What is Horse Browser?"The internet browser that's designed for research. Organise notes and websites into projects, have all your work in one place, and get more done."
"Browse the internet with a simple sidebar and organise all your pages, tasks and projects into 'Trails®'. Trails® are nested groups of pages that capture the natural flow of your internet travels.
Yes, that means no more tabs, bookmarks or history.
Unfold, organise, name and add emojis to simple, meditative Trails® that fold away in a click."
"the browser built for professionals who demand focus and efficiency"I use many browsers, and usually three or four of them are open. I have always found them pretty poor for focused research, so the premise made sense to me. I had already decided to set aside one browser specifically and it was almost easier to switch to something new. The key features required for research are maximising focus and keeping detailed records; most browsers enhance access to distractions and make record keeping effortful.
How does Horse work?The major innovation in Horse is a vertical outline instead of tabs (horizontal or vertical). This is genuinely helpful. Outlines allow folding. The search process is easily visible through the trails and subtrails in a way that will already be familiar. The width of the left outline pane can be moved so that the details of each page can be read quickly, making it easy to leap back in even after being away for a few weeks. Pages can be renamed and moved around the outline.
Plaintext notes can be placed at any point in the outline to form a record of comments and conclusions.
And any point in the outline (with children) can be exported into a markdown outline (the notes are pure text anyway, but the web pages are exported in markdown format) so that there is a full record of the search process and conclusions.
Three extensions are incorporated - Ghostery, Dark Reader and Saddlepack (Horse's own password manager). Ghostery and Dark Reader work well and enhance focus. Saddlepack stores passwords but doesn't autofill; there's an intention to enable external password manager extensions, though I don't know if that would enable all Chromium extensions. Since most of the sites I need for research require accounts and logons, this is a major friction for me.
Notes FrictionThere are many keyboard shortcuts for trails and web pages: you can expand, shrink, go up, down, left, right, in, out and do the hokey cokey (pokey in US). And admittedly the shortcuts can be complex 4 key combos; but you can edit the keys - though I've never persuaded the changes to save.
But there are no shortcuts for notes. None. At all. The move keys work (at least for move left and move right), but to create a new note you have to go to the tiny icon at the top of the left pane and click on it; this creates a new note at the bottom, which you can then move into position (with mouse being easiest). To directly create a new note as a subnote (the most frequent need), you need to click on the tiny hamburger on the current tab and then select New Note from the menu.
These are not UI design choices by someone who uses notes extensively. Most people do their browsing using their mouse predominantly; virtually all users write notes using their keyboard.
PricingThe price is widely advertised as $60 annual subscription. In the past it has had lifetime subscriptions, and higher and lower prices (usually lower); changes appear unusually often.
When I looked at my own receipt, I noted that I had been charged £60 (as compared to an expected £45 to reflect the current exchange rate). Looking through their FAQs I noted a reference to a price of €60, so I suspect that's what many users in Europe will be charged.
Customer SupportThere's the Horse Discord and emails to Support.
When I enquired about support for keyboard shortcuts for notes, I was directed to the list of keyboard shortcuts. When I pointed out that there was nothing for notes, my access to the Discord was removed. I had wondered why it was such an empty discord compared to many. That wasn't a great response, but oh well; Lattics has a long abandoned Discord and there's still active support through the app.
I emailed support about my overcharging. Firstly requesting a refund of the amount overcharged and then another suggesting a four month licence extension as an alternative (I thought that might be simpler for them). I received two email replies from their AI support bot. As is the way with AI, it invented it's own question and then answered that. It confirmed that the price was $60; it understood my concern about the pricing difference and pointed towards the full refund in the first thirty day option; "
Unfortunately, our sources don't specifically address extending subscription end dates as an alternative to refunds"; it asked whether that helped or whether I wanted to talk to a person. I clicked the talk to a person button and emailed. There has been no response.
My personal experience has been of customer evasion rather than customer support.
