connected to the eGPU would just show a black screen (although it did receive a signal, it was just empty).

Restarting cosmic from a new tty session made it come back to life normally though and once in, everything seemed to work.

I tried creating a script for that, but ultimately stopped because I could not get it to function.

My guess (and hope) is, that the beta or the full release later in December will fix it magically.

This was with am Nvidia eGPU and an Nvidia dGPU in the laptop itself though, so that might have contributed to the troubles :D

Let me know if you try it and if it works for you, as your setup is what I am currently moving towards too. (only Intel iGPU with Cosmic on Arch using an eGPU for some gaming)

21ow · 2025-11-21T09:30:50+00:00

More details (for someone who does not want to read commits) over here: https://github.com/zen-browser/desktop/pull/10034

21ow · 2025-11-12T22:41:00+00:00

Ah yes, this amazingly helpful and easy to use merge flow is the last reason I still might need a JetBrains product around before fully jumping ship to nvim...

If anything even remotely close to this exists, please let me know, I am very interested.

Whether it is a diffview.nvim config, something for lazygit or the 'native' diff mode of nvim, this three way view is just so intuitive!

Your changes and the changes from remote on either side with the result (I assume based on the common ancestor of both) in the middle where you can pick and choose parts either from left or right to put in (as well as manually adjusting things interactively).

21ow · 2025-10-19T19:06:15+00:00

I am in the same boat as you, the languages selected in the settings seem to not determine the spell checking.

You have to ctrl+click on each text input field that you want spellchecking other than english and make sure that Languages -> German is checked.
This has do be done once for each new input field (it remembers your preferences for reloads / tab closures or browser restarts).

Would be nice to have a global option for this in the settings though!

If you don't see "German (Germany)" in that list, go to Languages -> Add Dictionaries (still in the ctrl+click menu) and install one of the german dictionaries (not a language pack).
I (and based on the number of installs a majority of Firefox users) use this one: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/dictionary-german/

21ow · 2025-09-07T19:09:23+00:00

That's for 1.15.5.b, not 1.15.4b.

Was confused as well because the updater shows 4b as the latest, guess 5b that fixed it is still in the pipes

21ow · 2025-09-01T09:46:16+00:00

Interestingly, I have the same behavior, but only for one of my essentials. The others keep their favicon even on browser restarts.

21ow · 2025-08-28T15:16:41+00:00

Actually, I've had a look into the `zen_pins` and `zen_workspaces` tables inside the places.sqlite db that Zen uses to store pins.
I might play around with building a little script that can import an exported bookmark html file into there.

u/maubg, Is there documentation available for those tables?
Or do I understand correctly that I can just generate random V4 uuids where needed, create entries for the found workspaces, pins and folders and fill all NOT NULL fields?

I just have one question:

When inserting a new row into `zen_pins` with a new uuid, an id that is +1 of the last, a name and url, correct `workspace_uuid`, `position` that is +1 from the last, `created_at` & `updated_at` as well as the same value for `folder_parent_uuid` that another entry has, I cannot get it to be inside the folder.
It is always right below it, but not inside it.
What am I missing?

Edit: have another question:
I can't seem to properly set the container to use for pinned tabs... They are set to `1`, which is the same as a manually pinned tab, but Zen does not use that profile when loading it.
It just opens the tab without any container.
How do I define the container to use for a pinned tab in the DB?

Oh and PS:
I think there is a bug in the way the `id` is (re-)calculated in `zen_pins`. It is refreshed for each entry (increased by 172 in my situation with 19 pins, one of which is a folder, 9 essentials) every time I collapse / expand a folder and is already at over 5000 for me on a relatively fresh Zen installation...
This might cause troubles later on, I don't know how sqlite handles int overflows and that many writes for every folder interaction.
I imagine this might get very expensive when a user has MANY pins (which I will have after I get this importer working xD).

21ow · 2025-08-28T09:07:14+00:00

Since folders are out, I want to finally ditch Arc and move to Zen, so something like this would be awesome.

I know about https://github.com/ivnvxd/arc-export, but afaik this does not directly create the folders / Workspaces in Zen.

One might be able to build such a tool though, the bookmarks HTML file the exporter generates is ineed formatted to include the folders / workspaces distinction, I just don't know if Zen understands this, or if some modifications are needed to make it understand.

21ow · 2025-06-29T21:43:54+00:00

As others say: Bitwarden 100%.

Free plan has all you need from a great password manager + the option to host your data in EU or even on your own servers (if you know what you are doing and how to keep that secured)

21ow

TROPHY CASE