[TABLET Z COMPETITION ENTRY][APP] Lightning Browser [2.2+][OPEN-SOURCE]

anthonycr · Jun 29, 2013

Lightning Browser

Speed. Holo. Privacy.

About:SourceCode - Source code on github

About: DownloadLinks
Beta Link (Recommended)
Play Store Link (doesn't have new cool stuff)

About:Browser

Lightning Browser...

is open-source
is HOLO
is based on WebKit
supports multiple tabs
has an incognito mode
doesn't spy on you like other browsers do
supports Adobe Flash (get it here)
has a full-screen mode
has a bookmarking ability
looks nice
is only ~100 KB

About:Screenshot

(Only one screenshot so I don't clog the thread)

About:History

Six months ago, I began work on a webkit based browser when I was asked for help fixing a simple web browser that two forum acquaintances (cammykool and tvall) had built using an online app maker. I looked at the site and disappointingly told them I couldn't help them because the site just generated an apk and didn't actually give you the source code. I told them I could try to build them a simple browser myself...

I started working on Lightning in January, soon published it on Google Play, published the source code on Github, and it became apparent that there was a large group of people that were looking for a light-weight, good-looking, privacy-aware, web browser. People seemed to really like the work I was doing and soon I was adding more and more to the browser. XDA developers kindly gave the browser a favorable review and download numbers spiked drastically.

Recently, I was challenged by the developer of Naked Browser (an excellent bare-bones browser that doesn't track you) about some apparent security flaws in my browser, and I am glad to say that I have fixed them. I've received tons of feedback from users and I have attempted to reply to them all, although I have missed a number of people's emails due to being bogged down with school work last semester. Every bit of feedback is important to me and I strive to fulfill people's desires in the browser.

This is the people's browser.

About:Future

I'm planning...

to add a sync with Google Bookmarks
on better supporting the Xperia Tablet Z
on better supporting large tablets in general
on adding better support for external keyboards and mouses
to add a lot of other options
to add more search providers (duckduckgo and startpage for privacy)
to possibly remove the GPS permission for the privacy aware of us.
to add anything you suggest and I can code

About: Permissions

● permission.INTERNET - Obviously needed to access the internet

● permission.WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE - Needed for downloading files
● permission.READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE - Needed for downloading files
● permission.ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION - Needed for sites that want your location (you can deny location access)
● permission.READ_HISTORY_BOOKMARKS - Needed for reading the stock browser history
● permission.WRITE_HISTORY_BOOKMARKS - Needed for keeping the stock browser history up to date

About:Me

I'm an Junior in college attending Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York for Electrical Engineering. I enjoy programming for Android and I'm a gadget enthusiast.

Special Thanks goes to:

XDA-Developers: For the publicity they've given to Lightning Browser (and for this contest)
Sony: For supporting developers like me
The forum at VMRoms.com (You guys are awesome)
The Virgin Mobile LG Optimus V community: For teaching me all things Android
aminaked: for pointing out where Lightning had some security problems
The Android Developers at Google: for bringing WebKit to Android
WebKit: for being the back-bone of Lightning
You guys here: for giving my browser a chance.
cammykool and tvall: for the idea of Lightning browser

Please... Ask any questions you want. Suggest anything you want. You will be heard. This is the people's browser.

anthonycr · Jun 29, 2013

Proposed revision to the settings menu (and addition of advanced settings menu).

[note: ui elements will be standard holo elements, not the faux holo ones pictured]

skiwong20 · Jun 29, 2013

thanks downloading now. going to try this on cm10.1

Sent from my SGP311 using xda app-developers app

pulser_g2 · Jun 29, 2013

Filed issue on github tracker due to compile issues - looks like some stuff in Barebones class is private, then directly accessed from AnthonyWebView. Not had a look, perhaps going protected and inheriting from Barebones might help...

