New Web Browser

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Now, let me explain how a traffic exchange works. You click on a button on the top toolbar of the traffic exchange and then a web site will load in a frame below the toolbar. The toolbar's timer will count down for about 15 seconds and then the button will appear again. You can now click the button to load another web site. Each time you do this, other users of that traffic exchange will see your own web site.

And what does that let you achieve but get a higher number on your hit counter?

 

SurfTabs has over 4,000 lines of code that I typed myself. It is much more than just a front end to an existing browser. Some of the features are hidden deep within the code, and not visible from the interface. For example, I can instantly lock all copies of a specific version of SurfTabs by simply removing the key file from my web site. Users will be redirected to a page where they can download the newest version. If I activate it, the lock can't be bypassed even if the user has blocked access to my web site with an external firewall. Although almost all browsers support automatic updates, I doubt any of them have a lock feature. The lock feature is great for protecting users from severe security flaws.

And locking out everybody from the browser if your website is down or hacked. Perfect. They might even be able to hack into it, replace the key file, and exploit some sort of buffer overflow in your code, exploiting everybody using it at once.

 

Also, SurfTabs is much better at blocking pop-ups than other browsers. There are pop-ups that can bypass Internet Explorer, and even Firefox, but SurfTabs blocks almost all of them. Can you find a pop-up blocker better than the one I built into SurfTabs?

Show me an example of pop-ups that get through Firefox.

[-Demosthenes-]

That isn't what he's done at all in any way.

 

He's written a dodgy (and quite ugly) front end to an existing browser.

 

Meh, I made an retarded web page that does work, it's still cool.

[Dak]

not working for me.

 

i open a site in tab1, open a site in tab2, click a link in tab2, and remain in tab2

 

it's also not displaying properly in 800*600 res.

 

the popup blocker failed this popup test.

 

and for some reason i cant scroll down to the bottom of this page

 

its also a bit too over-enthusiastic with the popup blocking. go here and click on 'comments'. the popup blocker prevents anything from happening.

 

and i'm not sure that your idea would actually be useful tbh. sorry.

 

cap'n, ive seen a few, mainly annoying flash pop-ups, and a few javascript ones too.

[herme3]

And what does that let you achieve but get a higher number on your hit counter?

 

It's great advertising. Thousands of different people can see your web site each day, and they can add it to their favorites if they find it interesting. I've successfully sold products and services on web sites, and the only advertising I did was on traffic exchanges. Usually you need to pay for advertising, but traffic exchanges are usually free services.

 

There was once an investment program that made over $50 million from advertising on various traffic exchanges. They ended up being a scam and everyone lost their money, but it proves how powerful traffic exchange advertising can be.

 

And locking out everybody from the browser if your website is down or hacked. Perfect. They might even be able to hack into it, replace the key file, and exploit some sort of buffer overflow in your code, exploiting everybody using it at once.

 

If the locking feature is unable to connect to the web site, it will display a separate error message that asks the user to check their Internet connection. The message also says SurfTabs.com might be having technical difficulties, and you should try to start the program again later. It will only redirect to an update page if I replace the key file with a lock file.

 

Show me an example of pop-ups that get through Firefox.

 

I used Firefox with traffic exchanges before I created SurfTabs, and I've seen many pop-ups get through the blocker. I even see a few pop-ups get past SurfTabs, but not nearly as many.

 

i open a site in tab1, open a site in tab2, click a link in tab2, and remain in tab2

 

Did you click the "On" button where it says, "Automatically Switch Tabs"? It is located to the right of all the tabs.

 

it's also not displaying properly in 800*600 res.

 

Only about 10% of my web site's visitors have a 800*600 res. Therefore, I designed SurfTabs to work with 1024*768.

 

the popup blocker failed this popup test.

 

The pop-up window displayed by the test is embedded into the web site. You should not see it after you go to another web site.

[Dak]

Did you click the "On" button where it says, "Automatically Switch Tabs"? It is located to the right of all the tabs.

 

ah, that'd be it.

 

I can't see the right side of the tabs, cos of the screen res.

 

Not to worry.

 

Only about 10% of my web site's visitors have a 800*600 res. Therefore, I designed SurfTabs to work with 1024*768.

 

thus annoying 10% of your customers

[insane_alien]

Let me try to explain it differently. Imagine you have Google open in Tab1 and MSN open in Tab2. When you click on a link on Google, it will automatically switch to MSN. After you click on a link in MSN it will automatically switch back to Google.

 

i can't think of a single occasion where i would either need or want this to happen.

[herme3]

I can't see the right side of the tabs, cos of the screen res.

 

Why don't you use 1024*768? Years ago, I used 800*600 and I couldn't believe how much I was missing. I realized that many web pages are designed for 1024*768 and I was often missing some of the pictures and content of the web pages. Unless you have a really small monitor, or difficulty with your eyes, I'm not sure why anyone would want to have 800*600 anymore.

 

i can't think of a single occasion where i would either need or want this to happen.

 

Trust me, many traffic exchange users are going to love this feature. I'm sure there will be other people who will find this feature useful, depending on how they use the web. Of course, there are many times when users would not want the tabs to automatically rotate. That is why I have the feature turned off by default.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Why don't you use 1024*768? Years ago, I used 800*600 and I couldn't believe how much I was missing. I realized that many web pages are designed for 1024*768 and I was often missing some of the pictures and content of the web pages. Unless you have a really small monitor, or difficulty with your eyes, I'm not sure why anyone would want to have 800*600 anymore.

Many people use old hardware. Something around 20% of people still use 800x600 (http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp).

 

 

The big question here is: If you're just clicking a link and then switching tabs rapidly, how are you benefiting that site in the traffic exchange? It's not like you're paying attention to its content.

