Hello.
I've been a long-time user of Firefox, since before it was even called by that name. The most recent and upcoming changes to the browser are making me look further afield for a decent alternative. The most obvious ones are Vivaldi and Opera of course (because their development has always been well publicized), but I recently saw someone mention the heretofore unknown CentBrowser in a blog comment and couldn't help but follow that up.
Now I'm here! After a few hours of intensive testing, I have come to believe that CentBrowser may be better than all the other Chromium based alternatives. It has by far a superior tab-bar implementation and offers a host of features that would require extensions in many other browsers, if they were possible at all.
Still, as good as I think things are right now, there can always be improvements here or there. This is my feedback:
1.) Default installation location. I saw this mentioned here but wanted to reiterate the issue, because the reply from you was not sufficient, I feel. Whenever I start an executable setup, the Windows UAC tells me that an application wants to make changes to my system, which is fine and works exactly as intended. I can then click yes and continue to install the application in my default path of 'C:\Program Files\' or 'C:\Program Files (x86)\' without further issues. Yet this does not happen with the CentBrowser setup, which doesn't request elevated permissions and tries to tell me something in a badly machine translated text I don't understand entirely the meaning of 'Installer können dieses Verzeichnis zugreifen können, wählen Sie bitte einen anderen'. I assume this is about these permissions, because a normal Windows user doesn't have write access in most system folders on the C: drive without requesting an elevation via the UAC system or disabling it. That issue could be circumvented by running the setup as an Administrator, but before I try that, I would like to know how that would impact the future update checks from within the browser. Would it work anyway, or would I need to run the update client manually as an Administrator each time? In any case, I'd love to see installer and updater that take care of getting the required permissions themselves because it's the expected behavior on Windows.
1.1.) When checking for an update, the UI of the update window is rather sparse, only a multiline textbox with some information and an 'Abort' button. Is there something more to the update than checking for CentBrowser and Flash plugin updates or is it only an UI issue that the 'Abort' button remains unchanged after the check is done?
2.) How portable is the portable version of CentBrowser, why does the link to the portable version on the main page lead to an outdated version when there are different links on the History page and is there a difference between using that one or copying the installation directory and adding a file called 'CBPortable'? I've read in some places on the PortableApps.net forums, that Chromium browsers are notoriously difficult to make portable installations out of and that even those are only makeshift solutions.
2.1.) Speaking about that, is it possible to integrate CentBrowser portable into the PortableApps launcher? Since you have added an upgrade feature that works without the Google update service, even an unofficial build would be fine for the launcher.
3.) Setting key bindings. In any Chromium-based browser I have used so far, it's not possible to set custom shortcuts that contain the Tab-key. Prior to my learning about CentBrowser, I had been dabbling in a Chromium browser where I opened the 'Preferences' file in a text editor, searched through the JSON code for the shortcut I wanted to modify and then replaced the existing shortcut combination (ie 'Alt+Z') with 'Ctrl+Tab'. It would be splendid if this wasn't needed any more and could be set from within the browser.
3.1.) I've tried doing the same for a custom function you've built into your browser, namely 'Switch to last visited tab', which is 'Alt+Z' by default and I've found a setting in the 'Local State' file. So far so good, but when I choose a key combination that would replace a Chrome default function (like Alt+Tab for switching between tabs), it doesn't work. Apparently the priority order for shortcuts if a combination is set more than once is 1-extensions, 2-Chrome and 3-CentBrowser accelerators. Until this changes, I will need to use an extension like 'CLUT: Cycle Last Used Tabs', but if given the choice I'd always like to use your built-in version with the standard shortcut for this type of action. Maybe you could even add a setting like this to your already existing Tab options?
4.) Extension API parity to other browsers. I saw some other feature requests like this one and thought to myself that this would be grand, but it would be painful to have a sidebar and not be able to use any of the extensions that have appeared. In the past, WebExtensions have meant that any extension would run in any WebKit/Blink browser that supports extensions, but recent developments by other teams are going to fracture the once unified extension market. It all started with Opera and their sidebar API I believe, but Firefox is adding and planning to add further APIs too. I'd love to one day be able to use all WebExtensions, whether they were designed for Chrome, Opera or Firefox and unite them in only one browser. It will probably forever remain wishful thinking, but a guy can dream
5.) Re-open closed tab by using middle-click on (free space of) the tab-bar. It appears this feature is bugged if a browser-theme is used that also changes the tab-bar background. I'm using the browser on Windows 7 and whenever a theme is active that has replaced the default background design (the aero blur) a middle-click has no effect, unless it is made on top of the '+' button to open a new empty tab.
6.) Open downloaded files automatically by file-type. I can't get this to work like it does in other browsers. In your replacement file-download-dialogue I see an Save&Open button, but there's no setting to always open this file type from now on. Even playing around with the Download settings, the only reference to this feature I have found is the button 'clear auto-opening settings'. Did you remove this feature from CentBrowser or did I miss it in my search?
After taking this first look at the browser, I can confidently say that I love some features and it's a serious contender to become my new default browser. Some features, above all else your excellent tab-bar, make this a viable alternative to the Firefox browser (with the Tab Mix Plus extension) I've been using so far. Thanks for creating this piece of software, it's been a while since I was last excited about a Chromium fork and probably the first time I'm seriously planning to switch my default browser.
