Actually I think I do know: there are a couple of competitors to BrowserBox operating around the world, one based in Europe, one in the Americas, that all use a similar WebRTC video streaming method out of containerized headful Chrome with getUserMedia extensions.

Our method is different, but lower resource usage, and more customizable. Theirs requires GPUs and has higher base costs. But that's not the thing they're mad about: it's actually much more inflexible because they are not instrumenting headless Chrome, they are just streaming the viewport of headful using xvfb.

They can't 'downgrade' off GPUs because their whole video codec depends on it, and they don't / can't control if the browser is paused via an alert modal, doing a basic auth prompt, downloading a file. Even multiple tabs are a major challenge for that method, and mobile form factors? Basically a non-starter.

These competitors resent our flexibility and are jealous of our larger control of the browser that enables us to more easily deliver all these things. They're concerned that implementing the same will run them afoul of our codebase, and they actually hoped to use/test/deploy BrowserBox when it was open-source, but became furious when we made it require a paid license for commercial use.

Consequently, they've been acting shady across a range of threads, trying to "not compete" with us by using concern trolling in an attempt to tarnish our reputation. Shadily and dodgily not competing but being abusive and dishonest!

The sad thing is: I like their products! I respect their technical accomplishments and admit they have better quality video streaming! At least right now -- but we never optimized for that.

The issue is we can "snap in" a video codec layer whenever we please, if we want. They have 'run the experiment' and proved it is indeed possible to achieve real-time interactive streaming at relatively low latency, albeit higher fixed resource cost. This is appropriate for some applications!

It's just that the method they chose has less control and customizability, and they cannot "downgrade" out of their rigid set up because they have no alternative. They were lured by the promise of higher quality streaming into a more inflexible architecture, while we pursued the "low end" of virtual browsers for automation which ended up giving us abundant control, and low latency streaming that's more flexible overall, not just across devices, but on low resource situations, while also performing very well at the high end.

They have really ramped up their shady tactics since we launched CloudTabs and integrated with Puter. CloudTabs is our BrowserBox demo Saas, that was just meant to be a big funnel for licensees but ended up growing independently. Since launching 18 days ago we already have 6500+ users, just through Puter. We have a bunch more going straight to CloudTabs. It's crazy. Nothing can stop this train! Not even the lies of phoney 'competitors' acting shadily from the corners instead of actually competing with integrity! Hahaha!!! :)

Another commenter has dealt with that:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40105915

This usage is considered "at arms length".

If you're interested in chai, I encourage you to check out a way it's being used for real in this live demo of BrowserBox / CloudTabs: https://browse.cloudtabs.net/signupless_sessions

Search for a docx, PDF file whatever and you can convert to images without ever downloading to your device. We've got 6000+ users in 17 days on our Puter Browser app: https://puter.com/app/cloudtabs-browserbox

We have a lot of exciting things coming soon, too. :)