So, where next?My little trip with Horse highlighted the value of a full record of my research journeys. It's helpful to know what I'm looking for and what strategies I have pursued. Of particular value is being able to revisit all the dead-ends and frustrated searches because they are the ones I am likely to want to return to when I have fresh ideas about what else I can do. Horse is actually not very good for this - it's lists of places visited rather than anything else.
I thought of Edge: I recalled mentions of it being good for vertical tabs and having notes; but I wasn't enthused. It's a long time since I used Opera. But I knew that Notes were quite a big feature in Vivaldi.
Horse has an article of the best browsers for research. Critiques Vivaldi - "
Known as the most customisable browser out there, Vivaldi can be fine-tuned to suit you. That said, customisation takes time and can also end up in a distracted user experience"; "
Free… But, again, there’s no free lunch here… While Vivaldi doesn’t track its users or sell data to the same extent as some other browsers, it does earn revenue through search engine and bookmark partnerships". My own experience of Vivaldi is that I pay no attention to the bazillion features that don't interest me; it's not entirely positive, as I've had issues with some webpages, but it floats in and out of being my most used browser.
So I determined to set it up specifically for research - I will suffer no loss of focus because I'm not using it that much on my desktop right now.
VivaldiVivaldi has Workspaces; kin to Horse's Areas and folders. It has two level tab stacks. Stuff can be moved around. Usable. Adequate. But not as flexible or as visually descriptive as Horse's outline.
But the notes are infinitely better. When you have the notes panel open, you can write you note while still on a web page; you can cut and paste (or select and grab) between the two. A keyboard shortcut opens notes in the main pane where a note can be written or edited in markdown rich text.
At this point, there are options. You can move notes into the tab stack; or you can copy the web pages into a note. For me, it's smoothest to write the note as I go along and copy pages into them; my heavyweight work is in my PKM notes app so the note was always my ultimate destination. And when I finish, I copy the history in too, so that I have a blow by blow record of my journey.
Vivaldi also has multiple navigation options.
And extensions. So I can use my password manager to login to all the sites I use for research. And upload articles to Readwise and my citation managers. Etc. Friction is minimised.
I wouldn't claim that Vivaldi is the best solution, even for my own work; idk. But I can definitively say that it is a far better solution for me than Horse, and Horse is unlikely to ever catch up.
ConclusionsHorse has a very neat idea but its potential is unrealised if only from the point of view of my own needs. Fundamentally, it's good for those who only want a curated and organised search history and record, with occasional incorporated notes; especially when they prefer to keep it all stored long-term in the browser.
It feels like a personal hobby project where substantial effort has been expended on monetising and marketing. The most recent incarnation of the website contains multiple messages that come over as empty AI garbage.
I came across (
this thread on Reddit).
"
there's some dude and a gang of bots astroturfing this sub about "horse browser" which looks just like some typical chromium garbage. They're definitely astroturfing, and doing a really spray and pray approach, because they commented on a [4 month old post of mine](https://www.reddit.c...queeze_all_features/) on this sub with barely any comments, and magically 20 minutes later, that comment has 10 upvotes, and would you look at that, it's the top comment when you click on the post. I think there's some chatgpt shit going on because just look at the messages:""
I'm the sole person behind Horse Browser, I want to clarify that this spam was not my doing but the result of an overly enthusiastic affiliate. I've just addressed this issue directly with them"
'
Thanks. Removed some of the comments. If the account keeps it up, it will be banned'Horse marketingUnfortunately it doesn't feel as if the same effort has been expended on meeting - or even understanding - the needs of its customers. The investment of a heavy research user into a process and workflow is substantial, certainly greater than the price of an app, and there's a need for longevity and professionalism in the tools used. I have no confidence of either with Horse.
Final ConclusionObviously I requested a refund.
This message came up on the Stripe refund page "
we would appreciate it if you consider canceling without requesting a refund; that way we can keep working on improving Horse Browser for when you come back later." I ignored it.
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