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Show HN: GoGoBrowse – A Peer to Peer Web Browser

26 points by ddj231 3y ago

Hi HN! GoGoBrowse is a side project I've been working on that allows 2 users to browse the web together while voice chatting. It's a proof of concept for a new model of browsing the web I've been thinking about. My thought is that before a leap to a 3D Metaverse, we need a 2D Metaverse, which is simply social web browsing. I wrote more about it here: https://gogobrowse.com/before-the-metaverse-we-need-a-new-web-browser https://gogobrowse.com/before-the-metaverse-we-need-a-new-we... Though the goal of an entirely social web browser is still quite a ways off, I think of this as a small first step in that direction. I'd love any feedback on the app itself, and the general concept of social web browsing.

debdut 3y ago
wow
ddj231 3y ago
I've been working GoGoBrowse in the evenings on and off for the last couple of weeks. The audio chat is built with WebRTC, and a signaling server. Users send each other urls in a peer to peer way, just like audio data (so no urls are sent to the server). The browser then navigates to the url received. The browser itself is a Chromium Browser (the Electron BrowserView). The website is built with Notion + Super.so. Let me know if you have any questions :)
- tommoor 3y ago
  Are there technical reason this couldn't be achieve as a browser extension? Or is more for just the learning experience.
  - ddj231 3y ago
    With the current direction, I believe it would work as a browser extension. At first I tried to send the whole dom from one user to another, so users would see the exact same thing (no personalization like some sites do) -- and that didn't work out. It was easy to stream the html from one user to another via webrtc but the styles and javascript seemed non trivial. So I landed at this more simple version. I haven't experimented much with browser extensions but for that approach, I would just create the peer connection between users in the extension. And simulate a click whenever a leader changes urls. (that may actually be better than this current Chromium browser version)
KomoD 3y ago
Yeah I'm not downloading a random ZIP from some website that is just a Notion document And when the "Disclaimer" is copy-paste with "[business name]" in it "The information contained in this website is for general information purposes only. The information is provided by [business name]"
- ddj231 3y ago
  Point taken. This is a side project to get conversations going on social browsing in general (not my full time gig) -- I think I may just open source the repo so people can build themselves
pipeline_peak 3y ago
Why not just share a screen on discord etc? I feel this would just be toe stepping
- ddj231 3y ago
  The difference would be that you and a friend are on the same web page, like a news article (the same location), but you still retain control of your page. Scrolling, etc. Also you can sync YouTube videos, so you get better quality than you would via screen share.
  - pipeline_peak 3y ago
    I mean with screen sharing, I’d still retain control. I never saw YouTube quality as an issue, but there are watch together extensions for discord. I think your better off just making an extension.
  - graderjs 3y ago
    Agree. There's things you can do by virtualizing or instrumenting the browser that you can't with just screen sharing. It's a more specialized technology that powers more specific use cases. If folks like this, they may also be interested in the neko project: https://github.com/m1k1o/neko https://github.com/m1k1o/neko Or even a similar work of my own company: BrowserBox Pro -- where you can share a link to a single browser with multiple people. Co-browsing or co-operative / collaborative browsing is the "term of art" I believe. https://github.com/dosyago/BrowserBoxPro https://github.com/dosyago/BrowserBoxPro
ddj231 3y ago
I made the repo public and open source here: https://github.com/ddj231/GoGoBrowse-Client https://github.com/ddj231/GoGoBrowse-Client (forgive the spaghetti code -- I treated this more like a hackathon to get a proof of concept working)

26 points by ddj231 3y ago

debdut 3y ago

wow

ddj231 3y ago

I've been working GoGoBrowse in the evenings on and off for the last couple of weeks. The audio chat is built with WebRTC, and a signaling server. Users send each other urls in a peer to peer way, just like audio data (so no urls are sent to the server). The browser then navigates to the url received. The browser itself is a Chromium Browser (the Electron BrowserView). The website is built with Notion + Super.so. Let me know if you have any questions :)

tommoor 3y ago
Are there technical reason this couldn't be achieve as a browser extension? Or is more for just the learning experience.
- ddj231 3y ago
  With the current direction, I believe it would work as a browser extension. At first I tried to send the whole dom from one user to another, so users would see the exact same thing (no personalization like some sites do) -- and that didn't work out. It was easy to stream the html from one user to another via webrtc but the styles and javascript seemed non trivial. So I landed at this more simple version. I haven't experimented much with browser extensions but for that approach, I would just create the peer connection between users in the extension. And simulate a click whenever a leader changes urls. (that may actually be better than this current Chromium browser version)

KomoD 3y ago

Yeah I'm not downloading a random ZIP from some website that is just a Notion document And when the "Disclaimer" is copy-paste with "[business name]" in it "The information contained in this website is for general information purposes only. The information is provided by [business name]"

ddj231 3y ago
Point taken. This is a side project to get conversations going on social browsing in general (not my full time gig) -- I think I may just open source the repo so people can build themselves

pipeline_peak 3y ago

Why not just share a screen on discord etc? I feel this would just be toe stepping

ddj231 3y ago
The difference would be that you and a friend are on the same web page, like a news article (the same location), but you still retain control of your page. Scrolling, etc. Also you can sync YouTube videos, so you get better quality than you would via screen share.
- pipeline_peak 3y ago
  I mean with screen sharing, I’d still retain control. I never saw YouTube quality as an issue, but there are watch together extensions for discord. I think your better off just making an extension.
- graderjs 3y ago
  Agree. There's things you can do by virtualizing or instrumenting the browser that you can't with just screen sharing. It's a more specialized technology that powers more specific use cases. If folks like this, they may also be interested in the neko project: https://github.com/m1k1o/neko https://github.com/m1k1o/neko Or even a similar work of my own company: BrowserBox Pro -- where you can share a link to a single browser with multiple people. Co-browsing or co-operative / collaborative browsing is the "term of art" I believe. https://github.com/dosyago/BrowserBoxPro https://github.com/dosyago/BrowserBoxPro

ddj231 3y ago

I made the repo public and open source here: https://github.com/ddj231/GoGoBrowse-Client https://github.com/ddj231/GoGoBrowse-Client (forgive the spaghetti code -- I treated this more like a hackathon to get a proof of concept working)