Opera Unite reinvents the Web: a Web server on the Web browser

http://www.opera.com/press/releases/2009/06/16/

by mqt • 17 years ago

160 117 17 years ago

patio11• 17 years ago

There are reasons we don't run web servers on our laptops. Putting the server inside the browser instance just makes these reasons more acute.

(Hey guys, I found this awesome site earlier today -- it has 16 hours of downtime a day, but scheduled irregularly, and any given session might be terminated at any time if the owner gets kicked out of the coffee shop where he is getting Wifi or quits out of Opera while playing WoW. Aside from that, yeah, awesome site.)

And they want to write web applications on this? Oh, THAT is going to be fun.

lucumo• 17 years ago

> There are reasons we don't run web servers on our laptops.

Ehrm, I do. It's great for developing on localhost and some quick sharing with someone near me.

> And they want to write web applications on this? Oh, THAT is going to be fun.

I don't think they're aiming to "host" the next Google... From the site I gather that they want to run applications that are for the user of the browser to enjoy by doing something together with his/her buddies.

carbon8• 17 years ago

"Ehrm, I do. It's great for developing on localhost..."

Yeah, we all do; this is HN. That's not what he's referring to, and that's not what Opera Unite is for.

jcapote• 17 years ago

cough http://code.google.com/apis/gears/api_localserver.html

whughes• 17 years ago

What does this have to do with Opera Unite? It has the word "server" in the API name. Does that mean I can link to Apache and say that they beat Opera to the idea? Opera's not saying they came up with the first local server; they're just giving the end-user the ability to serve their own content easily and without relying on the cloud.

rarestblog9• 17 years ago

I think implied was the fact that content serving from browser has been available through Gears (which a lot of people have installed), but it hasn't quite caught on. The difference (as I see it) is that Opera makes it REALLY easy (I can start playing with Opera right away, whereas Gears API looks scary at first sight).

Tichy4• 17 years ago

How do they deal with firewalls? Could make p2p chatting difficult.

rarestblog9• 17 years ago

/They do have "Use uPnP from my router for port forwarding" option when installing/

...also how do they deal with NAT (1 external IP for a whole office/city region)?

Update: Being behind NAT I WAS able to see my computer from other computer via Internet. Kudos, Opera!

Tichy4• 17 years ago

So any computer behind the router has the ability to configure that router via uPnP? Don't know much about uPnP yet.

mqt2• 17 years ago

If you have UPnP enabled, all traffic is direct. Otherwise, it's proxied through Opera's servers.

http://unite.opera.com/support/#tech_location

arnoooooo• 17 years ago

A nice use for this would be peer to peer in the browser. EDIT: I mean distributed p2p, since this is already p2p by itself.

rarestblog9• 17 years ago

Opera had P2P (bittorrent) client for ages (even though it's implementation was(probably still is) really disappointing).

Edit: "Distributed P2P"?? You need to clarify that, since this sounds like like "Database-ready MySQL". (P2P is "distributed" by design)

wmf3• 17 years ago

BitTorrent is for file transfer. P2P HTTP is for anything, e.g. chat or games.

alexk• 17 years ago

I think that internet based services are so great because they free users from technical details like "files", "sharing", "web servers" etc and let them focus on features - "communicating", "editing". That's why it's strange to see Opera promoting the old all-in-one idiom leaving user with a bunch of files on his personal computer again. Maybe I just don't get all the details and will gladly accept counter-arguments.

GeneralMaximus2• 17 years ago

This is great!

Now when someone asks me what the phrase "jumping the shark" means, I will have an example to give them.

EDIT: A second look at Opera Unite tells me this is a neat idea, but only if it ships as a separate product and not as part of the browser. Imagine a one-click webserver you can use to share music, files and photos from your PC without having to put them "in the cloud". Opera could have charged for this service, and people would have paid gladly.

Putting this in the browser is, IMO, stupidity on a whole new level.

rarestblog9• 17 years ago

I'm looking at it right now and it IS actually a button "Enable Opera Unite", with two-click enabling/disabling.

