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Comment by hathawsh | Hacker News Reader

Grandma can't compile and install OpenWRT packages. The idea is to let developers create apps (server apps) that anyone, especially Grandma, can install on their router. The experience should be similar to installing apps on iOS or Android phones.

NAS apps sound interesting, but not what I'm looking for. Router apps have untapped potential because routers are relatively inexpensive, always on, and have a real Internet address, unlike the rest of the home/office network.

What kind of apps would developers create? All kinds! Some would succeed and some would fail, just like phone apps. The point is to unleash developer creativity. Today, nearly all Internet traffic is routed to Netflix, Google, Amazon, and Facebook. Over the next few years, consumers will buy millions upon millions of upgraded routers. I think they would like to buy routers that do more for them than send all their traffic to a tiny number of huge companies.

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Several good points. Only one aspect made me laugh. Even if I can "opkg install <pkg_name>" to run the Mozilla WebThings Gateway, I'm lazy. I'd rather buy a box that maintains my privacy and is updated periodically with security and feature enhancements. What made me laugh is that I don't fit your stereotype. I first used ddwrt around 2003 then switched to OpenWrt and convinced QCA to adopt it as the basis for QSDK when 11ac routers came out. And if all goes well with my daughter-in-law, I'll become a Grandma in 2-3 weeks. But I am looking forward to easily installing apps, especially those that respect my privacy. :)

Congratulations on becoming a grandmother! Sorry I didn't think of a better example of the kind of user I'm thinking of. "Bob the accountant", mentioned by someone else, is probably a better example.

I've also run several generations of OpenWRT and I've decided it doesn't make sense for me to spend time maintaining it. For example, I'm interested in installing something like Zulip (an open source team chat service) on my router, but I know from experience that anything special I install in OpenWRT requires custom configuration and will need regular manual maintenance and upgrades. It's a big time commitment and I have to be careful with my time.

In a better world, I would tap to install Zulip on my router, automatic upgrades would be enabled by default, and I would be prompted to also sign up for a Zulip-oriented encrypted backup subscription service. Having spent only a minute or two to install Zulip, I would gladly pay for the backup service since the developers proved that they respect my time. I would no longer feel the need to sign up for another cloud service. Privacy would win!

Your desire not to have to admininster OpenWrt yourself is legit. I don't either. The Mozilla WebThings Gateway integration work is being done by Mozilla so that they can offer the result to OEMs who would sell a product with it already installed, and the Mozilla team would maintain the sw. So consumers at any tech skill levels won't have to be sysadmins in order to achieve the privacy and security protections they deserve.

”The experience should be similar to installing apps on iOS or Android phones.
[…]

What kind of apps would developers create? All kinds!”

Give what we know of applications on smartphones, I fear “all kinds” will include many, many that claim to be anti-virus/anti-hacking/pro-security, but steal data instead, and that grandma, grandpa and zillions of others will happily install them, possibly even pay for them.

Using https prevents your router from reading most of what you send, but that also prevents software in your router from doing much, so I fear the router’s software would have to MITM your https connections to do anything useful.

> Grandma can't compile and install OpenWRT packages. The idea is to let developers create apps (server apps) that anyone, especially Grandma, can install on their router. The experience should be similar to installing apps on iOS or Android phones.

Does grandma even _want_ to install packages on their router (which is likely a modem combo provided by the cable company), let alone know what a router is? Grandma wouldn't even be able to get her shows if she messed with the MoCa for FiOS, for example.

Maybe not grandma, but Bob the accountant could install pihole or tor. If only a small fraction of non technical people start using privacy focused software, it would be a big win for the open internet.

While I agree in principle, unless people are becoming unchained from their ISP-provided router/modems, I just don't see this gaining much traction. I really hope this succeeds (or something like it), I just feel that the current ISP environment is not conducive to such disruption, especially when 98% of users are running vendor-provided modems with the default configuration.

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