[HN Gopher] Handpicked No-Signup Tools
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Handpicked No-Signup Tools
        
       Author : scastiel
       Score  : 186 points
       Date   : 2022-08-16 13:03 UTC (9 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.nosignup.tools)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.nosignup.tools)
        
       | asicsp wrote:
       | Found https://www.onelook.com/ under writing, looks good for word
       | related lookups.
       | 
       | I'd add https://edit.photo/ "No popups to close. No ads to
       | ignore. No cookies to accept. No account to create. 100% Free"
        
       | zubairq wrote:
       | Yazz.com, a low code tool needs no sign up to use
        
       | nileshtrivedi wrote:
       | A couple of my tools that don't require signup:
       | 
       | - Grapher (a visual editor for graph datasets with features like
       | nested nodes, custom attributes on nodes and edges, and export in
       | Cytoscape JSON or SVG format. Accessible at:
       | https://grapherx.netlify.app/
       | 
       | - LearnDB (A curated collection of links to educational resources
       | organized by topics, formats, reviews and other tags). Accessible
       | at: https://learndb.vercel.app/
        
       | theo_champion wrote:
       | Oh, my site https://snaplink.dev in in there, so random!
        
       | bongobingo1 wrote:
       | Site needs some work:
       | 
       | - Clicking text in filter categories doesn't work
       | 
       | - Images have pointer cursor but clicking them wont open the link
        
       | DitheringIdiot wrote:
       | Doesn't load for me, just says "there's nothing here yet"
        
       | ux wrote:
       | Alternatively, you can use http://bugmenot.com/ (doesn't work
       | that often I must admit)
        
         | elwebmaster wrote:
         | This used to be a great tool but hasn't worked for me since 5-7
         | years. Maybe it can be implemented in Web3.0 to make it more
         | reliable?
        
       | turtlebits wrote:
       | If there's no signup and it's free, you have to very wary on what
       | the "trick" is, because nothing is truly free. Most of the
       | potentially useful ones looks like trial with locked features.
        
         | lis wrote:
         | We've put mindwendel[0] out for free - no tracking, no ads, no
         | data harvesting.
         | 
         | It's a tool to brainstorm and vote on ideas.
         | 
         | We did so because we are using it ourselves and the resource
         | usage is so low it doesn't cost us more to share it with
         | others.
         | 
         | [0] https://www.mindwendel.com/
        
         | jabbany wrote:
         | This is a good point.
         | 
         | There should be separate categories for FOSS and no-hidden-
         | monetization tools v.s. the other fly-in-the-soup tools where
         | you have to drink around the fly...
        
         | bil7 wrote:
         | the FOSS community might disagree with this statement
        
           | justin_oaks wrote:
           | The FOSS community is also aware that there are scammers out
           | there masquerading as good folks.
           | 
           | Besides, free online tools with closed source server-side
           | components are fundamentally different than open source
           | tools.
        
         | Swizec wrote:
         | Or it could be some dude's personal tool that's easier to also
         | make available to others. I do that a lot because remembering a
         | custom domain is quicker than some CLI incantation.
         | 
         | For example: https://techletter.app - I use it to construct my
         | newsletters. Markdown with a few customizations into HTML for
         | WYSIWYG editors. It's cheap enough to run that I don't care if
         | others use it. I think the AWS credits add up to $3/mo.
        
           | turtlebits wrote:
           | I'd like to believe you, but just looking at the network
           | requests for your markdown tool, I see
           | 
           | facebook, google, simpleanalytics, stripe, sentry,
           | checkoutpage
        
             | Swizec wrote:
             | And yet you can use it completely for free without signup
             | 
             | Once upon a time I thought about trying to monetize, but
             | meh. There's bigger fish to fry
        
       | jabbany wrote:
       | I wonder if the tools are also vetted for security. IIRC there
       | was some supply chain attack that had to do with similar no-
       | signup tools injecting SEO scam code
       | (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27427330)
        
         | justin_oaks wrote:
         | Good point. I'm very wary of submitting anything security
         | sensitive to an unfamiliar web site, especially one I don't
         | have a business relationship with.
         | 
         | If you have a business relationship with them (i.e. give them
         | money), they're less likely to do something bad with your data
         | since it may cause you to stop giving them money.
         | 
         | That's why I won't use tools like an online PDF tool when I'm
         | dealing with PDFs that contain sensitive information.
        