GeneralMaximus2• 17 years ago

What I meant to say was that this should not be part of the browser. That just bloats it up. A separate app would have been much better.

Opera's target audience consists mostly of geeks, anyway. Downloading and installing a separate app would not have been a problem for these people.

niyazpk3• 17 years ago

This is a huge development IMHO. If executed correctly, this has the potential to change how we look at the web. This is something that can be the starting point of web 3.0.

[EDIT: I agree. The example applications given are not that appealing.]

I have an opinion that instead of some crappy and difficult to use address like unite://mymac.chrismills.operaunite.com/ they should register a TLD (I guess it is possible. Isn't it?) like .OP or something and start using that. So my address will be simply niyaz.op

I think, (as always) someone else will come along and do it better than Opera does and opera will be forgotten again. Sad, but true.

Anyway I love the Opera for these innovations. They are the pioneers in many cool things in the web. Kudos guys!

rarestblog9• 17 years ago

I think it might be possible to use CNAME DNS record (athough needs testing) for that task or use modern registrars redirect domain / framed domain features.

update: Just tested, no, CNAMEs don't work for Unite.

DocSavage4• 17 years ago

This doesn't change how hackers look at the web. There's a reason we use servers -- 24x7 availability with network redundancies, backup power, etc, etc. Most hackers I know can run servers off their local box by using either static IPs from their provider or a proxy service. But many don't because of the reasons above. And now that there are so many great (mostly free) turnkey hosting services like App Engine and Heroku, it's never been simpler to offload all the server issues to a cloud.

The main target audience for this would be users who can't use any of the cloud hosting and also don't need high availability. My folks live by a lake with satellite broadband -- bad latency, frequent dropouts due to weather, and a host of other issues, like simply not wanting to keep their computer on all day, every day. They couldn't use this service. Other users would likely confront at least one of the issues. I've just browsed the Opera material, but I don't see a database/datastore -- maybe submitted data is supposed to go to disk? (The blog example has submitted forms going to memory!)

So why is this a huge development?

niyazpk3• 17 years ago

This is not about reliability. We are not talking about traditional servers and applications.

This is a huge development because when everyone can host applications for free in their own browser we will soon start seeing new paradigms in the way how we use the internet and how applications are served.

I am not smart enough to forecast HOW this will be done, but I have a gut feeling that this will lead us to something really game-changing.

misuba• 17 years ago

This is for people, not hackers. When your friend signs out of chat, you don't complain that he's an unreliable service.

pbhj3• 17 years ago

Do your folks currently have their own server, how about your cousin with the Nintendo DS (Opera browser) or perhaps you have a server on your iPhone (serving by bluetooth maybe?) ... my post from the 14th, http://alicious.com/2009/opera-about-to-change-the-world/

axod• 17 years ago

I think it's technically impressive, but way too many barriers for widespread adoption, also it seems to lack a killer app...

share photos? yeah can already do that, chatroom? Mibbit obviously, share files, check... etc

Users can already do everything shown in the examples, so there isn't a clear compelling reason to use it yet.

ovidiu2• 17 years ago

You forgot file sharing. It's the easiest way that I know that's guaranteed to work for both Internet and Intranet. The rest are really useless, I agree, but the file sharing service just works.

mqt2• 17 years ago

No, they can't register their own TLD. That's what domain names are for.

You can use your own domain since Unite listens on port 8840.

villagegal• 17 years ago

It is not something new. Tonido (http://www.tonido.com) did it 4 months back.

est• 17 years ago

there should be no TLD at all. China's GFW already blocked some of OperaUnite and all of my.opera.com

So why don't Opera just use a Newsgroup-like name system

jyothi• 17 years ago

There is no mention of security in the PR article.

Wondering how easy or difficult it would be for someone to hack into my local opera web server? Possibly the answer is as much as they can hack into your normal web server.

I would guess a bulk of internet users would fear to use this service. They would continue to upload than share local directories online.

rarestblog9• 17 years ago

One thing I REALLY trust Opera with - is the security. I've been using browser for ages and never had I security breach through Opera.

bhrgunatha• 17 years ago

There are a whole range of fundamental differences between securing a client application and securing a server application.

