​ I am sorry to say that not everyone reading this would be interested in this review. The reason being that the project I will be reviewing today is related, or known to be a tool for developers. However, if you're not a developer but would love to read through, or on behalf of a developer, then, I promise to introduce the project the best way I can.

---

What Is A Web Server?

The term "Web server" won't be strange to developers especially web developers. When I checked Google for the definition of the term, wikipedia defined it as "A web server is server software or hardware dedicated to running said software, that can satisfy World Wide Web client requests. A web server can, in general, contain one or more websites. A web server processes incoming network requests over HTTP and several other related protocols. "

From the definition given above, you'd have understood that a web server is a hardware that contains one or more websites. A web server is also said to be a server software. When I checked for the image of a web server, one of the best images I was able to choose from Google is shown below.

source

The image above is detailed with the information of how a web server communicates with a web browser. After I looked at the images of a web server, I have to conclude that they are large, expensive, or difficult to maintain. These were the issues some developers aimed at solving before they finally developed an Andriod application that turns Android devices into a web server.

In today's review, I will be introducing to you an Android application that turns an Android device into a web server. This type of technology isn't new. In fact, there are several types of applications that are able to create a web server on an Android device. But the only one I have used is lWS.

Introduction To lWS

lWS is a project by an Android developer with a Github profile name as Mvasov. He stated on the project's ReadMe file that lWS is a fork from another open source project which has not been updated or maintained for about 5 years as of when I was writing this post. Mvasov defined his forked project (lWS) as a "lightweight Web Server (lWS) for Android".

Below are the two links to download the latest version of lWS.

---

After I read that lWS is an application that enables users to create a web server on their Android device, I was expecting it to request the permissions to access my device storage. But, it was a different case with lWS. lWS is one of those projects I have used that functions as intended without having to request for user permission.

I was so surprised by this feature. I needed to know if this is how every other web server tools works. And that to be possible, I searched and downloaded a similar application known as Http Server. On launching it, the very first thing that displayed was the permission to access my media files. After this permission was expected, its homescreen then displayed.

Below are the screenshots from the two apps. The first screenshot is an interface of lWS, while the other two are for Http Server.

Facts About The Permission Requests

After I launched and used lWS, I was glad that it didn't ask for permission to access my media files. But, I wish it did. Because it later requested me to download an external application to access my media files. If it had requested to access my media files, I won't be asked to download an external application. Although, this option isn't mandatory.

---

HomeScreen

If you've been constantly reading my reviews, then, by now, you should know that I'd prefer to use an application with a dark interface to that which has a white interface/theme. lWS has my best theme color, while Http server doesn't. The other reason why I love lWS interface is the way the developer made the right choices of colors. Its homescreen consists of Black background, White, and yellow texts.

The other reason I love lWS's homescreen is how the buttons and the texts are arranged. The developer also managed not to use the whole screen for buttons, and texts, by using the remaining parts of the screen for activity logs screen. In fact, the first activity it logged was the Index file it automatically created. The activity message was one of the texts displayed after I launched it.

The homescreen of its competitor isn't bad either. In fact, it has two buttons only, while the rest of the screen remained empty and useless.

---

Starting A Web Server

On launching lWS, it doesn't only display its homescreen or the index file as explained above. It also created a private directory automatically. The directory path is part of the texts displayed on its homescreen. The path info is written in yellow color. You can view the first screenshot below.

I was able to see the Html Index file it created when I located the directory with my file manager.

By default, the web server address displayed to be "not running". This simply means that the app is not running. The status of the web server address changed after I clicked on the Start button. Also, the three buttons (Send, Qrcode, Browser) became clickable.
If in case you didn't notice that it wasn't clickable, you can view the previous screenshot in the paragraph, and then compare it with the screenshot in this paragraph.

The most important part of a web server is the local IP address, and port. After I started the server, It assigned 192.168.43.121 as my IP address and a port of 8080. The address and port will be used to access the HTML index file in the directory.

At this point, I noticed that it had already converted my Ip, and port into a web server address (it's displayed on the log screen). When I accessed the address, it opened the content of the Html Index file.
At first, I copied the web server address (URL) into my Chrome browser. I never knew that I could have simply clicked on the browser button on lWS to open the Html Index page automatically.

The second screenshot above is an interface from its competitor app. The app shows that it's running, and it displayed the same Ip, and port as my web server link. When I clicked on the link, it loaded the same Html index file.

The two interfaces are easy to use because of how they reduced the stress of letting users to manually copy the web server address into a browser (they provided a button to open the web server address).

Testing My New Web Server With A New Web Page

After it successfully opened the Html Index file, I then decided to change the content of the index file into steemit search page HTML code. Below is the code for anyone that wants to test the web server app with the exact code I used. I got the code from Steemit GitHub repo.

