[HN Gopher] Puter
___________________________________________________________________
Puter
Author : 6581
Score : 806 points
Date : 2022-12-02 23:05 UTC (23 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (puter.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (puter.com)
| fideloper wrote:
| There's a meta story hiding here about owning the domain
| puter.com, and I'd love to know the history of this domains
| ownership.
| ent101 wrote:
| Puter.com belonged to my good friend (and now also an investor
| in Puter) Humberto (who is the founder and CEO of Rows.com). He
| told me about the domain and I immediately thought it would be
| the perfect fit for this project. He was very gracious and
| agreed to sell it to me (well, to Puter Technologies Inc. lol).
| The price was $25,000.
|
| Another comment on here explains it very well: "It's "pyu-ter",
| like comPUTER! Puter dot com! Well done" This is why I loved it
| so much!
|
| He has more domains available here:
| https://portotype.com/documents/domains/
| canadianfella wrote:
| 9dev wrote:
| I don't know anything about you two, and I don't want to
| sound condescending, but... what kind of friend sells a
| freaking _domain_ for 25,000 dollars to another friend? Or
| was that just some asset shifting between your companies,
| without any real money involved..?
| simonh wrote:
| That's already explained in the comment. The domain was
| sold to a company that now owns it, that the two friends
| jointly own.
| ent101 wrote:
| The premise of the question assumes that $25,000 is an
| insane amount for this domain. I completely disagree and
| I'm very happy with the price I paid.
| eyegor wrote:
| The way you wrote this sounds like you support domain
| squatting, which imo is a pretty disgusting version of rent
| seeking. I've sold domains before when people contacted me
| and asked for them, but having a price list and selling for
| $1k+ is just gross. This is like scalping but worse.
| patife wrote:
| maybe i'm wrong, but i'm the previous owner of the domain
| and i don't think it's squatting.
|
| i bought it specifically for a project called full stack
| mark down
|
| https://berto.com/docs/2022-03-01-full-stack-markdown.html
|
| but then got super busy with my spreadsheet company at
| rows.com.
|
| all the domains i buy are for real projects, which i
| release like decodeportugal.com, portotype.com, berto.com
| and more but some take years to see the light of day.
|
| i am open to selling if the idea is superior to mine, which
| is the case of the creator of puter.com.
|
| fyi i'd paid a 5 digits good deal of money for puter.com
| too. when you fall in love for these projects..you risk it.
| asddubs wrote:
| but you do have a list of domains you're selling with
| prices, so by definition you are kind of a domain
| squatter, are you not?
| ent101 wrote:
| I remember this specifically. Puter.com was intended for
| another project. So this was definitely not squatting...
| glitchc wrote:
| What's wrong with domain squatting? Should one have to give
| up land they own if they don't have a clear use for it?
| patife wrote:
| which isn't the case. just landed here, i'm the previous
| owner of puter.com and all the domains in that
| portotype.com page.
|
| all of them i bought for my projects.
|
| puter.com was purchased so that i'd build this
| https://berto.com/docs/2022-03-01-full-stack-
| markdown.html but this guy had a much better idea.
|
| happy to explain what all of them are for. (mostly local
| content projects like decodeportugal.com)
| nocoiner wrote:
| It seems like for the first domain on your list
| (angeiras.com), you're quite explicitly marketing it to
| the proprietor of the popular seafood place you mention.
| But if you say you're not squatting, I'm sure there's
| something I'm missing.
| rjbwork wrote:
| There are human lifetimes worth of political philosophy
| that argues just that, yes. Many times that written about
| how land ought to be heavily taxed in accordance to its
| value.
|
| For some examples, see the Lockean Proviso, Mutualism,
| and Georgism.
| UncleEntity wrote:
| What if someone values the land to drain and grow crops
| more than the current owner who just likes ducks so keeps
| it in its natural state?
|
| I guess they should have to pay taxes on the potential
| agricultural value because wild ducks don't have any
| intrinsic market value?
|
| I kind of suspect the basic argument is based on some
| fallacious theory of value...pretty much guarantee it
| methinks.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| In economics middlemen help stabilize the supply demand
| curve.
|
| Otherwise all websites would be an abandoned MySpace page.
| lcuff wrote:
| In some cases. I don't believe this is true in the realm
| of concert tickets.
| Kranar wrote:
| It absolutely applies to ticket scalping, as much as we
| may hate to admit it.
|
| You can do a Google search for economics of ticket
| scalping and the overwhelming consensus is that it
| benefits both buyers and sellers.
| throwaway019254 wrote:
| Can you explain?
|
| Or is this just a hidden sarcasm?
| lcuff wrote:
| At your suggestion, I did the Google search. I did not
| find an 'overwhelming consensus'. There are some sellers
| who are motivated to allow it for complex reasons (public
| perception, value of sell-out crowds which allow TV
| broadcast of sporting events and ancillary sales. e.g).
| The fancy term 'allocative efficiency' which is econ-
| speak for 'we should always sell to the highest bidder'
| is described as a positive outcome of scalping.
| Personally I find that nauseating, and of no real value
| to (original) providers (sellers) such as entertainers.
| There are first-person interviews of entertainers
| distressed by the way scalping impacts their fans.
| UncleEntity wrote:
| I've shown up to venues before and paid less for a ticket
| from the scalpers than if I would have walked over to the
| box office because they were just trying to unload them.
|
| I've also sold an extra ticket for a friend by just
| walking up to a random person standing in the ticket line
| and offering it to them for face value (which saved them
| money on the ticket counter markup).
|
| Both cases involved turning what would have been a
| complete loss into less than a complete loss. Never felt
| bad about the scalpers loosing money because they knew
| the risks and my friend was just going to eat the loss
| because whoever the ticket was for couldn't make the show
| for whatever reason and I was like "I'll get rid of it
| for you".
