[HN Gopher] Why I Don't Use Netscape (1999)
___________________________________________________________________
Why I Don't Use Netscape (1999)
Author : artogahr
Score : 245 points
Date : 2022-10-14 10:02 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.complang.tuwien.ac.at)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.complang.tuwien.ac.at)
| Tepix wrote:
| Still relevant today. Sites that break with adblockers are
| usually shit.
|
| Why? Well probably because if the site developers themselves
| don't have adblockers, they are clueless.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| That or banks. Certain major US bank I am using can't function
| with Origin on.
| timbit42 wrote:
| My bank website doesn't have third party ads anyway.
| bo1024 wrote:
| It might have third party trackers (Facebook, Google,
| Twitter, typekit.net whatever that is, etc). It might also
| have first party trackers of e.g. your mouse and keyboard
| that you'd rather disable.
| nine_k wrote:
| Sites that break with ad blockers are built to show ads. They
| only incidentally show any content, in order to lure users to
| see the ads. Users with ad blockers have negative value for
| such sites.
|
| Sites that are built to show content but depend on ads to
| sustain the operation usually show a plea to support the site
| in a different way (by a donation or something) if they notice
| that ads are blocked. I find this more honest.
| NotYourLawyer wrote:
| My modern version of this is browsing with JavaScript disabled.
| Most of the sites that don't work weren't worth my time anyway.
| tannhaeuser wrote:
| There's also SEO as a simple reason that JS-heavy sites
| correlate inversely with content quality. Yes I know googlebot
| attempts a time/memory-bound render of a JS site to arrive at a
| DOM for text extraction, but this won't work with other search
| engines, and will never work as well and timely as providing
| static HTML to googlebot, no matter what.
| Altho wrote:
| You're right if you're using the web in order to display
| content. That was the case in the 90s. In this case, yes, a
| simple index.html with a <h1> and <p> is fast, responsive etc.
| But with webapps being more and more common one could argue
| that displaying text is not necessarily the web's main purpose
| anymore. If you're trying to access figma with a text based
| browser it's gonna crap the bed, so it fails the test, but is
| it a relevant test though ? The web is bloated but it didn't
| bloated just because engineers were bored, it had genuine use
| cases where doing more than just displaying text was needed.
| And it wasn't ONLY for marketing purposes (but it played a big
| part i'm sure)
| mattl wrote:
| Webapps vs websites.
|
| Should be no need for any website to require JavaScript to
| function.
| SuperSandro2000 wrote:
| I think it's worth my time to not need to go to the post box
| every day and exchange dead trees.
| danjoredd wrote:
| What does physical mail have to do with anything? You can get
| email without Javascript in your browser
| rrwo wrote:
| I disagree. Using AJAX to hit internal APIs to load or update
| content improves performance of the site, and can make it
| easier to maintain.
| weberer wrote:
| Is there any evidence of this? All the sites I've seen that
| use extra requests to load text always seem to take multiple
| seconds to load. Whereas most pages that use server side
| rendering generally load under 100ms.
| Altho wrote:
| It's a tradeoff, basically the question is "Will most users
| need and read all the content or not". Displaying
| everything at once without making extra querries is best,
| but not always possible . The frontend is fetching the
| backend. So it's going to say "Hey, send me all the
| comments from all the posts from november 2021". If there
| are 3 it's fine, but if there are like 23,000 of them you
| can't really load everything at once , that's why we use
| pagination on the backend. We say "Hey send me results 1 to
| 25 of the comments from all the posts from November 2021"
| This way the frontend only displays 25 comments for a quick
| page load and we hope that it will be enough. To display
| the other comments either we ask the backend to let us know
| how many pages of 25 elements there are and we display that
| amount of pagination element links (pagination), or we
| simply tell the frontend to ask the next page once we reach
| the bottom (infinite scroll). Even if displaying all the
| content is possible, if there are content that only 1% of
| your users will read you might want to offer faster loading
| for 99% of users and add a few seconds of loading for the
| 1%.
| simion314 wrote:
| >This way the frontend only displays 25 comments for a
| quick page load
|
| Many years ago smart frameworks implemented smart stuff
| like you can display only what is visible. For example
| you could have a table with 1 million rows but in your
| html page you will not create 1 million row elements, you
| can create GUI widgets only for the visible part, as the
| user scrolls you can recycle existing widgets.
|
| As a practical example , you go to a yotube channel page
| and they load only 2 or 3 rows of videos and you have to
| scroll to force more to appear, this means you can't do a
| Ctrl+F and seatrch and is also less efficient because as
| you scroll the items at the top are not recycled and
| reuse so probably more memory is used.
|
| The json for all the videos is not huge,some strings with
| title and thumbnails, maybe some numbers but the issue is
| that is not possible to natively do the best/correct
| thing, only recently we got lazy loading for example so
| basicaly html was desibned for documents and
| frameworks/toolkits designed for apps did the correct
| thing many years ago... this is an explanation but no
| excuse why things are such a shit show with pagination
| today.
| raverbashing wrote:
| > "Will most users need and read all the content or not"
|
| For the main content, yes, yes, most will. Why are they
| on the website in the first place?
|
| Especially the _main content_. Sure, some things you can
| load later, like comments, etc
| layer8 wrote:
| You can provide pagination without JavaScript (HN being
| an example), and it generally makes for a better user
| experience.
| tannhaeuser wrote:
| The argument is that JS-heavy site design indicates worthless
| content on average. Not that it's easier to maintain for the
| site owner (which might or might not be the case), or more
| realistically, creates job opportunities for "web
| developers".
| badsectoracula wrote:
| I can't say i've seen a single site where in practice that
| worked as advertised. Also some times it introduces UX
| annoyances (e.g. back button not working as expected).
|
| It is one of those things where _in theory if absolutely
| everything was done right and no other stuff was done
| differently_ it can work. E.g. if the only difference between
| a JS-enabled and a JS-disabled version of the site was the
| content change _and nothing else_ (no additional JS
| frameworks, functionality or whatever) then yes it most
| likely can be faster (though for the difference to be
| noticeable the site needs to be rather heavy in the first
| place).
|
| Problem being that in practice this comes with a bunch of
| other baggage that not only throws the benefit out of the
| window but introduces a bunch of other issues as well.