Regards,
flash
I've been a long-time user of Firefox, since before it was even called by that name. The most recent and upcoming changes to the browser are making me look further afield for a decent alternative. The most obvious ones are Vivaldi and Opera of course (because their development has always been well publicized), but I recently saw someone mention the heretofore unknown CentBrowser in a blog comment and couldn't help but follow that up.
Now I'm here! After a few hours of intensive testing, I have come to believe that CentBrowser may be better than all the other Chromium based alternatives. It has by far a superior tab-bar implementation and offers a host of features that would require extensions in many other browsers, if they were possible at all.
Still, as good as I think things are right now, there can always be improvements here or there. This is my feedback:
1.) Default installation location. I saw this mentioned here but wanted to reiterate the issue, because the reply from you was not sufficient, I feel. Whenever I start an executable setup, the Windows UAC tells me that an application wants to make changes to my system, which is fine and works exactly as intended. I can then click yes and continue to install the application in my default path of 'C:\Program Files\' or 'C:\Program Files (x86)\' without further issues. Yet this does not happen with the CentBrowser setup, which doesn't request elevated permissions and tries to tell me something in a badly machine translated text I don't understand entirely the meaning of 'Installer können dieses Verzeichnis zugreifen können, wählen Sie bitte einen anderen'. I assume this is about these permissions, because a normal Windows user doesn't have write access in most system folders on the C: drive without requesting an elevation via the UAC system or disabling it. That issue could be circumvented by running the setup as an Administrator, but before I try that, I would like to know how that would impact the future update checks from within the browser. Would it work anyway, or would I need to run the update client manually as an Administrator each time? In any case, I'd love to see installer and updater that take care of getting the required permissions themselves because it's the expected behavior on Windows.
1.1.) When checking for an update, the UI of the update window is rather sparse, only a multiline textbox with some information and an 'Abort' button. Is there something more to the update than checking for CentBrowser and Flash plugin updates or is it only an UI issue that the 'Abort' button remains unchanged after the check is done?
2.) How portable is the portable version of CentBrowser, why does the link to the portable version on the main page lead to an outdated version when there are different links on the History page and is there a difference between using that one or copying the installation directory and adding a file called 'CBPortable'? I've read in some places on the PortableApps.net forums, that Chromium browsers are notoriously difficult to make portable installations out of and that even those are only makeshift solutions.
2.1.) Speaking about that, is it possible to integrate CentBrowser portable into the PortableApps launcher? Since you have added an upgrade feature that works without the Google update service, even an unofficial build would be fine for the launcher.
3.) Setting key bindings. In any Chromium-based browser I have used so far, it's not possible to set custom shortcuts that contain the Tab-key. Prior to my learning about CentBrowser, I had been dabbling in a Chromium browser where I opened the 'Preferences' file in a text editor, searched through the JSON code for the shortcut I wanted to modify and then replaced the existing shortcut combination (ie 'Alt+Z') with 'Ctrl+Tab'. It would be splendid if this wasn't needed any more and could be set from within the browser.
3.1.) I've tried doing the same for a custom function you've built into your browser, namely 'Switch to last visited tab', which is 'Alt+Z' by default and I've found a setting in the 'Local State' file. So far so good, but when I choose a key combination that would replace a Chrome default function (like Alt+Tab for switching between tabs), it doesn't work. Apparently the priority order for shortcuts if a combination is set more than once is 1-extensions, 2-Chrome and 3-CentBrowser accelerators. Until this changes, I will need to use an extension like 'CLUT: Cycle Last Used Tabs', but if given the choice I'd always like to use your built-in version with the standard shortcut for this type of action. Maybe you could even add a setting like this to your already existing Tab options?
4.) Extension API parity to other browsers. I saw some other feature requests like this one and thought to myself that this would be grand, but it would be painful to have a sidebar and not be able to use any of the extensions that have appeared. In the past, WebExtensions have meant that any extension would run in any WebKit/Blink browser that supports extensions, but recent developments by other teams are going to fracture the once unified extension market. It all started with Opera and their sidebar API I believe, but Firefox is adding and planning to add further APIs too. I'd love to one day be able to use all WebExtensions, whether they were designed for Chrome, Opera or Firefox and unite them in only one browser. It will probably forever remain wishful thinking, but a guy can dream
5.) Re-open closed tab by using middle-click on (free space of) the tab-bar. It appears this feature is bugged if a browser-theme is used that also changes the tab-bar background. I'm using the browser on Windows 7 and whenever a theme is active that has replaced the default background design (the aero blur) a middle-click has no effect, unless it is made on top of the '+' button to open a new empty tab.
6.) Open downloaded files automatically by file-type. I can't get this to work like it does in other browsers. In your replacement file-download-dialogue I see an Save&Open button, but there's no setting to always open this file type from now on. Even playing around with the Download settings, the only reference to this feature I have found is the button 'clear auto-opening settings'. Did you remove this feature from CentBrowser or did I miss it in my search?
After taking this first look at the browser, I can confidently say that I love some features and it's a serious contender to become my new default browser. Some features, above all else your excellent tab-bar, make this a viable alternative to the Firefox browser (with the Tab Mix Plus extension) I've been using so far. Thanks for creating this piece of software, it's been a while since I was last excited about a Chromium fork and probably the first time I'm seriously planning to switch my default browser.
Regards,
flash