       | elwebmaster wrote:
       | I would add https://scrumpoker.app/ to the list also. Great
       | initiative otherwise, have you considered driving the catalogue
       | through GitHub PRs so the list can stay up to date?
        
       | _dain_ wrote:
       | Trainline.com is for buying train tickets in the UK/EU, doesn't
       | require any signup at all. Pretty good.
        
       | skilled wrote:
       | remove.bg marked as Free has to be a joke, right? It's literally
       | 1 credit for the "Free" experience...
       | 
       | nice "Staff pick"
        
         | codetrotter wrote:
         | Agree. They only let you download a low resolution version of
         | your image by default. To download full resolution, sign up is
         | required, and to use it again will require getting credits if
         | you want to download full resolution of those other images.
         | 
         | Should not be considered a "no-signup tool" imo
        
       | byyll wrote:
       | In case the owner reads this, category filter check boxes are
       | missing IDs which makes the label not associated with them and it
       | can't be used to check/uncheck.
        
       | 3np wrote:
       | Friendly reminder to consider that any and all information
       | supplied to these services may be harvested (with or without
       | knowledge by the creator, depending on how they deploy).
       | 
       | Consider using tor or similar to mask your IP, don't upload a
       | scan of your passport to an online image editor, and so on.
       | 
       | For tools that provide source, it's often straightforward to run
       | them locally.
        
         | kelnos wrote:
         | Came here to say this too. A super useful addition to this
         | website would be a blurb on each tool page that discloses how
         | they make their money to keep the lights on, and what their
         | privacy policy looks like. If they're fully supported by
         | donations (or paid users, but have a no-account freemium plan
         | somehow), and have a strong privacy policy, great! But if they
         | support themselves by granting themselves a perpetual-use
         | license to anything you upload, and sell whatever data on you
         | they can, that's... not so great.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | rozenmd wrote:
       | I love when the website you land in _is_ the app, with no signup,
       | like tldraw (https://www.tldraw.com/).
        
       | justin_oaks wrote:
       | Although it's got some nice things listed, the site seems to be
       | missing some of the best tools out there. I recommend
       | Diagrams.net [1] for creating diagrams. I use it as my primary
       | diagramming tool.
       | 
       | [1] https://www.diagrams.net/
        
       | pawelkobojek wrote:
       | Disclaimer: I'm a Co Founder of the service I'm linking.
       | 
       | Scraping Fish (https://scrapingfish.com) doesn't require a sign
       | up. It _is_ a paid service though. We (obviously) don 't sell
       | your data.
        
       | kwanbix wrote:
       | RemoveBG is clearly not free (unless we count one single image)
       | and you need to register (to get that single image). Love the
       | product, but the "to-go" prices are too high imho.
        
       | jakub_g wrote:
       | Semi-related:
       | 
       | Ever since moving from Windows to MacOS, I was desperately
       | looking for a replacement for MSPaint for the following use case:
       | "paste an image, crop it properly, crop further, put red bold
       | square box around the interesting part, add some text and
       | arrows".
       | 
       | All tools are tried make this way less ergonomic than ol' good
       | MSPaint.
       | 
       | Then I remembered this ridiculous idea someone had to port
       | MSPaint to JavaScript: https://jspaint.app/
       | 
       | Hallelujah!
        
         | ecopoesis wrote:
         | Preview, despite its name, does this really well. Its freeform
         | drawing tools are a little different (shapes and lines are
         | vector, not pixel) but they're very easy to use.
        
         | vladvasiliu wrote:
         | You can do this with Preview - Annotations
         | 
         | You can have the annotations palette always displayed. I
         | haven't used MSPaint since the Windows XP days, but I don't
         | think it can be any easier than this.
        
