Ebrowser as alternative to uweb browser

Ebrowser is the minimal browser with the philosophy of Android uweb browser.

• lightweight (less than 20k bytes) without bundled electron.
• much less memory footprint than edge/chrome browser and highly performant.
• keyboard (command line) friendly.
• customizable.

Note: Usually electron apps are heavyweight as they use browsers for simple things. Ebrowser uses core chromium effectively and very lightweight. Recommend to install electron separately.

Install (for Windows, MacOS and Linux)

Install ebrowser with nodejs installed

npm install ebrowser

Run ebrowser

electron ~/node_modules/ebrowser

Key shortcuts

• CTRL+G: address bar to show page url
• CTRL+L: focus to address bar
• CTRL+T: new Tab
• CTRL+TAB: switch to next tab
• CTRL+SHIFT+TAB: switch to previous tab
• CTRL+W: close Tab
• CTRL+<-: go backward
• CTRL+->: go forward
• CTRL+SHIFT+R: enable global redirection ("gredirect.json")
• CTRL+R: disable global redirection
• ESC: remove focus. similar to vi normal mode.
• F5: page refresh/reload
• F12: devtools

Address bar commands

• "/" for find-in-page
• ":" for address bar commands
  • ac [bookmark/history path w/o ext] : load ".rec" file for autocomplete.
  • b [bookmarkfilename w/o ext] : bookmark current page in file.
  • bml [filename w/o extension]: load/execute the javascript file.
  • cert : allow invalid certificates w/o arguments, otherwise restore to default.
  • clear : the arguments could be
    • cache : clear cache
    • dns : clear dns cache
    • storage: clear site storage data.
  • ext [extension path]: load unpacked Chrome extension.
  • nh/uh for No/Use url history.
  • nj/uj for No/Use external Javascript files.
  • nr/ur for No/Use "redirect.json" for domain redirection.
  • np : no proxy
  • up [proxyName] : use proxy. privous proxy or the first proxy in proxy.json w/o [proxyName].
  • ua [useragentName] : set user agent for future tabs. default user agent w/o arguments.
  • pdf [filename w/o extension] {options} : print to PDF file. All arguments are optional; empty option "{}" to capture long screenshot as vector graphics.
• ":!" address bar commands

Commands in no-focus mode (this mode is similar to vi Normal mode)

Pressing "ESC" to enter no-focus mode if not sure.

• ":" for address bar commands
• "/" for find-in-page with address bar
• "!" for ":!" address bar commands

The other commands are defined in "mapkeys.json", which will map keys to address bar commands.

Configuration files

• "config": lines of address bar commands.
• "search.json": search engines as shortcut-queryUrl pairs.
• "default.autoc": predefined strings for address bar auto completion.
• "gredirect.json": global redirection urls as array of urls
• "redirect.json": domain-replacementDomain pairs, default to be applied.
• "mapkeys.json": keys-addressbarCommands pairs. The addressbar commands are multiple lines of address bar command separated by "\n".
• "proxy.json": name-ProxyConfig pairs
• "uas.json" : name-useragent pairs

New usages

• Vector designing with web tech to replace Adobe Illustrator/Inkscape.

  • Design with web tech.

  • Printing to pdf with customized paper size.

  • Magnify the pdf paper size to the required size.

  OR

  • Adjust window width and use addressbar command line ":Pdf {}" to export vector graphics.
  • Use imageMagick to convert to any other vector graphics format.