RE the feature ideas, I'd suggest perhaps Firefox sync is a worthwhile contender to rival Google's sync (since Firefox permits you to store your data on your own server, totally under your control).

Will take a look at search providers, as I have reverse-engineered a number of search engines' query strings and auto-suggest APIs, and found the proper ways to invoke them for mobile and desktop (tablet likely should use the desktop versions, unless user chooses otherwise).

There also appears to be a regression. It's not possible to use the newest version on a device without either the AOSP browser or Chrome. Since Chrome is closed source, and the AOSP browser is often not included on "stock" manufacturer ROMs (like the Sony Tablet Z ROM), this is a bit of an annoyance. There was no issue running Lightning version 2.4.3 without another browser being present, but it now FCs.

Code:

I/Barebones( 4696): making tab
E/ANDR-PERF-MPCTL( 1316): MPCTL client send 3
E/ANDR-PERF-MPCTL( 1316): Received len=92, m=1297100099, v=2, c=1316, s=30, m=992947771 (0x3b2f2e3b) d=0
I/Barebones( 4696): tab complete
E/Barebones( 4696): did not detect AOSP browser
W/dalvikvm( 4696): threadid=11: thread exiting with uncaught exception (group=0x40c0b450)
E/ActivityThread( 2750): Failed to find provider info for com.android.chrome.browser
E/AndroidRuntime( 4696): FATAL EXCEPTION: Thread-303
E/AndroidRuntime( 4696): java.lang.NullPointerException
E/AndroidRuntime( 4696): 	at acr.browser.barebones.v.run(Unknown Source)
E/AndroidRuntime( 4696): 	at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:856)
W/ActivityManager(  604):   Force finishing activity acr.browser.barebones/.Barebones

anthonycr · Jun 29, 2013

pulser_g2 said:
Filed issue on github tracker due to compile issues - looks like some stuff in Barebones class is private, then directly accessed from AnthonyWebView. Not had a look, perhaps going protected and inheriting from Barebones might help...

RE the feature ideas, I'd suggest perhaps Firefox sync is a worthwhile contender to rival Google's sync (since Firefox permits you to store your data on your own server, totally under your control).

Will take a look at search providers, as I have reverse-engineered a number of search engines' query strings and auto-suggest APIs, and found the proper ways to invoke them for mobile and desktop (tablet likely should use the desktop versions, unless user chooses otherwise).

There also appears to be a regression. It's not possible to use the newest version on a device without either the AOSP browser or Chrome. Since Chrome is closed source, and the AOSP browser is often not included on "stock" manufacturer ROMs (like the Sony Tablet Z ROM), this is a bit of an annoyance. There was no issue running Lightning version 2.4.3 without another browser being present, but it now FCs.

What's strange is that it compiles fine for me. I'll change the private variables to public that are accessed in the webview.

The issue with the stock browser not being present is also something that I know about, but alas... I forgot to test it with the latest build. I'll see about fixing that.

Thanks for pointing this out. I often forget about browsers with a stock provider.

What's strange is that it's giving me none of these on my Tablet Z which is still on stock...... Hmmm. At any rate, I'll fix this stuff pronto.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2

anthonycr · Jun 30, 2013

I just fixed the crash issue. Silly, but all it required was a simple if(cursor!=null).
Also, the binary was updated and the code has been reverted to public to make it easier to compile.

Sent from my Xperia Tablet Z

anthonycr · Jul 1, 2013

I added a change I'm planning to make to the settings menu to make it more n00b friendly and a little cleaner. See second post.

hasenbein1966 · Jul 1, 2013

The bookmark menu is crap (sorry, but it is).

Much too big items, not sortable, not configurable.

At this state Lightning unfortunately is not suited for me.

anthonycr · Jul 2, 2013

hasenbein1966 said:
The bookmark menu is crap (sorry, but it is).

Much too big items, not sortable, not configurable.

At this state Lightning unfortunately is not suited for me.

