Next
[Next]Next is a new type of web browser designed to empower users to find and filter information on the Internet. Web browsers today, largely compete on performance in rendering, all whilst maintaining similar UIs. The common UI they employ is easy to learn, though unfortunately it is not effective for traversing the internet due to its limited capabilities. This presents itself as a problem when a user is trying to navigate the large amounts of data on the Internet and in their open tabs. To deal with this problem, Next offers a set of powerful tools to index and jump around one's open tabs, through search results and the wider Internet. For example, Next offers the ability for the user to filter and process their open tabs by semantic content search. Because each workflow and discipline is unique, the real advantage of Next is in its fully programmable and open API. The user is free to modify Next in any way they wish, even whilst it is running.
- The project's own website
Why does this actually matter to end users?
Many of the hours we spend online, we spend within the windows and tabs of a web browser. We may not always realize it, but these applications are essentially gatekeepers to the modern web. Not many businesses can say that their technology has millions, even billions of users that fire up their program every day and use it to find most of the information they will consume that day. How these organizations setup their browser, and what kind of control they give the user, actually shapes how we access many public services, social spaces and business environments online.
To a great degree, web browsers define how users see the internet and more specifically, use online search. When you want to find something, why should you only see a list of search results on the left and advertisements on the right? There are countless ways we can find our way on the web, but as long as the vehicles we use look and work basically the same and do not really let users check what is under the hood, we cannot move forward to find new ways of discovery.
This project will give users a browser that is like a toolkit: to organize and look through information online, they can select precisely the tools they need, or even build new ones, while the browser is actually running. Ultimately, they can build a browser that is uniquely their own and that filters the insane amounts of online data they traverse exactly how they need it. Just like nobody learns in the same way, no one finds and consumes information in the same way. So why should we search and browse the same?
This project was funded through the NGI0 Discovery Fund, a fund established by NLnet with financial support from the European Commission's Next Generation Internet programme, under the aegis of DG Communications Networks, Content and Technology under grant agreement No 825322. Applications are still open, you can apply today.