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Show HN: Native apps for the browser

152 points by grun 13y ago

gprasanth 13y ago
sup
jcarden 13y ago
Have any plans to support Linux or Windows ?
- grun 13y ago
  Absolutely -- Arc is coming to Linux and Windows soon.
  - IanChiles 13y ago
    Could you use Docker as a backend on Linux? I feel like it would eliminate a lot of the size overhead, and be significantly easier to ship (a single static binary)
    - grun 13y ago
      Perhaps. Arc could also use Linux Containers (LXC) directly for the aforementioned benefits. In the future, Arc will be agnostic and support multiple hypervisors. One could use LXC on Linux, HyperV on Windows, VirtualBox, etc.
samspenc 13y ago
Fantastic! If I can run Thunderbird in a browser, I'm ready to move to Chromebooks! :)
- ep103 13y ago
  Wait, is thunderbird under active development?
  - reidrac 13y ago
    Thunderbird 24.0 was released in September: http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/24.0/releasenotes/ http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/24.0/releasenotes/ I don't know if it is just in "maintenance mode", but it seems still alive.
- withjive 13y ago
  Unfortunately such a plugin as this would be of type NPAPI. Which Google has just announced that they are starting to deprecate and have stopped accepting submissions to the Chrome Web Store for NPAPI plugins. So there's never going to be support for this to be able to run on a Chromebook.
joebo 13y ago
Have you considered qemu? Performance won't be as good, but the binary is considerably smaller and doesn't require admin to install.
- grun 13y ago
  I chose VirtualBox over qemu for performance. For size, Arc's installer will continue to shrink (it's down to 60MB from 140MB). A custom built VirtualBox should be quite small. However, VirtualBox does require admin to install while qemu does not. In the future, Arc will be agnostic and support multiple hypervisors. One could use qemu, VirtualBox, HyperV on Windows, kvm on Linux, etc.
earlz 13y ago
I could've swore I had just seen this the other day. Oh wait I did[1]! And it's still only on Mac OSX and does not appear to have advanced in the past 2 months. Well, ok, it has advanced some it appears and has significantly more/better documentation than it did.. but I'm still waiting for it to work on my Linux box :( [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6219354 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6219354
Gonzih 13y ago
First I thought about Arc programming language and got really confused.
skrebbel 13y ago
I feel like I'm missing something. If users have to download a 140MB, what, browser plugin? Is it a browser plugin? Then how does the "in the browser" argument hold up? Sure, if this gets popular like Flash once got popular then it might work (and it might be the best thing since sliced bread, really), but as long as it doesn't, how is this different from just packaging ffmpeg into a plugin and having users install that? (to take the "Why" link's example case)
- grun 13y ago
  The blog post is a little over a month old. The installer is 60MB now. Arc is a daemon that runs on your system, like DropBox. Browsers can use arc.js and instruct Arc to run native code in lightweight Linux virtual machines. Arc is a stronger approach than maintaining browser plugins. Arc apps, like web apps, are up-to-date every time they're opened. They also have full access to their Linux virtual machine and can use Linux programs as-is. Browser plugins can't provide that.
  - meowface 13y ago
    It still sounds like a kind of browser plugin to me, but the "plugging in" is done at the OS level instead of within the browser + the OS (as with, say, Flash having an application component and a browser plugin component). It really doesn't seem like a bad idea, though, so long as the sandboxing is done safely and securely.
  - skrebbel 13y ago
    Thanks for the explanation. Maybe make that part more apparent on the site. But how does the JS in the browser talk to Arc without a plugin?
    - grun 13y ago
      arc.js uses WebSockets to converse with the Arc daemon. And great suggestion; it could certainly be made clearer. Thank you.
  - Toenex 13y ago
Walkman 13y ago
$ open /Applications/Arc.app LSOpenURLsWithRole() failed with error -10810 for the file /Applications/Arc.app.
- Walkman 13y ago
  Apparently it's started but nothing indicates that.
- Walkman 13y ago
  Also it automatically respawns :O How do I kill that thing without restart?
  - grun 13y ago
    Gotcha! Kidding. Arc is registered with launchd, Apple's daemon manager. To halt Arc, unload it from launchd with launchctl unload ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.arc.arcd.plist
film42 13y ago
This is really cool, and I'm disappointed there's so much hate going on in here. I agree with points that there is a distribution challenge, but I think if Arc can get small enough, it'll be like SilverLight or Flash. This could make a huge difference for in-browser games that don't want to mess with asm.js.
nonchalance 13y ago
@grun: you submitted this 49 days ago (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6219354 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6219354). What has changed?
- skrebbel 13y ago
  A front page. I think this is a valid resubmission. Also, he submitted it before and got burnt down. Apparently (if you see the set of comments here right now), people's moods are better today.
- grun 13y ago
  - arc.io with documentation, demos, and examples in Python, C, Ruby, and Node.js. - Support for other developers to build and ship Arc apps. - Installer is 60MB, down from 140MB. - Updated to the latest VirtualBox v4.2.18. - Bug fixes, security fixes, and performance improvements. 49 days ago Arc was ready for a blog post. Now it's ready for laps around the track.
misuba 13y ago
We do need an open, documented alternative to PNaCl.
- pjmlp 13y ago
  Desktop applications?
- eliben 13y ago
  PNaCl is a liberally-licensed open source project. You can see its source code and compile it whenever you want. How much more open would you like it to be? As for documented, good timing :) Just today the first bits of the preview documentation were released: https://developers.google.com/native-client/pnacl-preview/ https://developers.google.com/native-client/pnacl-preview/
  - shawn-butler 13y ago
