[HN Gopher] Show HN: WebCrate - an open-source social bookmarkin...
___________________________________________________________________
Show HN: WebCrate - an open-source social bookmarking tool
Author : betahuhn
Score : 93 points
Date : 2021-08-25 13:15 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (webcrate.app)
(TXT) w3m dump (webcrate.app)
| fouc wrote:
| Webcrate is a great name, however the "crate" term strongly
| implies archival in this context to me. So as a user, I would
| actually assume that it takes an archive/snapshot of every
| website that I bookmark. The website doesn't seem to indicate it
| can do this?
| spinax wrote:
| For me, "crate" is now associated with anything rust (and I'm
| neither a rust person or a programmer) - if I see crate in
| relation to tech, "it has something to do with rust."
| sbarre wrote:
| Interesting, I'll forever associate crates with vinyl records
| and DJing.. and I _am_ a programmer, and not a DJ..
|
| I guess context matters! ;-)
| spinax wrote:
| I'm with you! It's possible that at one time I thought as
| you (also being a music fan), but in the past 5 (?) years
| you can't trip but to find someone talking about rust in
| the tech spaces. Not only context, but era (point in time?)
| as well.
| betahuhn wrote:
| Funny how it means completely different things to different
| people. As a 18 year old I would never think of vinyl
| records when hearing "crates" :D
| riffic wrote:
| lol, this wouldn't be an HN thread without people bikeshedding
| over an app's name, would it?
| [deleted]
| betahuhn wrote:
| Nope, not at this time. You can only store the URL itself in a
| "crate".
|
| Glad you like the name though!
| looperhacks wrote:
| Is there any supported way to run it on a private server?
| betahuhn wrote:
| Not out of the box no. You could fork and modify it, but that
| would take a lot of work.
|
| Can't recommend Deta Space enough though, it is kind of like
| self-hosting it without managing an actual server!
| mynameismon wrote:
| Is there a pricing plan for it? I can't seem to find one, and
| I prefer knowing what am I signing up for upfront.
| betahuhn wrote:
| Space (and WebCrate) are currently free!
|
| Even if they charge something for it in the future, the
| version of WebCrate you install today will always be free.
|
| On Deta Space updates are also opt-in, you choose when and
| if you want to update WebCrate.
| mynameismon wrote:
| Thanks!
| vorpalhex wrote:
| How is the service currently being funded?
| betahuhn wrote:
| WebCrate is free since I as a dev don't run any servers
| and the data/compute lives with the users. I don't have
| any operational costs essentially.
|
| Deta Space is just getting started -- their plan is to
| offer payments and take a percentage for paid apps.
| chrismorgan wrote:
| See, I wouldn't call it self-hosted if you can't actually...
| self-host it. Someone else's server isn't mine.
| riffic wrote:
| come on, let's be a bit more inclusive about the term
| "self-hosting".
|
| For instance, I run a few apps in Linode. I manage the
| virtual servers, and consider myself to be a self-hoster of
| these webapps (Nextcloud, Drupal, PixelFed, et cetera)
|
| These aren't necessarily _my servers_ but at some level,
| they are.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| I would say your setup appears drastically more yours
| than Deta, however, which appears to only host apps on
| their own infrastructure. The software you're using is
| installed where you chose to put it, and can be installed
| in your home if you choose.
| Saris wrote:
| The difference is you know what you set up, and could
| move it to another server if needed.
|
| This detaspace thing is like saying that Amazon S3 is
| self hosted because you can upload your own files to it.
| atoav wrote:
| If you can install it on _any_ recent Linux machine it is
| self-hostable. If you can 't it is not.
| betahuhn wrote:
| I totally get your point! Instead of self-hosting, you
| could call it a personal cloud.
| Krasnol wrote:
| You are not really helping yourself if you desperately
| attempt changing established words in a way that it would
| fit your business. You just alienate people and give
| yourself a bad reputation people will remember you by.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| My personal cloud is the rack sitting next to me, not
| someone elses box that other people are also hosted on.
| jrm4 wrote:
| Nothing personal, but we're getting entirely too fast and
| loose with definitions here.
|
| Calling this "self-hosted" is _flat out false._ Cut it out.
