Thank you for the comment, glad to hear it might be useful for you.

1. There's a bit more going on behind the scenes. The back-end opens the web page using Playwright (headless Chromium) and takes a screenshot. It's this image that gets displayed in the dashboard.

2. I also first thought about implementing most of the functionality client-side, using the user's browser to make requests, but like you suspect this quickly runs into CORS issues. Using the server to make requests avoids this, as it's a plain browser request and I then have full access to the rendered page.

3. It's being hosted on a remote server now; the back-end makes all the requests for you. Potential issues:

  - I'm not sure how much load the server will be under (although I suspect HN might help me test this out)
  - You can only use it for public web pages (e.g., nothing behind a login/paywall), as the user's cookies are not used
  - Where the server is may affect the responses you get (blacklists for cheaper VPS, more GDPR cookie banners if you're hosting in Europe, etc.)