    Native Client also supports the execution of nexe modules directly in the browser. However, since nexes contain architecture-specific machine code, they are not allowed to be distributed on the open web—they can only be used as part of applications and extensions that are installed from the Chrome Web Store.
    - eliben 13y ago
      Right - but this is specifically the limitation lifted by PNaCl.
      - shawn-butler 13y ago
        Yes, sorry I should have provided some context to the copy/paste. I was agreeing with you.
camus 13y ago
"Native apps for the browser" = it's a lie since you basically need to download a third party software on your computer ( >60MB ) which runs as a daemon (sic),it's just yet another plugin. When that thing works without any 3rd party executable let me know.
- aroch 13y ago
  'daemon' in the quote is correct, both in context and in spelling. Not sure why you felt the need to add "sic".
songgao 13y ago
Great concept! Would be nice if it's an open standard. Instead of having to download and install your App, people can implement and choose from different implementations. This makes several things possible: 1. Different virtualization/container engine: Different platforms have different good stuff. I would use LXC/docker for Linux since it's super lightweight, and disposable. Even NaCl should be an option. 2. Standardizing would also help defining how resources should be allocated/re-used on local machines. 3. People who make web apps gets to use a single standard instead of tracking different technologies. (Think about Java Applet vs Flash vs Silverlight) Any site should be able to access it through a port on localhost. It's THE port, using THE protocol. And that's it; it should work on all hosts that have the service installed. 4. It brings a chance to have it accepted by major browsers makes as a core service, which makes it easier for wide adoption.
benbristow 13y ago
Looks nice, but if it's only Mac compatible it's not going to take off any time soon. Get the Win/Linux versions out ASAP.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
quarterto 13y ago
> Arc gives websites a Linux virtual machine on every client. Nonononononononononononononononononononononononoo. No. No thanks. Nuh-uh.
- a1a 13y ago
  Feel free to provide your arguments.
  - pjmlp 13y ago
    Browser is for documents.
    - mratzloff 13y ago
      In 1996.
      - pjmlp 13y ago
        In 2013 as well.
        mratzloff 13y ago
        The existence of things like WebGL and Emscripten should make it obvious that in 2013 the browser is no longer just for documents.
        pjmlp 13y ago
        No, that is forcing a round peg into a square hole, by people that have an agenda against native applications.
  - tokenizerrr 13y ago
    Full access to my private network and excessive resource consumption are two things to come to mind
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
spoiler 13y ago
At the same time I feel both excited and a bit sceptical. This seems great because it opens a lot of possibilities. But also has the potential to turn into another "Please download and install Adobe Flash player and refresh the page in order to view this content" thing. It would be brilliant if browsers supported this natively (but then, I doubt IE ever would).
avodonosov 13y ago
Good project. The same way we can run Java Virtual Machine applications in browser, we could run Linux Virtual Machine applications.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
tbirdz 13y ago
You might want to change the name from Arc to something else. Arc is the name of a lisp dialect written by Paul Graham, and is the language Hacker News is written in. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arc_%28programming_language%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arc_%28programming_language%29
- trvz 13y ago
  It's a good name and shouldn't be changed. They're different enough things to be discriminable via context. Also, there's Automatic Reference Counting and people who don't care about proper casing ("Ios"). Lastly, if the matter gets out of hand, it's regrippable by adding the author's name in front of Arc: Paul's Arc, Grun's Arc, Noah's Arc.
- mratzloff 13y ago
  Has anything else significant been written in Arc? @pg talked about the language for a long time before its release, but it seems to have stagnated since then.
chanux 13y ago
Just don't listen to naysayers. listen to all constructive criticism of course. Kudos
ekanna 13y ago
Any plans to support golang?
eulerphi 13y ago
How is this different from XPCOM browser addon for Firefox? Why the heavy VM instead of just using C++ modules?
- icebraining 13y ago
  Platform-independence is a big advantage. XPCOM forces you to write and test for each platform you want to support.
niels_bom 13y ago
How about iOS, Android, WinPho? Mobile web use _is_ on the rise you know ;-) Would it be possible to run those virtual machines there as well?
tomw1808 13y ago
I see there are some pro's like we have it somehow with Java today. Maybe we can really start an environment which suits for all browsers to run a piece of code in it, which is cross plattform compatible and makes use of all the great possibilities that we have on a linux machine. Great there! Now the con's: With great possibilities come great responsibilities. Where do you want to start to avoid having a super-amount of unsecure boxes? Package a ready-to-use program into the box with a "just one click in your browser to start"-button, having users who run code they never look at, from people they never saw (but for some weird reasons trust), in boxes they just one-click-download-and-run? Or did I just got something wrong?
argvzero 13y ago
so this thing downloads arbitrary binaries with no verification and makes them executable on my local machine? cool story bro. probably some cool hacks in here but no one is going to use this.
tharshan09 13y ago
I got an error on OSX when trying to install the package. Where do I submit bug reports? Do you want the debug info from the console app?
aufreak3 13y ago
Google's NaCl set out to solve this same problem (pretty much), but I'm beginning to think Grun's Arc might completely shadow Google's work here for many reasons, not the least of which is total flexibility of development environment (i.e. no need for a special "sdk", except to communicate with the browser). Dear Grun - Go you!