| lcuff wrote:
| Yes, these are good examples of ... well, 'useful'
| scalping. The scenario I had in mind was when big
| scalping outfits have a modus operandi of buying huge
| quantities of tickets for re-sale. Aided and abetted by
| the technology of the web. I don't think it happened too
| often before that.
| scubbo wrote:
| Ah yes, buyers benefit from paying a higher price they
| otherwise would have done. This is very smart and
| sensible and obvious.
|
| (If you're claiming that buyers benefit from being able
| to buy a ticket that was purchased but then was not
| wanted, then that's true - but that's not scalping.
| Scalping is specifically buying a ticket with the
| intention to resell it for a higher price, _not_
| reselling a ticket that was genuinely wanted at the time
| but was then unusable due to other conditions)
| gitgud wrote:
| > _The price was $25,000._
|
| Woah is this a serious project then? Seems like a huge
| investment for a fun side project
| ent101 wrote:
| It started out as a side project but now I have investors
| and looking to hire! Let's see how far I can take it :)
| Thorentis wrote:
| What is the value proposition here? Why would somebody
| use this over... the computer their using to access your
| fake in-browser computer?
| yencabulator wrote:
| I think more to the point, why would someone use this as
| opposed to a remote-desktop service from an established
| company like Amazon, Microsoft, Google, ...
| patife wrote:
| This isn't a Remote Desktop. This is a cloud file system
| which loads your files and js apps on the front end in a
| way that it looks like a remote desktop
| vladd wrote:
| It unifies the Operating System with the cloud. Your
| local storage becomes irrelevant while at the same time
| you have full durability and portability of your
| environment on any device in the world.
| ent101 wrote:
| Thank you so much! I couldn't have said it better myself
| :)
| WhackyIdeas wrote:
| I think you should add a web browser and then it can work
| like a VPN too.
| znpy wrote:
| Pretty much the same as chrome os i guess?
| kamilafsar wrote:
| But then in "userland"..
|
| So you could use it on a chromebook as well.
|
| I like the idea, and as PG often says the best ideas
| often sound crazy at first.
|
| Glad someone other than me is trying I guess :-)
| kang wrote:
| replit.com competitor, where user don't have to learn any
| UI?
| poulsbohemian wrote:
| Do you see positioning this say against a Citrix (IE:
| corporate desktop virtualization) or as a Google Apps
| alternative, (IE: students, consumers looking for a
| cross-device solution)? Or something else altogether?
| geenew wrote:
| 'To build a folly upon a fair bit of land is not to waste
| the land, but to occupy it for some short time in
| enjoyment' - Unknown
| noduerme wrote:
| Never heard that before. It's a nice folksy bit of
| wisdom... except very few people in old Ireland or
| England could afford a fair bit of land, and even fewer
| could afford to build a folly upon it.
| imhoguy wrote:
| It can be sold further, early electronic NFT :)
| noduerme wrote:
| The "terminal" can't understand wildcards. Sorry, what is the
| point of having a terminal that has almost no commands?
| xmonkee wrote:
| Can you actually do anything useful here?
| iLoveOncall wrote:
| No, like on all those "WebOS".
| someweirdperson wrote:
| Guns and bottles is fun.
| carl_dr wrote:
| You can even unlock new guns.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| I'm not interested unless there are microtransactions and
| loot boxes... that exist for this session only.
| sva_ wrote:
| No, in fact it is probably a complete waste of time - which
| makes it such a neat thing.
| varispeed wrote:
| You can do anything at puter.com, anything at all
| schipplock wrote:
| Zombo! :)
| [deleted]
| pulketo wrote:
| I was there Gandalf 17 years ago...wuth eyeOS
| znpy wrote:
| I thought the same... reminds me a lot of eyeOS.
|
| But maybe times are more mature now?
| lzooz wrote:
| eyeOS was quite mature, it's just that just like Puter it was
| a terrible idea
| jhbadger wrote:
| Seems to have an issue with Firefox. At least in the terminal app
| -- the characters are multicolored blocks rather than letters.
| The editor app seems to work, as do the various games like Panda
| Love.
| pmontra wrote:
| The terminal is ok in Firefox Android.
| david_van_loon wrote:
| Isn't Firefox on Android using the Chromium engine?
| mirashii wrote:
| No, it's still Gecko
| drexlspivey wrote:
| Click the small icon next to the address bar and allow terminal
| to use canvas data
| jhbadger wrote:
| Yeah, that was it.
| jimmaswell wrote:
| Mozilla has no time to fix Firefox Android or address their
| ever dwindling market share but we can count on them to waste
| time on overzealous security theater
| mkoryak wrote:
| What the hell did I just do for 16 minutes 0_o
| aktuel wrote:
| I like the copycat game. Couldn't find it anywhere else. Is it a
| puter exclusive?
| bigbacaloa wrote:
| If one speaks Spanish the app is not well named.
| stvnbn wrote:
| How do I turn it off?
| 867-5309 wrote:
| did anyone else just waste half an hour on _Panda Love_?
| shon wrote:
| Kudos. It's cool. I mean.. Render the paint program's history as
| an animated gif??? Niiiiice... also props for standing up to the
| load of HN.
| tgtweak wrote:
| Premature congratulations
| thih9 wrote:
| For the record, is now 9h after submission and it's loading
| well.
| francisduvivier wrote:
| For the record, not loading here currently.
| DanHulton wrote:
| No tab-completion in the terminal?!?!
|
| _Literally_ unusable.
|
| (But for serious, this is a _very_ clean interface, I like it a
| lot.)
| ordu wrote:
| You also cannot close the terminal because `exit` does nothing.
