I am trying to figure out how to use all the different web apps that I (have to) use. There are a couple web apps that I use on a regular bases (e.g. mastodon, element, trello, whatsapp, clockify, slack …).
So I’m looking for a way to manage them in a way that is:
- is a single application (so not the entire dock is cluttered)
- not too heavy on resources
- “trust worthy”, open source, actively maintained (at least security updates)
- notifications / notification indicator (Gnome)
- not just tabs in my main browser (firefox)
nice to haves:
- open links in the default browser
- “hibernate” services
I experimented with multiple setups over the past years but none seemed to be ideal. My current solution is to use the Vivaldi browser dedicated to all those services, with pinned tabs.
Some of the other solutions I tried, but didn’t work (at the time) for me:
- Tangram (used too much resources)
- Ferdi (sketchy things going on with the devs, lost any trust in the app)
- Rambox (didn’t work properly for me when I tried it, but the app seems to have evolved a lot since then)
Do you have any recommendations?
It is possible to do what you want with a single application BUT your #1 and #2 items are contradictory to each other unfortunately. Every application I have seen that has combination solution in one app such as Tangram all use Electron to accomplish the task. This means that all of them will be fairly heavy on resources, in fact some will be worse than others.
The unfortunate thing with all of these applications is they have all become proprietary after they become popular. Rambox, Wavebox, Ferdi (weirder), etc have all started as open source to then just become some level of proprietary. Tangram is the only solution that I know of that still is open source.
If resource usage is more important than having a single application then you can solve that with GNOME Web (distro repo version, Flatpak doesnt work with this yet) and then you can create individual GNOME Web Apps.
Ferdi has had an interesting past but I think it has new maintainers. I would give it another look. It got a huge refresh last year and there are some new features.
Thanks, I was afraid that #1 and #2 are not playing well together. I think I will stick with my vivaldi setup then.
There is hamsket too, which is a fork of rambox that is still open source
I noticed the new maintainers, but they have to do some trust building first for a while before I would put my sensitive data into their app.
And there are still some red flags, at least imho. Considering what was going on the last months, I think it’s a no-go to have the issue not public on github. I cannot check the entire code myself, so if there is an issue I need to have a way to keep track or get notified.
Also some very strange and unprofessional posts on their official social media.