Igloo: the web3 browser - freezer

This is a concept design, it is not in production

Igloo is a web3 browser and smart contract wallet designed for cryptonatives. What Figma is for designers or what Ableton is for musicians, Igloo is for web3 natives. It is a professional tool and dedicated workspace designed for people who work in web3.

Booting Igloo

Background

The original vision for Ethereum was for it to function as a "world computer”. This had several parts: apps powered by smart contracts, storage through "Swarm," messaging through "Whisper," and consensus through the EVM; all accessible through a web3 browser called "Mist". This vision was put forward by the Ethereum Foundation.

The original 'web3' stack

These initial plans mostly fizzled out, and browser plugins, such as MetaMask and Coinbase Wallet, have become the most popular form of web3 wallets, with some messaging and storage protocols emerging more recently.

Currently, browser plug-ins perform a variety of crucial tasks, such as connecting to the blockchain, signing transactions, managing accounts, setting RPC endpoints, linking to hardware wallets, and switching networks.

A small modal window tacked onto an existing browser was sufficient during the early days of web3, but it cannot handle the increasing number of use cases that have developed as the ecosystem has matured.

Web3 deserves a full browser that is designed for the crypto power user; a true gateway to the decentralized web.

The Igloo Browser

Igloo proposes to make notable UX improvements to the current web3 wallet landscape:

■ Seamlessly integrate the three pillars of decentralization into one experience: decentralized storage, messaging, and dApps (smart contracts)

dApps, messages, storage, and wallet baked into the browser

■ First class support of account abstraction (EIP-4337). This allows for a number of interesting new use cases, such as multisig support, social recovery, specific permissions, setting preferred gas tokens

■ A cool AA use case is easily creating “burner wallets” (disposable wallets for one time use), which can be funded anonymously from your main account and given specific permissions. An interesting UI implementation can be opening a burner window, much like an incognito window in traditional browsers

Opening a 'burner window', a temporary wallet for specific purposes

■ Switching between networks, chains, layer 2s, and accounts is sticky and based on your tab

Switching networks, an older exploration with customized UI

■ Decentralized front-ends, powered by IPFS and ENS domains are baked into the browser (See DappNet below //unassociated with igloo but very cool project)

https://twitter.com/liamzebedee/status/1578127982173908992

■ Easily search through addresses, tokens, block explorer, and within various dApps in the address bar

■ Right-click simulate a transaction

https://twitter.com/freezer_boi/status/1528413819151831042

What’s Next?

Igloo is a sketch of the potential user experience of a UX led web3 browsing experience. A desktop browser gives us a lot of flexibility to really explore how someone could use a ‘world computer’.

Any idea here is free to use or implement. I primarily wanted to flesh out aspects of the experience to see what a north star could look like for an integrated web3 experience; a “Mist 2.0” if it was designed in the present day.