| noduerme wrote:
| "logout", though, takes you back to the uh, root directory
| (which contains nothing except your user dir). It doesn't log
| you out though, since there's no users or privileges anyway.
| Which seems like a rather major oversight.
| ent101 wrote:
| Sorry about that. It should be fixed now.
| woobar wrote:
| Typing `exit` in terminal killed my Chrome with all 20+ tabs.
| Restoring previous session after restarting Chrome -> killed
| Chrome with all tabs again, and again, and again... Only
| thing that helped was killing Puter tab really fast before it
| loaded.
| speed_spread wrote:
| Hint: there's an "AppData" folder - Did you expect a decent CLI
| from what is obviously a Windows box?
| sbarre wrote:
| Jokes aside, the new Windows Terminal is actually pretty
| good.
| bigDinosaur wrote:
| It's excellent for typing in 'wsl'. More seriously though
| the new Windows Terminal isn't what provides autocomplete,
| that's the shell. Powershell probably has okay
| autocomplete. In Windows the distinction has always blurred
| a bit.
| speed_spread wrote:
| I've recently given up on unix-type shells on Windows.
| Whether it's WSL1, WSL2, WSLg, MSYS2 or Cygwin, there's
| always compatibility quirks or performance issues that
| just reminds me that "it's not Linux". So I decided to
| just bite the bullet and go all in on PowerShell. It's
| still not a great default CLI experience but it can be
| made acceptable with plugins. But the real strength is in
| scripting, it's a good mix of high-level language and
| shell terseness.
| meinheld111 wrote:
| Afaik it's electron, so kind of limited to ,,not bad"
| notpushkin wrote:
| It's not. https://github.com/microsoft/terminal
| guessmyname wrote:
| More Puter subdomains at --
| https://www.google.com/search?q=site:puter.com (click the last
| pages)
| jl6 wrote:
| Does anybody remember the circa-1999 desktop.com? Same idea, but
| implemented in what was then called DHTML. It was very limited
| but I felt offered a sneak peak of the virtualized and web-based
| future that we now live in.
| carl_dr wrote:
| I somehow managed to end up with a weird version of Draw, with a
| Grinch in the bottom corner.
|
| I can't reproduce now. I bet there are other Easter eggs here.
| dark-star wrote:
| wait, this is an easter egg? I saw the same when I randomly
| opened draw, and all the drawing tools were hidden behind some
| advent-calendar style doors...
|
| I was like "hm, okay, looks like another windows93.net" and
| closed the page
| carl_dr wrote:
| On subsequent loads, the Draw app looked as you'd expect a
| draw app to look like.
| Minor49er wrote:
| It loads a Christmas theme when the Grinch is present, but
| clicking him takes it away
| dddrh wrote:
| In the terminal I made a new folder with an html file in it.
|
| Opened the file into an editor :)
| anyfactor wrote:
| This is what I imagined Chromebooks should have been. A browser
| hooked upto a shared VPS somewhere.
| patife wrote:
| i don't think it's a shared VPS it looks like a computer in the
| cloud, but it seems it's just serving the files and app files
| which execute locally (as opposed to remotely)
|
| the UX clearly makes the brain think it's an actual computer.
| anyfactor wrote:
| With Stadia I think Google had something like this in their
| mind. Progressively centralizing computation and storage in
| data centers while the offering devices like chromebook.
|
| Like terminals to a mainframe computer but on WAN level.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| beeskneecaps wrote:
| Such a cool project. Fyi The camera didn't work on iOS.
| carl_dr wrote:
| It's working for me fwiw. iPhone 13, latest iOS.
| blondin wrote:
| can we stop doing posts like these on hn? thank you. by the time
| we have all figured out it's nothing malicious or not, the harm
| has already been done. or not. in this case, no harm.
| des429 wrote:
| Chill out
| owenpalmer wrote:
| chill bro
| radicaldreamer wrote:
| lol
| Waterluvian wrote:
| Joy Considered Harmful
| Datagenerator wrote:
| Nice! Permission wise, why can for example Markus open the
| Android file browser and read it?
| LoganDark wrote:
| I am the author of the "app" called Puter which loads up Puter
| inside Puter, which then loads up the Puter app again, which ...
|
| https://puter.com/app/puter
| benj111 wrote:
| Could you tell us what it is. As it's getting hugged to death
| at the mo.
| LoganDark wrote:
| Puter apps are just iframes that point to a web address. I
| claimed the name "Puter" to point to Puter's own web address.
| If you open the app, it will load Puter again inside, which
| will restore your session that contains the app, loading
| another Puter inside, which will again restore your session
| that contains the app...
| ent101 wrote:
| Thank you for changing it. It was causing a DDoS on Puter :(
| LoganDark wrote:
| It was? Oops :(
|
| (Those were both the same app and have been for months. I
| just claimed Puter after PuterPuter way back when.)
| sally_glance wrote:
| Wait so the parent noticed the DDoS but you are the owner
| of both domains?
| OJFord wrote:
| Not domains, the app names, i.e. the /app/puter (or
| /app/puterputer) bit, not the puter.com bit. AIUI.
| LoganDark wrote:
| I don't own anything Puter-related, no, except for those
| two apps (since anyone can publish an app on Puter - app
| names are first-come first-served).
|
| I thought it would be funny, since I got in pretty early,
| to make an app called Puter that would just load Puter
| inside. (I initially called it "PuterPuter", but then
| tested to see if just "Puter" was available. It was. Now
| both apps exist and do the same thing.)
|
| The "DDoS" is because when you open up either app, it
| loads up another instance of Puter... which promptly
| restores your session that has the app open, causing
| infinite recursion. If the HN hug of death found my
| comment and each person started infinitely recursing,
| that's a DDoS.
