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Show HN: A remote browser product, open-sourced

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Re: Show HN: A remote browser product, open-sourced

#91

Post by slowenough »

FreeHugs wrote: post #71
slowenough wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the thoughtful question. For the CE release, I deleted the Git history (it became too difficult to deal with branch rewrites trying to remove all the cruft and deployment secret keys etc). But the actual current working repo for the non-free version has ~ 2400 commits[0]. And the repo that I forked that from (~ 7 months ago), I'd closed 238 issues, and the repo I forked that project from I closed 200 issue…

Awesome. Thanks for the detailed answer. I dig your dedication! You well earned to be on the front page! Who do you see as the main target audience? And do you have a business model in mind?

Thank you for this!

Main audience is people and organizations who are having problems with malware and cyber attacks.

Business model I am still working on, but it's a mishmash of licensing (+ maintenance, for hybrid / on-prem) and pay per seat (for cloud-based). Could be other ways to provide value.

What's your background? I'm open to new ideas.

Re: Show HN: A remote browser product, open-sourced

#92

Post by ComodoHacker »

slowenough wrote: post #80
ComodoHacker wrote: post #68

Cool idea at first, but on second thought, how is it supposed to mitigate internet threats? Users need to download files, open them with local apps, upload local files. All necessary channels for RCEs and exfiltration are still there. Current malware codebase might get stuck with it, but it's a matter of time and adoption. Other threats like clickjacking, cryptomining, phishing would just work as before. Am I missing…

First up that is some great feedback and raises a lot of really good points. I don't know if you're missing anything but this feedback about files is on point. I really appreciate it. And I'm surprised no one raise this until now. Thank you for your time thinking about this and for making the space for me to speak about it. > Users need to download files, open them with local apps, upload local files. Ideally, user's…

Remote file viewer is a good idea. The hard part is convincing users to a workflow where they can't save their files, only view or print them. There are tons of software with tons of proprietary file formats. One day you'll have to give up and allow downloading.

But I see a certain segment of small business users who have everything cloud-based, where this might take off.

Re: Show HN: A remote browser product, open-sourced

#94

Post by slowenough »

throwaway58235 wrote: post #72

Darn... I'm working on almost exactly the same project. The big challenge is getting access to server hardware that is actually meant for webbrowsing. Not only are AWS et al expensive, they primarily offer "webservers" which are optimized for very light not very CPU intensive workloads and needless to say they also don't offer hardware accelerated video decoding.

Hey! Sorry for taking so long to get back to you. I saw your comment and wanted to respond, and I have been very busy today because of this post.

Thanks for sharing your feeling about this.

It looks like you're working on almost exactly the same project, and that the big challenge is getting access to server hardware for webbrowsing, because not only are AWS etc expensive, they primarily offer "webservers" optimized for very light not very CPU intensive workloads, and needless to say they also don't offer hardware accelerated video decoding.

Wow! Sounds like you're doing something interesting. Are you uninterested in collaboration? I was thinking of ways to make the video better, but right now I'm basically just using DIY "MJPEG" over websocket.

As for the server hardware, I was decided to join the Stripe Atlas program at the start of 2017, and from that I was able to get 5K in AWS credits, and then more Google Cloud credits, and I also applied to IBM and Digital Ocean on my own and got credits from them as well.

So, so far I have been able to develop and then demo this (like today) without significant monetary cost.

I also have some tips for you, because resource usage was one of my concerns, but TBH I find Chrome headless actually always uses less CPU than I imagine. It's all about the page that it is rendering. The page determines everything, but Chrome itself is very light. So when I've budgeted for like 1 CPU per user, it's actually possible to get much more than that. And memory is the big thing that Chrome does lightly, it uses barely any RAM even with 100s of users on a machine. I was surprised by that. 100 users running Chrome and only ~ 20 Gb of RAM used.

Also, regarding video, because I'm avoiding expensive video encoding (just sending screenshots) I avoid the CPU load of doing that. I've experimented with doing more processing of the frames, but it just throws the load way off.

