Show HN: We launched a new web browser
My company launched a new open source web browser built on Chromium. It supports decentralized domains on Handshake and is the first browser to support .eth DNS. It is also the first browser to support secure web browsing with DANE.
Check it out:
193 comments
[ 2.1 ms ] story [ 241 ms ] threadWhy use a ENS/Namecoin versus a petname solution like GNS?
I like the idea of such a browser integration, but I don't see this actually being used. Perhaps you could have upstreamed those as experimental features in firefox/Torbrowser.
Edit: I suppose you could upstream it to brave, they are very crypto-friendly. Also, no Linux support?
Edit 2: Most of my points have been made moot by this: https://impervious.com/fingertip
If only Firefox(Gecko) would get some more attention...
This is precisely the issue. The fact that Google has such a mass control over Internet rendering means that they are free to write their own standards with absolutely no pushback. It is essentially an Internet explorer situation, whereas if Google wants something to work a certain way, you have no choice but to adapt it least certain websites won’t work.
I don’t think a single commercial entity — let alone one with such a disastrous privacy record whose primary source of income is advertising — should be able to strongarm the Internet like it currently can.
Apple and Mozilla have basically just swapped places when it comes to keeping developers in check wrt adopting chrome-only features.
I don't know that more people using FF would change much at this point, to be honest.
It is an open source community driven project with contributions from, "Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Opera Software, Adobe, Intel, IBM, Samsung, and others"
There are so many stakeholders, it isn't just google dictating what occurs in blink
Well, for starters, uBlock Origin works as intended on Firefox as opposed to Chromium and this will become more apparent with manifest v3.
I don't know about others but I also like how Firefox lets me choose the fonts that I want to see on the web while Chromium browsers don't.
It is THE problem. Software should not be "standard".
I think this indirectly slowed down the foreverdomains server with the HN traffic.
Since you advertise "decentralized internet" vs blockchain, I'd love to see this also support some more non-blockchain protocols such as Dat (https://dat.foundation/) and IPFS directly. Maybe even Bittorrent and Tor (Onion router).
It may already do some of that, I just couldn't tell from your wording.
In what ways does it compare?
> the boys
I hope it's a much bigger world than that!
Citation needed
and again https://github.com/imperviousinc/beacon/blob/main/tools/src/...
This trend of "I'm going to invent some build tool because there are not enough build tools in the world" is evidently leaking out of the node ecosystem
For clarity, I did see that this was inspired by the brave-browser model, but of the ones to draw inspiration from, that's for sure not it given that their CI is closed source and they're trying to use npm in lieu of a more structured, comprehensible system
I like trying out alternate browsers, so congratulations on the launch, and I'll for sure try to build it, but I wanted to draw these to your attention because my experience with software is that error handling is about 80% of the job
Glad you're looking at the code! There's still some refactoring needed for butil. It will get more polished soon ;)
> This trend of "I'm going to invent some build tool because there are not enough build tools in the world" is evidently leaking out of the node ecosystem
butil applies string replacements, patches and overrides all under one tool using a statically typed language but still usable like a scripting lang since it can rebuild the actual tool as needed. You can technically do something similar with various python scripts I suppose and use chromium's GN build system . GN would just end up calling various scripts so I think i prefer this more unless you have some other ideas.
And I hear you about "but scripting!!1", however, using one of the existing tools means there is a non-zero chance of someone having experience with them and maybe even having reasonable editor support for it
It's your project, so I know I'm just some rando on the Internet, but I wanted to make sure you were choosing the contribution path you wanted to build upon, and not just hacking something together for expedience that then has to be unwound later. In this specific case, that goes double because it already has tight coupling to GN due to Chromium
> that goes double because it already has tight coupling to GN due to Chromium
Interesting i'll experiment with moving this to GN. I have more high priority things to deal with atm but i'll get to that.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30968715
I’m going to have to give this a try.
It's easy to install an app and start browsing. No hacks or workarounds and the UX can be much more tailored (even for desktop).