<html lang="en">
<head>
    <meta charSet="utf-8" />
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0" />
    <link rel="icon" type="image/ico" href="/favicon.ico" />
    <title>Search - steemit.com</title>
    <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/foundation/6.2.1/foundation-flex.css">
    <link href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Source+Sans+Pro" rel="stylesheet">
    <style>
        html {
            font-size: 105%;
            box-sizing: border-box;
        }
        body {
            font-family: "Source Sans Pro", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;
            line-height: 1.6;
            background-color: #fcfcfc;
        }
        div.top-bar {
            padding: 0;
        }
        .top-bar div.row {
            margin-left: 0;
        }
        a {
            color: #1a5099 !important;
        }
        .gsc-control-cse * {
            box-sizing: content-box;
        }
        .gsc-control-cse input {
            box-shadow: none !important;
        }
        table {
            border-collapse: inherit;
        }
        table tbody td, table tbody th {
            padding: inherit;
        }
        .header {
            border-bottom: 1px solid #e6e6e6;
            position: fixed;
            backface-visibility: hidden;
            top: 0;
            left: 0;
            width: 100%;
            z-index: 100;
            background-color: #fefefe;
        }
        .top-bar, .top-bar ul {
            background-color: #fefefe;
        }
        .menu li {
            display: list-item;
            padding: 0;
        }
        .menu li > a {
            display: flex;
            line-height: 1.5rem;
            font-size: 1.1rem;
            padding: 0.7rem 1rem;
        }
        .menu li.logo {
            padding: .35rem 0 .35rem 0;
        }
        .menu li.logo > a {
            padding: 0;
        }
        .beta {
            position: relative;
            top: 14px;
            right: 22px;
            font-size: 0.7rem;
            color: #788187;
        }
        .Icon_2x > svg {
            height: 2rem;
            width: 2rem;
        }
        div.search-content {
            margin-top: 3rem;
            margin-bottom: 3rem;
            border: 1px solid #eee;
            background-color: white;
            padding: 2em 0;
            box-shadow: 0 2px 4px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.03);
        }

        .logo-new {
            transition: 0.2s ease-in-out;
            width: 144px;
            height: auto;
            display: block;
            height: auto;
        }    
      .logo-new .icon-svg {
          fill: #06D6A9;
          transition: 0.2s all ease-in-out;
      }
      .logo-new:hover .icon-svg {
        fill: #171F24;
      }
      .search.header {
        padding: 8px 0;
      }

    </style>
</head>
<body>
<div class="top-bar search header">
    <div class="expanded row">
        <div class="columns">
            <ul class="menu">
                <li class="logo">
                    <a href="/">
                    <svg class="logo-new" width="148px" height="38px" viewBox="0 0 148 38" version="1.1" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">
                    <title>Steemit Logo</title>
                        <g stroke="none" stroke-width="1" fill="none" fill-rule="evenodd">
                            <g class="icon-svg" fill-rule="nonzero">
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                            </g>
                        </g>
                    </svg>
                    </a>
                </li>
            </ul>
        </div>
    </div>
</div>
<div class="row medium-8 large-7 search-content">
    <div class="columns">
        <br />
        <gcse:search linktarget="_self"></gcse:search>
    </div>
</div>
<script>
    (function() {
        var cx = '011445933062884569876:-jmpkfnkicw';
        var gcse = document.createElement('script');
        gcse.type = 'text/javascript';
        gcse.async = true;
        gcse.src = 'https://cse.google.com/cse.js?cx=' + cx;
        var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0];
        s.parentNode.insertBefore(gcse, s);
    })();
</script>
</body>
</html>

---

Below is a gif showing how I accessed the new Index file page (Steemit search page) with the Browser button on lWS's homescreen.

The Settings Page

From the screenshots provided in the previous paragraphs, There's a button on the homescreen titled as Settings. After I clicked on it, it opened the preference page. From this page, users are able to configure just two things. And they are;

• Document root
• Port

While in its competitor's app, there's a tab with the same title. After I clicked on this tab, it then opened a similar page to that of lWS 's. Below are the screenshots to the interfaces.

The only similar options between these interfaces are the option to change the Document root and the listening port number.

When I clicked to change the Document root on lWS, it displayed an interface to edit it manually. But when I tried the same thing with Http Server, it was able to read my storage and made it easier to select a new root folder. It was possible to seamlessly select a new root folder because of the permission it requested after I installed it.

I'd have loved to choose Http Server over lWS because of this feature. But, lWS has an extra option that is titled "Use OI File Manager". With this feature, I was able to change the default document root folder the same way as Http Server did.
Note: You will have to download the file manager if you do not have it.

The Send Button

One of the important buttons that are missing on Http server is the Send Button. Apart from the fact that users are able to click on the web address server to open the HTML index file, it'd be nice to also have an option to share the address with other users, or applications.
lWS has this option and I appreciate the developer for adding it.

The Qr code

Apart from the feature that enables users to share their web server address with other apps, lWS is also able to encode the web server address into a QR code. This is a brilliant idea that is also missing on its competitor's app. The QR code feature is easy to use because it encodes the web server address automatically. Although, the feature requires users to install an external app known as lWS Qr.

---

Project Update

The latest version of lWS was released 17days ago as of when I was making this post. The only two noticeable updates are;

• Disable annoying notification sound

• Fix screen state when the server stopped from notification

Conclusion

I am impressed by how lWS functioned. it'd definitely be the right app to recommend to anyone searching for a portable, free, and easy to use app that turns an Android device into a Web Server.