Surfly - Surf together on the web • Hacker News Board

Re: Surfly - Surf together on the web

#11

Post by Zakuzaa » Wed, Nov 06, 2013, 10:28 AM UTC

nichol4s wrote: post #6

tmikaeld wrote: post #5

Looks just like the open source togetherJS by mozilla. https://togetherjs.com/

The difference is that with TogetherJS you will not be able to handle websites that require login. Surfly can handle that in a secure way. Next, Surfly just works on any website - without the need to write a single line of code. For example, you can use it right now on GitHub. If you wanted to have such functionality with TogetherJS you would have to modify your website accordingly (i.e., by using a special version o…

So how exactly do you handle sites that require logins?

Re: Surfly - Surf together on the web

#12

Post by nichol4s » Wed, Nov 06, 2013, 10:37 AM UTC

danmaz74 wrote: post #9

Would be great for demos, but unfortunately it doesn't work with the canvas element on my website hashtagify.me

Thanks for reporting, we just looked at your site and saw a different issue causing this problem, we'll push out a fix somewhere tomorrow. This fixes your pretty hashtag cloud.

Re: Surfly - Surf together on the web

#13

Post by nichol4s » Wed, Nov 06, 2013, 10:40 AM UTC

Zakuzaa wrote: post #11

nichol4s wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is that with TogetherJS you will not be able to handle websites that require login. Surfly can handle that in a secure way. Next, Surfly just works on any website - without the need to write a single line of code. For example, you can use it right now on GitHub. If you wanted to have such functionality with TogetherJS you would have to modify your website accordingly (i.e., by using a special version o…

So how exactly do you handle sites that require logins?

Only the controller fires the HTTP requests. The viewer just gets DOM updates, so cookie's (session secrets) or password will never be send to the follower.

Re: Surfly - Surf together on the web

#14

Post by throwaway98604 » Wed, Nov 06, 2013, 10:40 AM UTC

Does this use WebRTC?

Re: Surfly - Surf together on the web

#15

Post by uxuf » Wed, Nov 06, 2013, 10:59 AM UTC

What would be really useful is that if it would, somehow, support sites behind a firewall or a VPN.

The service could work locally, with perhaps only the interactive events synced across the clients. As far as I see it, everything passes through the surfly servers, so I'd be reluctant to "surf together" on any sites that require logins.

Re: Surfly - Surf together on the web

#16

Post by Zakuzaa » Wed, Nov 06, 2013, 11:03 AM UTC

nichol4s wrote: post #13

Zakuzaa wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So how exactly do you handle sites that require logins?

Only the controller fires the HTTP requests. The viewer just gets DOM updates, so cookie's (session secrets) or password will never be send to the follower.

I do not quite understand, sorry. I am concerned about security.

Why am I allowed to login into say, Trello.com, while I am on surfly.com domain? Shouldn't my browser's cross-domain security policy prohibit this practice?

Is it all being done through a proxy? If so, is it not true that a lot of sites don't work over proxy?

[Edit] And if it is indeed proxy, doesn't that mean you can read my password(s) in clear text?

Re: Surfly - Surf together on the web

#17

Post by asadlionpk » Wed, Nov 06, 2013, 11:22 AM UTC

You seem to be acting as a proxy and so I am sending all my passwords to your site so you login on my behalf.

I guess the better approach would have been to load the website on client end and only send the DOM to your server OR the other client directly.

Re: Surfly - Surf together on the web

#18

Post by asadlionpk » Wed, Nov 06, 2013, 11:26 AM UTC

asadlionpk wrote: post #17

You seem to be acting as a proxy and so I am sending all my passwords to your site so you login on my behalf. I guess the better approach would have been to load the website on client end and only send the DOM to your server OR the other client directly.

Also, because you are acting like a proxy AJAX based DOMs seem to cause errors?

Re: Surfly - Surf together on the web

#19

Post by nichol4s » Wed, Nov 06, 2013, 11:35 AM UTC

asadlionpk wrote: post #18

asadlionpk wrote: post #17

You seem to be acting as a proxy and so I am sending all my passwords to your site so you login on my behalf. I guess the better approach would have been to load the website on client end and only send the DOM to your server OR the other client directly.

Also, because you are acting like a proxy AJAX based DOMs seem to cause errors?

We take this into account, we sandbox the website in such a way that AJAX request will work properly.

Re: Surfly - Surf together on the web

#20

Post by nichol4s » Wed, Nov 06, 2013, 11:40 AM UTC

asadlionpk wrote: post #17

You seem to be acting as a proxy and so I am sending all my passwords to your site so you login on my behalf. I guess the better approach would have been to load the website on client end and only send the DOM to your server OR the other client directly.

We've considered that, but if you want to share everything that is being shown, you will also need be able to have access to that as well.

If you do it purely through some sort of script include, you will not be able to hook into 3rd party widgets for example and there are more things that are problematic.