Thank you very much for the big compliment! I feel very happy to hear it.
A lot of people in this thread talked about proxies, as in "why did you not implement a proxy" or "I implemented this but as a proxy"
The main advantage I see of this approach over a proxy is: simplicity.
The core of this is approximately 10 lines of code. The reason is it can hook into the commands and events of the browser's built in Network module.
I think there's no need to build a proxy, if you can already program the browser's in built Fetch module.
I think proxies have issues such as distribution (how do you distribute your proxy? As a cumbersome download that requires set up? As a hosted service that you have to maintain and cost?), and security (how do you handle TLS?), and complexity (I built this in a couple of hours over 2 days, one of the "obligatory bump" projects added to this thread is a proxy and has thousands of commits).
The biggest problem I see is the complexity. I feel a proxy would create a tonne of edge cases that have to be handled.
I did not mind sacrificing the benefits of a proxy (it can work on all browsers, and on any device), because I did not want to run my own server for this, but rather, crucially (I feel) give people back the power and control over their own archive. Even more importantly for me is I want to just make this the easiest way to archive for a particular set of users (say, Chrome users on Desktop), really get that right and then if that works, move to other circles later (such as mobile users, or other browsers).
Anyway, thanks for your kind comment, it really encourages me to share more about this.
I read some of your comment history but I can't get a lock on who you are, but you seem pretty interesting. Do you mind sharing a GitHub or something? If not, but you'd like to continue chatting, email me cris@dosycorp.com
I love how it uses the browsers debug port to save literally everything. I have often dreamed of “a Google for everything I’ve seen before”.
I recently spent some time making something like this and hope to release it soon as FOSS. However, it differs in some critical ways.
I desire to:
- save pages of interest, but not a firehose of everything I ever see
- save from anywhere on any internet device (eg mobile phone)
- Archive rich content like YouTube videos or songs even if I do not watch the entire (or any of) the video, and supporting credentials (eg .netrc)
Looking forward to digging deeper into this thread and your project for more ideas!