| bbarnett wrote:
| _I disagree. Using AJAX to hit internal APIs to load or
| update content improves performance of the site, and can make
| it easier to maintain._
|
| The reality is, with node junk, the average site uses 10mb of
| js, taking 5s to render, to show 1kb of text.
|
| Get rid of that 10mb of js, all those fonts, and you don't
| need to update only part of a page.
|
| It will load and render in 10ms.
| Kiro wrote:
| That has nothing to do with Node.
| sumtechguy wrote:
| Javascript is so good we hide it with transpilers so we do
| not have to use it.
| rrwo wrote:
| Not every site uses "node junk" or even jQuery.
| loloquwowndueo wrote:
| That's why parent said "the average site" and not "every
| site".
| lucideer wrote:
| This is what Twitter does. It's possibly the least performant
| major website I've used.
|
| Conditional loading certainly _can_ improve perf. in theory.
| I 've yet to see any evidence it does so in practice. The
| aggregate of bundle-size, bundle-parse, client-side execution
| resource-usage & added latency of the plethora of metadata
| normally bundled with API responses is more than enough to
| negate any actual perf. gains.
|
| As for "easier to maintain", I've never seen anyone even try
| to make that argument in theory, nevermind practice. Pretty
| sure it's widely accepted even by advocates of this
| architecture that it's a trade-off of perf. gains for ease-
| of-maintenance losses.
| rrwo wrote:
| Just because Twitter does that doesn't mean it is the case
| everywhere else.
|
| It moves some of the rendering work from the backend
| (having to query the data and generate markup) to the
| browser (query the API and generate the content based on
| the responses).
|
| At my current job, it's made a significant improvement. The
| server returns compact JSON data instead of HTML, so it's
| easier to generate the data and uses less bandwidth.
|
| It also looks faster for the user, because they change
| search parameters and only part of the page changes, rather
| than reloading the entire page.
|
| As for "easier to maintain", that may be subjective. Code
| to generate a simple HTML template from results is replaced
| by JavaScript code to hit the API and generate the DOM.
| Although HTML5 templates makes that much easier.
| lucideer wrote:
| I'm not saying it's impossible - glad to hear you've
| successfully implemented it in your workplace. I'm just
| saying that by-and-large it has the opposite effect to
| the stated intent.
|
| If most examples of a strategy make things worse, and
| only one person uses that strategy to improve things,
| then going around saying "everyone is doing it wrong"
| rather than questioning the strategy isn't particularly
| sound.
|
| I've build plenty of (small) client-side rendered UIs
| myself that lazy-load content; I know the trade-offs and
| I even believe I can achieve a performant outcome on my
| own. But that's anecdotal. In the wild, I have not seen a
| single major website improve perf. via lazy-fetched
| content rendering.
| rrwo wrote:
| I was disagreeing with this statement:
|
| > My modern version of this is browsing with JavaScript
| disabled. Most of the sites that don't work weren't worth
| my time anyway.
|
| I think a lot of sites that require JavaScript are
| worthwhile.
|
| (Whether they are all well implemented is another
| matter.)
| jmclnx wrote:
| I use noscript for this, plus I am running into sites that
| presents a screen stating "Cloudflare is checking". That
| Cloudflare check requires Javascript enabled. So I just move
| on, that to me means that site cannot even count me as a
| 'view'. Makes things a bit easier for me too :)
| ecmascript wrote:
| Wow. I wonder how you use stuff like instant messaging, music
| streaming and so forward. Do you also skip all browser based
| desktop apps because you hate Javascript so much?
|
| Ignorance is bliss I suppose.
| danjoredd wrote:
| No need to get upset at the guy. Its their choice to use
| Javascript in the way they want, rather than let any site
| that wants it use it. Most websites with articles don't need
| Javascript, and only use it to push ads/paywall articles. If
| there is a webapp that they want to use, they can always
| whitelist it.
|
| As for music streaming and instant messaging, not everyone
| has/needs Discord, Slack, Teams, or anything like that. If
| you absolutely need it for work, just whitelist it. No
| problemo. And, not everyone streams music. I barely used
| Spotify myself until I got an office job and needed something
| to fill the boredom.
|
| The issue isn't about stopping Javascript as a whole. The
| issue is about permissions management. Not every site needs
| it, so not every site should have it. If you need it to work
| for a webapp, just enable it.
| DonHopkins wrote:
| Yeah, who needs google maps anyway? Just use the Xerox PARC Map
| Viewer.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xerox_PARC_Map_Viewer
| NotYourLawyer wrote:
| Yeah, well. There are a _few_ things that are worth
| whitelisting.
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| Google Maps is one of the sites I still whitelist, but I
| often reconsider this decision, and I'm ready to find a
| replacement.
|
| Today's Google Maps is a shadow of its original self, which
| did have a no-JS version, by the way. It has gradually gotten
| simultaneously heavier, less convenient, more annoying, and
| less useful, and I've just about had it.
|
| Just off the top of my head, it no longer displays zip codes,
| takes a long time to load, has missing street names on the
| map, often promotes features I do not want while taking away
| features I do want, and is covered so thick with paid-
| promotion items that I can barely find somewhere to click
| that isn't an ad.
| Qub3d wrote:
| DuckDuckGo uses Apple Maps, which has quietly become a
| solid alternative the past few years.
| (https://xkcd.com/2617/)
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| Thanks for recommending it. It does look quite usable,
| other than lacking transit directions, and I plan to give
| it a try.
| Merciernmon wrote:
| You're in luck: Apple Maps does offer transit directions.
| You can also toggle on viewing transit lines in the map
| mode menu.
| danielbln wrote:
| > it no longer displays zip codes
|
| Strange, it does for me, everywhere where it shows an
| address.
| tannhaeuser wrote:
| https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Mapscii
| tomlin wrote:
| Today a website doesn't even load without JavaScript. So, there's
| that.
| martyvis wrote:
| Anton didn't like PDF either :-
| https://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/anton/why-not-pdf.html
| holri wrote:
| And he is correct that pages and fixed layout do not make sense
| for electronic media even if printed.
| mhd wrote:
| Yeah, getting the most use out of your paper (or picking said
| size in the first place) was a time-honored tradition of
| print typography. And sure, not 1:1 applicable to the screen.
|
| I do think that the screen typography department has been
| seriously lacking here, though. Scrolling a single column
| can't really be the end of wisdom.