[herme3]

Many people use old hardware. Something around 20% of people still use 800x600 (http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp)[/url'].

 

I have an old computer that was manufactured way back in 1998. I've never upgraded the graphics card or monitor, and it works just fine with 1024*768 resolution.

 

The big question here is: If you're just clicking a link and then switching tabs rapidly, how are you benefiting that site in the traffic exchange? It's not like you're paying attention to its content.

 

You do have a good point. I admit that I don't always look at every web site that is loaded in the traffic exchanges. Since most traffic exchange users already rapidly switch between tabs using Firefox, I suppose many people are not looking at my web sites either.

 

However, there have been many cases where I've made purchases from web sites I've seen in traffic exchanges. If a web site's title catches my attention, I will often read through the web site before clicking the next link. If the web site is interesting, I will add it to my favorites and come back later. That's why I try to create a good title on all of my web sites.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

I have an old computer that was manufactured way back in 1998. I've never upgraded the graphics card or monitor, and it works just fine with 1024*768 resolution.

The fact is that there are people who use 800x600, for any number of reasons.

[Dak]

my screen can handle 1k*8c, but I like being able to see stuff on my pc easily from a reasonable distance ( i sit further back than most people do) without squinting, and i like being able to use the PC for ages without my eyes hurting.

 

is it actually that hard to design a screen that works in both? i've never had any trouble, but i'm not exactly a leet web-designer. i thought that using %s for width meant that the display automatically fit your resolution.

[herme3]

my screen can handle 1k*8c, but I like being able to see stuff on my pc easily from a reasonable distance ( i sit further back than most people do) without squinting, and i like being able to use the PC for ages without my eyes hurting.

 

If you don't already have one, I would recommend that you use a LCD monitor. I also use my computers for long periods of time, and my eyes will not hurt nearly as bad if I'm using a LCD monitor no matter what the screen resolution is.

 

is it actually that hard to design a screen that works in both? i've never had any trouble, but i'm not exactly a leet web-designer. i thought that using %s for width meant that the display automatically fit your resolution.

 

All of my web sites should display perfectly with a 800*600 resolution. However, creating Visual Basic programs with different resolutions is more difficult. Perhaps I am doing something wrong, but everything appears too small in 1024*768 if I create the program to work with 800*600. I also have much less space to work with, and can't add as many features to the interface.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

All of my web sites should display perfectly with a 800*600 resolution. However, creating Visual Basic programs with different resolutions is more difficult. Perhaps I am doing something wrong, but everything appears too small in 1024*768 if I create the program to work with 800*600. I also have much less space to work with, and can't add as many features to the interface.

Isn't it simple enough in Visual Basic to detect the user's screen resolution and adapt the program's interface dynamically to fit?

[Dak]

If you don't already have one, I would recommend that you use a LCD monitor. I also use my computers for long periods of time, and my eyes will not hurt nearly as bad if I'm using a LCD monitor no matter what the screen resolution is.

 

i also dont want to have to buy a new monitor. i like computing on the cheap, which means sticking with my current hardware whereever possible (parts of my computer are over 10 years old )

 

also, that wouldnt fix the 'wanting to sit quite far away from my pc' issue, tho i supose i could just buy a huge LCD monitor.

 

All of my web sites should display perfectly with a 800*600 resolution. However, creating Visual Basic programs with different resolutions is more difficult. Perhaps I am doing something wrong, but everything appears too small in 1024*768 if I create the program to work with 800*600. I also have much less space to work with, and can't add as many features to the interface.

 

ah, i was talking about HTML.

[herme3]

Isn't it simple enough in Visual Basic to detect the user's screen resolution and adapt the program's interface dynamically to fit?

 

You're right, and that's a good idea. I'll have to consider it for the next version, but I think it would require a lot of programming. Although SurfTabs might look simple, there are actually around 250 different objects in the design of the interface. I believe adapting the program for each screen resolution would require an if...then statement for each object. I'm not sure if it would be worth it if only 10% of my visitors have 800*600 and an even smaller percent of my visitors actually download the program. In fact, Dak is probably the only SurfTabs user with a 800*600 resolution.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Couldn't it be simple enough to just have it base the widths of everything off of some formula, so you just calculate the base value for the formula using their screen resolution, and then calculate the size for things as you go?

 

i.e. to make something 10% width, you just do

width = .1 * baseWidth

(perhaps with rounding)

[herme3]

Couldn't it be simple enough to just have it base the widths of everything off of some formula' date=' so you just calculate the base value for the formula using their screen resolution, and then calculate the size for things as you go?

 

i.e. to make something 10% width, you just do

width = .1 * baseWidth

(perhaps with rounding)[/quote']

 

That might work, but I've never tried it before. I've manually set the location, width, and height of each object. For example, one size might be "5, 10". I know how to set an object to take up a certain percentage of the screen, but I don't know if they would all be positioned correctly.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

You could relatively position them:

location = urlBarLocation + 40

[Dak]

as a bonus, if you coded it in either of cap'ns ways, im pretty sure you could easily include full utilisation of the next res up from 1k*8c aswell. after setting it up to convert by a base number, youd just need a few lines of code.

 

if res = the one above 1k*8c

then base = whatever

 

tada! this, afaict, is why flexable coding is cool.

 

from cap'ns link, it looks like nearly as many people have res's above 1k*6c as have below, and the number will presumably increase with time.

 

also, i only d/l'd slimbrowser to have a savvy. i wouldnt count me as a user of it

[penagate]

SurfTabs has over 4,000 lines of code that I typed myself.

 

You're kidding me, really? I dictate all my coding to my PA.

[Klaynos]

tbh about the screen res issue, it's all well and good saying "most people have that" but I HATE having windows maximissed, most of my web browser windows are resized to about 800x600