In a single instance of 4GB RAM and 2vCPU only one app is running as opposed to entire desktop applications running on usual 8GB machines. We are not saying the platform will and should replace your desktops or laptops, infact we feel both will co-exist together. Users could do activities specific to cloud apps like - use the browsers as VPN, leisure activities, testing their weekend fun projects, conducting interviews on the dev tools they use in their companies etc.
There’s usually a “pricing” top section to make things transparent and easy to find. Also, there’s no free lunch. You should be clear about how you plan to sustain the business long-term.
All apps on our platform are either ephemeral or persistent as the user chooses. Ephemeral workspaces by nature are short-lived as long as the user is using them and would be deleted (along with all the user data) immediately after the session ends while persisted workspaces will persist user data across sessions with multiple layers of security. Please read the faqs and privacy policy.
I am curious as well with the last questions: Encrypted at rest? And can the owners (service maintainers) see the saved data? Scanning through the faqs and privacy pages, the only bit I found relevant is in Privacy Policy section 14 "Data Security" which, as most privacy policies, is quite vague on details. I'd say I would be wary about putting in my Github key to download my repo to use Android Studio or IntelliJ, or credentials/keys to access services for testing my codes, whether the session is ephemeral or persistent. It's hard to tell.
It works after disabling ad blockers. Turns out the page attempts to access an IP address profiling service to fingerprint or something – it gets a bunch of data like your ISP etc. If that request fails you can only see the marketing page (no error).
Yes, you are right all the workspace data is deleted once the user requests for it to be deleted. This includes everything the user may have done in that workspace.
Also, specifically around the browsers unless the user opts in for save session the workspace along with its data is auto deleted after the session ends.
Furthermore if the user is inactive for more than 48 hours we send a reminder that their workspace will be deleted after another 48 hours. Apologies for lack of clarity in our privacy policy, we will soon update it.
Hello HN folks, we are super excited to release the public beta version of neverinstall.
What is neverinstall?
neverinstall allows users to access & run native applications like - Android studio, Chrome, VS Code, IntelliJ, etc. through a local browser.
How does it work?
We run these applications in cloud-native environments with virtual displays and stream the video directly to the browser while the user's input context (mouse, keyboard, etc) is forwarded to these applications in near real-time.
The platform has a very generous free plan for all free applications and as we improve our cloud we intend to make all free applications fully free always. The paid applications will have a BYOL or a fully-loaded pay-as-you-go model. Of course, these might change in the future but keeping the free applications with a generous free plan will not.
We believe as access to good and cheap high-speed internet grows everywhere, accessing and using software should change and be a lot more optimal than what it is now.
Some key problems we are trying to solve -
Saving hardware resources
Modern-day applications are becoming resource-heavy, users often need to make the decision on whether to upgrade their devices or seek out a new one. This is expensive and wasteful.
Real-time collaboration
Our favorite desktop apps often lack real time collaboration, we are trying to bring these applications to the web so that we're able to bring more flexibility into app workflows.
Accessibility
A lot of apps are not accessible on multiple devices especially the developer apps. We solve this by bringing these apps to your web browser and make them truly accessible from any device or OS.
A tiny suggestion, a better responsive layout for the page would be better, my page is fixed on a zoom-in 125%, the page get messy when I open the page.
There is no catch, think of us more of a google, apple app store equivalent to desktop apps where we intend to make money through the desktop apps publishers as we grow.
Why would publishers pay us? They dont have to worry about piracy and users environment as everything is sandboxed.
With us they can give on demand pay-as-you-go option to users as opposed to expensive annual licenses.
Signed out and signed back in. No "launch button" still.
EDIT: I was able to launch an app after disabling my ad-blocker, but
- the latency for clicks/keystrokes was > 1000ms (despite choosing a server within the same country)
- the video resolution was poor (despite fast.com claiming 240Mbps)
- the app window was stuck to the bottom right corner and I could not get it to fill my screen
- the app kept picking up ghost key strokes ("key" would result in "keeeeeey")
All this aside, I appreciate the intent behind creating this product. From an engineering perspective some improvements are warranted, and I'm sure you guys will get there. All the best. :)
We are a funded startup and are working really hard to grow and never shut shop. Even if things dont go well we will provide all our users an option and enough time to backup their data.
We are positioning it as a free platform for free apps and currently all apps are free on our platform. As we are running single app on a instance of 4GB RAM and 2vCPU, we feel it's more than enough to run a single app compared to multiple apps running in your usual 8GB laptops.
In the paid plan you have a list of options to select. Custom RAM, VCPU and the number of hours. Please visit the plan section from the platform. https://neverinstall.com/plan
It is a free platform for free apps with 4GB RAM & 2VCPU, only if you need custom RAM and VCPU you can explore creating a custom plan with prices as low as approx 2$ for 5GB RAM and 3VPU for 5 hours usage.