| Saris wrote:
| It's not at all like self hosting it, sounds like it's just
| running on some servers located somewhere, and is completely
| unknown to the user.
|
| I'm also surprised it's that difficult to convert to self
| hosting, it makes me think that detaspace has a very
| convoluted system for running things.
| betahuhn wrote:
| WebCrate uses services provided by Deta (like Deta Base for
| the database, Deta Auth for authentication) internally and
| thus can't be made available to run on any server without a
| rewrite of the backend.
|
| Those services made it possible for me to build WebCrate in
| a short time and took a lot of work off my shoulders.
| CodeBrad wrote:
| I know not directly related to WebCrate, but it looks like
| the signup for DetaSpace is broken, so I am unable to try
| WebCrate.
|
| When I try to sign up for DetaSpace, I get the following
| message:
|
| > Exceeded daily email limit for the operation or the
| account. If a higher limit is required, please configure your
| user pool to use your own Amazon SES configuration for
| sending email.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| Deta Space appears to be very lacking in the product details
| department. I see a comment saying you can't self-host it, so it
| has to be on Deta's cloud, or can you even bring your own cloud
| provider?
|
| Is there any technical/security guarantee's to Deta's privacy
| claims? For one, a casual reading of their privacy page suggests
| they integrate a half dozen analytics (aka monitoring) tools
| including Google Analytics.
| abdelhai wrote:
| Hi, CEO of Deta here. On Deta Space, self-hosting means that
| once the app is installed in your own personal cloud, you have
| full ownership of the instance and it's data. Not the
| developer.
|
| We use GA in our dashboard but the apps themselves do not
| contain tracking. We aim to remove all tracking in the future.
| GA only collects web pages visits (anonymously).
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| I would suggest you avoid redefining what self-hosting means.
| ;)
|
| Are there any technical limitations to prevent Deta (or
| someone who compromises Deta) from accessing a user's data?
|
| With regards to different apps installed within a user's
| personal cloud, is there any isolation that ensures a
| compromise with one app can't compromise data in other apps
| the user installs?
| ohyeshedid wrote:
| What is the business relationship between you and the OP?
|
| You're both trying to redefine what everyone understands as
| self-hosting, in some seemingly direct ways.
| Saris wrote:
| What is a "personal cloud" in this context?
|
| I can't see how I could have full ownership of it since I
| didn't set it up and have no idea how it works. It comes
| across as very 'black box' and hidden behind the scenes.
|
| Either way it's not self-hosted unless I'm the one doing the
| full setup from the start.
| riffic wrote:
| from the looks of it, I assume Deta is some sort of PaaS, and
| aims to be a hybrid between Heroku and Glitch. It's an
| interesting space to be in, but the product's maturity leaves a
| lot to be desired.
|
| If you have concerns you should probably just be using Heroku
| or your own homegrown solution in IaaS/Bare Metal.
| abdelhai wrote:
| Deta Space is still in developer alpha. We have a long way to
| go!
|
| Deta Cloud (deta.sh) is a PaaS like Heroku. Deta Space
| (deta.space) on the other hand is something new we call the
| "personal cloud". We will announce more soon.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| Well, the interesting thing is the developer experience seems
| to be very much like Sandstorm.io: "Publishing on Space
| allowed me to act like I was building this app for one
| person; I didn't have to worry about authentication"
|
| But it doesn't seem to provide any real description of
| technical justifications to claim Deta provides "privacy".
| abdelhai wrote:
| We give every app instance it's own server (VM) and
| database. It is completely isolated from all other
| instances of the same app. The developer has no access to
| your app instances or their data. Take a look at our sister
| product for the technical details "Deta Cloud" (deta.sh)
|
| We don't have much information on Space as we're still in
| the alpha stage.
| Saris wrote:
| This looks great, but there's no chance I'm going to use it on
| this detaspace service, since their website doesn't even explain
| what it does.
| hammyhavoc wrote:
| Give me Docker or give me death.