|
| But the main problem we've got is that the ad people took
| care of on-screen typography once we progress far enough that
| screen sizes and resolutions actually would've made more
| things possible. Not the tradition of typography that made
| newspapers, books etc., but the flyer and full-page-ad
| demographic. PageMaker, not FrameMaker.
|
| Browsers barely have the tools to make reading effective and
| enjoyable. CSS is oriented towards other purposes, and the
| browsers themselves only have the bare necessities -
| practically hidden "user stylesheets" or the one-size-fits-
| all "reader mode".
| martin_a wrote:
| > Use [...] Postscript instead.
|
| My Postscript is somewhat rusty but I think defining a fixed
| page size is THE first step in any postscript file. I don't
| think that's really better than PDF in that regard.
| xtracto wrote:
| Oh my, the mention of DJ Delorie brought me back memories: That's
| the famous DJGPP C/C++ compiler which along with Allegro library
| was the bomb to develop MSDOS games back in the day!
| frou_dh wrote:
| How do you know that someone chooses to disable JavaScript in
| their browser?
|
| Answer: Don't worry, they'll tell you about it.
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| How do you know someone has cognitive impairment which makes it
| difficult to use JS-heavy sites and/or is using an older device
| which has performance issues with heavy sites?
|
| Answer: Don't worry, they just won't be able to use your site.
| rdez6173 wrote:
| The same could be said about the use of images on a site.
|
| The solution is to develop sites with accessibility in mind.
| Use a screen reader; experience what ALL your users will
| experience. Experiment with various rendering tools to
| emulate color blindness.
|
| There are even more tools to performance tune your website.
|
| This all comes down to the site author taking the time to
| cater to as many users as possible. It is not inherently a
| problem with the use of JavaScript, or dynamic elements.
|
| So, yeah, there are a lot of shitty websites out there. Folks
| that choose to deliberately cripple their browser are more
| likely to see these shortcomings.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| <<The solution is to develop sites with accessibility in
| mind.
|
| Hmm. No.
|
| I think other poster wrote something to the effect of 'once
| something becomes popular and adopted by the masses, it
| ceases to be the ideal believers once strived for'.
|
| If anything, it would appear that when you attempt to
| please everyone, you have to trade-off in places that some
| users may find unacceptable.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > The same could be said about the use of images on a site.
|
| Only if you're making websites by photographing a picture
| on a wooden table.
| https://thedailywtf.com/articles/Web_0_0x2e_1
|
| But if we're talking about text-based websites that are
| basically brochures, all you have to do it fill in the alt
| attribute. Nobody is asking anyone to make their website of
| paintings cater to the blind, it's a strawman position.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| They probably use Arch Linux
| AndrewVos wrote:
| Uhh rude. I use arch btw
| BLKNSLVR wrote:
| But do you disable JavaScript?
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| No I rewrite the JavaScript in Rust
| queuebert wrote:
| This is like all the anti-vegan humor. There must be a mental
| condition in which someone proselytizing is interpreted as a
| personal attack.
| cptskippy wrote:
| > those who have content generally value being readable
|
| I find it ironic that his website looks like hot garbage on a
| modern ultrawide display.
|
| I realize that it's over 20 years old and it still looks bad at
| 1280x1024 which was the resolution I was using back then as a
| poor college student with a second hand 19" Sony Trinitron that
| had a dodgy VGA cable you had to hold up just right with a coat
| hanger.
| int_19h wrote:
| I would argue that it's the job of the web browser to provide a
| default stylesheet such that a basic webpage with a header and
| a bunch of paragraphs looks "right". Which includes defining
| sensible viewport size.
| derane wrote:
| wie kommt das hier hoch ? 16 Points ?
| martin_a wrote:
| Please speak English, fellow German, it's more polite.
| [deleted]
| jansan wrote:
| I will probably get banned for life from HN for saying this, but
| WTF?
| technion wrote:
| There is a current front page article on the same blog, I
| suspect someone browsed from that and shared what they found.
| artogahr wrote:
| I indeed did! I thought people here would find it
| interesting.
| bbarnett wrote:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20000824172326/geraldholmes.free...
| smilespray wrote:
| Needs (1843)
| rrwo wrote:
| This aged well.
| tiborsaas wrote:
| Also known as ideology driven browsing.
| dave84 wrote:
| The timestamp on the downloads provided on the install page are
| March 5 1999, and March 6 2000 which may give an indication as to
| this articles age.
| myfonj wrote:
| HTTP headers tell Last-Modified: Sun, 07 Mar
| 1999 17:07:32 GMT
|
| First Archive.org capture is from 1997 [1] and there really are
| some additions in current version since then.
|
| [1]
| http://web.archive.org/web/19970106091058/http://www.complan...
| artogahr wrote:
| Hey, thanks for this! I looked online for the release date of
| the emacs extension he's using, which dates back to 1997. But
| he mentioned it being quite old so I didn't know what to put
| as the (year).
| somecommit wrote:
| Need some max-width to whatever the average screen was back in
| 1999.
|
| True story, I re-uploaded a website that I wrote in 1999, only
| now I discover that my header was never centered, if was just
| floating left. It's the only thing that look off, everything else
| is working perfectly. HMTL/CSS/JS is really a stable stack for
| the computer field.
| SuperSandro2000 wrote:
| The paper letter from the 19 hundreds is also still working
| perfectly, just a little bit dusty and yellowed.
| mhd wrote:
| I'm getting a lot of mileage out of this simple bookmarklet
| found here: https://maya.land/bookmarklets/readable/
|
| Centered max-width without going all out reader mode.
| exodust wrote:
| 800 pixels was common screen width in 99. Even then it was not
| considered good practice design-wise to allow text to run the
| full width like it did in the mid 90s! No max-width, it had to
| be constrained with tables.
|
| Yep agree it's a stable stack. I have a few archived sites I
| made in the 90s that work fine in today's browser, rollover JS
| buttons and all. My disdain for IE is visible in code. I was a
| Netscape guy for sure!
| if(navigator.appVersion.indexOf("MSIE 3")== -1) {
| imageObjectSupported = true; // this line only executes in
| browsers that support Javascript 1.1 except of course
| for IE3, which thinks it supports Javascript 1.1, but
| doesn't. }
| badsectoracula wrote:
| Considering all the discussions about JavaScript and sites with
| primarily text requiring it, this looks like the more things
| change, the more they remain the same :-P. Also see Wirth's Plea
| for Lean Software[0] from 1995 for another "timeless" issue.