         | justin_oaks wrote:
         | I mostly need to do that kind of thing on screenshots. The
         | Flameshot app has worked really well for taking screenshots and
         | annotating them.
         | 
         | https://flameshot.org/
        
         | etaioinshrdlu wrote:
         | I like photopea nowadays.
        
         | unsupp0rted wrote:
         | I would take a screenshot of part of my screen (CMND+Shift+4),
         | mark up the screenshot with a red box then send.
         | 
         | A screenshot is plenty high res enough already. If anything
         | you'll want to shrink or before sending.
        
       | ryangittins wrote:
       | Great idea! I've submitted my side project, https://siftrss.com/.
       | 
       | It lets you add filters to any RSS feed for free in a few
       | seconds. It's great for filtering news, podcasts, and anything
       | else you get via RSS down to just the items you want to see.
        
         | subeadia wrote:
         | I bookmarked this two months ago--what a fantastic utility!
        
           | ryangittins wrote:
           | Thanks, I'm glad you're liking it!
        
       | dasil003 wrote:
       | No Excalidraw?
        
         | justin_oaks wrote:
         | I just checked it out. That's a really cool drawing tool. I
         | love how it allows you to give a hand-drawn feel to your
         | drawings and diagrams.
        
           | foobazzy wrote:
           | I've been using it during design interviews. Love the
           | plethora of shortcuts. It's great!
           | 
           | https://excalidraw.com/
           | 
           | https://github.com/excalidraw/excalidraw
        
       | Retr0id wrote:
       | Add https://8mb.video/ to the list - it does exactly what it says
       | on the tin (and while it doesn't explicitly mention it, its
       | broader purpose is to compress videos down to Discord's file size
       | limit)
        
         | iamjackg wrote:
         | I've had a bash script in my PATH that uses ffmpeg exactly to
         | do this for the longest time. This is great!
        
         | skybrian wrote:
         | Looks like this does the work on the server? I wonder if it
         | could be done in WebAssembly to avoid the round trip and server
         | load?
        
           | zozbot234 wrote:
           | It _could_ be done, but it might be slow.
        
         | WMaking wrote:
         | Thank you! I've spent far too much time in HandBrake when I
         | could've been using this. You have improved my life
        
       | justin_oaks wrote:
       | For developer tools, I noticed that CyberChef [1] wasn't on the
       | list so I submitted it. I regularly use it for
       | 
       | - URL encoding/decoding
       | 
       | - QR code generation
       | 
       | - JSON and XML pretty-printing
       | 
       | - Base64 encoding/decoding
       | 
       | but it does way more than that.
       | 
       | [1] https://gchq.github.io/CyberChef/
        
         | franga2000 wrote:
         | For anyone who isn't convinced yet: it can not just _do_ all
         | those things, it can _chain_ them. You can build a pipeline
         | jist by dragging and dropping blocks, with live results and
         | even recommendations when some formats are detected .
         | 
         | During a reverse engineering project I built this to extract
         | some audio data from a very strange API: string replace | json
         | parse + query | base64 decode | gunzip | add wav header.
         | Switching to zstd and a different bitrate took 2 clicks. Really
         | helped me stay "in the zone" while working - having to open up
         | a code editor and Python docs to write this from scratch
         | would've taken me completely out of it and wasted a significant
         | amount of time.
        
         | TazeTSchnitzel wrote:
         | I feel like I shouldn't trust an encryption website by the
         | British NSA not to steal my data, but given a million other
         | people must have had the same thought, and that it's open
         | source, maybe someone would have noticed by now.
        
           | justin_oaks wrote:
           | Those are valid concerns and it's smart to think about those
           | things. I had the same thoughts initially.
           | 
           | Using your browser developer tools, you can see what HTTP
           | requests it makes. It's all just loading code.
           | 
           | Also, you can use a local copy of it to ensure you're not
           | getting a hacked/targeted version that's different between
           | times that you use it. I use a local copy. You can find a
           | downloadable zip file in the releases section:
           | https://github.com/gchq/CyberChef/releases
           | 
           | You could also build it from the source, but I haven't
           | bothered to set that up.
        
