Why Try Epiphany As Your Default Browser with GNOME 2.14
Linked by Eugenia Loli on Wed 15th Mar 2006 16:34 UTC, submitted by JCooper
Gnome "In the GNOME philosophy, we want applications that do their job, only their job, and we want those to do it perfectly. Epiphany's job is to browse the web. Only browsing the web. But browsing the web in a GNOME fashioned way." Read more here and also here.
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RE: it's great!
by jonas on Wed 15th Mar 2006 22:08 UTC in reply to "it's great!"
jonas
Member since:
2005-07-08


for instance, take the adblock extension. i just activated it and wondered where i could configure it. but the thing is: you can't configure it - nowhere. it just works and displays a small red "A" in the lower left corner when it removes an ad. works, without any configuration just as good as firefox adblock extension.


The usefulness of this line of thought is a function of how long you have used the software and how much the usage situation varies. When you first use a piece of software (especially something that is complex), you want it to do most everything "the right way" for you. Web browsers are no exception, hence the widespread adoption of Firefox.

But after a while, exceptions start popping up. In some situation or another, you want to change the behavior. You get sick of having to click that "A" to enable something, or clicking "P" when you need popups to handle your finances (or what have you; this is hypothetical). You're comfortable with your software, and what you really want is a whitelist.

This is the problem when no configuration exists. This is precisely why configuration exists. This is why OSS tended to be so feature-heavy and configuration-bloated for many years (and leans in that direction today): the users were (the) developers, and if they wanted a feature to make their lives a little easier, they could add it.

When the usage situation is more simple (and it usually is for CLI programs, say), then this urge to find something else is lessened. It's also usually easy enough to mold a CLI program into doing what you want it to do, either with aliases or glue scripts. But it's still true when the situation can be either simple or complex depending on the aims of the user, especially with services like httpd or named.

My experience with every DE is that when I switch over to it, and if I like it, it's because it refreshingly addresses issues I had with the previous DE I was using. So, suppose Epiphany just works moreso than Firefox today. But then a few weeks from now you really want colorZilla, or you have a pet peve with some small feature that is missing or activated differently.

Or maybe not. But, if you can't make something work how you want it to, chances are good this scenario will arise.

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