|
| I did find this bit interesting too...
|
| > Apart from this practical reason, there's a principal one: The
| first time I invoked Netscape, it said that it is obsolete and
| refuses to work. I don't use software that thinks it knows better
| than I when I should stop using it.
|
| ...considering the modern trend for autoupdating software. The
| author (after this paragraph) also considers availability, but
| another issue is if the software is something one would like to
| use even if it is available - for instance, personally i never
| liked using a version of Paint Shop Pro after version 7 since i
| found all of them a degradation. I can use PSP7 just fine though
| (even on Linux via Wine) - imagine if the software decided by
| itself that it is too old to run or to replace itself with a new
| version against my wishes (this is something a lot of software
| does nowadays).
|
| From a user's perspective this also has implications on
| preserving backwards compatibility for foundational functionality
| programs rely on.
|
| [0] https://people.inf.ethz.ch/wirth/Articles/LeanSoftware.pdf
| aendruk wrote:
| I dread the day Google contrives some trick to make Picasa do
| this. That and Paint Shop Pro 8 are still going strong on my
| parents' new computers.
| neogodless wrote:
| > I don't use software that thinks it knows better than I when
| I should stop using it.
|
| First, it's not _software_ that _thinks_ it knows better. It 's
| whoever maintains that software. Humans. Who read and write the
| code that makes that software work, and who find problems with
| the software and fix it.
|
| Now, with that out of the way, and the assumption that someone
| maintaining software _should_ notify you if the version you
| have has outstanding problems, yes you should still be in
| control of making the decision to continue using it, or to get
| a newer version. But you should be OK with software maintainers
| having thoughts and opinions about whether specific versions
| are problematic.
| tracker1 wrote:
| +1 on PSP after v7, especially after the Corel buyout of Jasc.
| It was hands down a favorite before, after it just got worse.
| Kind of wish I still had my v7 and serial number, though I
| could probably find it... I've been okay with Pinta and
| Paint.Net for most things I need such a software for. I still
| liked PSP better.
| tannhaeuser wrote:
| Firefox on Ubuntu (which I'm not using anymore for these and
| other reasons) and presumably on other OSs does exactly that:
| refuse to open new tabs/sites once every two weeks or so,
| telling me "one more thing we need to do" ie self-update. So
| you're loosing all your browsing context, though FF does a
| better job restoring it after restart than it used to, but
| still that's user-hostile and self-important as fuck. And
| there's also a "principal" reason why I can't stand this: that
| the Web is now 30 years old, past its peak, so if browsers
| still need to update bi-weekly for new features and
| experiments, this in combination with lack of browser diversity
| _proves_ without any shade of doubt there 's something very
| wrong with the incentives for browser development, the
| Google/Mozilla browser cartel, and the evolution of "web
| standards".
| mellavora wrote:
| Firefox on Mac. I have this problem as well, even with
| "autoupdate" set to true. Also, if I am browsing in the
| middle of an auto update, it refuses to open new tabs.
|
| And each update logs me out of my password manager
|
| Worse, now this is happening to Thunderbird. Wasn't an issue
| until about a month ago. Now I need to re-install Thunderbird
| every few weeks because they've pushed an update.
|
| When from my point of view, as a user, I haven't seen a new
| feature which I truly wanted in over 5 years, maybe more like
| 10.
| tannhaeuser wrote:
| That sounds truly horrible. I've only recently returned to
| Mac OS as primary OS (one reason being annoyed by Ubuntu
| and FF) but why aren't you using Safari and Mail.app then
| if I may ask?
| weberer wrote:
| This is infuriating to me as well. And the stupid Firefox
| restart dinosaur always comes up at the worst possible time.
| I would have switched to a new browser years ago, but Firefox
| seems to be the only one that supports vertical tabs.
| wruza wrote:
| I am using opera with "tree tabs" extension, but afair
| there is a similar (or the same?) extension for chrome.
| Although they do not hide the horizontal tab bar.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| Firefox unfortunately copied Chrome's behavior and you
| have to resort to a user script to hide the horizontal
| tabs.
| jamienicol wrote:
| Download firefox from the mozilla website instead of using
| the ubuntu package and this won't happen. Or disable auto
| upgrades.
| k__ wrote:
| A few weeks ago, I read that vertical tabs landed in
| Brave's nightly, but still behind a flag. So, there seems
| to be hope.
| jimpudar wrote:
| Edge has vertical tabs built in. Many other browsers can be
| made to have vertical tabs with plugins.
| wongarsu wrote:
| Given that the issue of Firefox being forced to restart
| primarily happens on Linux, I doubt Edge is an option for
| them. Though I have to concur that Edge has one of the
| most stable and smooth vertical tab implementations
| around, most of the plugin-based ones are more fully
| featured but much less reliable.
| tmtvl wrote:
| Edge has been released for Linux a while now... not that
| I know anyone who uses it, but it's available for those
| who need it.
| tracker1 wrote:
| I use it, and it's decent. And more in the vein of "it's
| not google" though I do slightly prefer the chrome dev
| tools to the modifications that Edge has made. I don't
| like a lot of the "helpers" for shopping though. And
| definitely don't like the article wall with ads that are
| _really_ hard to block /script out.
| seba_dos1 wrote:
| Edge is not free. I wouldn't seriously consider using a
| non-free application for something as essential as
| everyday web browsing.
|
| You can't really have usable vertical tabs in Chromium
| via plugins either, unless you're content with wasting a
| lot of horizontal space for an ugly sidebar _and_
| vertical space for uselessly duplicated tab bar.
|
| Firefox is the only actual choice I'm aware about.
| prange wrote:
| > I wouldn't seriously consider using a non-free
| application for something as essential as everyday web
| browsing.
|
| Why? Are you considering forking Firefox?
| prange wrote:
| For clarification - if you either contribute code or
| money to Firefox, you are clearly supporting the
| existence of a free browser.
|
| I don't see how just using it does. So if you aren't
| contributing to it you may as well use the browser with
| the best feature set for your use case.
