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Internet in a Box

internet-in-a-box.org Software & code Software projects Education & learning Candidate
Screenshot of internet-in-a-box.org captured 2026-07-20
Page preview · captured 2026-07-20

Resurfaced independently across 4 calendar years, with breakout response in 3 of them.

submissions
4
submitters
4
observed span
2019–2025
peak thread · 247 comments
897 pts
latest 20+ return · 2025-04-27
897 pts

Submission timeline

2007–2026

One slot for every year since HN launched. Height is that year's peak points; orange marks a 100+ point or 50+ comment breakout. Select a bar to open its strongest thread.

First comments on top threads

HN comment order

Volunteer for Kiwix here (https://kiwix.org), we do a lot of offline Wikipedia stuff. I've personally worked on MWOffliner (https://github.com/openzim/mwoffliner) which scrapes MediaWikis, primarily Wikipedia. We have apps for basically every platform. Our PWA even supports IE 11! You can use the WP1 tool which I'm the primary maintainer of (https://wp1.openzim.org/#/selections/user) to create "selections" which let you have your own custom version of Wikipedia, using categories that you define, WikiProjects, or…

To clarify, the "box" is any UNIX computer (very well suited for Raspberry PI devices, since the wifi can act as a hotspot), and the "internet" consists of all the best FOSS apps and open content that get served from localhost, see full list here: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/IIAB/FAQ#What_services_.28IIAB_app... The use case is to make apps/content/tools normally requiring internet accessed work offline (either on localhost or local area network). In practice, using IIAB goes a little something like this: 1. find…

This is a fantastic project, and we need more of those. Let's keep in mind that 50% of the world's population did not connect to the internet in the last three months (last un UN starts). On my end, I worked on an Android version since getting & maintaining a Raspberry Pi or a Linux machine is difficult in remote communities - where finding reliable access to a network or electricity can be tricky. Still, you will see those inexpensive…

The first top-level comment from each of the four biggest threads, in HN’s own order. Excerpts are shortened; open a comment for full context.

Breakout years
3

100+ points or 50+ comments

Total points
1877

reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking

Total comments
505

reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking

Every submission

DateTitle as submittedByPointsComments
2019-08-12Internet in a Boxasaibx40
2021-06-20Internet in a BoxFirst breakoutthunderbong620139
2023-04-29Internet in a Boxdoodlesdev356119
2025-04-27Internet in a BoxBest thread · Latest 20+ point returnhomebrewer897247