|
| I believe ent101 (Puter developer) thought I _changed_
| the name from one to the other to stop the recursion. I
| didn 't. Both apps just exist. I trust that anyone stupid
| enough to open that app is also smart enough to close it
| when they are done. :)
| ent101 wrote:
| Could it be... that I did the whole geo-replication because
| of this app? :')
| LoganDark wrote:
| Muahahahaha~
|
| I think you could solve it by giving apps an option to
| not open automatically when you start Puter. That way you
| could start the Puter app, and it'd open a nested
| instance of Puter, but that instance wouldn't start
| infinite recursion by automatically opening the Puter app
| inside.
| ent101 wrote:
| That's a great idea, thank you! I'll implement it :)
| foritdoit wrote:
| Nice work! Just try to made an app:
| https://puter.com/app/FangCloud
| pattle wrote:
| I built something similar based of Windows XP
|
| https://simulator.money
| sbarre wrote:
| If the time period is accurate, how can I put all the money in
| Apple stock?
| survirtual wrote:
| So it's a "desktop" environment without any of the privacy or
| security of a desktop environment, written in javascript & css
| (ie cheap and slow), where all the data is stored on a cloud
| owned by a couple of dudes (they can snoop, sell, and cut off
| access to your data at any time), all without encryption?
|
| Am I missing something or this a TERRIBLE idea? How does it keep
| showing up over and over again? Just about any developer could
| build something like this in under a month, it isn't some novel
| idea. I don't mean to rain on a parade here I am always happy to
| see hobby projects, but the fact someone is investing in this and
| real money is being allocated seems ridiculous. The implications
| of anyone seriously thinking this is a reasonable cloud desktop
| environment are scary; people will get duped into being data
| harvested with no ownership of their data.
| thiht wrote:
| Are you always a grinch? This is a cool thing to post on Hacker
| News. I, for one, am impressed it works as well on iOS Safari.
| It's just fun.
| cowsup wrote:
| Seems fun on the surface, but they're offering folks to write
| in to their "careers" email (see the Info icon). They also
| really seem to be pushing you to create an account, or use
| the QR code, to save your information for later use.
|
| I've seen instances of fun things like "Windows 98 in a
| browser" that were interesting projects. This seems to be
| someone trying to make a full-on product out of the concept,
| even referring to it as "cloud computing" on their Twitter
| account.
|
| They can't play both sides. It's either a fun little toy, or
| it's a serious product. "Puter" seems to be aiming for the
| latter, so they deserve the relevant scrutiny.
| [deleted]
| Nav_Panel wrote:
| Ironically I'd find more value in "Windows XP in a browser"
| than in a custom OS. if it has filesystem access and can
| handle most of the underlying API. Reason being that I run
| Linux, so if I need to run a Windows program (which I
| occasionally do: I'm into video game music, and a lot of
| the tooling stack for manipulating files is dinky Windows
| programs developed by Some Guy in 2013 and never really
| maintained), I have the following choices:
|
| - dualboot (not doing that again, Windows 10 loved to eat
| my bootloader over and over and would get stuck in update
| loops)
|
| - wine, which requires a lot of configuration and has weird
| bugs, but is really good for more heavyweight apps
| (foobar2000 is still king)
|
| - virtualization, which also requires a lot of
| configuration. need to perform a full OS install, etc. I
| haven't found a way to easily spin up a virtualized windows
| box (I run Manjaro = Arch, let me know if you have an easy
| way. A while back I gave it a couple hours and couldn't
| figure it out, so I gave up.).
|
| A Windows-in-browser that runs "well enough" and can access
| my local filesystem would let me just run the damn app, do
| the thing I want to do, and then call it a day. Of course,
| I'm sure there's lots of details I haven't thought through
| here. But it feels like a potentially legitimate use case.
| [deleted]
| survirtual wrote:
| They bought their domain for $25,000, are hiring devs, are
| now offering a cloud piece and Constantly. Spam. Everywhere.
| Of this "hobby project to business" story. Spending $25,000
| on a domain is not "for fun".
|
| It deserves scrutiny. If I was making a business out of this
| (which they are), what I'm saying can only improve their
| product.
| louwrentius wrote:
| This was also my thinking looking at the site. No way I was
| going to allow access to my microphone or camera.
|
| the truth is that in order to use this site, you need a working
| computer with a desktop anyway. So the only value would be is
| that you can access your stuff from anywhere on any computer.
|
| It's just security nightmares all the way down.
| survirtual wrote:
| Yeah, glad someone else sees it.
|
| There is a value proposition in having a synchronized desktop
| across every environment (phone, tablet, desktop, etc.) but
| this project doesn't remotely capture what that would entail
| --- a wasm-based OS with a webgpu frontend, all locally
| computed. All synchronization / any data leaving would be
| encrypted locally with a key shared among local systems via a
| QR code, and the option to self-host the entire stack would
| be readily available.
|
| The encryption + self-hosting is bare minimum as a business,
| not the least of which is because it adds credibility to the
| entire system. Open source is also a requirement to verify
| nothing nefarious is going on.
|
| With that in place, it might be reasonable to have a cloud
| offering that is paid so most users wouldn't need to self
| host.
|
| Systems should also be able to replicate data locally so if
| cloud access is ever shut down, they can continue functioning
| without much issue.
|
| I could build all that (and have built that + more, so it
| comes from experience) in a ~month -- how is it that this
| project is getting funded, after lacking any of that after
| years?
|
| My guess? It is cheap & looks usable, and for some reason
| gained massive popularity, so it will dupe people into freely
| sharing their data which can be mined and monetized.