152 points by grun 13y ago

gprasanth 13y ago

sup

jcarden 13y ago

Have any plans to support Linux or Windows ?

grun 13y ago
Absolutely -- Arc is coming to Linux and Windows soon.
- IanChiles 13y ago
  Could you use Docker as a backend on Linux? I feel like it would eliminate a lot of the size overhead, and be significantly easier to ship (a single static binary)
  - grun 13y ago
    Perhaps. Arc could also use Linux Containers (LXC) directly for the aforementioned benefits. In the future, Arc will be agnostic and support multiple hypervisors. One could use LXC on Linux, HyperV on Windows, VirtualBox, etc.

samspenc 13y ago

Fantastic! If I can run Thunderbird in a browser, I'm ready to move to Chromebooks! :)

ep103 13y ago
Wait, is thunderbird under active development?
- reidrac 13y ago
  Thunderbird 24.0 was released in September: http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/24.0/releasenotes/ http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/24.0/releasenotes/ I don't know if it is just in "maintenance mode", but it seems still alive.
withjive 13y ago
Unfortunately such a plugin as this would be of type NPAPI. Which Google has just announced that they are starting to deprecate and have stopped accepting submissions to the Chrome Web Store for NPAPI plugins. So there's never going to be support for this to be able to run on a Chromebook.

joebo 13y ago

Have you considered qemu? Performance won't be as good, but the binary is considerably smaller and doesn't require admin to install.

grun 13y ago
I chose VirtualBox over qemu for performance. For size, Arc's installer will continue to shrink (it's down to 60MB from 140MB). A custom built VirtualBox should be quite small. However, VirtualBox does require admin to install while qemu does not. In the future, Arc will be agnostic and support multiple hypervisors. One could use qemu, VirtualBox, HyperV on Windows, kvm on Linux, etc.

earlz 13y ago

I could've swore I had just seen this the other day. Oh wait I did[1]! And it's still only on Mac OSX and does not appear to have advanced in the past 2 months. Well, ok, it has advanced some it appears and has significantly more/better documentation than it did.. but I'm still waiting for it to work on my Linux box :( [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6219354 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6219354