       | ho_schi wrote:
       | Why I should...                  * Remove a background "online"?
       | * Write a resume "online"?        * Create an E-mail signature
       | "online"?[1]        * Create a profile picture "online"?        *
       | ...
       | 
       | Operating systems are happily executing programs on your
       | computer, quick, autonomous and reliable. The first in the list
       | which makes sense is Jitsi.
       | 
       | Here some personal recommendations:                   * Use GIMP
       | or KRITA         * Use LibreOffice or Latex with moderncv[2]
       | (We're on hackernews, right?)         * Use your E-Mail
       | application and plaintext!         * Again GIMP or use included
       | tools of the application or network (Signal and other provide it)
       | * For polls you can use often included features of messengers
       | (e.g. reactions in Signal) or non-commercial sites [3]
       | 
       | [1] Please use plaintext
       | 
       | [2] https://github.com/moderncv/moderncv
       | 
       | [3] https://terminplaner4.dfn.de
        
         | jccalhoun wrote:
         | A lot of people would rather use a single use web site than
         | install a program and learn how to use it. There may be valid
         | reasons to download and install a program but I can't even
         | convince anyone to install a password manager so if my friends
         | ask me how to remove a background on a pick I'm more likely to
         | point them to a website than a program.
        
         | asicsp wrote:
         | Resume is understandable, if there are themes to choose from
         | (kinda like Overleaf).
        
         | Cthulhu_ wrote:
         | You're already making the assumption that people use desktop or
         | laptop systems and can actually install software; what if they
         | don't have administrator access? What if they're using a
         | chromebook? What if they're on mobile? What if they don't know
         | Latex? And LibreOffice is kinda... ugly and slow in my opinion.
         | 
         | They're low-barrier alternatives to the options you provide,
         | and that's absolutely fine.
        
         | Retr0id wrote:
         | RemoveBG is very good at what it does, and it certainly would
         | be nice if there was an offline version. However, there isn't,
         | and I don't think you'll find an offline tool that comes close
         | in terms of quality of result.
         | 
         | There are cases were privacy of data isn't a real concern -
         | e.g. you're about to publish the resulting file anyway. If you
         | need to keep your data private, then sure, don't pipe it
         | through an online tool. But that doesn't mean the usescases
         | aren't there.
        
           | bertman wrote:
           | >However, there isn't, and I don't think you'll find an
           | offline tool that comes close in terms of quality of result.
           | 
           | There is: https://github.com/danielgatis/rembg
        
             | Retr0id wrote:
             | This is great, but again does not come close in terms of
             | quality of result.
             | 
             | Take the lion example from the readme: https://raw.githubus
             | ercontent.com/danielgatis/rembg/master/e...
             | 
             | The alpha blending of the fur around the edges is way off.
             | 
             | Compare to RemoveBG results:
             | https://i.imgur.com/Jt2ICsD.png
             | 
             | Unfortunately it won't let me export in full-res without
             | creating an acount, but the fur is handled properly.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | solardev wrote:
         | In short, because dedicated developers making one-off projects
         | that do one thing well (a la the Unix philosophy) can serve it
         | over the internet easier than making standalone cross-platform
         | apps.
         | 
         | RemoveBG, for example, does a FAR better job (in less than a
         | second) than manual lassoing, feathering, etc. Eventually
         | Photoshop added a similar feature, but not until RemoveBG and
         | its ilk were on the web for a few years. I'm not sure if GIMP
         | has similar auto-bg removal, or if it works as well... but even
         | if it did, it's still more of a learning curve than "upload
         | picture and push remove". Even after two decades of Photoshop
         | usage, it's still faster for me to use RemoveBG to create, say,
         | a new Slack emoji... often I can finish before Photoshop even
         | finishes loading.
         | 
         | For resumes, I use Kickresume all the time because they make
         | the process FAR easier than creating a similar thing from
         | scratch in Illustrator, InDesign, or Word. Unlike a dumb
         | template, the resume websites understand the "semantics" of a
         | resume (as in, this section is your employment history, this is
         | your skills, this is your references) and can theme them
         | intelligently, such as displaying skills as numbers, stars,
         | progress bars, or words ("Advanced", "Beginner"), or easily
         | reformatting the dates for you. Then it saves all your resumes,
         | one per employer, in its own easy to use cloud storage. When
         | submitting a bunch of applications (because I'm not fancy
         | enough to have a huge personal network), it takes the time-per-
         | resume from hours down to minutes. It's a huge timesaver.
         | 
         | Email signature: Agreed, HTML sigs are overkill.
         | 
         | Profile picture: Again, like RemoveBG, it's so much easier to
         | use this than having to learn a vector graphics program,
         | manipulating/centering circles, adding strokes and fills,
         | figuring how to properly place text inside a shape (THIS
         | circle, not that one, and flowing this way, not that!), etc.
         | 
         | There's nothing wrong with desktop apps for complex use cases
         | (Office is still way better on the desktop than on the web, for
         | example) but for one-offs, having an easy web app to go to and
         | get the job done in a few seconds is waaaaaaay easier.
         | 
         | Not all of us on HN are ideological purists. No way I'm going
         | to bother with LibreOffice and the JVM and Latex just to make a
         | resume when a website can have it done in 5-10 min in a WYSIWYG
         | and zero learning curve.
        