| pickledish wrote:
| > Deta Space made it really easy for me as dev to build something
| like WebCrate quickly and it's also awesome for users. The app
| keeps running even if I disappear and hosting, auth etc. is all
| handled for me
|
| Ah yeah, love the concept, I had similar goals in mind when
| making Cardi (although I wasn't aware of many options at the time
| for putting data in control of the user -- I ended up just having
| people log in with AWS access keys and it stores data in
| DynamoDB, which is weird but has actually been working pretty
| well so far).
|
| https://github.com/pickledish/cardi
|
| Deta seems really interesting, looking forward to seeing where it
| goes from here! Would love more/better options in this space.
| selftemp wrote:
| As someone with over 2000+ bookmarks organized under 30+ folders
| on Google bookmarks, I've been looking for a self-hosted
| bookmarking tool with a nice UI that can run on my home server
| and is easily available across all platforms and devices for a
| while.
|
| This looks like a great start but I wouldn't call it self-hosted
| though, I'm more than happy to pay a nominal one time fee for a
| docker deployable image version of this.
| betahuhn wrote:
| Thanks for the feedback! I can now see why not everyone has the
| same understanding of "self-hosted", which is totally okay!
|
| I am not planning on providing a version of WebCrate which can
| be run on any server any time soon. WebCrate uses services
| provided by Deta (like Deta Base for the database) internally
| and thus can't be moved to a docker image without a rewrite of
| the backend.
|
| I hope you understand and may consider giving Deta
| Space/WebCrate a try in the future!
| [deleted]
| DerekBickerton wrote:
| I use Pinboard for a cloud-based solution to bookmarking, and I
| export my Pinboard bookmark collection to an on-premises local PC
| location every 4 months or so, in-case Pinboard's servers are
| somehow destroyed (which is unlikely, but still possible).
|
| All my browser bookmarks accumulate to staggering volumes after
| each year, and then I simply prune the cruft, or low-quality
| bookmarks and curate a list of all the best ones, all using
| Firefox's bookmark library, which is an underestimated tool and
| enormously useful for organizing bookmarks.
|
| I typically use Firefox's bookmarks export feature that generates
| a HTML file that I can then browse at my leisure at any time and
| create a sort of 'master list' of bookmarks that I can then
| backup in Pinboard, or other cloud services to refer back to at
| any time.
| res0nat0r wrote:
| I've been burned at least 3-4x now by bookmark sites shutting
| down, I just stick with Buku now: https://github.com/jarun/buku
|
| Local, text/cli based, sqlite.
| cyberge99 wrote:
| Agreed. I use buku and bukuserver because I can view bookmarks
| on my terminal/cli in addition to the browser page.
|
| Bookmark management is in a bad state of affairs. If I'm on my
| phone or misc. browser, I use Pocket. I then use 'puku' to sync
| my Pocket urls into buku (with tags).
|
| I use bukubrow for Firefox as an extension.
|
| I wish there was a better way, but for now it works.
|
| If anyone can write an iPhone/Android app, I'd be open to
| collaborate on project that could optimize bookmark management.
|
| A great product would be: browser independent extensions, cli
| tool, db backend, os independent, self-hosted (with option for
| cloud) and no requirement for a web interface.
|
| Just my .02 cents.
| tconfrey wrote:
| @cyberge99 check out BrainTool[1]. Its a Chromium extension
| that allows you to capture bookmarks and notes into a
| hierarchical topic tree thats stored in an org-mode syntax
| plain text file editable w emacs or any org editor (incl
| Orgzly on Android). It's not browser dependent for capture
| and navigation (not sure how it could be) but otherwise
| checks your boxes.
|
| [1] https://braintool.org/2021/08/25/Managing-your-Browser-
| with-...
| hk1337 wrote:
| Can this import .webloc and .url files? If there's something I
| want to keep, I will normally just drag the url over to my
| desktop when then saves it as one of those files. I don't have a
| toolbar showing in my browser and trying to hunt for the link or
| button to save it is more work than just dragging the url to the
| desktop.
| betahuhn wrote:
| Not at moment no. You can only add links via the browser
| extensions and the dashboard.
|
| The extension supports an omnibox though so you can just type
| "wc" in your address bar, press tab and everything after that
| will be added as a URL to your WebCrate instance.
