This is a really neat idea. Congrats on the launch!
Launch HN: Intuned (YC S22) – Build and run reliable browser automations as code
31–40 of 76 posts
Re: Launch HN: Intuned (YC S22) – Build and run reliable browser automations as code
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
definitely came up multiple times. Next week, we are releasing our codex/claude plugin, so you will be able to use codex to create the projects and deploy them to Intuned. Intuned as a platform to deploy browser automation adds a lot - anti-bot detection, jobs, observability and more.
I see I'm already using a FOSS project for anti-bot for jobs/durability/obs i have sqlite and had codex generate an ugly but functional dashboard im just curious to know what intune does that is different
Re: Launch HN: Intuned (YC S22) – Build and run reliable browser automations as code
#33Biggest question I have is how this will overcome sites that implement aggressive anti-automation security. I can easily automate websites with existing tools until I slam into that wall.
Great question - we tried so many things and overtime, we ended up doing 2 things - custom chromium build and extension to solve captchas. In our docs, checkout stealth mode - https://intunedhq.com/docs/main/02-features/stealth-mode-cap... Also, one of our engineers did a write up on bot detection systems and how they work - https://intunedhq.com/blog/how-bot-detection-works
Re: Launch HN: Intuned (YC S22) – Build and run reliable browser automations as code
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
I see I'm already using a FOSS project for anti-bot for jobs/durability/obs i have sqlite and had codex generate an ugly but functional dashboard im just curious to know what intune does that is different
other than the stuff I mentioned, it’s the deep integration between the agent and platform. Because we have obserabiltity, you can open a failed run, and with a click of a button fix it. you can also enable self healing on a project which puts it on autopilot. we have a lot to improve on but if you have 10+ active scrapes, intuned as a package saves users time and pain.
that sounds interesting
Re: Launch HN: Intuned (YC S22) – Build and run reliable browser automations as code
#35Re: Launch HN: Intuned (YC S22) – Build and run reliable browser automations as code
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
Great question - we tried so many things and overtime, we ended up doing 2 things - custom chromium build and extension to solve captchas. In our docs, checkout stealth mode - https://intunedhq.com/docs/main/02-features/stealth-mode-cap... Also, one of our engineers did a write up on bot detection systems and how they work - https://intunedhq.com/blog/how-bot-detection-works
This never made it into prod since the scale was small, but one of the favorite leaks I found when working on bot detection was browsers which generated the same random numbers. Presumably because they were being init to the same VM snapshot and therefore the same random number state.
Re: Launch HN: Intuned (YC S22) – Build and run reliable browser automations as code
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
other than the stuff I mentioned, it’s the deep integration between the agent and platform. Because we have obserabiltity, you can open a failed run, and with a click of a button fix it. you can also enable self healing on a project which puts it on autopilot. we have a lot to improve on but if you have 10+ active scrapes, intuned as a package saves users time and pain.
are there code or demo i can view that sounds interesting
I am happy to give you a demo over a call as well
Re: Launch HN: Intuned (YC S22) – Build and run reliable browser automations as code
#38I was reading the blog post about bot detection with browsers. The first layer being the IP address of the browser.
One rather unique scenario I've been trying to work out for a scraper is eliminating network latency. My use of the site is enhanced by the request from the browser having the lowest RTT latency to the webserver as possible. This means being in the same cloud provider.
To do this right now I manually navigate to the site and have a browser extension that clicks at just the right time.
I'd really like to eliminate that manual navigation but every time I've tried adding browser automation outside of the single click from the extension, I'm immediately met with bot detection.
Obviously adding a residential proxy step completely defeats the purpose of the RTT latency optimization.
Do modified browsers drive the overall bot detection heuristic low enough that the cloud IP address itself isn't a red flag? I've seen Camoufox and will try it at some point. What other options are available to drive down the overall "score" so I can still automate the browser but keep the latency low?
Re: Launch HN: Intuned (YC S22) – Build and run reliable browser automations as code
#39Really cool! I was reading the blog post about bot detection with browsers. The first layer being the IP address of the browser. One rather unique scenario I've been trying to work out for a scraper is eliminating network latency. My use of the site is enhanced by the request from the browser having the lowest RTT latency to the webserver as possible. This means being in the same cloud provider. To do this right now…
Re: Launch HN: Intuned (YC S22) – Build and run reliable browser automations as code
#40Really cool! I was reading the blog post about bot detection with browsers. The first layer being the IP address of the browser. One rather unique scenario I've been trying to work out for a scraper is eliminating network latency. My use of the site is enhanced by the request from the browser having the lowest RTT latency to the webserver as possible. This means being in the same cloud provider. To do this right now…
> I've tried adding browser automation outside of the single click from the extension, and I'm immediately met with bot detection.
Can you explain how you write your automation? How do you do the click from the extension? Do you use CDP input commands to perform the click (`Input.dispatchMouseEvent`), or do you execute JS code and click the button using `element.click`? using CDP will give you much better score than Executing JS to click a captcha button. JS Execution can be easily detected by any bot detection provider. On the other hand, using CDP to click can mimic actual mouse movement and will make it much harder to detect abnormalities. and the click event will have `isTrusted=true` and handle detection methods related to monitoring JS executions on page.
> Do modified browsers drive the overall bot detection heuristic low enough that the cloud IP address itself isn't a red flag? I've seen Camoufox and will try it at some point. What other options are available to drive down the overall "score" so I can still automate the browser but keep the latency low?
Modified browsers reduce your bot score a lot, and Camoufox is a great option to test out. Will it work? It depends on how the website has set up their bot detection. using modified browser is a must for use case.
At Intuned, we use our own internal forked Chrome to hide the most popular signals, and a lot of the time, the browser alone without a residential proxy can help us bypass most websites, but not all of them(IP reputation has very high heuristic value).
I can't give exact recommendation on what will work with you for sure since each website has it's own ways to handle bot detection , one recommendation I can give is to try to use packages like patchright they can help alot and hide alot of popular signals.
Another recommendation I can make is to try using intuned agent and ask it to help you find a way to bypass bot detection on that website. If you can handle it using network interception or some other scraping technique, the agent is really good in these cases and knows most of the used scraping techniques.