Browserflow
Dev tools
browser automation
SHOW HN2021
707points
209comments
#23of 2,533 in 2021
Top 1%of 2021 by points
How HN took it
CuriousMostly questions and neutral comments
42 positive, 78 neutral or asking, 2 mixed, 31 critical, out of 153 comments about the project. Thread score +0.13.
Idea: 18 for, 6 againstDesign: 9 for, 1 againstPricing: 0 for, 8 againstExecution: 1 for, 7 againstPrivacy: 0 for, 7 against
The thread, comment by comment
Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.
positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker
What HN said
What people liked
Polished, beautiful UI and demo
From 4 comments
Beautiful UI. Hope this takes off. Love the simplicity of the design and the ease of use. If it could make writing my Cypress UI tests easier, that might be another adjacent…
catchmeifyoucan on HNBeautiful UI. What's the framework -- React? Vue? Angular?
weka on HNThis looks really, really nice. I had my doubts going into it but the demo really blew that away. I saw you can save to CSV, can it save to other file formats?
hk1337 on HNThis is so slick. I think I'll give it a try. Thanks!
hnrodey on HN
Useful for scraping and repetitive tasks without code
From 3 comments
Really neat, that's the kind of stuff I always wanted someone to build. I think a marketplace of workflows would be a great next step, so that you can have someone else…
jokethrowaway on HNYES! I have been wanting a solution to automate some of my simpler web-scraping needs, that also need an element of human control. Thank you for making it so i didnt have to :)…
mrwww on HNI definitely would have loved this in February when I had to upload 40 genomes to the NCBI, using the same format. Cheers and this looks awesome.
VeninVidiaVicii on HN
Objections
Pricing seems high
From 2 comments
Do you think you would buy this if it does? Seems pricing is high
kyawzazaw on HNWhy should I pay for this if Automa is free open source and better? https://github.com/Kholid060/automa
phpisatrash on HN
Cloud runs and Google Drive storage raise privacy concerns
From 2 comments
> and save them to Google Drive No, thank you. Please offer a local save option.
KennyBlanken on HNhmm, I installed extension, clicked on "Get Started", allowed permissions, and am then presented with a signup/signin page and no way to skip it. I just want to run some macros…
mountainboy on HN
Does not support Firefox
From 3 comments
I would love it if this extension was made for Firefox!
fender256 on HNExcellent work; I started the demo with usual jaded attitude, but then - WOW - nice - I'll have good uses for that! Can you drive actions from a spreadsheet or table? The…
toss1 on HNThis looks really interesting! Do you have any plans to port it to also run on Firefox?
nzach on HN
Requests
Firefox support
From 3 comments
I would love it if this extension was made for Firefox!
fender256 on HNThis looks really interesting! Do you have any plans to port it to also run on Firefox?
nzach on HNExcellent work; I started the demo with usual jaded attitude, but then - WOW - nice - I'll have good uses for that! Can you drive actions from a spreadsheet or table? The…
toss1 on HN
Local save option instead of Google Drive
From 2 comments
> and save them to Google Drive No, thank you. Please offer a local save option.
KennyBlanken on HNFYI you can run this tool locally, but it cannot save the results locally. It requires Google Drive to upload the data to a spreadsheet. File download/screenshot does support…
morbm on HN
S3-compatible storage target
From 2 comments
Something to consider is to support an s3 compatible target [1], so a user could target AWS, Backblaze, their own minio instance, etc. Of course don’t spend the cycles building…
toomuchtodo on HNI'm not (yet) a Browserflow user, but it's something that I'm going to either pitch or just skunk into my workflow. But when that time comes, I will absolutely need a first-party…
dotancohen on HN
Questions
Does it work without signup for local flows?
From 2 comments
hmm, I installed extension, clicked on "Get Started", allowed permissions, and am then presented with a signup/signin page and no way to skip it. I just want to run some macros…
mountainboy on HNWhy would I need to signup if I only ever want to run local flows?
TavsiE9s on HN
How are cookies and authentication handled in cloud runs?
From 2 comments
Congrats, looks great, especially the UX. Could you elaborate on cloud runs and cookies? E.g.: - How are the cookies obtained? I saw that in the video you clicked the "add"…
thih9 on HNNice work! I've been trying a few similar tools. How do you handle auth (e.g. LinkedIn) when the work is running in the cloud?
mritchie712 on HN
Alternatives named
iMacros, Selenium IDE, UI.vision
From 2 comments
I like the name. But how is this extension different from iMacros, Selenium IDE or UI.vision? These extensions are some well-known browser automation tools, each with > 100K…
RandomBookmarks on HNSuch a thing already exists. The ui.vision extension is roughly the same, but it runs locally (no cloud): https://ui.vision/rpa/docs/selenium-ide/capturescreenshot
RandomBookmarks on HN
Automa (free, open source)
From 1 comment
Why should I pay for this if Automa is free open source and better? https://github.com/Kholid060/automa
phpisatrash on HN
UiPath and Microsoft Power Automate
From 2 comments
Can you compare with UiPath?
visarga on HNSounds similar to Microsoft Power Automate, though Power Automate works with browsers other than Chrome.
skrowl on HN