The Nyxt Thesis

By John Mercouris

Why should I care? Who is Nyxt for?

• Have you ever felt frustrated looking for a tab?
• Have you ever been annoyed at the default, unchangable behavior of your browser?
• Have you ever felt that your work-flows could greatly benefit from some simple keyboard macros or automation?
• Do all web browsers feel the same?
• Are you interested in optimizing and being more efficient?

If any of the above resonates with you, you should know that it doesn't have to be this way. We believe that you should be able to:

1. Find the information you need, and find it quickly.
2. Work efficiently, focus on the task at hand instead of navigating some dumbed-down point and click UI.
3. Adjust every single detail and nuance of your web browser to suit your work-flow.
4. Have unlimited power over your environment.

What is Nyxt? What is the solution?

Nyxt is a new type of web browser that gives the user full control over its behavior. Literally any part of Nyxt is reprogrammable. You can fire up a compiled version of Nyxt, drop into a REPL, and immediately begin hacking and changing the behavior of your browser.

Out of the box Nyxt ships with extensions that are designed to make you faster at navigating the Internet. For instance, consider a task that you do hundreds of times per day- switching tabs. In a normal browser, you have to go through your tabs one by one until you find what you need. In Nyxt, simply type a fuzzy search string describing the tab you are looking for, and Nyxt will let you jump to it instantly.

All the source code for Nyxt is available to you under a BSD-3 clause license. Do with it whatever you want, inspect it, modify it, and make Nyxt your own.

What is the mission of Nyxt?

The mission of Nyxt is to enable people to be as productive as possible. We don't place barriers upon the users of Nyxt. We allow people to get stuff done, their way.

Nyxt is about freedom. You should have the freedom to modify and change the tool you use to adapt to your particular needs, to enable yourself to be more productive.

Modern day scientists, engineers, philosophers, artists, and others spend increasingly more time on the Internet. Current tools hinder access to Internet-based resources. Nyxt, instead of hindering, empowers. In turn, this hopefully makes the world a better place.

What's the problem with current browsers?

The problem with current browsers is that they are engaged in what is known as the browser war. The browser war is one of focusing entirely on performance, and attaining the largest user base possible.

How to get a large user base? Make a product that is as simple as possible. That is why major browsers today are constraind in their UI designs by paradigms invented by Netscape and Internet Explorer in the late 90s.

Why do browsers care about market share?

Market share is power. If Chrome unilaterally decided to implement a new standard, other, smaller browsers would be forced to follow suite. Otherwise, their users would get messages such as "Sorry, this website doesn't support your browser, please download Chrome".

Furthermore, the business models of browsers, particularly Chrome, is centered around gathering and selling your data. That is why they want as many users as possible. They don't care about you, they just want your data to sell to advertisers.

How can I participate?

You can try Nyxt now by visiting the download page linked above! We hope you enjoy it and you'll join us on our mission! Thanks for reading :)