Confused about chromium-bundled vs real-browser/browserless

[wrobelda]

Hi there,

Just starting with the project. I did not find any particular explanation on the differences between using the RSSHub with built-in chrome or the real-browser+browserless. Is it really just a difference in memory/disk usage?

Additionally, real-browser seems to have been added very recently but is not marked as needed to be commented-out when using the built-in chrome? So is it required when using built-in chrome?

Can you please explain in bit more detail which component does what and why chose them?

Thanks!

[Rongronggg9]

The real-browser service should also be commented out. Not being "marked" is a mistake.

You don't need real-browser or browserless as long as you use the chromium-bundled image. In this case, docker-compose.yml is usually like:

services:
    rsshub:
        image: diygod/rsshub:chromium-bundled
        restart: always
        ports:
            - '1200:1200'
        environment:
            NODE_ENV: production
            CACHE_TYPE: redis
            REDIS_URL: 'redis://redis:6379/'
        healthcheck:
            test: ['CMD', 'curl', '-f', 'http://localhost:1200/healthz']
            interval: 30s
            timeout: 10s
            retries: 3
        depends_on:
            - redis

    redis:
        image: redis:alpine
        restart: always
        volumes:
            - redis-data:/data
        healthcheck:
            test: ['CMD', 'redis-cli', 'ping']
            interval: 30s
            timeout: 10s
            retries: 5
            start_period: 5s

volumes:
    redis-data:

chromium-bundled should save disk space as it has only a single Chrome/Chromium installation (=1), while real-browser and browserless both have their own installations (1+1=2).

I am not sure about memory consumption, as I've never tried real-browser or browserless. FYI, I use the chromium-bundled image on a VPS with 1GiB RAM along with 1.5GiB ZRAM as swap.

The chromium-bundled image installs Chrome on AMD64 (x86-64) or Chromium on AArch64 (ARM64), while puppeteer-real-browser-hono always installs Chromium IIUC. According to my experience, Chrome usually passes WAF more easily.

[wrobelda]

According to my experience, Chrome usually passes WAF more easily.

Thanks for an elaborate response. One question, though: given that real-browser was implemented explicitly for picnbo route to evade WAF, despite built-in chrome being readily available, is real-browser even better at WAF evasion?

[Rongronggg9]

AFAIK, real-browser (puppeteer-real-browser-hono) is just a simple wrapper of https://github.com/ZFC-Digital/puppeteer-real-browser. The wrapper implementation itself shouldn't make it easier or harder to pass WAF.