[HN Gopher] Devtools for mobile browsers
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Devtools for mobile browsers
Author : latonz
Score : 195 points
Date : 2023-06-26 11:54 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (eruda.liriliri.io)
(TXT) w3m dump (eruda.liriliri.io)
| haylem wrote:
| My reaction to this was "Oh hello Firebug, old friend" :)
|
| It's not firebug, but it was nice that firebug at the time was
| installable as an extension or a simple bookmarklet, for just
| about any page, before "Dev Tools" became integral parts of our
| modern browsers.
|
| EDIT: Firebug's old page is actually still up with a bit of
| history: https://getfirebug.com/index.html
| [deleted]
| quechimba wrote:
| This is really good.
|
| I used this a few years ago when my laptop had died and I had to
| get some work done. Bought an USB keyboard, installed vim, zsh,
| tmux, ruby, node and postgres in Termux on my phone. Small screen
| but worked pretty well. Had to use devtools and I found this.
| fareesh wrote:
| Can barely scroll the page on Android pixel 6
| mintplant wrote:
| Works fine in Firefox on a Pixel 6 Pro. A little choppy if I
| open it in Chrome, but still usable.
| asadm wrote:
| I had once started a project to port over Chrome Devtools to
| iPad, here is a thread with some videos:
| https://twitter.com/DevToolsApp/status/1353226687681445892
|
| I never got around finishing it. Too much work of translating
| each Chrome DevTools Protocol API to equivalent in wkwebview.
| gkfasdfasdf wrote:
| This is an awesome tool! I am doing some basic web dev with my
| kids and their school Chromebooks, however their accounts have
| chrome dev tools disabled. By sourcing this eruda js we are able
| to get the console back.
| rtcode_io wrote:
| We are using Tencent's vConsole on https://RTCode.io (info:
| https://efn.kr video: https://rt.ht/yt)
|
| Console output of this one is a lot better! Will do a complete
| comparison later this week.
| xmonkee wrote:
| What exactly is this? Something like jsfiddle? With a cloud-
| deploy option? Are there more docs somewhere?
| slaymaker1907 wrote:
| I'm definitely saving this page for later. It's such a nightmare
| trying to debug issues on iOS. Even just having a JS console on
| the page is invaluable. In the past, I've just used the
| (expensive) virtualization stuff since I don't own a Mac when
| writing web stuff to use on my iPhone. Last year, the File System
| Access API showed as available on iOS even though the origin
| private (useless) FS was the only portion available.
|
| Rant: the origin private FS is basically pointless and I believe
| it was only added to the spec so Mozilla and Apple could claim to
| support the file system access API. It would maybe be useful if
| Apple didn't insist on clearing everything out after SEVEN DAYS.
| How the fuck is seven days persistent? I have apps that are open
| (in the background)for longer than that.
| graftak wrote:
| The extension "Web Inspector" provides you with exactly that,
| albeit a basic version. It has a console.
| londons_explore wrote:
| Worth knowing you can use proper devtools on mobile devices too,
| but remotely.
|
| Visit chrome://inspect/#devices in a chromium based browser, and
| you'll see a list of remote targets that you can connect to.
|
| They include browsers running on any device connectable via ADB.
| You can also debug over the network, debug headless browsers, and
| debug nodejs and webdriver instances.
| frou_dh wrote:
| I love using that to debug Deno CLI commands and servers using
| a proper luxuriously designed debugger.
|
| So much nicer than the archaic TUI (PuDB) I use to debug
| Python.
| tfsh wrote:
| I use this functionality a lot, however note that the ADB
| functionality over Chrome sometimes interferes with Android
| Studio or ADB running locally, so make sure to run `adb kill-
| server` if Chrome can't find connected devices.
| solarkraft wrote:
| That's awesome!
|
| But what's up with app developers thinking that the mobile
| version of a piece of software always has to be worse? It gets on
| my nerves insanely that sometimes I have to switch devices
| because a simple feature just isn't available on one platform.
| www_harka_com wrote:
| Yeah. I agree, but completely the oppositve. I prefer to do
| everyhing on the computer and I hate that many times the web or
| desktop interface is way worse (if there is one at all), than
| the mobile app.
