Thorium uses port 8000

[ghost]

Hello,

Thank you so much for your work on this app. The Internet badly needs a good, cross-platform ebook reader.

I noticed that Thorium uses port 8000 even when it's downloaded as a standalone app.

As a result you can't run code snippets that default to http://localhost:8000/ like Django (a massively popular Python framework), for example.

[llemeurfr]

Hi, our lead dev is currently testing solutions which would allow the removal of the internal http server (which feeds the internal Chromium browser). If successful, this will solve this issue.

I didn't check the current port, but in the short term it could certainly be changed for something unused by major frameworks.

[ghost]

Amazing, thank you 🙏

[danielweck]

Thorium uses a library that finds an unused port for launching the HTTP server (aka "streamer"):

thorium-reader/src/main/redux/sagas/streamer.ts

Lines 31 to 33 in 8a9807b

	async function startStreamer(streamer: Server): Promise<string> {
	// Find a free port on your local machine
	const port = await portfinder.getPortPromise();

We can set start and end boundaries for the search range, but we cannot exclude commonly-used ports (as far as I know):
https://github.com/http-party/node-portfinder#ports-search-scope

Once the Electron bugs are solved, we will switch to a non-HTTP "streamer":
#1258 (comment)

[llemeurfr]

Looking at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_TCP_and_UDP_port_numbers it is true that finding free places is difficult.

[ghost]

Do you even need a server?
Plenty of Electron apps don't ship with an active server. They build their projects then run the built files.

[llemeurfr]

@alvinometric see #1258.

[danielweck]

Do you even need a server?

To complete Laurent's answer: yes, Thorium needs to serve audio/video files via HTTP as streaming media is currently broken in Electron's custom URL protocol handler:
#1258 (comment)
We plan to remove the dependency on a HTTP server in a future Thorium release, once the audio/video bug is fixed.

[ghost]

Oh, I see.
So the PR that fixes this has been merged but we're still waiting for it to be released as part of Electron 12. Did I understand that correctly?

[danielweck]

The merged PR enables a new HTTP-less mode in Thorium, which is currently turned off (at build time). We will activate this new feature once video/audio streaming works in Electron registerStreamerProtocol() (I have to run tests against v12 first, and note that Thorium currently builds on v11)

[llemeurfr]

Because we will move to an HTTP-less mode asap, we will close this issue now.

[danielweck]

It's coming! #1258 (comment)

[ghost]

👏