           | zzo38computer wrote:
           | What if you want a "one thing" simple program to be used by
           | command-line (with pipes), though? What if you want to work
           | without internet connections, too? Interaction with other
           | programs (specified by user)? Use local display options for
           | GUI? etc? HTML is not very good for that, I think. (While you
           | can make local HTML files that work without internet
           | connection, it isn't very well for some kinds of uses. And,
           | this does not solve any of the other issues that I had
           | mentioned, too.)
        
             | solardev wrote:
             | > command-line (with pipes)
             | 
             | Most people just wouldn't. You're still free to use imagick
             | or gd if you, yourself, want to, but RemoveBG is a far
             | better choice for most users.
             | 
             | > What if you want to work without internet connections,
             | too?
             | 
             | Then you have to find special tools for that, because it's
             | a less and less common scenario. But the online-only tool
             | is still useful if you're online 99% of your work life
             | anyway.
             | 
             | > local display, GUI, other uses cases, etc.
             | 
             | Yes, absolutely you're right, there will always be cases
             | where tool X doesn't fit edge case Y for user Z. But the
             | web is the "good enough" option for an overwhelming
             | majority of situations, and I'd argue the _preferred_
             | option over a desktop app for many use cases -- everything
             | from background removal to Google Docs.
             | 
             | Web apps can (and have) replaced email, office tools,
             | encyclopedias, disc drives, etc. because they are so low-
             | barrier, even if they don't have 100% feature parity with
             | the older tools. Simplicity is very attractive, and quite
             | valuable, for people who don't need all the power user
             | features.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | ranger_danger wrote:
         | Why? Because 99% of the world's population prefers it.
        
         | TekMol wrote:
         | Because of the sandboxing browsers provide.
         | 
         | The barrier to install native software should be very, very
         | high. It is like having unprotected sex with someone. There
         | needs to be a high level of trust and a long term commitment.
         | 
         | Using a website on the other hand is like exchanging a few nice
         | words. You can do that with a stranger, without much risk.
         | 
         | It is also easier to handle. A website can be bookmarked and
         | usually loads in a second or so.
         | 
         | Websites are also easy to customize. Usually you can bookmark
         | individual pages directly. Often with the parameters you
         | regularly need. You can zoom in and out of the interface. You
         | can customize the HTML and CSS and even the functionality via
         | bookmarklets.
         | 
         | And you can link to websites and everybody - independent of
         | their OS - can instantly use it.
        
           | bertman wrote:
           | >Using a website on the other hand is like exchanging a few
           | nice words
           | 
           | This is absolutely not true if you're supposed to upload
           | (possibly private) images to some random server for e.g.
           | background removal.
        
             | TekMol wrote:
             | Sure, the words you exchange are now known to the other
             | party.
             | 
             | But a native app can upload anything it wants anywhere. Not
             | just the images you processed but anything it can access on
             | your computer.
        
