[HN Gopher] Show HN: TxtNet Browser - Browse the Web over SMS, N...
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Show HN: TxtNet Browser - Browse the Web over SMS, No Wi-Fi/Mobile
Data Needed
Author : lukeasch21
Score : 14 points
Date : 2023-04-21 21:58 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| lukeasch21 wrote:
| Hello all,
|
| This is my second year of working on a project[1] with the goal
| of browsing the web, on an Android smartphone, without reliance
| on Wi-Fi or mobile data. While this concept might seem aimless,
| my goal was to provide a way for people in areas with limited,
| expensive, or censored cellular internet access a way to view the
| web in a basic format. I finished work on a basic client-server
| model last year[2], and this year, I implemented a new pseudo-
| distributed peer-to-peer model that allows any TxtNet Browser
| user to use their own smartphone to run a background server
| service that communicates via the user's own primary mobile
| number. The main advantage to this model over last year's use of
| the Twilio API is the fact that with an unlimited SMS plan from a
| consumer carrier, you will likely end up paying significantly
| less than the amount you would pay for Twilio credits (averaging
| about ~$0.50 per website). There's a lot going on with the
| stateless nature of SMS, GSM-7 encoding, and Brotli compression,
| so please ask any questions you might have!
|
| I've also started up a test server instance running on a +1
| country code phone number, so feel free to test out the app with
| your own smartphone. Like mentioned in the GitHub repo, please be
| aware that I (necessarily) have access to every phone number and
| associated request that is sent. Of course, anyone can host their
| own server instance, and if you would like to share it, feel free
| to get in touch so I can add the number to the repo! Also, there
| are likely many bugs still lurking, so feel free to report those.
|
| [1] https://github.com/lukeaschenbrenner/TxtNet-Browser/
|
| [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32905496
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| Maybe it is a shame that WAP usage died off as you could probably
| get the essential information from a site with very few bytes.
| Combined with something like this it would be great for getting
| stuff done.
| version_five wrote:
| Very cool - I've often thought about trying to set something up
| like this for situations - mostly on airplanes - where you're
| allowed some kind of "free messaging" but otherwise don't have
| any data.
| lukeasch21 wrote:
| Thanks and yeah, that's another good application of the idea.
| It's somewhat similar to iodine[1] in that respect. On the
| ground in the US, this would probably only be useful if you're
| hiking in a remote area or something like that, due to how
| cheap data plans are. It might also come in handy if your
| carrier doesn't charge for SMS when abroad.
|
| [1] https://github.com/yarrick/iodine
| syntaxing wrote:
| Super cool, I like how you can host a server easily with another
| phone. Is there something equivalent but normal web browsing that
| compresses the data on a server before it sends it? For instance,
| T-mobile has free internet overseas but it's usually stupidly
| slow since it runs on edge.
| lukeasch21 wrote:
| Thanks! And yep, my goal was to make it as easy as possible to
| host a server without any technical knowledge. I haven't looked
| into the subject extensively, but I believe those services
| exist(ed) in the form of Opera Mini and UC Browser. IIRC, Opera
| Mini's Android app still supports this. Sadly, it's not open
| source, so you have to trust Opera with all your data, and
| Opera hasn't exactly had the best track record... I doubt UC
| Browser is any better in that regard. I used both about 10
| years ago when they still had J2ME versions of their apps... It
| was kind of surreal to use Opera Mini's on a touchscreen
| dumbphone because they had updated their midlet to look very
| similar to the iOS 7 version, on a much much inferior device!
| It worked surprisingly well, compressing text and images.
| csande17 wrote:
| Opera Mini does this, but IIRC it's not self-hostable.
| bilekas wrote:
| Okay this is actually super clever.. Really nice job !
|
| Edit : I notice you don't have a server in Italy, I might be able
| to help for a while at least, I'll contact on GH.
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