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Show HN: Sava OS – A desktop interface for your web browser

(savaos.com)
103 points owenfar | 10 comments | 17 Oct 24 16:20 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source | bottom

Hello, I'm Owen, co-founder of Sava OS.

I think you've heard this a thousand times by now; "We spend most of our time on the web browser, yet nothing has changed." And then a "revolutionary" product comes out that puts our links & tabs collapsed on the side, with some extra features. Magical, right :)?

Well, we tried a lot of these products, and we also tried building one ourselves about 8years ago. But we felt like no UI can handle the same kind of organization our desktop can, and that's when the idea first came to our mind ~5years ago. For the past year, we worked on the side to build the MVP you see today. But along these years, a lot of thoughts kept popping up, and that's why this product has an OS in it's name (it's still cooking :).

Unlike other desktop-like products that are accessible on the browser, Sava OS is not only built and made to run natively on the web browser, but it actually has some useful features to help with your browsing management - and that's only the beginning.

There's still a lot to consider when it comes to shaping a modern, desktop-like UI that meets today's needs.. We’ve got some exciting ideas and aim to go beyond the traditional approach.

We would really love to hear your take on this.

1. AyyEye ◴[17 Oct 24 20:19 UTC] No.41873347[source]▶
Emulated desktop Operating system written in a high level language, compiled to an intermediate assembly language, run on a virtual machine written in JavaScript, executed in a javascript engine, run inside of a sandbox inside of a browser, inside of an operating system just like the proprietary one one being run at the bottom of the stack.

All so you can "create text files" on a proprietary platform that won't work without the internet. What a time to be alive!

replies(5): >>41873565 #>>41873594 #>>41874160 #>>41874615 #>>41879810 #
2. pipeline_peak ◴[17 Oct 24 20:43 UTC] No.41873565[source]▶
I mean when you describe most modern consumer software products, they’re pretty much that bloated.
replies(2): >>41873602 #>>41873856 #
3. owenfar ◴[17 Oct 24 20:45 UTC] No.41873594[source]▶
Not 100% correct, but ok, you can say that as it stands.

If you inspect the IndexedDB when logged in, you can see that everything is stored locally already. Offline mode was planned from the very beginning. It will and can already work offline if I spare a couple of days on it. But I didn't see it as a priority right now.

replies(2): >>41873738 #>>41873840 #
4. owenfar ◴[17 Oct 24 20:46 UTC] No.41873602[source]▶
And most software today requires an internet connection anyways, even if it is installed natively...
5. permanent ◴[17 Oct 24 21:00 UTC] No.41873738[source]▶
Please do spare a couple of days on it. I think noone would really believe it until seeing it :)
6. AyyEye ◴[17 Oct 24 21:11 UTC] No.41873840[source]▶
I'm just being snarky. Props for making something more polished than anything I've ever made.
7. AyyEye ◴[17 Oct 24 21:13 UTC] No.41873856[source]▶
Most consumer (hard/soft/firm/wet)ware is pretty much all around bad with very few redeeming qualities these days. You can almost feel the contempt for the user built right into the design from marketing all the way to implementation.
8. jejeyyy77 ◴[17 Oct 24 21:49 UTC] No.41874160[source]▶
as a user, your first paragraph was just jibber jabber.
9. smt88 ◴[17 Oct 24 22:51 UTC] No.41874615[source]▶
VS Code's stack is approaching this level of abstraction/translation/insanity, but it's still performant and useful.
10. fasa99 ◴[18 Oct 24 14:31 UTC] No.41879810[source]▶
In the big picture we start with the server side -

>cloud computer running a

>linux machine running a

>virtual machine running a

>linux machine running a

>virtual docker environment running a

>instance of python running a

>virtual python environment running a

>codebase

>serving a

>operating system compiled to

>assembly running on a

>virtual machine compiled to

>javascript JIT comiled to

>assembly running on a

>virtual sandbox running on a

>virtual machine running on a

>linux machine on a

>home computer

So I think we can all agree it's a mess. Magic numbers, frozen configurations, too many configurations that are different. One very elegant around making sure configurations and libraries are setup correctly - perhaps another layer or ten of virtualization?