Ask HN: Can you share websites that are pushing the utility of browsers forward?

This page summarizes the projects mentioned and recommended in the original post on news.ycombinator.com

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  • esp-web-tools

    Open source tools to allow working with ESP devices in the browser

    ESP Web Tools uses WebSerial to allow users to install, update and manage firmware running on ESP microcontrollers: https://esphome.github.io/esp-web-tools/

  • noclip.website

    A digital museum of video game levels

  • Appwrite

    Appwrite - The open-source backend cloud platform. Add Auth, Databases, Functions, and Storage to your product and build any application at any scale while using your preferred coding languages and tools.

  • jQuery

    jQuery JavaScript Library

  • Scrawl-canvas

    Responsive, interactive and more accessible HTML5 canvas elements. Scrawl-canvas is a JavaScript library designed to make using the HTML5 canvas element easier, and more fun

    Thank you for giving me the opportunity to showcase my JS canvas library, Scrawl-canvas[0], the aim of which is to help developers build responsive, interactive and more accessible canvas-based demos, infographics, art etc for their websites.

    While the library is entirely 2D-canvas oriented and doesn't use any ultra-new tech like WebGL (or even less-new tech like web workers), it does play nicely with WebAssembly-ported tech such as ML models from MediaPipe[1] and TensorFlow...

    [0] - https://scrawl-v8.rikweb.org.uk/

    [1] - https://codepen.io/kaliedarik/pen/PopBxBM (Warning: demo will request to use your device's camera)

  • three.js

    JavaScript 3D Library.

  • polygonjs

    node-based WebGL design tool

    Polygonjs [1] uses WebGL (via threejs [2]) pretty heavily. It allows you to create interactive WebGL experiences, without coding, only by connecting nodes. So you can set up geometry processing, particle systems, custom shaders or object behaviors.

    [1] https://polygonjs.com

  • telegram-tt

    Telegram Web A, GPL v3

    The Telegram web client uses all sorts of features:

    > The project incorporates lots of technologically advanced features, modern Web APIs and techniques: WebSockets, Web Workers and WebAssembly, multi-level caching and PWA, voice recording and media streaming, cryptography and raw binary data operations, optimistic and progressive interfaces, complicated CSS/Canvas/SVG animations, reactive data streams, and so much more.

    https://github.com/Ajaxy/telegram-tt

    The dev is pretty much a genius.

  • InfluxDB

    Collect and Analyze Billions of Data Points in Real Time. Manage all types of time series data in a single, purpose-built database. Run at any scale in any environment in the cloud, on-premises, or at the edge.

  • WLED

    Control WS2812B and many more types of digital RGB LEDs with an ESP8266 or ESP32 over WiFi!

    Shoutout to WLED[0]. When I was able to flash my ESP with the latest version just from the browser I was kind of blown away. I was blindsided by it even though I have a lot of ESP projects myself and consider myself 'into the space'.

    [0] https://kno.wled.ge/

  • sandspiel

    Creative cellular automata browser game

    This falling sand game runs a particle simulation in rust compiled to web assembly and WebGL for fluid simulation https://sandspiel.club/

    Plus it’s strangely addictive.

    The creator even wrote a blog post describing how he made it. Press info on the top right to get an awesome breakdown of his approach.

  • privacybadger

    Privacy Badger is a browser extension that automatically learns to block invisible trackers.

    It works for me (with FB blocked). I use privacy badger[1] and tried reloading the website after blocking facebook and twitter (by default it blocked cookies)

    [1]: https://privacybadger.org/

  • studio

    Robotics visualization and debugging (by foxglove)

    React + Typescript. Forgot to mention it’s open source so you can see for yourself:

    https://github.com/foxglove/studio

  • hal9ai

    Hal9 — Data apps powered by code and LLMs [Moved to: https://github.com/hal9ai/hal9]

    https://hal9.com helps data scientists build faster web applications.

    It uses WebGL and WebAssembly to process larger datasets, perform inference in the browser with TensorFlow.js, and enables running Python code with Pyodide.

NOTE: The number of mentions on this list indicates mentions on common posts plus user suggested alternatives. Hence, a higher number means a more popular project.

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