I'm not saying that the Opera browser will de facto become insecure, but it's just opened itself up to a potentially huge range of unknown exploits - all servers or software services require some knowledge and configuration to make them secure.

I wish them well, but I foresee this causing a lot of security problems.

taitems• 17 years ago

The EXE installed all the text with its localisation IDs instead of the actual text it is supposed to be localising (eg. D_SERVICE_INSTALL_INTRO). Does this happen for anyone else?

johnnybgoode• 17 years ago

I wonder if this will just be another one of those forgotten features that Opera has. There are LOTS of those, by the way.

Edit: Even diehard Opera fans have to admit there are a lot of cool features barely anyone uses. Opera Widgets? Opera's BitTorrent client?

jules• 17 years ago

I use Opera's bittorrent client. Why do you have to go through a second program to download torrents?

abefortas• 17 years ago

Because it's faster. You can download torrents with Gnome-do without having to even look at torrent sites.

iamelgringo• 17 years ago

I've been using Opera 10 since the alpha was released, and I can rarely stomach opening up Firefox anymore, although I need to for firebug. Firefox just seems so... bloated. But I digress.

I don't use Widgets, but I do use the BitTorrent client quite a bit. It's a lot more straight forward for smaller downloads than opening up uTorrent. For larger downloads, I do use a dedicated Torrent client, however.

dejan• 17 years ago

I don't like that Opera is trying to fit in everything into the browser. I prefer apps per tasks, don't want a OS in a browser, nor browser with the OS.

Was expecting more of Opera, I don't find this very innovative.

However, great job on the publicity :D

andreyf• 17 years ago

Agreed, I wee the things coming out of MozLabs a lot more innovative - "the future of the internet", if it can be predicted, seems to be along the lines of Moz JetPack, not Opera Unite.

uggedal• 17 years ago

My hunch: Opera Unite is going to be used mainly for file sharing. It's not a reinvention of the Web, but a reinvention of DC++

buluzhai• 17 years ago

In a nutshell, Opera Unite is a collaborative technology that uses a compact server inside the Opera desktop browser to share data and services.

jm4• 17 years ago

The headline says as much.

mlLK• 17 years ago

Meanwhile I'll be praying this client gets supported and extended, otherwise I fear we're in for another eMule. . .

Although I have a lot more faith in the Opera community than preWeb2.0 p2p applications. . .I better stop though, it's only 5am and I'm already speaking in hyperbole.

aarongough2• 17 years ago

One of the nicest points of this idea is that it leverages existing technologies really well. eMule requires both parties involved in the transfer use the same software. With Unite the receiver can just use their normal browser.

I think that will go a long way to helping spread the idea. People will ask friends how they're managing to share their content like this and word will spread.

ovidiu2• 17 years ago

Yeah, and it's pretty nice, because it always works without pain :)

Quiark2• 17 years ago

I think that file (not only mp3s) sharing is the ultimate goal of the internet. The current state when we have big servers to which clients connect is just a coincidence and is temporary. The future is fully distributed :)

eznet• 17 years ago

Although I could not agree more, one caveat here - hosting a "server" of nearly any flavor is a violation of most current ISP's TOS. I know we do it and get away with it (and its one of the dumbest rules ever), but they will terminate your service from time to time until you agree to obey - it has happened to me twice over a simple HTML/Javascript web server.

TheSOB882• 17 years ago

Not every piece of data is a file. For instance, is talking to your friends on Facebook a file? I suppose you could view it as a "you talking = writing, friend talking = reading" type thing, but that's stretching it a bit.

There are other examples that have nothing to do with file sharing, like GPS, Google Maps, and pizza delivery.

LostInTheWoods• 17 years ago

The idea of making a web browser that is also a web server makes a lot more sense than the current trend of cloud computing. The privately owned data center concept is unsustainable, and defeats the concept the internet, which is distributed data.

tybris• 17 years ago

Nope. The future is hierarchical all over the place. Just like the present and the past.

Dauntless• 17 years ago

I think it's very useful for transferring big files (like movie files for a project or from the last trip) to friends. Instead of using megaupload or having them install a software (like DC++, connecting to hubs and so on) to download it. It's like having your own apache server but way much easier to use for normal people.

arketyp• 17 years ago

I use HFS (Http File Server) for this on Windows. Drag n drop basically.

sidmitra• 17 years ago

Do i hear RIAA knocking?

russell• 17 years ago

Technically this is nothing revolutionary. I worked on a project that included a jetty server and SQLite database as part of the download. For the user it was a single button click and updates were automatic. The purpose of the server was to supply services that are difficult with central servers, like watching your page views to see what you were interested in. The local server talked only to your browser and the central server, but it could have easily talked to your friends. The advantage it had over the cloud is that it was using free compute power and it could be an assistant without violating any privacy issues. Of course, generalizing the service raises other issues. You certainly dont want 50 or 100 servers running on your machine.

rits• 17 years ago

Opera Unite is going to be used mainly as UI for desktop apps... desktop apps with distributed UI.

jacktang• 17 years ago

opera unite = web browser over p2p?

jrnkntl• 17 years ago

Is it too hard to fix opera.com/unite ?

vimalg2• 17 years ago

The Opera Unite API might be the other salient feature what everyone here is missing. Their India-evangelist pointed me to it on twitter. Opera is likely counting on 3rd party developers on making the cool/killer apps. Things like setting up a photo gallery of kids now doesn't require you to sign up for any 3rd party service anymore. This is the anti-cloud in the sense that you can own your data. (pending a security audit of their n-tier architecture) Disclaimer: I'm not at my desk and haven't tried the new release yet. I may be way off base with respect to the API's capabilities.

tremendo• 17 years ago

Opera is likely counting on 3rd party developers on making the cool/killer apps. Things like setting up a photo gallery of kids now doesn't require you to sign up for any 3rd party service anymore.

Indeed, but I believe Opera could get more mileage out of Unite if it targeted office/corporate workers. Apps would be more profitable for developers, and non-technical people at work could definitely use easier and more versatile collaboration tools. There is potential there.

sp332• 17 years ago

This would be an extremely hard sell. Getting IT to install a non-supported web browser? Just so random employees can set up random servers on the local network? This sounds like a nightmare to the people who have to support it.

wmf3• 17 years ago

The Opera Unite API might be the other salient feature what everyone here is missing. Opera is likely counting on 3rd party developers on making the cool/killer apps.

If I wanted to build a desktop app that contains a Web server, why would I use Unite over Jetty/Mongrel/etc? The proxy is adding some value, but how much?

rarestblog9• 17 years ago

Wow! Blog in 60 lines of JavaScript. http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/opera-unite-developer-pri...

jeresig• 17 years ago

"For now, entries are stored in a simple array, so will be lost when the service is restarted, but it wouldn’t be so hard to extend the example to provide a means of retaining the blog entries."

Oooof... that hurts. It looks like they want you to do File I/O and create your own storage layer. Opera really needs to implement client-side SQL: http://dev.w3.org/html5/webstorage/#asynchronous-database-ap...

paul9290• 17 years ago

So could you create a p2p cache program or website? Where users share .mp3s .avis and other media files via their cache?

mikeliu• 17 years ago

Didn't Windows Home Server do this a long time ago? They also had easy file sharing and gave you your own subdomain with a web interface to get at your content. Although Unite is a lot easier to configure/start and you don't need a dedicated device, I still don't think the core audience is the average user.

It's a little awkward if you need to leave your laptop on 24/7 for your friends to access...For the average user, an internet service is more than enough.

p_bclr• 17 years ago

Don't get me wrong, the perspective behind this really interests me. I think, however, that it's a infrastructure question.

Following the Google Gears argument I would agree that it is much more interesting to keep your private data localy than to serve local directories.

I'm expecting a free Opera Client-Side App Hosting (that auto-syncs with you browser :) to emerge from Opera if this catches on...

ovi2562• 17 years ago

This could be huge combined with webhooks and a JS asynchrounous DOM modification capability. Think about a web-chat app that does asynchronous true push chat. No Comet and heavy JS.