| wazoox wrote:
| First, it's not self-hosted if it's not running on my computer
| (or eventually my private cloud).
|
| Second it seems like it doesn't snapshot the web pages? That's
| the killer feature that made me use Zotero, though it's big, ugly
| and clunky. I was tired of getting broken links or free articles
| that later required payment to be read again. I was quite happy
| with Instapaper, but annoyed by the not "self-hosted" part.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| Check out ArchiveBox. Not as much of a bookmark manager but
| great for archiving pages.
| gildas wrote:
| SingleFile [1] has some basic options allowing you to archive
| pages you add in your bookmarks.
|
| [1] https://github.com/gildas-lormeau/SingleFile
| wazoox wrote:
| Good job :)
| larrywright wrote:
| Neat product! I wanted to point out a couple of typos on the
| landing page:
|
| "Subscribe directly to another users WebCrate instace"
|
| "Stays running even if the we disappear."
|
| You might want to use a tool like Grammarly to help tighten up
| the marketing copy (or just pay a copywriter - you can probably
| even find someone at your university to do it for cheap). Not a
| criticism, just a suggestion.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| I would strongly discourage use of Grammarly: It's essentially
| a keylogger which uploads everything you type to their cloud
| service, and there is really no guarantee of privacy or ability
| to delete that data.
| larrywright wrote:
| I have the same concerns (and don't use it for private
| writing) but I figured for public web copy it's not a huge
| deal. Also, you can (or at least could) install their desktop
| app which would require you to do writing in it or copy/paste
| it in to get their suggestions. That way only the content you
| want to send to them goes, rather than everything.
| betahuhn wrote:
| You are right, for text that will be public it isn't too
| bad.
|
| Good tip with the Desktop app, but that doesn't seem like
| an ideal solution either.
|
| Keeping my fingers away from Grammerly all together sounds
| like the best option IMO!
| betahuhn wrote:
| Good to know, thanks! I'm currently using Microsoft's Editor
| extension.
|
| Do you have any good alternatives?
| betahuhn wrote:
| Whoops! Thanks so much for pointing them out!
|
| Thought I fixed all the typos, but some always get through!
| Grammarly might be a good solution, thanks :D
| riffic wrote:
| There's also a couple typos here:
|
| > Descentralized
|
| > Subscribe directly to another users WebCrate instace
|
| btw, how have you implemented interoperability?
| betahuhn wrote:
| Thanks, fixed!
|
| Between WebCrate instances? Thanks to Deta Space each
| instance has its own domain so it is reachable directly
| without a gateway or central server. The instance then
| exposes a public API which another instance and the client
| can access to get the required data.
| dang wrote:
| The word 'self-hosted' is like 'open source' in that it leads to
| tons of distracting objections when people disagree about what it
| ought to mean.
|
| Since that's been happening a lot in this thread, the easiest
| thing is to take the term out of the title, and thus (hopefully)
| the issue off the table. Let's stick to discussing the project
| now!
| betahuhn wrote:
| Thanks, didn't expect so much backlash about the term!
| ohyeshedid wrote:
| That's because self-hosted implies choice of where it's run;
| you don't offer that.
| betahuhn wrote:
| Hey fellow internet users! I always got frustrated with existing
| bookmarking tools as they were either too clunky to use or had
| way too many features I didn't need. Until I decided to just
| build my own!
|
| WebCrate allows you to organize links, articles and more from
| around the web into collections called crates. You can share the
| crates with anyone and since each user gets their own instance of
| WebCrate in their own 'personal cloud' thanks to Deta Space, you
| can subscribe to other users crates and view their links right
| from your dashboard.
|
| Deta Space made it really easy for me as dev to build something
| like WebCrate quickly and it's also awesome for users. The app
| keeps running even if I disappear and hosting, auth etc. is all
| handled for me.
|
| For the nerds, I built WebCrate with Nuxt and ExpressJS and it
| uses Deta included NoSQL database.
|
| You can learn more about WebCrate at http://webcrate.app or
| install it directly on Deta Space
| (https://deta.space/discovery/webcrate)! Let me know what you
| think (WebCrate is OSS, so you can also contribute) and I hope
| you find it useful!
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-08-25 23:02 UTC)