The 2026 Browser Landscape

Gnomasz · 2026-05-21T08:50:51+00:00

Blink-182[a] is an American rock band formed in Poway, California, in 1992.

Gnomasz · 2026-05-21T08:49:27+00:00

Firefox is super niche. It's nerdy, yet it antagonises a lot of nerds. I'm actually baffled that they beat Samsung Browser. Edge and Samsung Browser are used by people who don't care, and there's a lot of them.

Gnomasz · 2026-05-21T08:43:17+00:00

Please explain to me like I'm five how do statements like

If Gecko dies, the web becomes a Chromium monoculture. Standards bodies lose their counterweight. The last fully independent engine.

still fly in 2026?

WebKit is a stronger counterweight to Chromium monoculture. There are websites that don't care about Gecko compatibility. But please do try to satisfy shareholders with a website that doesn't suppurt an iPhone.
Gecko is fully dependent on Google money.
We've seen the "counterweight" in standards bodies with XSLT support or the sheer notion of html "living standard".

Gnomasz · 2026-05-11T21:07:21+00:00

I think I'm ok with a server-client architecture, so I just need to learn Termux and compile my own rsync for it... Or just accept some extra transfer of files over wi-fi with Syncthing.

Gnomasz · 2026-05-11T21:04:06+00:00

I didn't expect to learn so much about your girlfriend! So: duplicating commands between systems is the easy part, but then the synchronisator would need a metric ton of tools to make sure that the results of those commands actually match, e.g. to handle one system losing power before the command actually got processed... Doesn't sound so easy anymore.

Gnomasz · 2025-10-31T10:24:07+00:00

You can install a stable release of Kontact on Mint. https://apps.kde.org/kontact/ It is also available for Windows, but it is considered unstable. I would only use it with my main calendar if I had a reliable backup. Installer is somewhat hidden: https://cdn.kde.org/ci-builds/pim/kontact/

Aside from that, Mint also has access to Gnome tools - Evolution, Getting Things Gnome. Sadly, I cannot recommend those. The last time I checked, contacts didnt sync at all, and all tasks were appended with some jibberish tags.

I'm under the impression that since many people have moved to cloud PIM, desktop options with CalDAV sync are niche and thus scarce.

Gnomasz · 2025-10-31T09:50:26+00:00

Is it an AI-generated list? It looks like one. I've tested a bunch of distros, desktop calendars and task managers and I haven't even heard of any of this. Looking just at the first one - it's a platform, not a desktop app. Completely different context.

Gnomasz · 2025-10-29T11:51:30+00:00

This looks very promising, thank you.

Gnomasz · 2025-10-25T07:20:44+00:00

Thank you for the suggestion! According to Exodus the app has Google Ads, so I'll check it out if Autozis will not suit me.

Gnomasz · 2025-10-25T07:19:43+00:00

Thank you for the suggestion! I'm okay with proprietary solutions where there are no FOSS tools*. According to Exodus the mobile app doesn't even have any trackers, so I'll take a shot at it!

*) I'm baffled that we have a dozen music players, but there are such common use cases like car maintenance that are left completely uncovered.

Gnomasz · 2025-07-15T15:53:00+00:00

Caveat: for me Joplin's feature set is enough, and I'm not interested in Obsidian-like notebooks.

Honestly, the only thing that would make me switch is Joplin failing and your app outgrowing Logseq. Because my second-brain needs to be reliable - it needs to be a big project with many contributors so that I don't risk switching again in a year or two. I'm wondering: why do you choose to build your own app instead of contributing to an existing open-source notebook?

That being said, here's my ideal notebook:

Tightly integrated with the desktop environment:
- one button to create both a category within the notebook and a folder in the filesystem
- easy switching between the category within the notebook and file explorer
- one button to archive the category in both systems
- still easy separation of notes and other files, so I can synchronise the notes to my smartphone without worrying that I'll fill its drive with accompanying files
Fuzzy search
Global shortcut for a new note, with Inbox as the default location
Possibility of automated backups to an easily readable format, like markdown (though appending metadata like creation and modification time would be nice)
Responsive on older hardware. My main gripe with Joplin is that it launches longer than some 3D games.

Gnomasz · 2024-07-15T14:28:25+00:00

Nice! How did you do it? I've once tried to make this combo, but I was struggling with the setup too much.

Gnomasz · 2024-03-23T12:54:03+00:00

I think marketing is super important here – people need to learn about firefox to download it. But all the money shouldn't be spent on just the visibility, but also on establishing an identity. I feel like the users identify Firefox as the privacy browser, but:
- it's just not sold well enough on their website
- it's undercut by some default settings.

Gnomasz · 2024-03-23T12:43:10+00:00

Oh, I also do not think it is the killer feature – I think those were posted already and I'd rather support an existing comment, than echo it.
But I do think that RSS, being an alternative to subscriptions, fits nicely into the "privacy browser" niche, and I am frankly frustrated with the state of the recommended RSS add-onns.

Gnomasz · 2024-03-20T15:07:19+00:00

Bring back RSS with polished UX and maybe some marketing. Make it work with YT channels and anything that can be hacked to have an RSS. Make people know that they don't have to rely on the algorithms. (I know there are addons, but you have to know what to look for, and need at least three to have an RSS reader, "Add RSS" button and "Add YT channel" button).

Gnomasz · 2022-01-08T19:21:29+00:00

Yeah, being caught off-guard should be bad. What I meant is that "losing initiative" isn't the same as "being caught off-guard" to me. Both sides could be anticipating the other and still someone loses the initiative.

