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Wander: A Decentralized Tool for Exploring Personal Websites

Hacker News •
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Wander is a tiny, decentralized web console that lets visitors explore random pages from a community of personal websites. Each Wander console loads websites and pages recommended by the Wander community, creating a lightweight network for browsing the small web of personal sites. The tool is completely client-side, requiring no server-side components.

A Wander console consists of just two files - index.html and wander.js - placed on a web server. The wander.js file contains JavaScript objects defining recommended pages and linked consoles. This simple architecture means website owners only need to place these files in a directory, with no complex setup required.

Visitors start at any Wander console and click the Wander button to discover new sites. The system creates a chain of recommendations, with each hop randomly selecting a console linked by the previous one, then choosing a page from that console's recommendations. This decentralized approach builds a network of personal websites that users can explore organically. Wander is open source under the MIT License, available for anyone to use, modify, and distribute freely.