| sfink wrote:
| Using Firefox definitely supports the existence of a free
| browser. Loss of market share is the #1 threat to the
| continued existence of a free browser. Beyond the obvious
| (if a tree falls in a forest, crushing the last copy of
| the code for a browser that has zero users, then was it a
| browser at all?): lower market share =>
| nobody testing against the free browser or fixing site
| breakage => quirks (bugs, underdefined
| specifications, nonstandard features) of other browsers
| becoming required for a functional Web => free
| browser is no longer a browser of the actual Web.
| prange wrote:
| I agree that submitting bug reports or patches is an
| important contribution.
|
| I don't see how that relates to market share, since
| regular users won't do that.
| ipaddr wrote:
| Marketshare is important, default search engine revenue
| is based on usage.
| prange wrote:
| It's not really 'free' if it has to produce ad revenue.
| seba_dos1 wrote:
| It is irrelevant to it being free.
| bobbob1921 wrote:
| This reminds me of iOS apps that as soon as you open them
| require an update to the latest version and won't let you
| proceed any further (in the app) until you click OK/do the
| update. I always make it a point to go leave a one star
| review (or update my existing review to one star), and point
| this out as the reason
| zinekeller wrote:
| > and presumably on other OSs
|
| Nope, it only happens when _something_ outside changed
| Firefox 's files (in this case when Ubuntu swapped files
| because dpkg updated Firefox). This never happens* in Windows
| and macOS (it might nag, but you can definitely dismiss it).
| It seems that johnchristopher has a suggestion to disable
| auto-updates on a specific application in Debian and Ubuntu
| (haven't tested it though):
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33202052
|
| * At least using their official installers. I'm specifically
| excluding using Chocolatey/brew/other loose-file update
| mechanism or your bonkers enterprise solution insists on
| using loose files and not rely on *.msi/*.app/*.pkg.
| jpeloquin wrote:
| > Nope, it only happens when something outside changed
| Firefox's files ... This never happens* in Windows and
| macOS (it might nag, but you can definitely dismiss it).
|
| Happens with multiple Firefox instances too, `firefox -P
| -no-remote` (I think in recent versions the -no-remote is
| redundant), even on Windows with official installers. In
| that case you don't even get the error message; new tabs
| just remain blank. There might be a delay between process
| A's update and symptoms appearing in process B; not sure.
| jdofaz wrote:
| If you download the linux version of Firefox from
| mozilla.org you get a tarball that you can extract and run
| Firefox from without needing to do anything to install it.
| When I've run it this way it self updates the same way as
| it does on macos or windows.
| kevincox wrote:
| This is exactly right. And this happens because it needs to
| load libraries or exec subprocesses that aren't compatible
| between versions. Since the matching version of the file
| has been replaced with a newer one it doesn't really have a
| choice, it is unable to launch the new tab. The nice
| message is a better alternative than crashing.
|
| This also doesn't occur on NixOS because the new version is
| in a different direcotry and the old version is kept until
| it is garbage collected.
| vetinari wrote:
| > This also doesn't occur on NixOS because the new
| version is in a different direcotry and the old version
| is kept until it is garbage collected.
|
| Also with flatpak; you are using the old version until
| you close it. Then it will be garbage collected. On the
| next launch, you will be running a new version from
| different root.
| tjoff wrote:
| No, you have control over dpkg.
|
| It was snap that updated firefox regardless of whether you
| wanted it or not.
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| Gosh, that is frustrating to even read about.
|
| The first time it happened, I would get rid of whatever
| software was involved in causing it and never use it again,
| except for testing purposes.
|
| I completely agree with you about everything else too. The
| Web is mature enough that I can use a well-tested website
| with a 20-year-old browser.
|
| There is no technical reason to not have a minimum-viable web
| browser with a smaller attack surface that doesn't need
| upgrades for months or even years.
|
| And, in fact, such browsers exist, and I can browse most of
| the Web that I need with them. I just have to ignore the
| shitty mainstream, which I am more than happy to do.
| ted_bunny wrote:
| Care to namedrop your favorites?
| jasonlotito wrote:
| That this complaint is pointing at Firefox when it's not
| Firefox at all, is interesting. How many things do we
| associate with one _thing_ when it 's actually something else
| entirely.
|
| It's a shame, really.
| johnchristopher wrote:
| On Ubuntu/Debian, a work-around is to put Firefox on hold:
| sudo apt-mark hold <package-name>
|
| Will not work with snap though.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| I just download it from Mozilla and install on my home dir.
| This solves both the issues of Debian not updating Firefox
| fast enough and of them updating it too fast.
| cercatrova wrote:
| > the Web is now 30 years old, past its peak, so if browsers
| still need to update bi-weekly for new features and
| experiments, this in combination with lack of browser
| diversity proves without any shade of doubt there's something
| very wrong with the incentives for browser development, the
| Google/Mozilla browser cartel, and the evolution of "web
| standards".
|
| Or maybe new features are still coming out in the W3C specs
| and need to be implemented. Did you know CSS now has a parent
| selector, or that JS will be getting functional piping soon?
| tracker1 wrote:
| On functional piping, this has been in the pipeline with a
| few competing proposals for a while (I prefer the F#-like
| version myself). Will be surprised if/when it actually
| makes it in.
| lupire wrote:
| Why do you believe software has peaked and has nothing new to
| potentially offer?
| jakub_g wrote:
| Go to Firefox settings and disable auto-update?
| `about:config` > `app.update.auto: false`
| kevincox wrote:
| Firefox's built-in auto-update doesn't have this problem.
| It only happens when an external package manager swaps out
| its files.
|
| See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33201971 for a bit
| more context.
| johannes1234321 wrote:
| What does then happen? Do I get some nudge to update?
|
| I for one don't really mind the Autoupdate. I can't stand
| it that it forces me to restart while I am in some
| workflow. I'd be fine with "you should update, click here,
| when ready" which I can click five minutes later when done
| with the task.
| hulitu wrote:
| And after some time it will not render pages. Modern SW is
| such a mess.
| TuringTest wrote:
| You may still update manually.
| hulitu wrote:
| Yes, when you have an up to date system. Else the gates
| of hell will open when you try to compile the thing.
| b215826 wrote:
| This doesn't work. The only way to disable autoupdates on
| Firefox is to install a policy file:
|
| https://github.com/mozilla/policy-templates
|
| https://linuxreviews.org/HOWTO_Make_Mozilla_Firefox_Stop_Na
| g...