| Apologies if this isn't the intention of the original
| creators, but that is what investors will use this for. If I
| am wrong, I recommend they implement what I suggested.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| I think it's a cool project. It looks slick and no doubt
| was a lot of work.
|
| Would I ever use it though? Of course not.
|
| It in fact goes in the exact opposite direction of
| computing for me. I am increasingly moving _away_ from any
| product that relies on WiFi /connectivity.
|
| So nice to have your own media (movies, music) and not have
| to worry about an always-on internet to be your streaming
| bottleneck (never mind the inefficiencies of requiring a
| personal, on-demand, high-bandwidth movie stream). But then
| to take and put all your tools and desktop in the cloud as
| well?
|
| I guess it's why I have no use for Chromebooks either.
| Inhibit wrote:
| I would posit that installing an open UEFI implementation
| and taking advantage of the A) Cost and B) ridiculously
| good power saving features of a used Chromebook with the
| OS of your choice is a good Chromebook use.
|
| But as a stock laptop I get your point.
| OOPMan wrote:
| A thin client to use on your thick client XD
| ent101 wrote:
| Hey, creator here. I'm a little late to reply as I was getting
| some sleep.
|
| You're obviously entitled to your opinion about Puter. It's
| completely fine if you think this is a very terrible idea. I
| disagree but I guess only time will tell.
|
| But I just wanted to say that it's categorically false that
| Puter is trying to harvest data and sell it later. It's clearly
| spelled out in its Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. I'm not
| trying to dupe anyone into anything, just hoping to build a
| better cloud storage service...
| survirtual wrote:
| I am not doubting business potential; I can give two
| expletives about you or anyone else making money. I care only
| about users / customers.
|
| A few things:
|
| 1) please read my other comment about encrypting / address
| encryption of data.
|
| 2) a ToS can be changed at any time in the future. If you
| value privacy, bake in client-side encryption ASAP. Use
| bcrypt + salt for the password hashing and use something like
| libsodium (https://libsodium.gitbook.io/doc/secret-
| key_cryptography/sec...) to encrypt/decrypt. These are both
| available in js:
|
| Bcrypt: https://www.npmjs.com/package/bcrypt
|
| Libsodium: https://www.npmjs.com/package/libsodium
|
| Off the top of my head, have a user enter a password,
| generate a random nonce, hash it with bcrypt, store that hash
| to localstorage. Create a secretbox stream with that hash and
| run any data being persisted through that stream. This will
| add some safety to userdata.
|
| 3) if you do well and get acquired your ToS doesn't protect
| anyone but yourself / the new owners
|
| 4) the instant you start accepting VC money you will slowly
| have less and less say in any of this -- make protecting
| customers your first priority asap.
| ent101 wrote:
| I agree with you 100% on client-side encryption. I need
| some time to get it right but it's definitely a priority.
| It's coming soon.
|
| As for ToS and Privacy Policy. I didn't use an off-the-
| shelf document from the internet because I was trying to
| make sure it's clear the data is not being harvested in any
| way, but I guess I need to amplify that more. What do you
| suggest? I'm genuinely curious and would like to know your
| suggestions.
|
| Thanks again :)
| survirtual wrote:
| I'm not a lawyer so I'd suggest working with one and
| seeing what sort of language can protect your users now
| and in the future.
|
| Encryption is an important key here, and I'd want to see
| source of the core app to make sure it handles all that
| appropriately. If I was you, I'd publish the core app as
| open source, and I'd sandbox apps potentially in iframes
| with reduced permissions & inject a message channel to
| talk with the main app. You could control access to any
| secrets on the main app this way, so users have some
| safety guarantees.
|
| Basically:
|
| Main app (secret management, styling, window management,
| etc)
|
| |
|
| |-------------- msg channel <-> apps
|
| |
|
| |
|
| |-------------- (de)crypt <-> persist
|
| Have the apps talk with the core and any core services
| via a message based event loop. Have all persistence go
| through a service on the core.
|
| Apps can potentially be closed sourced safely that way.
|
| Whatever you do, make it so third party power users can
| independently verify it is legit and the entire project
| will be much more able to stand scrutiny.
| ent101 wrote:
| Thank you for the detailed reply. The sandboxing and
| messaging is already implemented. I think that's the only
| way I can guarantee data safety when it comes to having
| 3rd-party apps.
|
| I'm actually planning to open source the whole thing
| (fingers crossed) this way anyone can look into the code!
| robertakarobin wrote:
| I thought this was just supposed to be a cool little portfolio
| project by the developer. Now they have a "careers@" email
| address... implying this is a business? What is their product?
| This seems very peculiar to me.
| Yajirobe wrote:
| > Just about any developer could build something like this in
| under a month
|
| Wh.. what?
| MasterScrat wrote:
| A great article about how people think the could "build
| stackoverflow in a week" made the rounds a few years ago but
| I can't find it again...
| Firmwarrior wrote:
| I guess most coders could make something that looks like
| stackoverflow but can only handle a few thousand users at a
| time.. It'd be easy to make a site where you post questions
| and comments, upvote and downvote things, and have some
| basic account page
|
| Or did they think they could handle all the scale and all
| the random small features on the site too?
| eulers_secret wrote:
| A month has 160 work-hours in it, that could be upped to 280
| if you're insane and do 10 hours/day even on weekends.
|
| That's a lot of time! I think I could clone this in that
| time. And I'm a Linux kernel programmer with little web
| experience.
|
| With modern tooling and documentation this kind of project is
| within reach for many.
| Firmwarrior wrote:
| As another kernel programmer who's dabbled in web shit, I
| think you'll be shocked at how time consuming and obnoxious
| the work is
|
| Yeah, one line of kernel code is more difficult to write
| than 100 lines of web code.. but you're going to be
| churning out 10,000 lines of web code, and every layer of
| abstraction you try to use will make everything crappier
| and more screwy
|
| This page isn't a normal website either, so a lot of those
| website toolkits won't be of much use
| survirtual wrote:
| I disagree.
