[HN Gopher] Show HN: CloudTabs Web Browser - a streaming web bro...
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       Show HN: CloudTabs Web Browser - a streaming web browser on every
       website
        
       Author : keepamovin
       Score  : 27 points
       Date   : 2024-04-04 09:16 UTC (13 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (browse.cloudtabs.net)
 (TXT) w3m dump (browse.cloudtabs.net)
        
       | Takennickname wrote:
       | Very cool. But what for?
        
         | jauntywundrkind wrote:
         | To make sure users have no agency over your site. The screen is
         | just a bunch of pixels being streamed at you, no extensions, no
         | view source, no agency. The purpose is to use web tech, without
         | having to actually expose your site to the internet for real.
        
         | yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
         | Could be useful for security isolation - browse any site you
         | want, and if it manages to escape the browser sandbox it still
         | doesn't get your real machine. Also could reduce the resources
         | used locally; browsers with a lot of tabs are a RAM hog.
        
         | keepamovin wrote:
         | Adding to what the other comments say you can also:
         | 
         | - whack it on a "Web Desktop"! See an example of it embedded
         | here: https://puter.com/app/cloudtabs-browserbox
         | 
         | - share the browser with other people (right click the
         | "Browser" link from your signed in portal to copy that link
         | then share it!) for real time collaboration in technical
         | support, education, training, UI development, etc
         | 
         | - use it to connect to an automation script / puppeteer robot
         | to have a "human in the loop" intervention for solving a
         | Captcha, or helping diagnose an issue, getting it unstuck
         | 
         | - use it to capture replayable action sequences and screencasts
         | for bug replay
         | 
         | - use it to access devtools from a mobile device
         | 
         | - use it to remotely view PDFs, DOCX, and explore archive
         | formats
         | 
         | - and many other creative uses from embedding a <BrowserView>
         | in a webpage.
         | 
         | We will provide a real API later, like:                 <script
         | async src="...."></script>       <cloudtabs-browser
         | publishable-key="pk_live_..."></cloudtabs-browser>
        
         | mrbluecoat wrote:
         | *cough* accessing blocked sites at work *cough*
        
           | keepamovin wrote:
           | That too. Hahaha! :)
        
       | saurik wrote:
       | After "Browser Loaded", how long must I wait for something else
       | to happen? (iOS 17.4, btw)
        
         | keepamovin wrote:
         | Sorry, the service are now at like 100% load. This is getting
         | quite a hit.
         | 
         | If you get a delay there, you can try reloading.
         | 
         | I'll try adding some more servers if we're going to be on the
         | front page.
         | 
         | I'm bringing up a new server in the US region now. Should be 10
         | minutes, hopefully will soak up the load
        
       | xiekomb wrote:
       | Remote Browser Isolation is interesting for several use cases.
       | Your demo unfortunately does not work on iOS
        
         | keepamovin wrote:
         | Oh! It should work. What doesn't work? I'm testing it on iOS
         | all the time.
         | 
         | Which version are you?
        
       | keepamovin wrote:
       | Ok a new server in US region is up.
       | 
       | Unfortunately the disk filled up on the Europe server and
       | Canadian server. I had to nuke all the Ephemeral sessions.
       | Capability should be back now. OS told me disk was 100.0% used
       | when I logged in.
       | 
       | It was all tempfs mounted for each user. I never realized its
       | importance. Will need bigger disks.
       | 
       | I'll add some timed updates to keep things organized below this
       | point:
       | 
       | 17:57:00 Z
       | 
       | Will add 2 new 32 core servers in Europe, and Asia, as both those
       | regions are seeing lots of demand. Asia is at 100% right now.
       | 
       | 18:03:00 Z
       | 
       | Just started creation of the Japan server. Once I get the install
       | script started, I'll move to create the Europe one.
       | 
       | 18:18:00 Z
       | 
       | Okay, Japan server should be online. Sorry about everybody in SEA
       | that I just nuked your sessions, that must have sucked. The
       | server was hard to manage at 100% utilization. Moving to create a
       | new Europe server now.
       | 
       | 18:26:00 Z
       | 
       | Okay Europe server is provisioned and setup is starting now. It
       | should be live in about 10 minutes.
       | 
       | 18:32:00 Z
       | 
       | London server is live. Stats update: since posting to HN 2 hours
       | ago we had about 2000 sessions across (initially) 4 16core 32GB
       | 128disk servers. So far have had to add 3 more 32/64/1TB servers,
       | with disk being the unexpected cost to this type of load. BTW if
       | anyone is reading this how was your experience? Was it slow/fast?
       | Responsive? What region were you in?
       | 
       | 18:42:00 Z
       | 
       | I'm monitoring the 7 servers now.
       | 
       | 18:48:00 Z
       | 
       | Right now server selection is based on RTT/ping from client. I'm
       | thinking it might be good to have ping endpoint include the
       | current load. But I don't want to bork it.
       | 
       | 19:31:00 Z
       | 
       | Okay, load average has been added to the ping check for fastest
       | server. We now pick between the fastest two pings based on which
       | has the lowest load. Should work well.
        
       | yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
       | Is there an about page I'm missing? Or somewhere to see pricing
       | info, or... anything that's not the actual app?
       | 
       | (Regardless, it's cool, and does in fact seem to work pretty
       | well)
        
         | riedel wrote:
         | The ToS links this: https://dosyago.com/
        
           | yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
           | I saw, but that seems to be a different thing? I was assuming
           | that was the actual underlying software, not this service
        
         | keepamovin wrote:
         | Click on "CloudTabs Home" from the browser to get taken to the
         | Signup area. Inside there it's a normal basic "SaaS" looking
         | app profile with:
         | 
         | - My Plan (pricing info and subscribe / manage)
         | 
         | - About (including roadmap / impressum)
         | 
         | - Settings (for now just the home page!)
         | 
         | etc
         | 
         | :)
        
           | yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
           | I'm not fond of having to create an account in order to see
           | information about the product, especially pricing. (Yes, I
           | understand that creating an account doesn't take money, but
           | that doesn't make it a zero-cost action)
        
             | keepamovin wrote:
             | That's a fair point. It's just as simple single page
             | (literally) SPA so one 'solution' is to just look at the
             | HTML file.
             | 
             | But I'll post a link to the Stripe pricing table on a
             | separate page for convenience (maybe just remove all the
             | display: none) styles of the other SPA sections on a long
             | scroll 'about everything' page. Good point! Wait a minute
             | for a link...
             | 
             |  _edit: Here you go!_
             | 
             | CloudTabs - About Everything:
             | https://browse.cloudtabs.net/about-everything
        
               | yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
               | That looks good:)
        
       | theogravity wrote:
       | Our product, Switchboard, also has this feature but it's part of
       | a larger collaborative experience where you can share the
       | browsers (yes multiple on the canvas) with other users in the
       | same workspace:
       | 
       | https://www.switchboard.app/
       | 
       | Note: We only support Chrome-based browsers at the moment. This
       | will hopefully change this year.
        
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       (page generated 2024-04-04 23:02 UTC)