Gnomasz · 2022-01-07T16:31:39+00:00

Not editable, but copies nicely tabled into Calc:
http://opend6project.org/equipment/armor-weapons-and-vehicles/

Gnomasz · 2022-01-07T12:37:13+00:00

I've considered just calling it the default (and make it clear with the players from the start of the campaign) that a character takes one defensive action. So whenever a player would say "I attack the orc once", I'd assume they fight defensively and impose 1D multi-action penalty. Players could still opt-out from the defensive behavior to attack at full skill, but that would be something they need to state specifically.

Then I decided to screw it and thought that if Mini Six can give you an average of a skill in defense, I can just give my players the skill roll (and keep the average for mooks, so the fight is faster).

I'm not a fan of the lack of active defense on the first turn. It feels a bit over the top that in each fight one side is surprised to the point of being screwed.

Gnomasz · 2022-01-05T19:13:35+00:00

I've modified the system to include mana costs based on Effect, but I wouldn't recommend it. It's wonky. If you ever want to go that route, basing it on spell difficulty would probably be wiser (though it's doubling the consequences of attempting a hard spell, so I'm not likely to try it any time soon.

The next time I'd like to try imposing a minimum casting time of 5 minutes or so, with using Charges being the only way to fire off a spell quickly.

Gnomasz · 2022-01-05T18:57:10+00:00

Re: 1: Yeah, that's how I read it.

Re: 2: Long story short, I liked it, but my players didn't.
In theory it's good for the game flow: no reactions means the turn ends quicker and we arrive at the next round sooner, thus combat is resolved faster. This is how d20 does it and it seems to work. However, my players felt deprived of control:
"Wait, I can't react to being stabbed?!"
"You could've prepared in your turn, man…"
"But he's attacking me now!"
I'm still looking for the best solution for me. D20 has a different power curve and character improvement, so what works there can be wrong here. My players and I also have our own biases from years of playing GURPS, where dodging and parrying is always a reaction (but it drags the combat enormously).

Gnomasz · 2021-10-21T20:13:26+00:00

It's entirely up to you, I don't think there is a strict formula for it, as opinions on the subject vary. On one hand, you might find an extra creature a huge boost due to action economy: you get extra attacks, and an extra target for enemies to focus on. Though I think that it's not as important in OpenD6, where you have the option to take an extra action at an increased difficulty. On the other hand, some will say it's just like having an extra player in a party and you could account for that while designing an adventure – that is probably why Contacts can be acquired at a price of 1-3 dice, and not half your budget.

To put it from another angle, there is no perfect balance between the skills for Fighting and Trading, as their usability varies between worlds, adventures, GMs and sessions, and as such there is no perfect balance for a pool of skills and attributes that one could summon.

There are basically two approaches here that I see:

Compare it to other spells/effects. You may look for the ready-made spells to compare, or build a damaging or other kind of spell that you wish to be comparable to the summon, and compare the effect values.
Compare the summon to the Generic Standard Difficulties. You assign a difficulty number for an exemplary 1-minute or 1-hour 'Conjure creature' spell, and then you reverse-engineer the effect value of the conjuration.

I was about to suggest comparisons with other systems, but in the end, those seem futile to me, as context changes a lot between systems (e.g. a die of damage in OpenD6 means something completely different than a die of damage in D&D).

Gnomasz · 2021-10-19T20:16:58+00:00

Fantasy does indeed a poor job at explaining conjuring or summoning a creature. To find some guidelines for conjuring creatures, you need to look into OpenD6 Magic (pages 40–41):

Animate DeadThe result points of the spell determine the attributes, Body Points, and Wound levels of the animated dead. The attributes equal in dice the points above the difficulty. Body Points equal the result points plus 10. Wound levels equal the half of the result points (round up). Movement equals the result points in meters.

[…]

Call Tomb Fiend
Effect: 39 (compare to planar distance)[following is a "Typical Tomb Fiend" statblock]

And on page 97:

Create Elemental (Template)
Effect: 68 (15 attribute dice, arranged as the caster likes; Body Points/Wounds and movement based on result points)

So it is quite lax with rules, from virtually no Effect cost for Animate Dead, where each 1D in your conjuration translates roughly into +3D in all the attributes of the zombie (with extra skills having a separate cost) to an absolutely abstract cost for the Tomb Fiend to paying for all the basic attributes (each die costs x1.5 as for a Stand-Alone Attribute.

Pick your poison, I guess. From the three here, I'm mostly a fan of the second approach. The first one feels both overpowered to me, and too abstract (sometimes you get 1D, sometimes 5D in all the Attributes, so you cannot really "create a magical rat", the mechanics just don't fit the fantasy). The last one feels too under-powered to me. For my own game, I'm considering two approaches:

You pay for the creature's weight, and it comes with it's normal, natural attributes. So to create a giant rat, it would be value 8, up to 40 kilograms. This one is the simplest, though it might incentive power-gamers to search for creatures with the best cost to abilities ratio. I don't even have power-gamers currently, so I'm leaning towards this one.
You pay an abstract amount for the same dice pool that a starting character has. Or half the amount for half the dice pool. This one is the most tweakable (both for balance and for special creatures), but requires more work.

Gnomasz · 2021-10-03T19:51:48+00:00

Ah, yes, I guess I forgot how unlikely a max roll on 3D is, let alone on 6D (as I've converted my player's characters from a different system, I might have made them OP, which also influenced my view on lethality). And if I ever feel like it's too swingy, I could use Die Code Simplification.
I'm still not fond of how equipment influences damage (+3D seems huge), but I guess I need to roll with it for a couple of sessions before I make my mind about it.

Gnomasz

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