I AM INEVITABLE

Just to add to this, this limitation is supposed to encourage more on-topic posting, not as much to punish off-topic ones.

when I was a kid, I printed used to print out websites that showed banner ads that said I was the millionth visitor, to make sure that I had the proof. It's all just LIES!

Here's some info on google.com that explains why it's not legit: https://support.google.com/accounts/thread/33394755/i-was-chosen-for-the-7-38-billionth-person-to-search-google-i-chose-a-prize-is-this-a-scam don't give em any info! And if you did, check security items outlined in that post.

Found this article today: https://24ways.org/2012/unwrapping-the-wii-u-browser/

It's specifically about the Wii U browser, and it's from 2012, but it's fun to see how people were thinking and talking about non-phone, non-PC web platforms back then, and also how much Nintendo/Sony discouraged this kind of development and use-case through their decisions to make their web browsers harder to access.

On a technical level, the Switch and PS5 browsers are much more advanced than Wii U and PS4 counterparts. They are also kept up to date and can handle larger and more modern pages. Microsoft/Valve also have modern browsers on their consoles, but these are more readily accessible and embraced as features.

Also here's the link to the Iwata Asks interview mentioned in the article: https://iwataasks.nintendo.com/interviews/wiiu/internet-browser/0/0/

I'd love to get some more formal requirements. Nintendo NSider forums (the first forums I used as a kid) used to have a rank called a "Sage", which had moderating permissions and was for members who met the below criteria:

...Not saying that it would be this exactly, but something along these lines was a really cool way to both get new mods and keep the peace around the forum. (For context, there was a category on NSider for posting game reviews, so that was kind of like a chance to demonstrate writing skills, in addition to the user's post history).

Here! I posted this comparison on reddit a while ago:

In terms of the actual DNS servers, they both use the same technology there. The primary difference is the starting page for Switchbru is dns.switchbru.com, and the starting page for browseDNS is browsedns.net. (The LaneChange redirect URL after DNS resolution is different).

For general browsing, you'll have faster web access by choosing the region that is physically closest:

• 45.55.142.122 ("Classic Switchbru) is located in New York, USA, along the east coast.
• 45.55.112.11 (BrowseDNS US) is in California, USA, along the west coast.
• 46.101.65.164 (BrowseDNS UK) is in England, UK, and likely fairs better for that side of the world.

In terms of the start page, the Switchbru Dashboard landing page allows you to store bookmarks and quickly access them or your chats. BrowseDNS does not yet have bookmarks, but does have a chat that's easier to visit on another device (like phone or PC).
In both cases, each page provides a link to the other one, so using the other page is always an option. The main drive with browsedns.net is to have a more "regular" web presence, and be less associated with homebrew or hacking communities.

The last difference between the two is that Switchbru DNS explicitly blocks Wii U and Switch Nintendo telemetry/update servers, which has utility for homebrew users.

also, the timeout doesn't count down in sleep mode, so if you know you're gonna be away for a bit, you can shut off the screen and come back.

You can also use this to see the time on the lock screen and then do math to figure out when 20 minutes are going to be up (if you know when you started)

Woah! That's great, thanks for sharing!

I can't believe this game still has no DLC. It has only 5 boards, all of which are from Mario Party 1, 2, or 3. There are so many more boards and games to pick from! Like literally almost 20 years of history and they only choose the first few years?

For some shoutbox loading issues, you can try visiting this page directly: https://browsedns.net/shoutbox

This site attempts to save drafts of posts every few seconds, so that no written text is lost. However, this feature saves to local storage and is lost when the Switch browser times out.

Ideally these drafts would persist and be stored with the account, to make getting kicked out less frustrating.

(Inspired by having just been kicked out mid-writing a new post :sweat_smile: )

Try https://old.reddit.com

I was expecting more discussions about web tech and Switch-specific sites, which does happen a little, but mostly it's just off-topic chat.

The reason we're even running the service in the first place is to help people get online, and I can relate as a frequent user of the old DS browser though, so if people are getting use out of the site, that's still great.

Maybe what surprised me most is it kind of seems like Internet forums in general are out of style, so the expectations for how to write good on-topic content isn't super clear.

@Lukeissmall jalapeno

Is this still happening? Also is it only browsedns the site, or all websites?

Do you make it at least the full 20 min before the timeout hits?

this is unfortunate

Also for those curious about how this works, if you remove the /manage portion of the URL, you're hitting the actual same-redirect service (lanechange) that the Switch will hit during the connection test.

So when enabled, that domain will redirect to switchbru/browsedns, but when disabled it returns only "ok" with Nintendo headers (X-Organization: Nintendo, which is what the Switch expects a valid connection test to do)

It's not perfect, but I have now added similar lanechange controller endpoints for the two browseDNS IPs.

That means through the following three pages, you can configure whether or not each DNS redirects or not:

• Switchbru DNS (45.55.142.122): http://lanechange-controller.fortheusers.org/manage/
• BrowseDNS US (45.55.112.11): http://lanechange-us.browsedns.net/manage/
• BrowseDNS UK (46.101.65.164): http://lanechange-uk.browsedns.net/manage/

For convenience, these pages all link to each other. I ultimately still want this to be an easier / less confusing process in the future.

Finally I should note that this redirect info is stored in memory– when the DNS restarts the preferences on these pages are reset. We do rarely restart this component, but that is another area that needs improvement.