| avodonosov wrote:
| How to use it for a different web site?
| theallan wrote:
| More details about that on their github page [1]. It seems you
| basically need to include a JS file from [their
| CDN](//cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/eruda).
|
| As someone who fondly remembers the early Firebug days, it is
| great to see this. It is very frustrating to me that tablets
| and phones are so powerful, but we can't do even basic dev
| stuff on them.
|
| [1] https://github.com/liriliri/eruda
| tantalor wrote:
| In order to try it for different sites, execute the script
| below on browser address bar.
|
| javascript:(function () { var script =
| document.createElement('script');
| script.src="//cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/eruda";
| document.body.appendChild(script); script.onload = function ()
| { eruda.init() } })();
| avodonosov wrote:
| Chrome on Android just tries to search for that text
| gabrielsroka wrote:
| It worked for me on Chrome for Android.
|
| Note that if you copy and paste it, it will typically
| remove the `JavaScript` at the beginning and you'll have to
| add it back.
| lopkeny12ko wrote:
| This doesn't seem to work in any mobile browser. Are there
| more specific instructions for Android Firefox?
| gabrielsroka wrote:
| It worked for me on Chrome and Brave for Android.
|
| Note that if you copy and paste it, it will typically
| remove the `JavaScript` at the beginning and you'll have to
| add it back.
| aceazzameen wrote:
| Unfortunately it doesn't work in Firefox on Android.
| semiquaver wrote:
| Unfortunately javascript URIs don't work from the address bar
| in many browsers like mobile Safari, probably to prevent
| attacks. At least for safari you need to create a bookmarklet
| with that content and execute it by "visiting" the bookmark.
| bvogelzang wrote:
| I was able to get this working on mobile Safari (iOS 16.5)
| and it worked just fine.
| Mr_Modulo wrote:
| Another option to get a JavaScript console on Android is use Kiwi
| Browser[1] Kiwi allows access to the full Chromium JavaScript
| console that you can open in a new tab.
|
| Kiwi also allows usage of Chromium extensions. I wanted full ad
| blocking but Kiwi only had rudimentary ad blocking that was
| disabled by default. No problem, I installed uBlock Origin!
|
| [1]: https://kiwibrowser.com/
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| It states "Unparalled Speed", and testimonies say it's much
| faster than safari.
|
| Since on iOS any browser must use Apple's engine anyway and can
| only provide a thin layer on top of it, how does that happen?
| jsmith99 wrote:
| It's an android app, not iOS.
| j45 wrote:
| Once Apple becomes flexible on the web engine, it will be
| nice to see Kiwi go to iOS
| Fej wrote:
| This is really cool, thanks for pointing it out! I have used
| Eruda and keep it in Tampermonkey in Firefox for use in a pinch
| but it's hacky. It's impressive that it works at all, but it's
| very difficult to do any actual work.
|
| I already had Kiwi installed and it's neat to pop it open and
| see this feature hiding in plain sight. I can definitely see
| myself using it regularly, although I won't use it as a daily
| driver since it selectively blocks adblockers on a hardcoded
| list of domains which is just untrustworthy.
| https://github.com/kiwibrowser/src/blob/master/extensions/re...
| mardifoufs wrote:
| Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought they walked back on
| that? And I think the source code repo is now :
| https://github.com/kiwibrowser/src.next ? Maybe that's just
| the chromium rebase repo though.
| rvnx wrote:
| I'll do a change in Kiwi edition 116 to make it selectable in
| the UI (it's almost a full rewrite of Kiwi and it will go out
| in about 10 days).
|
| Most likely to add a setting to make it optional.
|
| The main issue we had was with search partners, if we allow
| adblocking by default, then search engines still pay for the
| request, and this means... we pay. And by we, I mean "I" pay
| :)
|
| One solution that some competitors found is to integrate
| Adblock Plus (when you develop a browser they pay you for
| that) or AdGuard and let them do the whitelist (so in
| appearance the blame is on them, but I am fine to take the
| blame myself).
|
| Some browsers don't allow external adblockers so they don't
| have this issue at all; you can't block their ads anyway (not
| 100% sure but I think Google, DuckDuckGo, Brave, etc are like
| this).
