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Wander – A tiny, decentralised tool to explore the small web (https://susam.net)

269 points by susam 1 day ago | 69 comments | View on ycombinator

susam 1 day ago |

Hello HN!

This tool is inspired by Kagi Small Web (recent thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47410542). A common concern raised here is that Kagi Small Web currently accepts only blogs, comics and YouTube channels. It does not accept arbitrary small websites. That limitation motivated me to build Wander.

Wander is fully decentralised. Anyone can host it on their own website. It consists of just two files: an `index.html` for the Wander console and a `wander.js` where you link to other Wander consoles. It is a bit like a webring, but more flexible. Each console can link to any number of sites and other consoles.

There is no server-side code, no database, nothing to install. If you have a website, you can set it up by uploading just two files. In fact, you can host it on GitHub Pages or Codeberg Pages too.

If you like the idea, please join the network. I would love to see it grow.

More details about how it works and how to set it up here: https://codeberg.org/susam/wander#readme

pibaker about 7 hours ago |

I hope platforms like these find a way to attract people outside tech circles. I looked at around a dozen recommended sites and only two of them isn't the personal website of someone who works in tech and writes mostly about tech, which gets boring rather quickly.

There is a world of non-tech bloggers writing stuffs about history, culture and nature who would likely never learn about this project simply because they are not in the right social spaces. I hope there is a way to have them in the ecosystem too.

InexSquirrel about 14 hours ago |

Very cool. Reminds me of stumbleupon, which I lost many hours to back in the day.

Curated discovery is one of biggest gripes with modern platforms like youtube - discovering something truly new and outside of your normal interests is really difficult, and the same goes for the web. If you have a topic you want to explore it's fine, but finding random things you'd never have thought of yourself is much harder.

punknight about 16 hours ago |

I love this as a concept. The wander button is great, but it still needs some curating to decide what pages you like, and getting to the actual content. I guess I'd like to know the workflow moving forward? Just re-download the repo every couple weeks, and diff to see what new sites are on the list?

dgb23 about 16 hours ago |

I want to like it, but I don't fully understand why one wouldn't just put a bunch of links on a /wander page and maybe randomize the order?

anonzzzies about 2 hours ago |

This is really great! But my work day is ruined now.... Already found so many interesting things.

shynome 30 minutes ago |

cool,I like this

pacoWebConsult about 16 hours ago |

We're inventing stumbleupon from first principles.

collabs about 7 hours ago |

I love the idea. One small thing - Ran into a problem almost immediately

--

Nightly Can’t Open This Page

To protect your security, drkhsh.at will not allow Nightly to display the page if another site has embedded it. To see this page, you need to open it in a new window.

rcakebread about 6 hours ago |

tannerc about 6 hours ago |

Wow this is amazing! The experience and resulting websites are very refreshing. I feel inspired.

Throwback to the StumbleUpon days.

cal_dent about 8 hours ago |

Cloudhiker.net has been doing this for a while too. Great to see more grassroot-ish attempt at expanding the web (or i guess more accurately returning it to its purpose)

thewanderer1983 about 12 hours ago |

Have you considered including Gemini and gopher support? There is a very nice small web community there.

moebrowne about 17 hours ago |

It includes only 17 URLs: https://susam.net/wander/wander.js

montenegrohugo about 8 hours ago |

Really neat. Immediately added to my own small blog: https://hugo0.com/wander

deanebarker about 17 hours ago |

Love this, but I need it to allow me to break the frame. I found some neat sites, but I need a button to open them in a new tab, frame-free, if I want to.

undefined about 10 hours ago |

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undefined about 13 hours ago |

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bovermyer about 17 hours ago |

Oh, that's neat. I think to really understand it though I'll have to explore it and experiment with hosting my own Console.

bovermyer about 16 hours ago |

So, is this a meta-webring, that allows for showing individual sites but also sites that show other sites?

cosmicgadget about 14 hours ago |

Seems like a perfect addition to any links page.

Would it be possible to create a list of sites with a Wander?

weedhopper about 17 hours ago |

Awesome it’s hosted on codeberg too

xnorswap about 16 hours ago |

So is this web rings all over again?

dreko about 16 hours ago |

This is really cool, I think the idea here is fantastic!

SilverElfin about 7 hours ago |

I get an infinite loop of checking my connection and the page reloading, making it difficult to navigate back. Is this some kind of scammy site?

warkdarrior about 17 hours ago |

This will get really fun when influencers get a hold of the idea and start connecting themselves into the Wander community.

surgical_fire about 16 hours ago |

This is actually pretty cool. Once I have my own personal webpage, I may even add this tool to it.

It is a project I keep postponing lol

ab_testing about 16 hours ago |

So like StumbleUpon

superkuh about 13 hours ago |

It would be cool if the javascript were re-written a bit to only use standard long existing javascript features so one didn't have to run a modern corporate browser to use the "wander" functionality. It did not work in my browser even with JS enabled.

vydd about 15 hours ago |

Delightful!

Babkock about 17 hours ago |

Looks cool. Good job!

shevy-java about 16 hours ago |

I don't know how useful this is, but I am getting tired of Google and co ruining the world wide web how it once was. Something has to be done. I have no idea whether this here can be of help or not but the more people think about this, the better. Otherwise the quality will continue to degrade.

pbronez about 17 hours ago |

Cool idea - it’s like a recommended set of links, but integrated into an interface like stumble upon or Kagi’s small web browser

desireco42 about 16 hours ago |

Ahhh... this is like my OneRandomSite.com from... 2006 or so... nice.

I think we need things like this. To be reintroduced over and over.

touwer about 12 hours ago |

love it!

seedpi about 1 hour ago |

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myylogic about 16 hours ago |

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meridian_signal about 10 hours ago |

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thenthenthen about 15 hours ago |

Tangent but wow codeberg is not blocked by the Great Firewall?

realaliarain74 about 12 hours ago |

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AlgorithmicSh63 about 13 hours ago |

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jna_sh about 14 hours ago |

Title is wrong, isn’t it Wander?

Heer_J about 16 hours ago |

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Heer_J about 16 hours ago |

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