I chose to keep it simple and I'm pleased with that. At the same time, I want to explore ways to improve image quality.

Re: Show HN: A remote browser product, open-sourced

#96

Post by slowenough »

ppf wrote: post #87
slowenough wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both the user agent and navigator platform strings are mirrored from the client.

Could that cause any issues with browser-specific features? I'm not sure what browser/renderer you are actually using, but if I'm using something different, there could be a mismatch in advertised capabilities (through the user agent).

Yes, but generally, web apps detect features not browser versions, because UAs are already an unreliable signal of features, from long before BG.

Things like privacy extensions, screen readers, crawlers have various user agents.

At the same time, you make a good point. I'll consider your reflection if I come to re-decide if this is a sensible default.

Re: Show HN: A remote browser product, open-sourced

#97

Post by slowenough »

beachy wrote: post #48
slowenough wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that's correct, thank you for helping explain things! :)

Perhaps I'm off target, but how would this compare to guacamole? We've looked at guacamole as a potential solution to our problem. We need our user to log into a third party system with their username) password. Then we want to take over and drive the session selenium-style.

Sounds like you want someone to log in to a remote system then take over and drive it selenium style. Is that right?

Well, I'm hearing you right, then this (BG) is definitely a potential solution for your problem. I think it would be lighter weight than Guac since it only runs a browser (not a whole desktop).

My email is cris@dosycorp.com ... Would you be unwilling to talk more?

Re: Show HN: A remote browser product, open-sourced

#98

Post by slowenough »

o-__-o wrote: post #46
slowenough wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that's correct, thank you for helping explain things! :)

What I used to do was launch a browser in an Xvnc or RDP session in a VM somewhere. Then do all my browsing from there. Later, I worked somewhere where RDP was blocked so I started using Guacamole (RDP/VNC over websocket). What this author is providing is a similar and all-in-one npm solution for the above. Also has use-cases outside of secure runtime environments...

Thank you for your explanations here, you really get this category! I'm sorry but do you mind if I ask what's your background?

I'd like to ask for your advice, I'm at cris@dosycorp.com .... Would you be uninterested in discussing over email?

Re: Show HN: A remote browser product, open-sourced

#99

Post by slowenough »

ppf wrote: post #82
cicadas wrote: post #28

BrowserGap recursion https://i.imgur.com/RRC5Eh6.png

The free version is kinda unstable, but this is as far as I got: https://imgur.com/QMQVDrk https://imgur.com/E2ZZBaZ

Wow, that is far! It might have been the 10 minute time limit I put on the free version. It used to be 30 minutes but today there were hundreds of people and many people getting told it was already full, so I tried to let everyone have a go.

But, haha, I'm really glad that little modal dialog bubbled up the layers! XD It's kind of crazy when you think about what's happening ~~ you're chaining 7 browsers in row, using each to automate the next. It's crazy! Haha! XD

You really got me with this, it's so funny! Thanks for giving me a huge smile.

Re: Show HN: A remote browser product, open-sourced

#100

Post by slowenough »

ComodoHacker wrote: post #92
slowenough wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First up that is some great feedback and raises a lot of really good points. I don't know if you're missing anything but this feedback about files is on point. I really appreciate it. And I'm surprised no one raise this until now. Thank you for your time thinking about this and for making the space for me to speak about it. > Users need to download files, open them with local apps, upload local files. Ideally, user's…

Remote file viewer is a good idea. The hard part is convincing users to a workflow where they can't save their files, only view or print them. There are tons of software with tons of proprietary file formats. One day you'll have to give up and allow downloading. But I see a certain segment of small business users who have everything cloud-based, where this might take off.

I agree that downloads are important, so I'm committed to integrating with org's existing file/firewall policies and secure web gateways.

I'm interested in what you said. Would it be a terrible idea for you to tell me some more about this certain segment of small business users?

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