News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Ask HN: Anyone making a living from a paid API? by throwaway106382 on Saturday May 31, 2025 @12:10PM (#44145210)
holy crap - our company needs basically exactly this for a crazy feature our PM cooked up and we were gonna build something similar ourselves - this will save us so much time
Re:Ask HN: Anyone making a living from a paid API? by Lord_Zero on Saturday May 31, 2025 @12:33PM (#44145361)
Browserless can do this for free:

docker run -p 3000:3000 browserless/chrome:latest

Re:Ask HN: Anyone making a living from a paid API? by nkrisc on Saturday May 31, 2025 @12:46PM (#44145455)
Sounds like this does a lot more than simply take a screenshot. It mentions removing cookie banners, ads, etc. which is an always moving target.

If you have one, very narrow specific use case, then maybe that’s not so bad. But sounds like a huge pain if you need that for any arbitrary site.

Re:Ask HN: Anyone making a living from a paid API? by tredre3 on Saturday May 31, 2025 @10:41PM (#44148327)
> Sounds like this does a lot more than simply take a screenshot. It mentions removing cookie banners, ads, etc. which is an always moving target.

Oh okay so it does:

chrome --load-extension=path/to/ublock --headless --screenshot https://website.com

Re:Ask HN: Anyone making a living from a paid API? by la_fayette on Sunday June 01, 2025 @04:36AM (#44149465)
Couldn't this be done with a headless Firefox and adblocker extensions?
Re:Ask HN: Anyone making a living from a paid API? by ozim on Sunday June 01, 2025 @04:20PM (#44153512)
Feels like Dropbox comment.
Re:Ask HN: Anyone making a living from a paid API? by nkrisc on Sunday June 01, 2025 @07:38PM (#44154595)
I’m sure it could be. Just like I could bake an apple pie by first sowing wheat and planting apple trees.
Re:Ask HN: Anyone making a living from a paid API? by fastball on Saturday May 31, 2025 @12:39PM (#44145402)
Browserless is not free for commercial use.
Re:Ask HN: Anyone making a living from a paid API? by sjducb on Saturday May 31, 2025 @12:47PM (#44145457)
> instead of managing browser clusters, and handling all the corner cases

The cost with running a docker container is you have to manage that container. You’re paying with dev time not money.

Re:Ask HN: Anyone making a living from a paid API? by throwaway7783 on Saturday May 31, 2025 @03:22PM (#44146418)
Exactly this. We keep forgetting time and money that needs to be paid to a developer to setup and manage stuff.
Re:Ask HN: Anyone making a living from a paid API? by Lord_Zero on Saturday May 31, 2025 @12:37PM (#44145394)
I cant edit the above post but follow that command with a request for a screenshot like so:

    curl -X POST http://localhost:3000/screenshot \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"url": "https://example.com"}' \
  --output screenshot.png
Re:Ask HN: Anyone making a living from a paid API? by mike-cardwell on Sunday June 01, 2025 @04:26AM (#44149432)
And what commands do I run if I want to do 100 screenshots per second?
Re:Ask HN: Anyone making a living from a paid API? by porridgeraisin on Sunday June 01, 2025 @10:10AM (#44151015)
Not arguing as a part of this thread but as an aside.

Can chrome even take 100 screenshots a second? What would be the max? I think it's interesting.

Re:Ask HN: Anyone making a living from a paid API? by Lord_Zero on Sunday June 01, 2025 @06:12PM (#44154123)
Yeah that's basically just a 100 FPS video at that point lol
Re:Ask HN: Anyone making a living from a paid API? by yencabulator on Sunday June 01, 2025 @04:56PM (#44153703)
Well, for some users and uses, it's free. It seems they consider their small amount glue between docker and chrome a to be of commercial value. Still better than the original.

https://github.com/browserless/browserless/blob/main/LICENSE