I checked this thread, and I think my web launcher has a lot common with what you are doing.
my launcher creates separate browser environment, installs chrome plugin and let the plugin communicate with launcher app.
launcher app runs antTp as bundled external library. Since it is external app it can support dweb too.
launcher supports also tor and real internet traffic.
You can find it here, accessible via local anttp server on autonomi.
This is windows binary [http://localhost:8100/1f5b78b5481c512962e539b215a22fd7597053967d5ecc8fdbe096347aefb2e4/bundle.zip](http://localhost:8100/1f5b78b5481c512962e539b215a22fd7597053967d5ecc8fdbe096347aefb2e4/bundle.zip)
This is source code: [http://localhost:8100/012873cac6897439fc8dcad81f7be1ea344af0acf8a3dfda3e642208766e3eed/launcher.zip](http://localhost:8100/012873cac6897439fc8dcad81f7be1ea344af0acf8a3dfda3e642208766e3eed/launcher.zip)
@Herodotos Please do check out the veilid project if you have time. They are building a privacy style node system, and have private chat app etc already. They are the same team as the old ‘cult of the dead cow’
The app creates separate environment for chrome/edge/brave/firefox. Only chrome based extensions can be installed locally without need to be published. So the launcher installs local folder into that chrome, and configure chrome settings to activate it and pin it into toolbar. This means there is no difference between whether it is official from appstore or local. It just works, no permission limits apply there.. Since it is separate browser environment, that plugin is not active in users common chrome, only in chrome launched via the app launcher.
Generaly all 4 browsers have its own cloned environment, so whatever is done in them does not interfere with instances that user run directly outside of launcher.
Firefox plugin requires official signature, so it is not possible to do that now, only if Firefox approves it. I did not try to implement Firefox plugin because of that.
basically there is socks5 server proxy set into browser, if domain has *.ant format, it redirects it to anttp. Any other domain goes to clearnet. It can go via TOR or not, based on configuration. TOR applies only to clearnet traffic, not to autonomi traffic. I don’t see any speed difference, tor is as slow as official tor browser. Clearnet traffic is instant.
In other words, you can simply ignore autonomi functionality and use my launcher as a Tor browser launcher:) It is cool to have Tor routing in Edge or Chrome. But be aware, that extension traffic and chrome native tracking avoids this socsk5 proxy and connects directly. So it is good for hiding your IP from website owners, but browser owners like Microsoft, Google can track you anyway. For total privacy, always use official tor browser.
So the goal of the project for me, is making Autonomi visible to the mainstream.
The reason most people use windows, chrome etc is because of convenience. Things just work, be that gaming, mounting drives, printer drivers etc. Privacy is just not high up on most peoples minds because it does not visibly impact their lives (until it does). Once they get stuck into an ecosystem, it’s very hard to leave because they have to re-learn the UI, how things work etc.
So when I started this project, I decided to focus on targeting what most people understand and trust, and that is the extension app stores. Basically just one click to install, and then be able to access the network without even knowing they are doing so.
They would trust it because the app stores have some checks for malware, and they can check the reviews from other users. People tend to be wary of installing unknown tech, and rightly so.
Once they get pulled into the ecosystem and start researching for themselves they might decide to make the leap and download the local client so that they can increase their privacy some what, without having to rely on the endpoint servers.
As they get deeper and understand the benefits, they could eventually download a native browser.
Some more features I plan to add soon:
sharing content via social media channels - whereby when they open the link it will load it via their extension, or if the receiving user does not have the extension it will bring them to the install page on the app store.
Letting people embed xorname shortcodes on webpages, and when loaded the extension will scan for these shortcodes on the page. If any are detected it will replace them with the actual content. This would be cool for embedding videos, images, audio etc in such a way that normal developers can easily build Autonomi driven websites without needing to know the ins & outs of the network, dealing with clis etc. It would even allow people to embed videos on places where they don’t control the site such as medium or even directly in their facebook posts. If the user does not have the extension installed, the shortcode could include the link to the app store install page.
