But my own sites (+email, DNS, etc) are running off-grid in my kitchen on a RPi which is basically a smart-phone chip-set, and can cope with an occasional Mastodon/HN/Slashdot(!) stampede. Typical power consumption ~1W. Faster response in the UK than many sites behind CloudFlare...
I vaguely remember that you used to be able to host a website, share files etc from broadband routers. Maybe that was only with rooted/flashed ones. Makes a lot more sense than hosting a site from a phone.
The objective is not to get viral. The website is for your loved ones to know what you are upto. It could be mode of checking up on you without texting or calling you. It could just be a contact card or whatever you want it to be.
> also DNS updates don’t propagate fast enough to cope with you joining different Wi-Fi networks
True. But imagine if we had perfected this since 2009 we would have had a solution today. Same goes for other things.
Do not underestimate the chances of a video of your new kittens getting shared amongst tens of people. Or the impact that those uploads would have on your dodgy 3G connection.
It makes sense to host stuff you want to share on sort of server in a data centre somewhere, even if you think of that server as basically a cache.
And no, I would still have no internet access when I was in a train tunnel, even if there had been a big push behind this sort of hosting.
Perhaps a simple solution would be a hosting service that would provide a small, basic site for free. The owner could edit the site using phone friendly tools, and people could see the site regardless of the state of the phone.
Hacker News has had discussion about a 1mb site that has offered free hosting.
Couldn't you run Termux, pick a distro, install it with proot or something, and then host any servers you want?
It seems like unforeseen complexity from that would come from mobile providers allowing the ports needed, and DDNS; if you want it public.
Although I wonder if something wild like hosting a server at a known location (VPS), using a VPN from your phone to that server, and then having DDNS and all that go to that server and be forwarded (proxy?) to the phone? Can maybe even set something up to show site viewers the page isn't available until you connect back to wifi if your phone isn't connected to the VPN or if the server can't proxy the requests to it.
That appears to be a server local to the phone. That's available on Android too in various flavours. The issue is how to make that generally available to the internet.
- it doesn’t work when you, personally, go somewhere with flaky internet
- it runs down your phone battery
- it’s really slow when you, personally, aren’t connected to wifi
- on that rare day when it goes viral… it’s not just your website that gets DOSed, but also your net connection
- also DNS updates don’t propagate fast enough to cope with you joining different Wi-Fi networks