|
| You just need to host a single-tenant db, handle auth,
| manage users, and allocate blob storage for each user.
| This is all pretty well understood on the backend now
| with baked turnkey solutions on every major cloud
| provider.
|
| The app logic can all be done clientside and can be done
| pretty easily in react / vue / whatever framework you
| want. Most of the apps can be wired to existing solutions
| on npm.
|
| So mainly all you need to do is customize some css and
| bring it all together, deploy & deliver the app itself,
| and market it.
|
| I'm not sure but I don't see any x86 virtualization here,
| seems to just all be JS, so it looks to me to be a very
| straightforward implementation (correct me if wrong)
| Firmwarrior wrote:
| haha, I dunno. I just know that I was working on a very
| simple phone app with React Native a couple years ago. I
| estimated it'd take 10 hours total to implement, but I
| got about halfway done with the app after 120 hours of
| dev work. (It needed some custom 'native' code in Swift,
| and I _did_ manage to correctly estimate that part would
| take me less than an hour)
|
| I'll finish it one of these days..
| olingern wrote:
| Peak hackernews comment and sentiment.
|
| There's also a neat changelog https://puter.com/app/changelog
| smoyer wrote:
| And yet, if I want to do something nefarious, connecting to
| this from Tails via TOR would be a pretty good way to hide my
| tracks.
| mikechalmers wrote:
| I liked the panda game. Level 14 sure was tricky! But I didn't
| give up and was happy to complete it. 5 stars.
| coolandsmartrr wrote:
| Favorite part of this project has to be the game Panda Love. It's
| a platformer where you can only control by jumping.
|
| Can't wait to see more levels.
| technoooooost wrote:
| Wrong timing with the Panda/Nintendo drama ;)
| loandbehold wrote:
| Reminds me of YouOS.
| revskill wrote:
| That would kill TeamViewer or similar remote desktop apps.
| soheil wrote:
| > To protect your security, www.google.com will not allow Firefox
| to display the page if another site has embedded it. To see this
| page, you need to open it in a new window.
| makach wrote:
| Very nice work. Reminds me of FriendOS! Also I suspect the author
| of puter to build this operating system just to be able to make
| their own version of Paint that can be themed. _chefs kiss_ to
| you
| sandgiant wrote:
| This is great! Had a real good time completing Panda Love with my
| daughter. Thanks for sharing!
| tony-allan wrote:
| The docs mention an API for use within apps in the browser. I am
| wondering if an external API is available or planned to allow two
| way interaction with external servers. - external
| file storage - events/notifications - REST to access
| puter resources
| ent101 wrote:
| Yes. I'm planning to release all these soon :)
| tony-allan wrote:
| yeah!
| rideontime wrote:
| frou_dh wrote:
| Have seen quite literally dozens of versions of this idea over
| the years.
|
| I'm sure this is well made and a fun project to develop, but I
| just don't get the fascination with this idea of desktop OS
| mimicry in a browser tab.
| CrypticShift wrote:
| What I don't understand is why they all go full classic OS
| demo, with always the same suite of basic apps (note, paint,
| photo...)
|
| Why not build (complex but specific) SaaS applications that
| just leverage OS designs paradigms on the frontend (taskbar,
| windows, notifications, desktop, icons..) inside the same tab?
|
| What if the OS-like apps were open plugins that will augment
| that SaaS?
|
| [edit] here is an example: Imagine an alternative OS-like
| interface to HN that is plugin-based. You can add themes, or
| apps like messaging between HN users (in different windows),
| keyword-based and comment replies notification (a la Action
| Center)...
|
| it is like HNES [1] on steroids.
|
| [1] https://github.com/etcet/HNES
| cfuendev wrote:
| I had an idea like this for a university design (Not really
| centered in design, more on design methodology and research)
| class. At first I thought of designing a fully customizable,
| plugin-based EMS (Like Moodle), then my teacher told me to
| try and make it bigger, so I designed an app platform where
| there's only extensions and the UI is fully yours, kinda like
| Notion Enhancer [1] or Better Discord [2], but without the
| base app.
|
| [1] https://notion-enhancer.github.io/ [2]
| https://betterdiscord.app/
| nxpnsv wrote:
| Here i thought HNES was HN for NES, disappointing at first,
| but then this kind of looks great... thx for posting
| nusaru wrote:
| There's also https://github.com/plibither8/refined-hacker-
| news which has more recent commits
| mgsk wrote:
| > I just don't get the fascination with this idea
|
| answered by
|
| > this is well made and a fun project to develop
| Sujeto wrote:
| Yeah and that "desktop paradigm" gets old
|
| I need my custom awesomewm desktop now
|
| Also putero means whore house in spanish.
| cfuendev wrote:
| That's the biggest issue I have with these. They're cool and
| all, but they're starting to get old. I like how they're
| including a little "SDK for bulding apps in this fake OS",
| which is a bit new, but I'd be way more invested in something
| like a HyperTerm-inspired Portfolio Project or UI Library.
| brundolf wrote:
| Is there a tl;dr anywhere of what this is? Is it just another
| for-fun tech demo of putting an OS-like GUI in a web browser?
| tgv wrote:
| Indeed, the info window doesn't provide any info, so my best
| guess is that you can create documents (and apps?), save and
| probably publish them. It's a sort of remote desktop in a
| browser, but actually all that's remote is the storage. It does
| seem quite limited, so I'm not sure what it offers more than
| novelty (and even that's limited). Perhaps the app builder is
| good. I didn't check it.
