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Find answers to the most commonly asked questions about Glide Browser.

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General Questions

Glide is for you if:
  • You like keyboard-focused applications
  • You enjoy tinkering with software and deep customization
  • You’re happy to configure software through TypeScript code
  • You like Firefox
Glide empowers power users who want complete control over their browsing experience through code-based configuration.
Glide is probably not for you if:
  • You want everything to be configurable through a GUI
  • You value stability over all else (Glide is very early in its life)
  • You would not feel comfortable running a browser maintained by a single person
  • You do not like Firefox
If you’re looking for a stable, GUI-based browser with a large organization behind it, consider sticking with mainstream browsers.
At the time of writing, there are no viable alternatives that are not just Chromium.Building on Chromium would be an uphill battle fighting against changes that Google makes to purely benefit itself, like the Manifest V3 changes that harm ad blockers.No matter what you think of Mozilla’s leadership, Firefox has stayed the most true to FOSS principles and Mozilla is held to much higher standards than their competitors.Note: Ladybird is very promising and we hope their project is a success!
Glide is built as a Firefox fork with custom modifications. Key changes include:
  • How Firefox has been patched
  • Which Firefox APIs are exposed
  • Custom modifications to the browser engine
  • Build system integration

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Features & Capabilities

Existing extensions do cover a lot of Glide’s features - for example, Tridactyl is a major source of inspiration for this browser.However, any extension that wants to offer the same level of flexibility that Glide does will always be fighting an uphill battle:
  • Extensions don’t have access to all the APIs needed
  • Firefox restricts which documents extensions can operate on (e.g., extensions cannot run on addons.mozilla.org without hacky workarounds)
  • While these restrictions are reasonable for security, they make it impossible to deliver a consistent, deeply integrated experience
Building a Firefox fork means we control the full stack and remove extension constraints while retaining Firefox’s security model.Example: Glide can render custom caret styles (block █ in normal mode, standard | in insert mode) - this is infeasible to implement in a web extension.
DRM is a walled garden and blocked for open source browsers, at least for browsers not run by large organizations.Additionally, a Widevine license would be prohibitively expensive, even if we were accepted.This is also a matter of principle: You should reconsider if it’s worth using services that require DRM and proprietary software. See Defective by Design for more information.
Because snake_case is better.It’s more readable, easier to scan, and doesn’t have awkward initialisms like tabID vs tabId.The Glide API consistently uses snake_case for all function names, parameters, and properties to provide a clean, uniform interface.

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Configuration & Usage

Glide provides several resources for configuration:
  • Guides: Step-by-step guides for common tasks
  • API Reference: Complete documentation of all Glide APIs available in the config
  • Extensions API: Documentation for available web extension APIs
All configuration is done through TypeScript code in your glide.ts config file, giving you the full power of a programming language to customize your browser.
There are several solutions:

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Quick Workaround

Since there are almost zero default keymappings in insert mode, you can press i + the key + <Esc>.

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Auto-enter Insert Mode for Specific Sites

glide.autocmds.create("UrlEnter", {
  hostname: "example.com",
}, async () => {
  await glide.excmds.execute("mode_change insert");
});

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Delete Specific Keymappings for Certain Sites

glide.autocmds.create("UrlEnter", {
  hostname: "example.com",
}, () => {
  glide.buf.keymaps.del("normal", "x");
  // Add more keymappings to delete as needed
});
This gives you fine-grained control over which keymappings are active on which sites.
The easiest way to see logs is to execute :repl, which spawns a Browser Toolbox window with just the console.Note: This will include all logs from the main browser process, so if you have many tabs open it will be noisy.

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Filter Logs

To filter logs down to just the config:
  1. Click on Filter output (or press <C-f> on Linux / <M-f> on macOS)
  2. Enter glide.ts or .ts as the filter
This filters to TypeScript files, which currently only includes your config in the Firefox build.

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Getting Help

Several channels are available:The Glide community is welcoming and helpful - don’t hesitate to reach out!
Glide welcomes contributions! Check out the Contributing Guide to get started.Ways to contribute:
  • Code: Fix bugs, add features, improve performance
  • Documentation: Improve docs, add examples, fix typos
  • Testing: Report bugs, test new features, write test cases
  • Community: Help others in chat, answer questions, share your config
See the Contributing Guide for detailed instructions on building Glide, running tests, and submitting contributions.
Glide follows Firefox’s release cycle and maintains compatibility with Firefox Beta versions.
  • Regular updates bump the underlying Firefox version
  • New features are released as they’re ready
  • Breaking changes are clearly documented in the Changelog
  • All releases are alpha (denoted by the a suffix) as Glide is in early development
Check the Changelog regularly to stay up to date with the latest changes.

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Still Have Questions?

If your question isn’t answered here: