WRP 3.0 Beta ready for testing

(This is a guest post from Antoni Sawicki aka Tenox)

I have released WRP 3.0 for testing. It’s currently a browser-in-browser server rather than a true proxy, but that’s in the works. Please try it out and let me know. Usage instructions are on the main github project page.

Today using trickery I was able to login to my reddit account from Mosaic:

Update: just added the missing image quantizer so that the color number input box actually does something useful. Now you can browse porn even with 16 colors:

WRP Runs on Windows

(This is a guest post by Antoni Sawicki aka Tenox)

Thats right, the new beta version of Web Rendering Proxy runs natively on Windows. Single EXE, no libraries or dependencies required. Only Chrome Browser.

I took a Internet Explorer 1.5 for a spin today while WRP was running on my Windows 10 PC. Worked just fine.

I have added Prev/Next buttons so that you can easily “scroll” through long pages.

ISMAP support has been added, proof:

You can download a preview build on github.

Web Rendering Proxy – Overdue Status Update

(This is a guest post from Antoni Sawicki aka Tenox)

There hasn’t been a major update to WRP (Web Rendering Proxy) in 5 years or so. Some new features have been added thanks to efforts of Claunia but the whole project was mostly impeded with mass migration of the whole Internet to SSL/TLS/https. It does semi work somehow thanks to sslstrip but the whole stack is an unmaintainable pile of crap which I’m not going to update any more.

A new rewrite from scratch is well under way. This time written in GoLang and using Chrome DevTools Protocol. Things should be much more stable and future proof.

Far from complete but I have a fully functional prototype now working in just under 100 lines of code:

UPDATE 1: You can play with it if you want. Please do not submit any bug reports just yet, as this is just a development version. Note that WRP is currently not a true HTTP proxy but rather browser-in-browser. Proxy may be supported later.

UPDATE 2: As of today online setting of size, scaling and scrolling is supported. I’m specifically happy about the scrolling feature albeit it probably needs a better user input, like prev/next page.

Windows version still doesn’t work due to an upstream bug, which is probably easy to fix.

ISMAP is currently in development.

BUILDING A 10BASE5 “THICK ETHERNET” NETWORK

Vampires!

Totally not my photo, or article, but this is making the rounds ‘BUILDING A 10BASE5 “THICK ETHERNET” NETWORK‘, over on Matt’s Tech Pages.

I didn’t get into networking professionally until 1996. It was at a certain bank that is full of Americans in a hurry. Anyways, as part of the line of interrogation from some outside consultant he pulls out a vampire and does the old man rant of ‘I bet this kid doesn’t even know what this is!’ bit.

Except I did.

Although to be honest, I’d never seen one in person, but I’d read about them in some ancient book about Unix Networking that went over in great details how to put down the cable, how to pay attention to the black bands in the cable, as they are the only place you should be tapping, how to use the tapping kit, and how to secure the vampire to the cable, along with the appropriate AUI cable to the host (PC).

So yeah, I did get the job. The old guy was genuinely shocked.

But time marches on.

Now I’m the old man.

Web Rendering Proxy

(note this is a guest post from Tenox)

WRP is a HTTP proxy service that renders web pages in to GIF images associated with a clickable imagemap of the original web links. It basically allows to use historical and obsolete web browsers on the modern web.

See a gallery of today’s news sites. All links are clickable!

CNN via Internet Explorer 1.5

CNN via Internet Explorer 1.5

 

Reuters via IBM Web Explorer

Reuters via IBM Web Explorer

 

BBC News via Mac Mosaic

BBC News via Mac Mosaic

 

Reddit via NextStep OmniWeb

Reddit via NextStep OmniWeb

 

netscape3

Netscape 3.x visiting DNA Lounge

 

For more background information and screenshots you can see my previous post on the matter.

There are two versions. Cocoa-webkit for Mac OS X and QT-Webkit for Linux/BSD/etc. The script can be downloaded here.