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| Wow, this actually DOES appear to shut down autoupdating.
| Thanks!
| badsectoracula wrote:
| Yeah that is annoying, though personally i find browsers as
| the one category of software where i think this is fine,
| mainly because of security updates (it sucks that they tend
| to come with UI updates but at least on Firefox so far the
| main UI is fairly customizable and have made my own) but also
| because they are online software _anyway_.
| tannhaeuser wrote:
| Does a browser really have to be so complex that it
| warrants updates more often than the very sites that are
| being browsed? Contrast this with the design of idk MP3: a
| relatively simple and ultra-stable decoder app with a large
| variety of backend pipelines that can create MP3s. That's
| how the web pre-JS, pre-CSS was like. Or, with a
| perspective from information theory: downloading hundreds
| and hundreds of megabytes again and again (browsers), then
| consuming insane amounts of energy to access information
| that hasn't really changed all that much isn't very
| effective, is it?
| Semaphor wrote:
| > Does a browser really have to be so complex
|
| Does it have to? I don't know. But it is. It's an
| operating system where 3rd parties execute random code
| on, and you hope it stays sandboxed. Those websites?
| Thanks to ads, they don't update once in a while, but
| usually once every few seconds.
| chriswarbo wrote:
| Firefox, Chrome, etc. are also huge monoliths: that
| requires downloading the whole thing when any of the
| components change.
| GTP wrote:
| >Does a browser really have to be so complex that it
| warrants updates more often than the very sites that are
| being browsed? Contrast this with the design of idk MP3:
| a relatively simple and ultra-stable decoder app with a
| large variety of backend pipelines that can create MP3s.
|
| The problem is the recent trend that everything has to be
| a web application. So browsers aren't just to access
| information anymore, but literally to do everything else
| too. I personally don't agree with the web application
| trend, but this is the reason why a browser is so much
| more complex compared to an MP3 decoder: the decoder has
| to do a single thing, the browsers have to do more and
| more things.
| tracker1 wrote:
| It's easier to update software on a single server then
| hundreds or millions of desktops.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| "Does a browser really have to be so complex that it
| warrants updates more often than the very sites that are
| being browsed?"
|
| Since lots of money is today transfered directly (banking
| site) or indirectly (purchase) via a browser, I would say
| yes.
|
| (even though in reality most updates are introducing new
| web features and not strengthening security).
| doubled112 wrote:
| Even your simple example, MP3 decoders, that do one
| thing, have had code execution exploits and other
| security issues over the years. WinAMP had CVEs for it.
|
| All software will have bugs. I want my fixes fast and
| often to an environment where I run untrusted code from
| that many places.
| foobarian wrote:
| I blame black hats. If it weren't for viruses and exploits
| there would be a lot less pressure to keep things updated.
| Remember how much flak Microsoft got for vulnerabilities pretty
| much ever since Windows got a networking stack? Meanwhile
| academic networks got along fine for decades running on
| unencrypted NFS/NIS.
| fsckboy wrote:
| the internet's Eternal Black September
| scarface74 wrote:
| The issue with that when it comes to browsing is that old
| browsers have security issues that hopefully are patched, and
| more secure protocol versions.
| Vrondi wrote:
| PSP7 was such a great app.
| efficax wrote:
| i don't want most of my software to auto update but i certainly
| want the browser, which ingests untrusted data from unknown
| sources constantly, to get bug fix updates automatically.
| lupire wrote:
| That's your choice. Some other people only visit trusted
| sites.
| seba_dos1 wrote:
| Those people can choose to disable automatic updates.
| kikokikokiko wrote:
| Not in Firefox on Ubuntu, there is no option under
| settings to disable it, that's the problem.
| seba_dos1 wrote:
| Firefox on Ubuntu (on most distros, in fact) doesn't
| update itself automatically at all, which is why there's
| no option to disable it. It's apt (or snap?) that updates
| it.
| fsckboy wrote:
| I like getting a notification from the browser that
| there's a newer version so to give me a sense how long
| I'm waiting to get the distro's updated package. I don't
| use Ubuntu though so I'm not sure if that's in there or
| not.
| YesThatTom2 wrote:
| I was at a startup from 2000-2003 where the chief scientist was a
| security wonk and demanded that our product worked with and
| without JavaScript enabled.
|
| No wonder the startup failed. Imagine trying to make a useful
| product with one hand tied behind your back!
| alpaca128 wrote:
| I just checked, Google and Amazon still work flawlessly without
| JS. And many other "useful products" too.
|
| The question is, if a startup can't make a site that works
| without JS, are they actually focused on the product? Assuming
| it's not a webapp, of course.
| Ensorceled wrote:
| You're making two completely different versions of your web
| product: one with a rich, modern experience using JavaScript
| and the other using vanilla get/post.
|
| I've built several SaaS products and I can't imagine building
| a complicated product that supports both a JS and no JS
| version with a small, startup team.
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| https://endtimes.dev/why-your-website-should-work-without-ja...
| iso1631 wrote:
| 2000-2003 was a very different time, and people making
| javascript heavy sites then tended to be terrible. If I
| remember right gmail worked fine without javascript even after
| that time period.
|
| With that attitude you likely were writing for IE5/6 only too.
| We're still dealing with the fallout from that 20 years later.
| rrwo wrote:
| I worked for a company that had one user complain about the
| site requiring JavaScript, because he didn't "trust" us.
| Manager asked him why he trusted us to create an account on the
| site.
| Ensorceled wrote:
| It can go the other way, the CEO at one company I worked at
| demanded that we have a rich, dynamic user experience with real
| time editing AND we fully support all the browsers that had
| visited the site in the last 6 months. We had people using
| Blackberry, IE6, Opera, Konqueror and stuff you've never heard
| of.
|
| They were happy to force javascript but wanted it to work on
| early smart phones.
|
| The VP product was losing her mind fighting the CEO over this.
| naasking wrote:
| Bizarre. It's like starting a parking lot business by trying
| to accommodate every vehicle you see driving by your site
| over 6 months. You could have Winnebagos, tractor trailers
| and more bizarre vehicles, none of which you should consider
| as viable customers.
| Ensorceled wrote:
| Yeah, I've encountered this quite few times, especially as
| a consultant; "We won't turn away ANYONE!!!"
|
| Edit: Ok, now I'm laughing the idea of having a reserved
| parking spot for trucks hauling giant windmill blades.
