Reverse Proxy Web Co-browsing DOM Synchronization
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing web co-browsing technologies fail to synchronize web pages effectively between users with different user background information, leading to inconsistent viewing experiences due to differences in cookies, sessions, and user permissions, despite sharing the same URL.
Innovation Solution
Implementing a reverse proxy server to map communication and to-be-shared web pages onto a virtual website, allowing clients to acquire and share web pages with synchronized URLs and user background information, ensuring consistent content delivery across users.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If URL synchronization is implemented between sharing initiator and receiver, then both parties can access the same web page, but user background information differences cause different viewing experiences
Solution Approach 1:
The patent captures the DOM (Document Object Model) representation of the web page from the sharing initiator's browser and transmits it to the sharing receiver. The receiver then reconstructs the web page using this copied DOM structure, ensuring both parties see identical content despite different user backgrounds. This copying approach preserves the exact rendering state including user-specific content.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces an intermediary component that processes the DOM data between the sharing initiator and receiver. This intermediary captures, transforms, and transmits the DOM representation, mediating the information flow to ensure consistency. The intermediary handles the complexity of DOM serialization and deserialization, allowing both parties to view the same content without directly sharing browser sessions.
2Loss of information
If user background information is shared between clients, then information sharing can be implemented, but user privacy and security may be compromised
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts only the necessary DOM representation data from the user's browser context and transmits it to the sharing receiver. By taking out only the essential rendering information (HTML structure, CSS classes, text content) while leaving sensitive user data (cookies, authentication tokens, personal information) in the local browser, the system achieves information sharing without exposing user privacy.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent applies local quality by allowing each user to maintain their own local browser environment with their specific user background information, while simultaneously enabling shared viewing of the same web page content. The DOM capture occurs locally in the initiator's browser and is transmitted as a structured representation, ensuring that sensitive local data remains local while shared content is properly synchronized.
3Loss of information
If DOM synchronization is implemented between clients, then web page content can be shared, but system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent transforms the complex DOM structure into a standardized, serializable parameter format that can be easily transmitted over the network. By converting the DOM representation into a structured data format (such as JSON or XML) with defined parameters for nodes, attributes, and text content, the system simplifies the synchronization process while maintaining complete web page content fidelity.
Data Source
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AI summary
Embodiments of the present invention provide an information sharing method and a device, including: sending, by a first client, a URL of a to-be-shared web page to a reverse proxy server, so that the reverse proxy server maps the URL of the to-be-shared web page and a URL of a communication web page to a sharing URL; then acquiring, by the first client, the sharing URL, acquiring, according to the sharing URL, a first to-be-shared web page that includes user background information of the first client, and sending the sharing URL to a second client; after URL synchronization between the first client and the second client, sending, by the first client, a DOM of the first client to the second client, so that the second client modifies a DOM of the second client according to the DOM of the first client so as to keep the DOM of the second client synchronized with the DOM of the second client, and after DOM synchronization between the first client and the second client, information sharing is implemented between two users. According to the method, information synchronization between two communication parties can be implemented even if user background information of the two communication parties is different.