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Every phone should be able to run personal websites

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Re: Every phone should be able to run personal websites

#381

Post by NavinF »

mcny wrote: post #260
NavinF wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are workarounds for that: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/xcode/configuring-... Eg if that terminal app is capable of playing audio, it can play silence to keep the app alive forever in the background. I don't mean to imply that this is practical. Any solution would still destroy battery life.

What I would like to see is devices being able to run at least to some extent purely off of the wall. My use case: I plug in an old phone into the wall, a 65W Thinkpad charger to be precise. The input for the Thinkpad is USB type C which is the same as my ZTE phone. I connect the USB C cable, attach my spicy pillow of a battery (it is removable), wait until the device powers up, and remove the spicy pillow from the p…

> not charging or using the battery at all once it is done charging, without me having to physically remove the battery

Most flagship devices already do this. They automatically enter kiosk mode after being plugged in for a few days which eliminates the spicy pillow problem by keeping battery voltage significantly lower than normal. Eg https://support.apple.com/en-gu/HT208710

> I thought this is how laptops used to work

Transients are a problem for laptops and desktops too. Eg:

- Macbooks go into limp mode by asserting PROCHOT when the battery is https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/380493/cpu-throttl...

- An RTX 3090 draws only 350W, but transients are often double that. A lotta people with weak PSUs and aggressive OCP had random reboots and bluescreens until they upgraded their PSU. The newer RTX 4090 has a better VRM which causes smaller transients so it can work with a smaller PSU despite having a 450W TDP.

Re: Every phone should be able to run personal websites

#382

Post by gsich »

hunter2_ wrote: post #231
_Algernon_ wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A raspberry pi certainly fits the definition of a "Personal Computer".

The whole "Mac versus PC" thing somewhat solidified the notion that PC refers to x86. Raspberry Pi uses ARM.

Mac is a PC.

Re: Every phone should be able to run personal websites

#383

Post by PLG88 »

eternityforest wrote: post #270

I don't think anything personal should be on port 80. Too much work! What I think we really need is more stuff like ngrok and cloudflare tunnels, in easier to use form. If it has to go through centralized infrastructure anyway, I'd rather someone else process all the traffic first, maybe even keep DoSes out, handle the SSL, etc. If self hosting is ever going to be a thing again, I think we either need that, or full P…

Lots of alternatives to Ngrok and Cloudflare - https://github.com/anderspitman/awesome-tunneling. What we need is more open source and permissives ones which are well maintained and easy to use. fwiw, I work on one in the list called zrok.io, its open source and we have a free SaaS version.

I dont think (as the author suggests) that IPv6 everywhere is happening anytime soon.

Re: Every phone should be able to run personal websites

#384

Post by roxil »

yonatan8070 wrote: post #336
roxil wrote: post #298

I see at least one very good reason why this shoud be possible: old phones. Reusing old phones as a webserver seems like a good idea to me, since they were built for power efficiency (unlike old PCs) and would otherwise simply end up as e-waste in a landfill or discarded, forgotten in a drawer somewhere. Maybe it's because I use LineageOS (and Cyanogen mod before that), but I never even knew that there were problems…

When you start up the hotspot, what address is your friend using to connect?

Your friend creates the hotspot, you connect to it like any other WiFi network and then for the address, they enter the IP of your phone which is shown on the lws app or it can be scanned as a qr code. (It doesn't work for some reason, if you create the hotspot. I don't know why. I edited my previous post to correct this detail)

Re: Every phone should be able to run personal websites

#385

Post by dns_snek »

TZubiri wrote: post #146
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…

Proposal rejected. Websites run on web server. Phones are not servers.

Websites can run on anything capable of speaking HTTP, like your teapot.

Commercial websites typically run on dedicated server hardware.

Re: Every phone should be able to run personal websites

#386

Post by _Algernon_ »

soulofmischief wrote: post #358
_Algernon_ wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the right of a handful of people to run a web server on their phone more important than the right of millions of "unsophisticated" users to not be scammed / abused by malware? Since it's inception smart phones have been a consumer platform, used for consuming content. The platform for tinkerers already exists. It's called a PC with Linux installed. Every platform does not need to cater to your needs.

> Is the right of a handful of people to run a web server on their phone more important than the right of millions of "unsophisticated" users to not be scammed / abused by malware? Are you familiar with the false dilemma? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma > The platform for tinkerers already exists. It's called a PC with Linux installed I would love for you to make the case that a modern touch screen phone…

>I would love for you to make the case that a modern touch screen phone is not a Personal Computer.

I'm always up for a challenge, so here you go.

I'd argue that a PC is a general purpose personal computer. I wouldn't count a game console such as Xbox, PS or Switch as a PC because it is vendor controlled and locked down. I'd also not consider a car with an entertainment system a general purpose computing device.

Similarly phones are bought with the knowledge that they are more similar to game consoles than general purpose computers. They are bought with the knowledge that they are locked down by the vendor and that your use of the device is going to be limited. The right to install custom software that does whatever you want has never been part of the contract.

I do support the people's right to attempt to hack these devices to do whatever they want, but I do think expecting vendor support for their wacky antics is a step too far.

Re: Every phone should be able to run personal websites

#387

Post by dieortin »

opportune wrote: post #169
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…

Unless you live in a tunnel, who cares? If you’re hosting a basic portfolio and personal site you don’t even need 2 9’s of reliability

Everyone being able to check whether you’re in an area without cell reception does not seem like the best of ideas.

Re: Every phone should be able to run personal websites

#388

Post by dieortin »

wryanzimmerman wrote: post #340
paxys wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless that device has an Apple logo on it it is 100% possible.

I thought this sounded weird so I tried it. It took me about two mins, and most of that was because I typed a minimal html page on my phone using vi. My phone has an apple logo, and the whole point of the article is that android is the one which blocks you from doing this without jailbreak. But on an iPhone it takes like one minute and zero configuration. (I literally just ran `python3 -m http.server 80` with no issu…

And were you able to connect to that server from some other device?

Re: Every phone should be able to run personal websites

#389

Post by Findecanor »

Back in 2010-ish I talked to a Nokia engineer that said that their own study had concluded that it was a bad idea to have a phone be a server, because of battery draw.

It wasn't just about the number, size and frequency of requests: the cellphone protocol at the time also required the transceiver to be in a state of readiness for a time interval in-between requests, during which it drew more battery. And the software was not in control of those time intervals — the network operator was.

(If I had signed an NDA I don't remember, it should have expired by now)

Re: Every phone should be able to run personal websites

#390

Post by devnullbrain »

andrewmunsell wrote: post #202
devnullbrain wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Phones go into tunnels, run out of battery, and go indoors where there's a poor signal or none at all. i.e. when you can't take a call or a text or read a social media notification. Why does this need to be always-available if those don't?

Because you can't predict when someone will try and hit your site?

So let them fail. It's not that urgent.
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