               | jcelerier wrote:
               | > But a native app can upload anything it wants anywhere.
               | 
               | can you exhibit one single instance of this happening in
               | for instance Debian or Arch official packages
        
               | eitland wrote:
               | Good points on both sides.
               | 
               | But I am absolutely still in the camp that trusts Gimp
               | way more than uploading photos to a random website.
        
               | nonrandomstring wrote:
               | > Good points on both sides.
               | 
               | All the points are true, so we need to dig a little
               | deeper and be more specific about what is at issue here.
               | 
               | Online and Native are quite different trust and utility
               | models.
               | 
               | Web applications protect the execution environment owned
               | and managed by the user. They do so at the cost of
               | compromising _some_ of the user 's data, which must
               | usually be processed remotely. The protection applies to
               | _most_ of the user 's data. This trust tradeoff is
               | iterated/ongoing, so that benefits and harms accrue over
               | time.
               | 
               | Native applications make a one-off trust transaction. "Is
               | it safe to install on my device?". In the win situation
               | the benefit is speedy and safe processing of _all_ the
               | user 's data for all future time. If the user is tricked,
               | then the loss is catastrophic, exposing potentially _all_
               | of the user 's data, perhaps silently/undetectably for
               | considerable future time.
               | 
               | That's a very simplified and perhaps naive distinction.
               | Despite the pressures of surveillance capitalism, some
               | web services are honest, TLS and GDPR work, and some
               | users are sensible about what they share online. On the
               | flip side we are seeing that devices come pwned from the
               | factory, at the hardware or firmware level, which makes a
               | nonsense of the whole "endpoint security" paradigm.
        
               | probably_wrong wrote:
               | > _Sure, the words you exchange are now known to the
               | other party_
               | 
               | ... and their business partners, and _their_ business
               | partners, and so on. That 's a lot of ToS to go through
               | just to check who gets a copy of my data.
               | 
               | Gimp may have access to my computer, but I would be
               | _shocked_ if it were to upload a single file without my
               | permission.
        
               | lupire wrote:
        
           | xzjis wrote:
           | > Using a website on the other hand is like exchanging a few
           | nice words. You can do that with a stranger, without much
           | risk.
           | 
           | Considering surveillance capitalism and all the trackers
           | these commercial websites have, it's more like dating a spy
           | that tries to know you better. The risk you take is that the
           | small amount of data you give to them will be linked to the
           | huge amount of data they already have on you.
        
           | whartung wrote:
           | > The barrier to install native software should be very, very
           | high.
           | 
           | No, the barrier that the software must leap to do awful
           | things to your computer should be very high.
           | 
           | Folks complain about the secure enclave, the signing
           | requirements, the notarization, sandboxes, etc. But those are
           | all barriers on the producer side. App stores help mitigate
           | this. Folks don't think twice about downloading an iOS app
           | from the app store (I do, but I'm not normal -- I hate apps).
           | Look at the hoops Apple had to, and continues to, go through
           | to keep applications from unknowingly looting the user.
           | 
           | The most criminal thing, historically, done by Windows over
           | the ages was simply requiring EVERYTHING to be "admin". You
           | couldn't install Minesweeper without typing in your password.
           | So, everyone, naturally, automatically, does so without a
           | second thought. They're conditioned that this is OK.
           | 
           | It's not OK. It was never OK. The whole idea of having to do
           | that, type in your password to install software, should have
           | a big red, DO NOT DO THIS, bouncing and dancing bear around
           | it.
           | 
           | The Mac has always had less of this. Seems most of the
           | exploits require users to download software and give it admin
           | privileges. Yea, Don't Do That.
           | 
           | Of course, the problem is the culture. It would be nice to
           | not have to Caveat Emptor every darn thing under the
           | assumption that it's horribly dangerous. It would be nice to
           | grab a plum off a display and eat it without having to vet
           | the vendor. But, bad actors, rampant bad actors, and rampant
           | "good actors" behaving badly, have proven that we just don't
           | live in that kind of world.
           | 
           | Installing "safe" software, should be simple.
        
