I’m sure this has been talked about multiple times in the past, and is still too early to really be talked about in technical terms but…
What is the latest on ideas of an in-proxy for people, who for whatever reason, can’t or don’t want to download and run the safe client or node, to browser safe network sites or see / download data from the safe network straight from their regular browser on clearnet?
They are developing WASM code … I’m not sure what all that entails, but hypothetically, it can be incorporated into existing clear-net websites and would allow access to SAFE and SAFE data.
There is the security issues with not running the client or node at the OS level (native or in VM). For instance an addon to browsers would run the risk of tracking and/or recording of activities by the browser.
Yea, I should’ve included that was part of the assumption.
But we all know, there are those out there just too lazy or “don’t care” about tracking blah blah blah, so some number of people are going to be asking for this and some people will try and make various in-proxys eventually no matter what.
I read about IPFS and Brave integrating access to ipfs:// URIs using two options: 1) “via a gateway” or 2) “installing a full IPFS node in one click.”
Safe network would need something similar and partner with web browsers, or perhaps leverage IPFS somehow?
For interest I tried installing an IPFS node with one click and it was a very poor experience. I didn’t persevere because it was taking so long.
Making everything a full node rather than allowing apps to work just as a client is another advantage for SN versus making every app a full node as some p2p systems require.
IPFS get around that problem using a gateway whereas this is not required in SN which is more secure and performant, but also, ironically more decentralised because people on IPFS will often choose gateways rather than run a full node.
I created a simple httpd server that wraps the sn_client library here: GitHub - traktion/sn_httpd: Safe Network httpd gateway server
It’s a bit hacked together right now, but it works and I’ll smarten it up.
I’m adding support for posting data to the network too (albeit, using the host’s wallet).
I created the above to allow a simple blog to be shared on both safe network and the web: GitHub - traktion/i-am-immutable-client: Angular based client application for i-am-immutable blog
(Old post here about IMIM too: I am IMMUTABLE - Safe Blog App although NRS is different/dead atm though, I believe)
P.S. folks could run the httpd locally and access the safe network visually via a browser pointing to localhost. Not ideal to have another local dependency, but not terribly complex to setup. They could even use their own wallet pretty easily.
Also, I created a thread on the dev forum about creating a gRPC wrapper for easier service integration. This could be important for getting safe network integrated into non-rust apps/services: gRPC wrapper for sn_client - API - Safe Dev Forum
Ofc, it would be great to have sn_client integrated into a browser directly, with safe://xor being possible. Until we have that, gateway http servers can link the two worlds at least.
Also, not that other applications could directly integrate the sn_client or use a gRPC transport service, including a safe oriented browser. Now that the sn_client library looks to be maturing, options open up. If maidsafe don’t have capacity, others may have.
That BambooGarden fund could come in handy for this sort of thing too: Announcing the BambooGarden Fund
Prepare your submission because with beta around the corner and launch in the foreseeable future I reckon that they will be taking submissions within a month or so. It is there after all to get stuff done before and to aid launch.
I can imagine that a program such as your httpd that can run on your machine to serve up IOT data etc would be a useful program.
The more I think about it, the more I can see your little hacked-together thingy as a gamechanger to transition slow movers to maidsafe without having them having to run maidsafe.