|
| So I went back to try it: app names are apparently global. I
| couldn't create an app called "test" because "Name is already
| used by another app. Please pick another name."
|
| Oh, an app is just a URL. Clicking on it just opens the URL in
| a new window/iframe. It looks as if you can attach a document
| to the app, so perhaps it sends that along when you drop a
| document on the icon. Would be neat, but it does rely on other
| people making and publishing your killer app, and provide the
| infrastructure for it. I smell micropayments.
| lizardactivist wrote:
| These types of systems are interesting, but I wonder if there's
| any use case where you would prefer them over the one you're
| browsing from.
|
| FriendOS is arguably also the most advanced and complete of these
| systems: https://friendos.com/
| pr337h4m wrote:
| If Puter/FriendOS can support legacy Windows enterprise apps
| not updated in over a decade and adds collaboration, SSO, 2FA,
| access controls, VPN/intranet, etc. - basically what FrontEgg
| (https://techcrunch.com/2022/07/28/with-40m-in-new-funding-
| fr...) offers - on top on them, it could be a pretty great
| business.
|
| This is a great illustration of this type of business:
| https://apenwarr.ca/log/20120326. A lot of customers totally
| need, not just want, this type of thing.
|
| Puter/FriendOS type systems can graft upon some modern features
| on top of all legacy apps, which is far far better than having
| to build it out for every single one. Especially as the market
| lies more in the long tail of the custom software tailed to
| specific companies, that has been chugging along for 15 years
| in maintenance mode.
| notpushkin wrote:
| So, Wine-as-a-Service?
|
| [1]: https://www.winehq.org/
| nchase wrote:
| > Why should I develop apps for Puter? > > We could get you an
| incredible number of users: Puter's is growing with no sign of
| slowing down. By building and publishing apps on Puter, you will
| instantly get access to our ever-growing user base.
|
| This seems dishonest, or maybe I'm just missing the point of
| Puter. Who the heck is using this?
|
| https://docs.puter.com/#/?id=why-should-i-develop-apps-for-p...
| version_five wrote:
| playing in the terminal, I don't think it has a compiler or
| python or curl. Stupid question maybe, is there a way to install
| anything?
| danielodievich wrote:
| I like https://www.windows93.net/ better. More retro!
| tspike wrote:
| That version of Minesweeper (Brian Sweeper) is just mean-
| spirited.
| drivers99 wrote:
| There is an option for Troll Mode that you can uncheck
| peanutz454 wrote:
| https://www.windows93.net/#!starwars
|
| Wow, ASCII art Star Wars! ([?]_[?])
| david_shi wrote:
| Best website ever.
| themodelplumber wrote:
| Love it. I thought the startup sound was the beginning of the
| B-21 reveal webcast and instinctively switched tabs. Pretty
| intense sound. :-)
| danielodievich wrote:
| The Half Life 3 and Brain Sweeper are just _chef 's kiss_
| perfect. Actually all of it is perfect. And amazing that it
| works!
| RupertEisenhart wrote:
| The the Pokemon game, it's insane. I played it for hours
| once.
| suyash wrote:
| How do you create GUI floating windows and terminal simulator
| inside web browser ?
| jstummbillig wrote:
| Divs + JS. I am not sure what exactly you are asking.
| rmorey wrote:
| It's "pyu-ter", like comPUTER! Puter dot com! Well done
| [deleted]
| ent101 wrote:
| Thank you! This is why I fell in love with the domain too :)
| skavi wrote:
| why is there nothing at com.puter.com?
| k2enemy wrote:
| What, your mom buy you a puter for Christmas?
| kderbyma wrote:
| was going to say this :)
| kstrauser wrote:
| My people.
| pedrogpimenta wrote:
| All your usernames start with k.
| kstrauser wrote:
| Whoa!
| DustinBrett wrote:
| Does he know anything?
| Razengan wrote:
| What the hell is it? We can't even know without giving it an
| email? Closed and hidden.
|
| Splatting a login/signup form in your face right away with no
| indication whatsoever of what the website is about, is a dark and
| scummy pattern.
| ergonaught wrote:
| https://puter.com/terms
|
| "Puter is a cloud operating system that allows you to upload,
| store, process, and share data, files, personal information,
| messages, pictures, and other materials (collectively, your
| "User Data"). You can also search, preview, sort and
| personalize your User Data."
|
| I didn't give them anything; I also don't recall their asking
| for anything.
| bscphil wrote:
| > I didn't give them anything; I also don't recall their
| asking for anything.
|
| When I click the link, I see only a login modal over some
| abstract background art. I don't even see the link to the
| terms of service you have there. (That's after I enabled
| Javascript on the page to even get that far.) I can only
| assume that's what OP is complaining about. Maybe they've got
| too many users because of this post and they're limiting it
| to signup-only for now? Or maybe my browser isn't passing
| some IP trustworthiness thing. _shrug_
| ent101 wrote:
| Hi there, there is no IP check, in fact Puter doesn't even
| store IP addresses at all. Would you be able to open Puter
| in incognito mode?
| bscphil wrote:
| Oh? That's very strange, it instantly works in private
| browsing mode, taking me to what looks like a desktop. I
| tried it _again_ in non-private browsing mode and I still
| get the login window.
|
| Edit: deleting cache and offline website data in Firefox
| fixed it. In my experience when this fixes something it's
| usually because there's a broken web worker and that
| forces it to redownload.
| progval wrote:
| Puter sets "has_visited_before" in the LocalStorage, then
| does some XHR/fetch requests with no error handling, then
| sets other stuff in the LocalStorage.
|
| If for whatever reason, one of the XHR/fetch requests
| fails, you end up with only the "has_visited_before" key
| in the LocalStorage, which causes you to be stuck on the
| login screen until you clear the LocalStorage.
