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Show HN: Browser MCP – Automate your browser using Cursor, Claude, VS Code

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Re: Show HN: Browser MCP – Automate your browser using Cursor, Claude, VS Code

#101

Post by oulipo »

StevenNunez wrote: post #94

I feel like I slept for a day and now MCPs are everywhere... I don't know what MCPs are and at this point I'm too afraid to ask.

It's just a way to provide a "library of methods" / API that the LLM models can "call", so basically giving them method names, their parameters, the type of the output, and what they are for,

and then the LLM model will ask the MCP server to call the functions, check the result, call the next function if needed, etc

Right now if you go to ChatGPT you can't really tell it "open Google maps with my account, search for bike shops near NYC, and grab their phone numbers", because all he can do is reply in text or make images

with a "browser MCP" it is now possible: ChatGPT has a way to tell your browser "open Google maps", "show me a screenshot", "click at that position", etc

Re: Show HN: Browser MCP – Automate your browser using Cursor, Claude, VS Code

#102

Post by jayunit »

jayunit wrote: post #71

awesome! For the Cursor / React / Click to Add 2 example, can we also have it write a unit/e2e regression test?

author replied on Twitter:

> that's a great use case! the aria snapshot that browser mcp generates is enough to write tests for playwright using its role-based locators, but i may add a get_page_html tool in the same way that they're considering: https://github.com/microsoft/playwright-mcp/issues/103

https://x.com/roadtoramen/status/1909356255866733044

Re: Show HN: Browser MCP – Automate your browser using Cursor, Claude, VS Code

#103

Post by halJordan »

jastuk wrote: post #95
StevenNunez wrote: post #94

I feel like I slept for a day and now MCPs are everywhere... I don't know what MCPs are and at this point I'm too afraid to ask.

And the worst part is that it opens a pandora's box of potential exploits; https://elenacross7.medium.com/%EF%B8%8F-the-s-in-mcp-stands...

At the risk of it sounding like i support theft; the automobile, you know, enabled the likes of Bonnie and Clyde and that whole era of lawlessness. Until the fbi and crossing county lines became a thing.

So im not sure id give up the sum total progress of the automobile just because the first decade was a bad one

Re: Show HN: Browser MCP – Automate your browser using Cursor, Claude, VS Code

#104

Post by throwaway314155 »

oulipo wrote: post #101
StevenNunez wrote: post #94

I feel like I slept for a day and now MCPs are everywhere... I don't know what MCPs are and at this point I'm too afraid to ask.

It's just a way to provide a "library of methods" / API that the LLM models can "call", so basically giving them method names, their parameters, the type of the output, and what they are for, and then the LLM model will ask the MCP server to call the functions, check the result, call the next function if needed, etc Right now if you go to ChatGPT you can't really tell it "open Google maps with my account, search for…

> with a "browser MCP" it is now possible: ChatGPT has a way to tell your browser "open Google maps", "show me a screenshot", "click at that position", etc

It seems strange to me to focus on this sort of standard well in advance of models being reliable enough to, ya know, actually be able perform these operations on behalf of the user with any sort of strong reliability that you would need for widespread adoption to be successful.

Cryptocurrency "if you build it they'll come" vibes.

Re: Show HN: Browser MCP – Automate your browser using Cursor, Claude, VS Code

#106

Post by betasleep »

behnamoh wrote: post #20

What I don't like about LLMs is that people keep re-inventing the wheel over and over. For example, we've been able to control browsers using GPT for about 2 years now: - https://github.com/mayt/BrowserGPT - https://github.com/TaxyAI/browser-extension - https://github.com/browser-use/browser-use - https://github.com/Skyvern-AI/skyvern - https://github.com/m1guelpf/browser-agent - https://github.com/richardyc/Chrome-G…

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Re: Show HN: Browser MCP – Automate your browser using Cursor, Claude, VS Code

#109

Post by omneity »

redblacktree wrote: post #87
omneity wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exposing Chrome CDP is a terrible idea from a security and privacy perspective. You get the keys to the whole kingdom (and expose them on a standard port with a well documented API). All security features of the web can be bypassed, and then some, as CDP exposes even more capabilities than chrome extensions and without any form of supervision.

You're talking about exposing Chrome CDP to the wider internet, right? Or are you highlighting these dangers in the local context?

In the local context as well. Unlike say the docker socket which is protected by default using unix permissions, the CDP protocol has no authorization, authentication or permission mechanism.

Anything on your machine (such as a rogue browser extension or a malicious npm/pypi package) could scan for this and just get all your cookies - and that's only the beginning of your problems.

CDP can access any origin, any data stored (localStorage, indexedDB ...), any javascript heap, cross iframe and origin boundaries, run almost undetectable code that uses your sessions without you knowing, and the list is very long. CDP was never meant to expose a real browser in an untrusted context.

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