It would work like this : you would connect to the web chat. Your browser would give the server an URL on its internal server where the server can post updates. Just like a webhook. The internal server would run a JS callback each time it got something posted to update the page. BAM! True bidirectional push!

ovi2562• 17 years ago

A pity that it would need to be standardized by the W3C to have a wide userbase and thus be a viable option. And standardization would take how long ? 20 years ?

chanux• 17 years ago

Nice work for sure. Kudos to Opera devs.

Anyway I was using

$python -m SimpleHTTPServer

in some use cases of Unite.

jmtame• 17 years ago

I think I'll stick with dropbox for my filesharing.

mbrubeck2• 17 years ago

It's a different approach, but to the third-party developer (and the end-user) it definitely has some overlap with Google Wave. Interesting to see the two different approaches to web-based collaboration, and it'll be even more interesting to see how they compete and/or combine.

KWD• 17 years ago

With the direction of broadband ISPs being going to bandwidth caps, 'hosting' on personal PCs is not something I'd be looking at getting into at this point. It's kind of like why I would choose using Vimeo or Youtube to host a video instead of my own web server, bandwidth is not going to be free. I never see this getting beyond a miniscule niche.

Readmore2• 17 years ago

Can't wait for Apple to steal this idea and make it better ;)

ynniv• 17 years ago

Now I have to worry about browser uptime? People don't need a server in their browser, they want reliable services that are easy to use. This could easily have been a nice user interface to a "launchd" and some services. Server side JS might be nice, but there is no benefit to it being coupled to a browser.

runinit• 17 years ago

I wish for the day where my internet connection can keep up with these services. Where is 100/100mbit when i need it?

zandorg• 17 years ago

I had this idea in 2002, except searching of this network via the Gnutella network. I called it the Transient Web.

I came to the conclusion that this would just create fractured webpages, and a site one week could be gone the next. This is really bad for things like Archive.org to keep track of.

joshu• 17 years ago

Does anyone here actually USE opera?

Pistos2• 17 years ago

I use Opera. Have been since version 4.x, and haven't ever changed. I only keep Firefox around for Firebug and Flash (nice place for Linux Flash to crash in a closeable sandbox).

Quiark2• 17 years ago

I do now, because firefox with only 1 GB of RAM has become a pain and Opera is nice and fast.

(Any tips how to slim ffx down are welcome)

ramchip• 17 years ago

I think Opera is actually quite popular here.

lhorie• 17 years ago

You'd be surprised. Aside from myself, I know at least two non-techies who use Opera from their own accord.

tekbar• 17 years ago

Actually, P2P communication inside any browser has been possible since the release of Adobe Flash Player 10. Two Flash 10 clients can directly communicate with each other over most NATs and firewalls (in contrast to Opera, Flash 10 supports NAT punching).

Just over two weeks ago I've launched a web-based service that uses these capabilities of Flash 10. The service enables users to send files directly between each other. No software to download. If interested, you can check it at http://www.FilesOverMiles.com

Feedback on the service would be appreciated :)

zouhair• 17 years ago

Looks a lot like Tonido, with the hassle of having to keep the browser open.

akkartik• 17 years ago

Holy crap, Kas Thomas got it right. (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=656107)

JeffJenkins• 17 years ago

I doubt anyone will remember this, but way back around the .com bubble ICQ actually had a feature built in where you could host a website off of your computer using it and your contact list could access it. I don't think I really used it, but it was a neat feature.

sfphotoarts• 17 years ago

this is actually really interesting. I can see a lot of new apps coming from this. I just installed it and tried it and so far I like it. The fridge app is a good idea but needs some design work. Photo sharing worked, its not just a file enumeration, they make pretty web galleries and there's an interesting chat app too.

ErrantX2• 17 years ago

2 inital thoughts occur.

Firstly if this takes off it will make my job insanely difficult (nigh impossible) because identifying where content came from will probably be even harder (aka impossible).

Secondly it will make my job even busier because it's a hot bed for virus distribution, cracking and intrusion... they better damn well secure this! :D

From my perspective I suspect this will be another Google Hello episode :(

Opera Unite reinvents the Web: a Web server on the Web browser

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