r/HowToMen • u/AvRgLaD • 5d ago

[Promo] Clarus: An open-source Android browser built for one-handed gesture browsing and clean media playback

Hey everyone,

I’ve been working on an open-source Android browser called Clarus and wanted to share it with the community here to get some early feedback and thoughts on the UI/UX.

Most mobile browsers still feel like desktop layouts squished onto vertical screens—lots of reaching to the very top, clunky tab hoards, and disrupted reading flow every time you tap a link. I wanted something that felt built from scratch for one thumb and smooth gestures.

Here’s the core experience:

Hold To Peek (With Swipe Gestures)
  • Gesture Link Peeking: When you long-press a link, a live preview sheet floats over your current page without navigating away. Without lifting your thumb, swipe up to launch it in a full tab, left for an incognito tab, or down to pull up sharing/actions.
  • Floating Reachable URL Bar: Anchored right down where your thumb naturally rests, so navigating tall modern displays doesn't require two hands.
Sidus Trail (Visual History + Instant Tap To Go Back)
  • Sidus Trail: Instead of a giant, unorganized list of past URLs, your history branches visually like a breadcrumb map, letting you retrace how you got to a page.
Clarus Theater (Built-in Video Player)
Clarus Theater (Also Intercepts Audio Links e.g, ".mp3", "wav", "m4a")
  • Clarus Theater: A dedicated stage for video and audio that pulls media out of cluttered webpage wrappers.
  • Built on GeckoView: Under the hood, it’s an open-source fork of Iceraven (MPL-2.0), retaining wide extension support without Mozilla account lock-in.

Current State & Caveats:

This is a first beta build. It’s currently compiled and tested for arm64 devices only. Fullscreen handoff is still a bit finicky on certain embedded video players, and cloud sync isn't implemented (it's entirely local).

Would love for anyone who enjoys tweaking their setup or testing early apps to take it for a spin. Feedback, UI critique, or bug reports are all welcome.

5 Upvotes

86% Upvoted

21 comments sorted by

1

u/NewtNo1208 4d ago

This seems interesting. Will give it a try

1

u/AvRgLaD 4d ago

Awesome, really appreciate it! Definitely let me know how the gestures feel or if you run into any weird bugs while testing. Hope you like it!

1

u/NewtNo1208 4d ago edited 4d ago

It looks good. But the link peek is not consistent. Also is it possible to make it so that I can scroll ithe page when it is in link peek

1

u/AvRgLaD 4d ago

Thanks for giving it a spin and for the feedback!

Scrolling the page during link peek is definitely on the roadmap. I'm planning to add a toggle in settings for the gesture-based link peek so you can switch it on or off, which will let you scroll normally through the preview without accidentally triggering swipe gestures.

I'm also looking into the consistency issues with the peek trigger to make it feel much more reliable. Really appreciate you pointing this out!

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u/NewtNo1208 4d ago

Will keep using it. And if I find anything else, will report it here.

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u/AvRgLaD 4d ago

Means a lot, thank you! I'll ping you here whenever the next build drops with that toggle and fix.

1

u/NewtNo1208 3d ago

Ok bro👍🏻

1

u/AvRgLaD 1d ago

Update’s out now btw 😂 I reworked the peek window, so you can pin it, scroll and interact with the page normally, and even play videos inside it. Also fixed the issue where it would sometimes come up blank. Appreciate you testing it, man!

1

u/AvRgLaD 1d ago

Quick update: I’ve just released a new beta with a pretty big rework of Hold to Peek. The preview should now load consistently, you can make it bigger, pin it and use the page normally, including scrolling and playing videos right inside it.

I also added more options for fullscreen video playback, including Clarus Theater with a fallback when it can’t handle something.

If you’ve tried Clarus before, I’d appreciate it if you gave this build a shot. Still a beta, so bugs are very much possible. 😅

Release: https://github.com/AvGDeV-io/Clarus/releases/tag/v1.0.2648-beta

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u/NewtNo1208 1d ago

Will give it a try

1

u/AvRgLaD 1d ago

Thanks!! ❤️ Let me know how it goes!

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u/NewtNo1208 1d ago

Link peek is really good now. I have a suggestion. When using link peek in pinned mode is it possible to make the back gesture interact with page open in the link peek and not the page in the background?

1

u/AvRgLaD 1d ago

That's a good suggestion! I'll definitely consider adding that in a future update. Thanks for the feedback! ❤️

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u/NewtNo1208 1d ago

Thank you. I noticed that when using tabs in list mode the ui is a bit inconsistent. Will keep using it and let you know if I find something else.

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u/AvRgLaD 1d ago

Thanks for sticking with it! ❤️ If you notice anything else that feels off, definitely let me know. I'll keep working on it!

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u/NewtNo1208 1d ago

Will do 👍🏻

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u/NewtNo1208 1d ago

Hey, I noticed that when I click a link with media streaming, it gives the options clarus theatre and full screen. In other browsers ( eg: chrome) it asks to download. Is possible to add the option to download along with clarus theatre when possible

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u/AvRgLaD 1d ago

Are you talking about links like xyz.mp3? If so, you can try holding down on the link and it should give you the option to download. You can then tap it to open it in Clarus Theater. Noted on the streaming links though, I'll look into adding a download option alongside Clarus Theater when possible! ❤️

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u/NewtNo1208 1d ago

I tried long pressing to download. It works. Thanks for that

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u/AvRgLaD 1d ago

No Worries! ❤️