| naasking wrote:
| Well, maybe that parking lot example will help you in the
| future to explain why this is a dumb approach. Expanding
| the customer base has its own costs, so you obviously
| want to target some point of optimal return (revenue from
| customer - cost to support customer), otherwise you're
| just shooting yourself in the foot.
| Ensorceled wrote:
| yeah ... I'm noting this analogy for future discussions.
| martin_a wrote:
| > a reserved parking spot for trucks hauling giant
| windmill blades.
|
| With the rise of renewable energies, there might be a
| business case hiding here... ;-)
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| The Phoenix browser was the best I've ever used. From v0.1 to
| v0.5 it continually shrank in size, as improvements were just on
| speed, size, and the user experience. At v0.5 it was six-and-a-
| half megabytes. But by 0.6 it was getting bigger again. It
| already had enough of an HTML engine to render 95% of the web...
| but people just wanted more and more and more features, and
| refused to put them anywhere other than in the browser, defeating
| the point of the whole project.
| olalonde wrote:
| A good reminder that techies are often completely out of touch
| with what the average Joe wants.
| dkarl wrote:
| And companies writing the software that average people use are
| motivated solely by "what the average Joe wants," where "what
| the average Joe wants" is defined by business metrics like "how
| much is Joe clicking" and "how much is Joe spending."
| olalonde wrote:
| I assume you don't believe this is a good thing? How would
| you measure "what the average Joe wants"?
| mellavora wrote:
| Well, if you look at i.e. Meta, which specifically
| optimised for getting people to 'click' more, it is clear
| that they did so by building a product with disastrous
| impacts on mental health.
|
| So there is at least one example where it isn't a good
| thing.
| olalonde wrote:
| You can build something people want and which is bad for
| health, they're not mutually exclusive.
|
| People commonly want things that are linked to negative
| health outcomes: alcohol, sugar, fast food, lack of
| physical activity, working a high stress job, living in a
| city, watching the news, etc.
|
| Personally, I take the position that people best know
| what's good for them because I don't see good
| alternatives to that.
| nine_k wrote:
| This is not a "bad" thing, but it's not what the Average
| Joe _wants_ , it's more what the Average Joe is incited to
| do. More clicking (on ads directly, or on "engaging
| content" that shows more ads) is what the business owners
| want _from_ an Average Joe.
|
| But "people do it == people directly desire it" is a
| manifestly wrong metric. When something is in short supply
| in a store, people will line up to secure the chance to buy
| it. But Apple would be insane to think that people lining
| up to buy a newest Macbook on the day or release want
| lining up, and that more lining up is what they'd enjoy.
| People _tolerate_ lining up to get what they desire.
| Equally, people tolerate more clicking in order to get what
| they desire, and what they 'd likely prefer to obtain with
| one click.
| olalonde wrote:
| > This is not a "bad" thing, but it's not what the
| Average Joe wants, it's more what the Average Joe is
| incited to do. More clicking (on ads directly, or on
| "engaging content" that shows more ads) is what the
| business owners want from an Average Joe.
|
| This is a bit of a philosophical question.
|
| Are there things we want that weren't somehow influenced
| by society (e.g. family, peers, advertisements, culture,
| etc.)? I'd argue very few things, aside from the basic
| biological needs. By corollary, almost everything we want
| is the result of external influence.
|
| > But "people do it == people directly desire it" is a
| manifestly wrong metric. When something is in short
| supply in a store, people will line up to secure the
| chance to buy it. But Apple would be insane to think that
| people lining up to buy a newest Macbook on the day or
| release want lining up, and that more lining up is what
| they'd enjoy. People tolerate lining up to get what they
| desire. Equally, people tolerate more clicking in order
| to get what they desire, and what they'd likely prefer to
| obtain with one click.
|
| If you measured line up times at Apple stores, you would
| almost certainly find out that its effect (of longer line
| ups) is a decrease in revenue (and therefore not
| something people want). If your point was that metrics
| can be misinterpreted and misused, I absolutely agree
| with you.
|
| My question was specifically about the revenue/engagement
| metrics commonly used for software. To me they seem like
| reasonable proxies that you are building software people
| want.
| dkarl wrote:
| I don't assume it can be measured, and I think large
| organizations are stupid and morally shallow enough without
| letting them loose with the mandate to maximize a handful
| of simple metrics.
| max51 wrote:
| Maybe he clicked 5x more because he wanted even more
| information.... or maybe the basic info that he was looking
| for is now hidden in a very shitty location that was
| intentionally made hard to find in order to generate more
| clicks and the user was super mad the entire time. Either
| way, the manager gets a bonus for extra engagement that
| quarter.
|
| Went to McDonald for the first time in a year and used the
| touchscreen to order. I had to dismiss over 7 popups,
| including a few that look like they were internally trying
| to get drunk people to accidentally order more (eg. cancel
| bottom from the previous popup is aligned with an extra
| order on the next one). It made the process a lot more
| panful than the minimalist interface they had before, but
| I'm sure a group of people got praised for it internally.
| artogahr wrote:
| I'm inclined to make the comment that the "average Joe"
| doesn't actually know what he wants, in respect to what's
| actually good for him in the long term.
| [deleted]
| int_19h wrote:
| You ask them. And when they tell you that your product
| sucks, you listen, and don't tell them that they're holding
| it wrong, or that they just need to give it some time and
| they'll love it, or that everybody else loves it so clearly
| they aren't average, or that telemetry shows otherwise etc.
| incanus77 wrote:
| Unrelated to this content (I think), tuwien.ac.at is a domain I
| have not seen nor thought of in decades. I see that there's new
| stuff there too, but does anyone recall why this might have been
| a well-known domain in the 90s? I feel like I used to regularly
| read some content or download software from there, probably UNIX
| stuff.
| romland wrote:
| I had the _exact_ same feeling; when I read your comment I
| started googling a bit but I came up short. In my case it
| should probably have been one or some of: MUDs, Linux, Debian,
| Amiga, shareware, usenet, IRC.
| incanus77 wrote:
| Yeah, same. Likely UNIX utilities, Linux software or howtos
| (Red Hat, Debian), maybe usenet. Maybe an FTP repository?
| incanus77 wrote:
| Maybe a combination of these -- I found this:
|
| http://hep.itp.tuwien.ac.at/~www/particle/Doc/debnotes.html
|
| Debian 1.x/2.x days, likely a prominent mirror?
