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Every phone should be able to run personal websites

rohanrd.xyz

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Re: Every phone should be able to run personal websites

#71

Post by nonameiguess »

This makes no sense.

> The reason I think this is needed is because a large percent of Internet users cannot afford hosting personal websites. The privilege of self hosting that early Internet users enjoyed was never given to the new Internet users.

If you actually have the technical chops to self-host a personal website in your house, why on earth would you want to do it on a phone? A Pi, Nano, Jetson, NUC, any kind of small form-factor mini PC is a far cheaper and better option if the limiter is seriously that you can't afford a hosting service. A web server does not need a camera, a touchscreen, a gyroscope, a GPS chip, a radio transceiver, an accelerometer, a fingerprint reader, or any of the many other hardware features that cause a phone to cost so much.

You may as well ask why your thermostat, printer, microwave, smart lightbulb, or television can't run a web server. There is nothing technologically stopping them. If they can run a stored program and connect to a network, they can bind to a port and listen for incoming requests. But running a website on them just isn't the purpose for their existence. General purpose computing devices exist and are cheap. If you want one, get one. There is no reason every single device that can do any form of computing needs to be a fully general-purpose computing device.

Re: Every phone should be able to run personal websites

#72

Post by maccard »

jareklupinski wrote: post #31
crazygringo wrote: post #5

Please no. Phones go into tunnels, run out of battery, and go indoors where there's a poor signal or none at all. They make terribly unreliable servers. Not to mention how much faster this would chew up battery life. If you want to keep a spare phone plugged in all the time in your closet, connected to Wifi/Ethernet, and hack it to be a webserver, then go ahead. But webservers on mobile devices, being used in a mobil…

> If you want to keep a spare phone plugged in all the time in your closet, connected to Wifi/Ethernet, and hack it to be a webserver, then go ahead even this low bar is (imo sadly) currently impossible for someone who just has a spare phone in their closet and a bit of html knowledge looking forward to the unicorn that makes wordpress for ios/android

Is it? I installed https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.phlox.simp..., and https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.foxdebug.a... (the first two apps I found) and had a http server with custom html in all of about 5 minutes.

Re: Every phone should be able to run personal websites

#74

Post by quaintdev »

jeroenhd wrote: post #68
jareklupinski wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you want to keep a spare phone plugged in all the time in your closet, connected to Wifi/Ethernet, and hack it to be a webserver, then go ahead even this low bar is (imo sadly) currently impossible for someone who just has a spare phone in their closet and a bit of html knowledge looking forward to the unicorn that makes wordpress for ios/android

It's not exactly hard, you can download web servers from the Play Store. The problem is that you'll need to set up port forwards and such to get traffic to port 8080 or whatever your web server of choice offers. Termux can install nginx, PHP, and various SQL clients, so I'm sure someone can make a copy/paste script that'll set up a WordPress server on your phone.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong but I think this port issue will get solved with the introduction of new SVCB/HTTPS RR record types. Basically the dns server will include port info along with existing IP info in it's response.

Re: Every phone should be able to run personal websites

#75

Post by maccard »

toast0 wrote: post #59
justsomeadvice0 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IIRC macOS got rid of privileged ports for these reasons. Dunno about iOS... But in any case what cell provider is going to let you handle inbound traffic? Most of the wifi networks you are on are NAT'd, etc. At best you'd probably want an outbound persistent tunnel that is "terminated" by a relay elsewhere. At that point you might as well just have the relay host the thing.

You're not getting inbound connections on IPv4 without a fight, although, I remember when you used to be able to pay mobile carriers to get a public IPv4 address that might have also been static(!) for VPN purposes. But it's not uncommon for carriers to give you a whole /64 on IPv6, and for that to be full proper connectivity (maybe they block smtp and smb, that's very common). Yeah, IPv6 isn't everywhere, but if you…

That's true even with a residential ISP though. It's no harder than serving off a laptop on android.

Re: Every phone should be able to run personal websites

#76

Post by quaintdev »

maccard wrote: post #72
jareklupinski wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you want to keep a spare phone plugged in all the time in your closet, connected to Wifi/Ethernet, and hack it to be a webserver, then go ahead even this low bar is (imo sadly) currently impossible for someone who just has a spare phone in their closet and a bit of html knowledge looking forward to the unicorn that makes wordpress for ios/android

Is it? I installed https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.phlox.simp... , and https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.foxdebug.a... (the first two apps I found) and had a http server with custom html in all of about 5 minutes.

None of them can run server on port 80/443

Re: Every phone should be able to run personal websites

#77

Post by zdragnar »

quaintdev wrote: post #67
crazygringo wrote: post #5

Please no. Phones go into tunnels, run out of battery, and go indoors where there's a poor signal or none at all. They make terribly unreliable servers. Not to mention how much faster this would chew up battery life. If you want to keep a spare phone plugged in all the time in your closet, connected to Wifi/Ethernet, and hack it to be a webserver, then go ahead. But webservers on mobile devices, being used in a mobil…

Author here. I understand what you are saying but this is not supposed to be full fledged social media kind of websites we want to run on phone. The site could just be a simple way for your loved ones to check up on you without calling or messaging you. I remember the Nokia web server used to share battery and other vital info on website. There are lot many things that can be done with a tiny web server.

"Why aren't you answering my calls? I can see you have battery left!"

Sorry ma, I was in a meeting.

Really, our proclivity for instant gratification over patience is unhealthy.

I'm sure there's all sorts of neat ideas for what could go onto a phone's website, but I can't say that I see the appeal, personally.

Re: Every phone should be able to run personal websites

#78

Post by indymike »

tmpX7dMeXU wrote: post #35
jeroenhd wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody is saying that everyone should host websites on your phone. The author is saying you should be able to, if you so choose. Android and iOS put restrictions on what applications on a phone are able to do, often for arbitrary reasons. You can't hack a web server in your closet to run on port 80 without jailbreaking your phone/unlocking the bootloader and rooting your phone, and I can't really think of a reason wh…

I chose to purchase a phone that can’t do this. I’m fine with that. I’d rather my phone be how it is. I don’t need some nerd fighting for me in some imagined battle. I am incredibly sick of this line of reasoning. Anyone who spends any time arguing this point quite clearly has too much time on their hands and no real problems. It’s utterly cringey. Leave me be.

> Anyone who spends any time arguing this point quite clearly has too much time on their hands and no real problems.

Actually, trying to argue against something that you will not use, but others would use, that has no other effect on you, harms yourself (you might change your mind later) and harms others.

Re: Every phone should be able to run personal websites

#79

Post by indymike »

notatoad wrote: post #47

hosting a website properly just isn't that difficult or expensive. if somebody wants to have a website, they can. there's plenty of free options that don't involve a device that has intermittent connectivity, runs off a battery, and that you probably don't want to enable remote access to for security reasons. the reason people don't set up personal websites is that they don't want to. not becauase they can't host it.…

> there's plenty of free options that don't involve a device that has intermittent connectivity, runs off a battery,

I have a great reason to host a website on my phone. I want to. It's my phone. I'm paying for the service. You can do what you want with your phone, but please, don't tell me what I can and can't do with my property.

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