| ent101 wrote:
| Thank you for bringing this to my attention. You're
| right, this is the culprit. I'm going to fix it.
| carl_dr wrote:
| Sure you can, you don't have to give them Jack if you don't
| want to - you can have a fully fledged play without signing up.
| svnpenn wrote:
| fails with older browsers:
|
| Uncaught SyntaxError: private fields are not currently supported
| tleb_ wrote:
| More context can be found here: https://docs.puter.com/
|
| I'm truly skeptical as well
| beeforpork wrote:
| I like Vallader more.
| tsml wrote:
| The trash can is a nice place for ads.
| etewiah wrote:
| And there I was thinking it was going to be a parody site of
| Putin gone all Hitler..... Perhaps that Putler.
| abeppu wrote:
| Unfortunately it doesn't have a browser, so your puter can't even
| load up puter.
| bogwog wrote:
| Actually it seems every app is just a browser window, so you
| can create an app that points to puter.com, and you'll have
| puter inside of puter.
|
| It's pretty cool, but I can't think of what this would be
| useful for. Presumably, you need a sophisticated desktop OS
| that can run a modern web browser in order to use this. And
| that OS is likely more useful than this.
| darreninthenet wrote:
| I've just been using it from my smartphone...
| LoganDark wrote:
| > you can create an app that points to puter.com, and you'll
| have puter inside of puter.
|
| I did this months ago! Here it is:
| https://puter.com/app/puter
| carl_dr wrote:
| > Actually it seems every app is just a browser window, so
| you can create an app that points to puter.com, and you'll
| have puter inside of puter.
|
| Yep, you can, I now have several nested Puters.
| divbzero wrote:
| There are limited cases such as ChromeOS or iPadOS where
| Puter could be more flexible than the host OS.
| kang wrote:
| Seems like this doesn't work on firefox
| BulgarianIdiot wrote:
| My NAS has a similar "OS-like" web interface and it's very
| useful. Given there's no monitor attached to it.
| [deleted]
| Aldipower wrote:
| Way better then the Citrix terminal I have to use at work.
| smohnot wrote:
| This is cool... but what is the business? It's a good domain name
| & they have a careers@puter.com email address (if you click on
| the i in the bottom right)
| pr337h4m wrote:
| (Self-dupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33840961)
|
| If Puter/FriendOS can support legacy Windows enterprise apps
| not updated in over a decade and adds collaboration, SSO, 2FA,
| access controls, VPN/intranet, etc. - basically what FrontEgg
| (https://techcrunch.com/2022/07/28/with-40m-in-new-funding-
| fr...) offers - on top on them, it could be a pretty great
| business.
|
| This is a great illustration of this type of business:
| https://apenwarr.ca/log/20120326. A lot of customers totally
| need, not just want, this type of thing.
|
| Puter/FriendOS type systems can graft upon some modern features
| on top of all legacy apps, which is far far better than having
| to build it out for every single one. Especially as the market
| lies more in the long tail of the custom software tailed to
| specific companies, that has been chugging along for 15 years
| in maintenance mode.
| imhoguy wrote:
| Interesting, now I think would Wine run in browser with WASM.
| austin-cheney wrote:
| I wrote my own OS in a browser based upon network shared file
| systems via a privacy model but I haven't figured out kind of
| a business model for it.
|
| https://github.com/prettydiff/share-file-systems
|
| I am trying to think of where to take it next. Possibly
| integrate something like VLC for media playback or allowing
| users to install applications. I don't really know what users
| would want from something like this.
| rchaud wrote:
| There's a dev environment app in there. I think that's what
| they're selling.
| noduerme wrote:
| which has almost no API calls except accessing files stored
| in their cloud drive. Other than that, your apps are just
| plain JavaScript running in a window inside their window. So
| it appears more like a very goofy way of selling overpriced
| cloud storage and trying to entice developers to build an
| ecosystem around that.
| exceptione wrote:
| I was thinking this is super nice, but just a toy project. But
| I saw there is even funding and the author is hiring. So, it is
| serious. I think this will be an enormous commercial success,
| because I tend to misjudge these kind of things. :')
|
| I am impressed by the slickness and speed of this thing. It is
| more responsive than your average MS Windows system.
|
| @ent101: well done and good luck with this project! Super
| slick!
| DustinBrett wrote:
| Congrats on making it on HN with puter.com. Always love to see
| desktop environments getting attention. It looks better all the
| time.
|
| I'll take a chance to mention my attempt at creating a desktop
| environment in the browser as it's open source, if anyone is
| interested in checking out.
|
| Code: https://github.com/DustinBrett/daedalOS
|
| Demo: https://dustinbrett.com/
| redbell wrote:
| This is truly a cool project, Dustin!
|
| Yesterday on Reddit, someone mentioned your project as one of
| the coolest projects he had seen, and I was more than happy to
| reply to him with more details [1] as I really enjoyed watching
| your journey. Cool projects deserve more sharing and support
| for their creators.
|
| 1.
| https://www.reddit.com/r/Frontend/comments/z9wgw5/comment/iy...
| DustinBrett wrote:
| Thanks very much! I'm happy to hear it's considered cool by
| some. I want to keep working on it until it really is the
| best.
| GaryPalmer wrote:
| Besides fun, is there any real use to coding these ?
| DustinBrett wrote:
| I've learned a lot while making it. I think it could have
| more value as I keep adding features. I'm happy to just code
| it.
| itrollpussies wrote:
| Nice job , looks really cool.
| DustinBrett wrote:
| Thanks! Always happy to hear people liked it.
| replygirl wrote:
| never go full browser
| momothereal wrote:
| in the terminal, doing the following freezes the page:
| touch abc cat abc
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