So yeah my goal is to get the content to the masses in the most convenient way possible. Then they can get hooked into the ecosystem and educate themselves should they decide to.
Please take a look at the way dweb and AntTP already support embedded content and links. It’s built into the REST APIs and easy enough for anyone used to building a web page to do.
Feel free to feed anythung back to us on this, maybe open an issue on Codeberg so we can work it into the community docs on REST APIs or something new if needed.
Ideally we can converge on a single approach rather than each create a different one.
Replacing content on existing clearnet webpages needs to be done via extension content injecting as far as I am aware. The extension reads through the webpages and is able to replace content that matches the regex.
What I do then is just request the file via the extension websocket that I currently do, which routes the request to the endpoint server, or the local client and then sends the file back through the extension to the webpage, and embeds it.
I already have browsing autonomi websites via dweb and anttp, this is just for pushing autonomi content directly into clearnet webpages.
Currently when requesting a single file download via the extension, it does have to get the full file downloaded at the source before then sending it back on my solution. Which is fine on smaller files, but the bigger they are the longer it will take.
Hopefully websockets can be supported eventually directly on dweb & anttp to make it a little easier to stream the full file back in one go. I know it’s on the roadmap for anttp so far.
So users can post xorname shortcodes on medium.com blogs, facebook posts etc.
If you have the extension installed you can see the actual autonomi content, if not then you will just see a link to install the extension to view this content.
You don’t need that. Why parsing actual clearnet content? Let users use urls with specific domain, like I defined *.ant. So let say, you want to share on clearnet atonomi link, just share http://browse.ant/[xorname], browser is set up to socks5 proxy, which filters by domain name, if it is *.ant domain, it routes it to AntTP, the rest is routed to clearnet. Problem solved. No need to parse anything. It already works like that in my web launcher. You don’t need to know what links are in the clearnet website, you just need to be able to react correctly if user actually clicks them. And for that reason I have implemented that socks5 proxy, and configured it to be used by browser. This works without any browser plugin.
As I mentioned above, this solution is so users can just install a browser extension, without needing to download or run software on their machine.
By shortcode I mean something along the lines of:
[xorname-here(width=200px, height=100px)]
When that is detected it will replace that line with the actual image from autonomi, directly in the clearnet webpage, as long as they have the extension installed.
I understand, you want people to have mixed content, like clearnet html, and some images form autonomi. But for that you still need to have a running web server which your plugin has to talk to.
If you want to prevent them to install local software, you will have to run it on your own as public proxy. This basically kills all the privacy, all the decentralized speed of download and introduces worst of both words. Tracking, slowness, lack of scaling, need for trusting some public proxy operator… And your public proxy would be forever target of attacks and interest of authorities.
This can be good as demo of autonomi functionalitty for new users.
Many years ago, when I first tried TOR network, it was just a simple app, launcher that opened some browser and all the TOR logic was in that app. This was my inspiration, Tor started like that, simple launcher and common browser configured to used its proxy, with custom extensions in browser. This worked, and over time they evolved and created native browser which has all the logic of that launcher inside its GUI. No compromises, all the privacy preserved locally.
in 6-12 months? Ive been waiting for 10 years! And there is still no roadmap for privacy/native tokens, if it was happening in 6 months, there would be. Get back to me in 12 months and say I told you so, and I’ll happily eat my hat.
Please send pictures of the hat as it exists at this time.
We will require before and after images.
I must put you in touch with the last forum denizen who threatened to eat items of clothing. IIRC it was socks in his case…
No, the main feature was (and still is according to the autonomi landing page) privacy and censorship resistance. Although now you say that isn’t the case, I can see why they ditched the name SAFE.
Few people thought about blockchain analysis seriously when Bitcoin was the young exciting ‘privacy and freedom’ money . Now Bitcoin is near usesless for privacy. ‘There is some churn’ is not going to cut it when Autonomi is advertised as the privacy censorship resistant network of the future. Sorry.