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Brow.sh: a modern text-based browser

brow.sh

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Re: Brow.sh: a modern text-based browser

#101

Yes it's super slow, but many of the criticisms are missing the point. This enables browsing over SSH when you have low bandwidth. The heavy internetting is done on the remote machine (like a cloud VM for example) using blazing fast data center internet. A personal example may explain why I love this. For several years I lived in rural Alaska where the fastest internet one could buy was $120 a month (I think) and a b…

> This enables browsing over SSH when you have low bandwidth. This makes me wonder: why can't a regular modern browser gracefully support this usecase?

This could be implemented at the site level (unfortunately with bloated frameworks, few care). One possible implementation could have the browser measure how long it takes to load assets and switch to requesting lightweight ones if loading takes too long.

Oftentimes, the real killer is not so much bandwidth but latency. If a page requires many requests to complete sequentially (ie. because one asset needs to be loaded in order to know how to request the next one), that all adds up real quick and produces a poor user experience.

Re: Brow.sh: a modern text-based browser

#102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This enables browsing over SSH when you have low bandwidth. This makes me wonder: why can't a regular modern browser gracefully support this usecase?

This could be implemented at the site level (unfortunately with bloated frameworks, few care). One possible implementation could have the browser measure how long it takes to load assets and switch to requesting lightweight ones if loading takes too long. Oftentimes, the real killer is not so much bandwidth but latency. If a page requires many requests to complete sequentially (ie. because one asset needs to be loade…

> switch to requesting lightweight ones if loading takes too long

Why not start with downloading the lightweight ones, and progressively load more?

I.e. first download what this text-based browser would download, display it, and then (optionally) fetch the rest.

Re: Brow.sh: a modern text-based browser

#103

Yes it's super slow, but many of the criticisms are missing the point. This enables browsing over SSH when you have low bandwidth. The heavy internetting is done on the remote machine (like a cloud VM for example) using blazing fast data center internet. A personal example may explain why I love this. For several years I lived in rural Alaska where the fastest internet one could buy was $120 a month (I think) and a b…

- cool story. are you living in alaska for fun?

- also w3m.

- why don't you git clone everything to your laptop when you have a chance? then keeping it up to date won't be expensive.

Re: Brow.sh: a modern text-based browser

#104
Hmm just tried it... It's ok BUT not too happy with it overall..

On Mac terminal the blocks don't align properly, and on Xterm it starts rolling weird like a CRT TV with the scan lines missing.

Also the controls are not using a normal menu and keys that we know from lynx/links/elinks. And the donation nag thing is annoying. First convince me it's great, then ask for donations :)

I love the idea but not the execution.

Re: Brow.sh: a modern text-based browser

#105
post #103

Yes it's super slow, but many of the criticisms are missing the point. This enables browsing over SSH when you have low bandwidth. The heavy internetting is done on the remote machine (like a cloud VM for example) using blazing fast data center internet. A personal example may explain why I love this. For several years I lived in rural Alaska where the fastest internet one could buy was $120 a month (I think) and a b…

- cool story. are you living in alaska for fun? - also w3m. - why don't you git clone everything to your laptop when you have a chance? then keeping it up to date won't be expensive.

> - cool story. are you living in alaska for fun?

While I did enjoy the fun, my primary reason for moving up there was to escape the heat. I have a medical condition that flares up in the heat. There are good temperate places in the USA pacific northwest, but cost of living there was so high that there's no way I could have done it on Salt Lake City based wages. Even just the higher CoL in Alaska was pretty painful.

> - also w3m.

Hadn't seen this, will check it out :-)

> - why don't you git clone everything to your laptop when you have a chance? then keeping it up to date won't be expensive.

I definitely did, but we had a ton of services with new ones springing up all the time, so even though I would grab what I could when I could, there was still frequent needs for more. Also git wasn't the worst part, the worst part was downloading docker images (base images and prod images). Since they change regularly, sometimes daily, there was no real way around it.

Re: Brow.sh: a modern text-based browser

#106
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This appears again and again from time to time on ycombinator.

I'm glad stuff like this does because I often forget about it, or somehow missed it before. That said I do suspect a lot of the repeats are because there are young people on HN for whom this may be the first time since reaching an age of reason that this has hit the front page.

ya that's fine - stuff resurfaces every once in awhile etc -- but mark it as so (2018) so we know it's not something new and there's years of discussion already.

Re: Brow.sh: a modern text-based browser

#108
post #68

Dearest fellow terminal lovers, The creator of Browsh here. I have such mixed feelings about seeing Browsh here again. I poured soooo much geeky passion into it, but I've just not had the opportunity to take it to the next step since its initial rise to stardom. There have been a couple of contributors recently and I haven't even been able to get the CI to run because I've lost The Knowledge. I even had to take the d…

Thanks for all the work you have put in, I find Brow.sh really useful.

I thought I should put my money where my mouth is, just donated via your website :)

For anyone looking to do the same, see https://www.brow.sh/donate/

Re: Brow.sh: a modern text-based browser

#110
post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- cool story. are you living in alaska for fun? - also w3m. - why don't you git clone everything to your laptop when you have a chance? then keeping it up to date won't be expensive.

> - cool story. are you living in alaska for fun? While I did enjoy the fun, my primary reason for moving up there was to escape the heat. I have a medical condition that flares up in the heat. There are good temperate places in the USA pacific northwest, but cost of living there was so high that there's no way I could have done it on Salt Lake City based wages. Even just the higher CoL in Alaska was pretty painful.…

> There are good temperate places in the USA pacific northwest, but cost of living there was so high that there's no way I could have done it on Salt Lake City based wages. Even just the higher CoL in Alaska was pretty painful.

have you looked into oregon outside of portland? say about 30 to 40 min out? it's not trump country, and it's still cool and not that expensive. i would say cheaper than alaska. same for seattle/WA.

for keeping your laptop up to date have you looked deeper into rsync? check out https://fedoramagazine.org/copying-large-files-with-rsync-an....

also you can consider zfs or btrfs as filesystem since they can offer block level sync. not always possible, but this can change things for you big time.

good luck.

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