|
| Yandex who was the pioneer of Chromium extensions on mobile
| (before Kiwi) has similar mechanisms, except they fully block
| the extension, instead of whitelisting it on certain URLs.
|
| It's currently possible to go around the whitelist, just by
| loading manually an extension.
|
| And yes it's logic that Google Chrome doesn't block Google
| search ads by default unless you load a workaround.
|
| The same that Kiwi doesn't block Microsoft search ads when
| our main funding is Microsoft Bing, and to be fair, getting
| funded by search is the cleanest business model a browser can
| have.
| liminalsunset wrote:
| As a user of Kiwi Browser I find this to be a reasonable
| approach, and I understand the needs here. I would,
| however, think that it would have been nice to have a
| warning for users that are installing one of these
| extensions along the lines of "This extension might be
| restricted on certain URLs. Click to learn more". I would
| find that helpful, paired with the ability to disable it.
|
| This is just because when people install a third party ad
| blocker, they are expecting a certain type of behaviour,
| and quietly changing expectations can have bad results for
| users who require specific functionality.
|
| On an unrelated note, I would appreciate adding a toggle to
| disable the "Pull to refresh" gesture on Android. I find
| myself reloading accidentally during scrolling very often,
| which can result in data loss.
| ncann wrote:
| Wow are you the author of Kiwi? If so I want to say thank
| you for the great browser. Initially when I heard about a
| Chrome-like browser on Android with full extension support
| I was skeptical, it sounded too good to be true. But it
| turned out to be exactly that good.
| Mr_Modulo wrote:
| That is pretty sketchy. Thanks for pointing that out! I've
| started using Kiwi as my main mobile browser after I got fed
| up with some issues I was having with Brave.
| rvnx wrote:
| If you are really really in a rare situation where you want
| to use Bing and block Bing search ads:
|
| kiwi://extensions
|
| Press: + (from zip)
|
| Load uBlock Origin
|
| Finished.
|
| Not that dramatic + auto-update works.
|
| It would be sketchy to offer an out-of-the-box experience
| that blocks the search pages of Microsoft and Yahoo (they
| pay us).
|
| Remember the fact that if a browser has an established and
| visible business model is way better than a browser where
| you don't know how they make money.
|
| With Kiwi, if you use Bing or Yahoo, Microsoft and Yahoo
| share with us the costs and the revenues (both ways).
|
| Simple model and no need to sell crypto, fake VPNs, user
| history or whatever some others do.
| liminalsunset wrote:
| Would this still result in creating unnecessary costs for
| Kiwi Browser? Above I believe it was mentioned that the
| reason these extensions were disabled was to prevent
| users from racking up costs for requests to search
| engines (?) with adblocking enabled
| develatio wrote:
| But why not just use the browser's dev tools? Both Android and
| iOS support connecting a phone to a computer and debugging using
| the browser's native tools.
| hdidvdksv wrote:
| [flagged]
| develatio wrote:
| Oh! I really didn't realise (young?) people don't use
| computers even for developing purposes. I'm indeed out of
| touch
| userbinator wrote:
| They do. It's just one that's locked down and user-hostile,
| designed as a consumption device.
| westernpopular wrote:
| What if you're on the go and only have a phone available? I
| reckon this is intended for quick experiments, not in depth
| debugging.
| sroussey wrote:
| Use an extension. It will work on any site. Example for iOS:
| https://apps.apple.com/us/app/web-inspector/id1584825745
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| Yeah that makes the most sense to me. I could see a full
| blown desktop style inspector being useful on a 11"+ tablet
| (which is really just a laptop sans keyboard) but it'd be too
| frustrating for extended usage on anything smaller.
| arek_nawo wrote:
| I think I remember seeing this (or a similar thing) in Solid.js
| Playground: https://playground.solidjs.com/
|
| The fact that it's available on mobile and that it allows for
| "embedding" a good-enough dev tools into your web app, does
| enable interesting use-cases.
|
| Of course, it's not the go-to for complex or extended debugging
| sessions but still impressive.
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(page generated 2023-06-26 23:01 UTC)