             | solardev wrote:
             | We have an ecosystem where running nontrusted software can
             | be relatively safe... it's just on the web.
             | 
             | Legacy desktop OSes don't have the permissions models that
             | make this easily achievable outside the browser. Even the
             | mobile platforms are only slowly evolving (I want this app
             | to access ONLY this folder or that picture, not all my user
             | files).
             | 
             | Frankly I would never trust users to be able to
             | differentiate between sane and unnecessary permissions. If
             | you make everything super granular or repetitive it's just
             | going to lead to banner blindness (yes, damn it Google, I
             | want this hiking app to know precisely where I am... I told
             | you the last seven times you asked). Or on iOS, having to
             | enter my longass Apple password just to download a free app
             | whenever the fingerprint scanner doesn't work (which is
             | usually). Even without security concerns, native apps are a
             | pain in the ass.
             | 
             | The web is nice in that most of the sandboxing is invisible
             | unless you need special sensor permissions (location, mic,
             | camera, etc.) and so the user never gets bugged about it.
             | Or has to worry about platform idiosyncrasies, disk space,
             | versions, etc. In many ways the web is a superior app
             | delivery platform. Why bother installing "safe" software
             | when you can just run it in a sandbox without any
             | installation or prompts at all? What Java and .NET tried to
             | do back in the day now just happens, sight unseen, in
             | browser windows.
        
               | zzo38computer wrote:
               | Unfortunately there are problems with running it on the
               | web (and many problems with its design, and problems with
               | implementations), as well as problems with native
               | permission models of some systems, too.
               | 
               | For example, it is not very good working for: command-
               | line with pipes, non-Unicode character encodings, non-USB
               | devices, non-HTTP(S) protocols, working local files
               | without internet connection, interaction with other local
               | programs in a good way, etc.
               | 
               | Permissions need not be asking every time (if user will
               | configure it to always allow or deny or other settings),
               | and need not only be "allow"/"deny"; for example, if it
               | requests the camera access then the user might enter a
               | command to use instead, which might access the camera
               | (possibly with filters such as fault simulation), or do
               | something else such as returns a still picture (which you
               | can use if you do not have a camera, for example), and
               | this can be "wired" by the user configuration if not
               | wanted to enter every time.
               | 
               | Disk space is going to matter for any program that stores
               | files, although one which is designed well will allow the
               | end user to specify a disk quota for this program if
               | desired, and will also allow specifying default disk
               | quotas in the manifest, in order that you can use it
               | without needing to know about these things and manually
               | set them up, too.
               | 
               | I had tried to make the specification of "VM3" which is
               | meant to, among other things, solve these problems. A
               | program can be install or just run, and all I/O must use
               | extensions, which makes both extensible capabilities and
               | highly user configurable capabilites. The same is true
               | for program entries (e.g. command-line, GUI, etc). There
               | are also some other minor things I had done differently
               | due to I think being better than what some other designs
               | are working.
        
               | solardev wrote:
               | I think that kind of computing will become more and more
               | the realm of specialists (devs, computer scientists,
               | whatever) doing their work, with specialized tools and
               | permissions models. For 99.9% of regular people, there is
               | no reason to expose them to so much unnecessary
               | complexity.
               | 
               | Just like with supply pipelines, most people don't need
               | to care or know about information pipelines... they just
               | want to consume the thing they're there to get, whether
               | it's refined petroleum or some unit of information.
               | 
               | All tools are built up from layers of primitives, like a
               | car is made up of components and nuts and bolts and such,
               | but drivers don't need to know or care how its ECU or ICE
               | works. I think the web / mass-market computing is
               | similar... it just doesn't (and I'd argue shouldn't)
               | matter to most people. It's the difference between
               | engineering for other engineers and designing for end-
               | users, two related but ultimately separate concerns.
        
           | nayuki wrote:
           | > having unprotected sex
           | 
           | Ah yes, the Jargon File said things about that:
           | http://catb.org/jargon/html/S/SEX.html
           | 
           | > SEX: /seks/ 1. Software EXchange. A technique invented by
           | the blue-green algae hundreds of millions of years ago to
           | speed up their evolution, which had been terribly slow up
           | until then. Today, SEX parties are popular among hackers and
           | others (of course, these are no longer limited to exchanges
           | of genetic software). In general, SEX parties are a Good
           | Thing, but unprotected SEX can propagate a virus.
        