Random thought, perhaps for later: some form of keyboard-centric navigation functionality - boosts your UX differentiation and it likely speaks to your target audience. Something along the lines of Nyxt browser[1] or the popular Vimium extension[2].
[1] https://nyxt.atlas.engineer/
[2] https://github.com/philc/vimium
Nobody can engage with your opinions if you don't express them.
Props for that. I wish we moved away from CAs.
Thanks
That sounds like a disaster waiting to happen. The public once got a hold of a sample of the anonymized searches of AOL customers and it didn't take long for individuals to get identified. The amount of data google has on people goes far beyond the things they search for or the sites they visit. A web browser that publishes everyone's browsing habits for the public would also get collected by data brokers and 'google et al' to be exploited for their own gain. Who would sign up to use that?
I'm pretty sure that if the data google has were ever made available to the public, as soon as the first congress person reviewed their own dossier we'd see laws passed very quickly banning the use of that data and perhaps even preventing it from being collected in the first place. I imagine any popular browser or project exposing their users similarly would have the same problem.
Although I'll give you this. A massive leak might stir up the public outrage necessary to convince the US Congress to actually do something about it.
Whistleblowers are very rare creatures to begin with. Not too many people are willing to risk the legal, financial and career ending repercussions assuming that they even have both access to the data and a means to copy it in bulk to back up their revelations. Even now, a large number of people would sadly still consider Snowden to be a traitor.
I imagine Google keeps the data they collect (and more importantly what they've inferred about us using the data they collect) under tight controls to avoid that problem. With only a limited number of people able to access the trove of data at all, and those people being kept happy (or perhaps more pessimistically, kept in line by fear. I mean let's face it, Google likely has enough dirt to bury any one of us alive) it's not hard to imagine that no one has been willing or able to come forward.
GDPR
And ultimately, it may not even matter. Snowden's leaks revealed that basically every single privacy related conspiracy theory of times past was true. They showed that the NSA had are not only trading your nudes [1], but even have spies all the way down into things like World of Warcraft and XBox Live [2]. They also demonstrated countless illegal acts that violated every single possible interpretation of the 4th amendment.
And now? Snowden is holed up in some place in Russia knowing full well he'll likely getting Assanged, or worse, if he ever steps foot in a place friendly to the US. And the powers that be? They've only become more flagrant in all of their violations, endlessly protected from the law by a mixture of national security and lack of standing legal claims.
Don't underestimate what genuinely leaking against the interests of the powerful entails. People like Snowden are truly unique and selfless individuals.
[1] - https://time.com/3010649/nsa-sexually-explicit-photographs-s...
[2] - https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/the-nsa-was-spying...
And now consider the alternative world, the one we happen to live in, where it's all private unless it somehow ends up getting "hacked" or "leaked" to the public, indirectly of course. And it'd be a shame if that happened wouldn't it Mr. Senator.
There is a centralization aspect in any DNS, blockchain or otherwise in that, literally to be useful, there needs to be consensus about which chain operators own which .{name} extensions for a given name. Which makes financial incentive for say an investor to 'bribe' browsers into using their DNS, which then charges money to end users, which er... feels a lot like the DNS we have.
I think that "true" decentralization might come from nameless "domain". If a domain is a SHA256 hash with no name, then with QR Codes and search engines and hyperlinks it doesn't matter as much that they are not memorable (we managed with nameless phone numbers, right!). Hash providers can be any chain, and then your job as a browser is to add as many mainstream chains as possible (there is no need to decide who is the 'official' one, or rank them, so Ethereum is no better than Dogecoin) as hash collisions are practically impossible.
Let's say I have a hosted wordpress blog with a custom domain. How do I get a static IP for it?
(don't think this makes much sense, just answering your question...)
Might anyone have any good resources for blockchain DNS they could share?
I guess the Handshake people will make sure .eth (the ENS suffix) resolves to ENS on Handshake. Handshake would like to eclipse everything :)