Gonzih 13y ago

First I thought about Arc programming language and got really confused.

skrebbel 13y ago

I feel like I'm missing something. If users have to download a 140MB, what, browser plugin? Is it a browser plugin? Then how does the "in the browser" argument hold up? Sure, if this gets popular like Flash once got popular then it might work (and it might be the best thing since sliced bread, really), but as long as it doesn't, how is this different from just packaging ffmpeg into a plugin and having users install that? (to take the "Why" link's example case)

grun 13y ago
The blog post is a little over a month old. The installer is 60MB now. Arc is a daemon that runs on your system, like DropBox. Browsers can use arc.js and instruct Arc to run native code in lightweight Linux virtual machines. Arc is a stronger approach than maintaining browser plugins. Arc apps, like web apps, are up-to-date every time they're opened. They also have full access to their Linux virtual machine and can use Linux programs as-is. Browser plugins can't provide that.
- meowface 13y ago
  It still sounds like a kind of browser plugin to me, but the "plugging in" is done at the OS level instead of within the browser + the OS (as with, say, Flash having an application component and a browser plugin component). It really doesn't seem like a bad idea, though, so long as the sandboxing is done safely and securely.
- skrebbel 13y ago
  Thanks for the explanation. Maybe make that part more apparent on the site. But how does the JS in the browser talk to Arc without a plugin?
  - grun 13y ago
    arc.js uses WebSockets to converse with the Arc daemon. And great suggestion; it could certainly be made clearer. Thank you.
- Toenex 13y ago

Walkman 13y ago

$ open /Applications/Arc.app LSOpenURLsWithRole() failed with error -10810 for the file /Applications/Arc.app.

Walkman 13y ago
Apparently it's started but nothing indicates that.
Walkman 13y ago
Also it automatically respawns :O How do I kill that thing without restart?
- grun 13y ago
  Gotcha! Kidding. Arc is registered with launchd, Apple's daemon manager. To halt Arc, unload it from launchd with launchctl unload ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.arc.arcd.plist

film42 13y ago

This is really cool, and I'm disappointed there's so much hate going on in here. I agree with points that there is a distribution challenge, but I think if Arc can get small enough, it'll be like SilverLight or Flash. This could make a huge difference for in-browser games that don't want to mess with asm.js.

nonchalance 13y ago

@grun: you submitted this 49 days ago (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6219354 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6219354). What has changed?

skrebbel 13y ago
A front page. I think this is a valid resubmission. Also, he submitted it before and got burnt down. Apparently (if you see the set of comments here right now), people's moods are better today.
grun 13y ago
- arc.io with documentation, demos, and examples in Python, C, Ruby, and Node.js. - Support for other developers to build and ship Arc apps. - Installer is 60MB, down from 140MB. - Updated to the latest VirtualBox v4.2.18. - Bug fixes, security fixes, and performance improvements. 49 days ago Arc was ready for a blog post. Now it's ready for laps around the track.

misuba 13y ago

We do need an open, documented alternative to PNaCl.

pjmlp 13y ago
Desktop applications?
eliben 13y ago
PNaCl is a liberally-licensed open source project. You can see its source code and compile it whenever you want. How much more open would you like it to be? As for documented, good timing :) Just today the first bits of the preview documentation were released: https://developers.google.com/native-client/pnacl-preview/ https://developers.google.com/native-client/pnacl-preview/
- shawn-butler 13y ago
  Native Client also supports the execution of nexe modules directly in the browser. However, since nexes contain architecture-specific machine code, they are not allowed to be distributed on the open web—they can only be used as part of applications and extensions that are installed from the Chrome Web Store.
  - eliben 13y ago
    Right - but this is specifically the limitation lifted by PNaCl.
    - shawn-butler 13y ago
      Yes, sorry I should have provided some context to the copy/paste. I was agreeing with you.

camus 13y ago

"Native apps for the browser" = it's a lie since you basically need to download a third party software on your computer ( >60MB ) which runs as a daemon (sic),it's just yet another plugin. When that thing works without any 3rd party executable let me know.

aroch 13y ago
'daemon' in the quote is correct, both in context and in spelling. Not sure why you felt the need to add "sic".