           | jcelerier wrote:
           | yet in my life I need a lot more hands to count the number of
           | times visiting some website caused problems, vs something bad
           | happening due to installing $OPEN_SOURCE_SOFTWARE (exactly
           | zero times to me)
        
         | teknolog wrote:
         | Heck, a pencil worked great back when I was a kid!
         | 
         | As someone who has to deal with IT security, I will never
         | install anything local if I can avoid it.
        
           | ho_schi wrote:
           | Therefore upload the resume online on a random site? Which is
           | the most sensible data and a security breach. There tough
           | requirements on companies regarding handling your resumes for
           | reasons.
        
             | jehb wrote:
             | I understand the concern, but looking at LinkedIn suggests
             | this is not a threat model the vast majority of users are
             | bothered by.
        
             | gonzo41 wrote:
             | Your ignoring that most people have linked in accounts. A
             | resume isn't exactly secret information.
        
         | WA wrote:
         | Why install software, if I can do this quickly in a browser,
         | especially if I need to do this only once?
        
           | Retr0id wrote:
           | Not to mention the fact that the browser is very well
           | sandboxed and security hardened.
        
             | ryanianian wrote:
             | > browser is very well sandboxed and security hardened.
             | 
             | But the back-end of a browser-only tool may not be. And it
             | may not be online the next time you go to use it. Or it may
             | lose or sell your data.
        
               | Retr0id wrote:
               | Sure, there's a confidentiality issue with whatever data
               | you upload, but there's low risk of the rest of the data
               | on your system being compromised.
        
             | egberts1 wrote:
             | Very ... well ... sandboxed ... browsers?
             | 
             | Ummm, there's Spectre in JavaScript.
        
               | Retr0id wrote:
               | And everywhere else? Although it does present a risk to
               | sandboxed environments, Spectre is not a sandboxing
               | issue, it's a CPU bug.
        
               | egberts1 wrote:
               | Semantic, shemantic; Risk remains the same.
        
               | Retr0id wrote:
               | The risk is very much not the same. Running native code
               | is much higher risk, compared to running JS inside a
               | browser.
               | 
               | The list of bad things a web app can do is a strict
               | subset of the list of bad things a native app can do
               | (after all, the web browser is just another a native
               | app).
        
               | zzo38computer wrote:
               | While it is true, there are problems with customization
               | and other features; a better sandboxed environment will
               | be needed which e.g. can use command-line, better ability
               | to control and make connections/interactions with other
               | programs in the computer, locally storing file (even
               | using without internet connections), etc. The web browser
               | / HTML is, I think, not a very well designed sandboxed
               | environment, really.
        
               | egberts1 wrote:
               | Notably if JavaScript can access a file system then all
               | bets are off.
        
           | mcshicks wrote:
           | Because websites change the rules when they get popular.
        
           | wahnfrieden wrote:
           | I think you're confused, browsers don't require server
           | custody of your data. browser vs app isn't the meaningful
           | distinction
        
           | marzell wrote:
           | Even just in the first example of removing a background, it
           | is very intuitive how to do it using the website listed. But
           | GIMP, for all it's improvements in recent years, does not
           | make it nearly as intuitive, fast, and easy for a brand-new
           | user to remove a background. And being presented with that UI
           | would be intimidating for a lot of users compared to using a
           | single-purpose website with a specific workflow.
        
       | sabr wrote:
       | Smort.io doesn't require a signup too! Smort lets you easily
       | annotate and share an article or arXiv paper. Just add Smort.io
       | before any URL to read it in Smort.
       | 
       | Demo: https://smort.io/demo/home
       | 
       | Disclaimer: I built Smort
        
       | TekMol wrote:
       | I typed "upscale" and got nothing.
       | 
       | Is there any good AI based image upscaling software online?
        
         | xzjis wrote:
         | Search for waifu2x websites, there are tons on the internet.
         | Here's one: https://waifu2x.io/
        
         | adamhowell wrote:
         | https://letsenhance.io/
        
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