Suggestion taken. Sortable and editable I can do... Size on the other hand is an issue I am having difficulty with.

As you probably noticed, the bookmarks are an html page which the browser loads, and for some reason the text changes size in landscape and portrait.

Portrait size of the bookmarks is fine, but the landscape I agree to be unusable.
Also, I may consider a more icon/tile based thing like chrome... Whatever people want

anthonycr · Jul 30, 2013

The beta has been updated here https://github.com/anthonycr/Lightning-Browser. Lots of New options including the ability to import bookmarks from the stock browser or chrome if it's installed.

Sent from my Xperia Tablet Z

kalel90 · Jul 30, 2013

Is there anyway you can add the ability for the browser to ask what video player app to use when clicking on a direct link to a video file instead of just downloading it? Chrome and stock browser can do this for mp4's that alone would be acceptable but It would be cool to to do it for any video file link.

Sent from my SGP311 using XDA Premium HD app

anthonycr · Jul 31, 2013

kalel90 said:
Is there anyway you can add the ability for the browser to ask what video player app to use when clicking on a direct link to a video file instead of just downloading it? Chrome and stock browser can do this for mp4's that alone would be acceptable but It would be cool to to do it for any video file link.

Sent from my SGP311 using XDA Premium HD app

Sure I can add that!

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2

anthonycr · Jul 31, 2013

kalel90 said:
Is there anyway you can add the ability for the browser to ask what video player app to use when clicking on a direct link to a video file instead of just downloading it? Chrome and stock browser can do this for mp4's that alone would be acceptable but It would be cool to to do it for any video file link.

Sent from my SGP311 using XDA Premium HD app

Just added it, check out the updated apk on github

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2

kalel90 · Jul 31, 2013

anthonycr said:
Just added it, check out the updated apk on github

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2

It works great! Thanks!

Sent from my Sony Xperia Tablet Z

cjdalessio · Jul 31, 2013

anthonycr said:
Suggestion taken. Sortable and editable I can do... Size on the other hand is an issue I am having difficulty with.

As you probably noticed, the bookmarks are an html page which the browser loads, and for some reason the text changes size in landscape and portrait.

Portrait size of the bookmarks is fine, but the landscape I agree to be unusable.
Also, I may consider a more icon/tile based thing like chrome... Whatever people want

Are you generating the HTML for this? It's probably missing a meta tag or two, or they need a tweak from the current setting. I'm assuming CSS could be used to further refine its look, just not sure how that has to be built into the app.

anthonycr · Jul 31, 2013

cjdalessio said:
Are you generating the HTML for this? It's probably missing a meta tag or two, or they need a tweak from the current setting. I'm assuming CSS could be used to further refine its look, just not sure how that has to be built into the app.

Yeah I'm generating the HTML and I am using CSS to style it to look like holo cards, the issue I found was that the WebView blows things up and uses a weird zoom thing so I just disabled a certain setting when on the bookmarks page and the bookmarks are the same size in portrait and landscape now.

If you want to look at some of the pre-generated HTML, it's located in the source in the BookmarkPageVariables.java file.

anthonycr · Aug 1, 2013

Lightning beta has been updated with the ability to open a closed tab by long pressing on the "New tab" button. Code and apk have been updated on github.

Sent from my Xperia Tablet Z

nathantaylor · Aug 5, 2013

Cannot believe this isn't more popular. Awesome work, man. Thank you.

anthonycr · Aug 5, 2013

I have updated the play store version of Lightning Browser to reflect the beta version. Beta also has been updated for those of you who do not have access to the Play Store.

anthonycr · Aug 5, 2013

Just a reminder to forum members that voting for the competition is now open here.

Please vote in the contest to help move things along for xda.

[TABLET Z COMPETITION ENTRY][APP] Lightning Browser [2.2+][OPEN-SOURCE]

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Admin Emeritus / Senior Recognized Developer

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Similar threads

Top Liked Posts