What is the current state of the art for emacs browsers?

I have been using EAF's browser and it works decently well for a lot of things, but reading things like pdfs or selecting text is uncomfortable at best. Besides, installing EAF feels like exiting emacs entirely. I have seen some things done with xwidget-webkit that seem cool, and this is already integrated into emacs (although I would have to compile it myself). I am wondering what is the bleeding-edge browser experience available in emacs right now (that one could install from one of the repos like MELPA or by compiling emacs with certain options). Alternatively, I have also heard of Nyxt. Could Nyxt be used instead of emacs?

I use `xwidgets-webkit` and it's handy for not having to leave Emacs for simple things. It's usable, but it has a lot of rough edges. The thing that bothers me the most is that using it doesn't feel like Emacs. It feels alien. For example, you can't use most the usual keybindings for text navigation. You can't mark text with the regular keybindings. If a page has some elisp, I can't `M-x eval-last-sexp`. In the end, the text-centric Emacs paradigm is not there and this it looses much of the appeal for me. In fact, I sometimes prefer using `eww`, because although it's way simpler and not really comparable to `xwidgets`, it is feels like a proper Emacs citizen.

As a tangent for this specific issue: > reading things like pdfs ... is uncomfortable at best FWIW I've never had good experiences with PDF readers inside web browsers. Making sure PDFs open in external readers is a standard config for me. As it happens `pdf-tools` for Emacs (using the `poppler` PDF library) is the best PDF reader I've ever used; so my recommendation is to use that (but failing that, to use almost anything that's not a web browser).

Are there any packages built on top of xwidgets that can provide this functionality? I know of xwwp but it seems to be dead

For what its worth, EAF has a pdf-viewer package separate from the browser which works extremely well, in my experience. If the memory usage of pdf-tools ever becomes an issue try out eaf-pdf-viewer. But I do agree that EAF feels like you're not really in emacs, with it all running in a separate python process and server connection, and requiring a large external installation.

I’ve been using EXWM lately, so Firefox is just a buffer in a window. With a little configuring it can become almost seamless. I love the concept of Nyxt, and have also tried to use it in EXWM, but unfortunately it freezes up constantly for me. It’s a shame because when it works it’s a very pleasant experience; Firefox makes it difficult to change most of the default keybinds, and the keybinds they have are too rudimentary to avoid using a mouse. If it’s stable for you, Nyxt is definitely worth a shot.

have you tried qutebrowser? it's not perfect but i've been using it for several months now and i quite like it

Ah, I think I have actually, but I never finished setting up extensions and had forgotten about it by now. Thanks for the rec, I'll give it another shot

`pdf-tools` > [zathura](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zathura_(document_viewer\)) (much like [pdf-tools](https://github.com/vedang/pdf-tools/blob/master/lisp/pdf-misc.el#L136), it has a midnight/dark mode) > anything else, for me.

I haven't been having much stability issues with Nyxt, but at the same time, while it is Emacs-like, it doesn't feel quite like Emacs, so that might also not be to OP's liking. However since it's CL, you *can* have it interact or even be entirely remote-controlled by Emacs.