Gvbvdxx Chat

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This site no longer has a working server due to its significant security issues. However, you can experiment with a sandboxed version that uses a fake, in-browser server. View the safe version here

The first site I made that started my chat-app chain.

Gvbvdxx Chat was a foundational project for me. It served as my first real introduction to WebSockets and was a critical lesson in client-side vs. server-side architecture.

Started as an little site, from some tutorial on the internet. Then later figured out how to make a WebSocket server public (via Glitch.com), and then shared it on scratch.

The site's design was extremely simple:

• Client-Based Logic: Almost everything—user profiles, settings, and UI management—was handled entirely in the client's browser.
• Simple Server: The server was just a "message echoer." It didn't store data, process commands, or handle user state. It only received a message from one client and broadcasted it to every other client connected.

This setup also taught me my first hard lesson in web security. Because the client was responsible for rendering all messages, I used innerHTML to display the message content. A hacker quickly joined and abused this by sending messages like <img src="error" onerror="window.alert('some bad code here');">, executing arbitrary JavaScript on every other user's browser (a classic Cross-Site Scripting, or XSS, attack).

This project was the starting point that taught me what should (and shouldn't) be handled by a server to create a secure and functional application.

This same hacker later added his own admin command code, after that, I added my own code built-in to the site that does commands. Usually you can list them all through ;commands.

History & Context

I originally posted this site frequently on Scratch. My intention wasn't to bypass moderation, but simply to provide a way for users to talk with each other in real-time, which Scratch didn't offer.

This project ultimately served as the base code for the more advanced Macre's Chat.

Unfortunately, this site was also famously one of the key factors that led to me being blocked from the Scratch community. It wasn't my final block, but it was a major event leading to the Scratch Team losing trust in me.

Screenshots