songgao 13y ago

Great concept! Would be nice if it's an open standard. Instead of having to download and install your App, people can implement and choose from different implementations. This makes several things possible: 1. Different virtualization/container engine: Different platforms have different good stuff. I would use LXC/docker for Linux since it's super lightweight, and disposable. Even NaCl should be an option. 2. Standardizing would also help defining how resources should be allocated/re-used on local machines. 3. People who make web apps gets to use a single standard instead of tracking different technologies. (Think about Java Applet vs Flash vs Silverlight) Any site should be able to access it through a port on localhost. It's THE port, using THE protocol. And that's it; it should work on all hosts that have the service installed. 4. It brings a chance to have it accepted by major browsers makes as a core service, which makes it easier for wide adoption.

benbristow 13y ago

Looks nice, but if it's only Mac compatible it's not going to take off any time soon. Get the Win/Linux versions out ASAP.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

quarterto 13y ago

> Arc gives websites a Linux virtual machine on every client. Nonononononononononononononononononononononononoo. No. No thanks. Nuh-uh.

a1a 13y ago
Feel free to provide your arguments.
- pjmlp 13y ago
  Browser is for documents.
  - mratzloff 13y ago
    In 1996.
    - pjmlp 13y ago
      In 2013 as well.
      - mratzloff 13y ago
        The existence of things like WebGL and Emscripten should make it obvious that in 2013 the browser is no longer just for documents.
        pjmlp 13y ago
        No, that is forcing a round peg into a square hole, by people that have an agenda against native applications.
- tokenizerrr 13y ago
  Full access to my private network and excessive resource consumption are two things to come to mind

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

spoiler 13y ago

At the same time I feel both excited and a bit sceptical. This seems great because it opens a lot of possibilities. But also has the potential to turn into another "Please download and install Adobe Flash player and refresh the page in order to view this content" thing. It would be brilliant if browsers supported this natively (but then, I doubt IE ever would).

avodonosov 13y ago

Good project. The same way we can run Java Virtual Machine applications in browser, we could run Linux Virtual Machine applications.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

tbirdz 13y ago

You might want to change the name from Arc to something else. Arc is the name of a lisp dialect written by Paul Graham, and is the language Hacker News is written in. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arc_%28programming_language%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arc_%28programming_language%29

trvz 13y ago
It's a good name and shouldn't be changed. They're different enough things to be discriminable via context. Also, there's Automatic Reference Counting and people who don't care about proper casing ("Ios"). Lastly, if the matter gets out of hand, it's regrippable by adding the author's name in front of Arc: Paul's Arc, Grun's Arc, Noah's Arc.
mratzloff 13y ago
Has anything else significant been written in Arc? @pg talked about the language for a long time before its release, but it seems to have stagnated since then.

chanux 13y ago

Just don't listen to naysayers. listen to all constructive criticism of course. Kudos

ekanna 13y ago

Any plans to support golang?

eulerphi 13y ago

How is this different from XPCOM browser addon for Firefox? Why the heavy VM instead of just using C++ modules?

icebraining 13y ago
Platform-independence is a big advantage. XPCOM forces you to write and test for each platform you want to support.

niels_bom 13y ago

How about iOS, Android, WinPho? Mobile web use _is_ on the rise you know ;-) Would it be possible to run those virtual machines there as well?

tomw1808 13y ago

I see there are some pro's like we have it somehow with Java today. Maybe we can really start an environment which suits for all browsers to run a piece of code in it, which is cross plattform compatible and makes use of all the great possibilities that we have on a linux machine. Great there! Now the con's: With great possibilities come great responsibilities. Where do you want to start to avoid having a super-amount of unsecure boxes? Package a ready-to-use program into the box with a "just one click in your browser to start"-button, having users who run code they never look at, from people they never saw (but for some weird reasons trust), in boxes they just one-click-download-and-run? Or did I just got something wrong?

argvzero 13y ago

so this thing downloads arbitrary binaries with no verification and makes them executable on my local machine? cool story bro. probably some cool hacks in here but no one is going to use this.

tharshan09 13y ago

I got an error on OSX when trying to install the package. Where do I submit bug reports? Do you want the debug info from the console app?

aufreak3 13y ago

Google's NaCl set out to solve this same problem (pretty much), but I'm beginning to think Grun's Arc might completely shadow Google's work here for many reasons, not the least of which is total flexibility of development environment (i.e. no need for a special "sdk", except to communicate with the browser). Dear Grun - Go you!