| int_19h wrote:
| It's the Vienna University of Technology, and places like
| that often run mirrors.
| [deleted]
| standardUser wrote:
| "If these browsers don't display anything, or the display looks
| shitty, there usually is not much content"
|
| Crazy wild assumptions given that the web was brand-spanking-new
| and changing rapidly and unpredictably by the day. I'll never
| understand these needlessly-minimalist perspectives on
| interacting with the internet (yeah, I'm talking to you no-
| JavaScript folks). That approach _only_ result in you missing out
| on things, and that was even more true in the 90 's.
| TheRealPomax wrote:
| It's easy to forget that 1999 was still firmly in the dial-up
| modem days. This was as much about practicality as it was about
| principles: every second spent loading a website would very
| literally cost you money, so any policy that would let you cut
| the process of finding worth-while content short, in an even
| remotely efficient manner, was a sensible thing to do.
|
| Today, almost 25 years later, not even turning your phone or
| computer on will cost you just as much in ISP monthlies as it
| costs to load the heaviest, client-side-JS-generated, 4x
| resolution image websites nonstop all day every day.
|
| We used to have a slightly better reason to prefer lean,
| content-first web pages than we do today.
| anthk wrote:
| Back in the day mozplugger avoided lots of JS crapware.
| jussij wrote:
| For anyone who was actually around at that time you need to
| remember Windows was Windows 95 and that meant a badly behaved
| application generally required a reboot.
|
| From what I remember of that time, Windows Explorer seemed a
| little faster, but most importantly it also seemed to require
| fewer reboots.
| queuebert wrote:
| That's not my memory of it. Windows 95 introduced the Task
| Manager, which obviated some of that. Maybe I was lucky in
| having well-behaved applications.
| casey2 wrote:
| Imagine a world where it's common to cd into a directory and
| anywhere from 1-10 awk scripts start running and possibly your
| image viewer and media player. Would you think you had malware
| installed?
| mrtksn wrote:
| So the "movement" against modern browser features is not a
| movement and has nothing to do with these features but its simply
| a version of "kids these days lost their ways" thinking. A
| version of conservatism, I guess. "Everything was better in the
| good old days" and "The new generation is horrible, the humanity
| is doomed" kind of thoughts are probably a manifestation of
| fading youth.
| deanCommie wrote:
| There is another more simpler layer to this:
|
| Most people on HackerNews remember when they were the target
| demographic for most software. And they no longer are.
|
| If you're under 40, this is how we all started. The target
| demographic since the explosion of the internet is no longer
| software engineers. That feels bad for people, and they lash
| out conservatively.
|
| Because they're not wrong - the software IS worse. For them
| (us).
| int_19h wrote:
| I could agree to it, if only I didn't know so many _non-tech_
| people who also think that tech started to go downhill at
| some point - and specifically complain about some of the same
| things, such as forced updates and dumbed-down UX that
| actually makes their life harder.
| StuckDuck wrote:
| This article is from 1999, what do you mean?
| wruza wrote:
| Young me (win95-2k era) had this feeling after researching into
| older software principles. I think that it is not [only] the
| effect of personal aging, but also piling up of a junk on top
| of an initial simple idea in any area. We just tend to notice
| that with years because everything straightforward-back-then
| becomes complicated, and straightforward-today flies under the
| radar.
|
| But for browsers there is an obvious need for apps that are not
| "vb in an empty vba-enabled document". This ugly heap is only
| stable because an enormous effort and skill goes into making it
| so.
| badsectoracula wrote:
| It is also possible that stuff _are_ getting worse though.
| After all i remember friends of mine who were in university
| raging on how bloated the web was around 2000 and i 'm 99%
| certain they weren't middle-aged men disguised as teenagers
| :-P. If anything i don't remember knowing anyone above 25y back
| then who even cared about web stuff.
|
| After all having some people see and complain about things
| getting worse doesn't mean that said things will stop getting
| worse if most people don't care or even noticing them getting
| worse to do something about it.
| loloquwowndueo wrote:
| We always complain about bloat and slowness, then we build
| faster machines and networks and bigger storage, and software
| and content promptly expand to fill it all up and make it
| feel sluggish again.
|
| For a chuckle try running old software on a modern computer
| (fire up dos box and run WordPerfect or something) and be
| amazed at the speed of the thing. _that_ is why we built a
| faster computer :)
| Qub3d wrote:
| We've made machines so much faster that a lot of old
| software is unusable because its _too_ fast.
|
| One of my favorite examples: Lego Island's driving mechanic
| is tied to frame rate, so on a modern machine tapping left
| or right will fling your car 90+ degrees:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CmqbccCqI0
| 0xAFFFF wrote:
| That's the Turbo button on older Intel machines, that
| could slow your processor roughly to the speed of a 8086.
|
| I discovered this playing the old DOS RPG Drakkhen, where
| there was a tower with a shark in its moat, circling
| around. It would jump and eat your characters if they
| happened to cross the bridge at the wrong moment. The
| funny thing is its speed was based on the processor clock
| (the game was released in 1989) and if you played the
| game with a faster processor, the shark would be too fast
| to be avoided. Push the turbo button, reduce clock speed,
| problem solved.
| mrtksn wrote:
| When you look back, you can notice patterns: Something new
| and amazing comes out and it promises to take the humanity to
| a new age. At first it is fuelled by enthusiasm where
| believers work for free on it just to make it great and pay
| their bills by working for money on the old-school stuff.
| Their prime motivation is not profit.
|
| Then this thing starts becoming profitable in the sense of
| bringing street cred and money and new kind of people rush in
| with their new ideas how to use this new thing. These new
| people don't share the same ideas with the original believers
| but they know how to build machinery around it to make it
| profitable and appeal for the masses. The new thing that was
| supposed to change the world becomes a concentrated and
| optimised version of the things before it.
|
| The believers then become bitter purists and try to fight the
| new order by disowning the current technologies or methods
| and cater for the niche hipster elitist circles when the rest
| continues do their thing.
|
| You can see it in everything, you can see it in printing
| press you can see it in Radio, you can see it in TV, you can
| see it in things that are not media: cars, clothing, shaving,
| coffee - everything.
|
| Things don't become worse, they just become mainstream and
| that mass adoption is run not by purists but by people with
| no regard to the original ideals of the technology and masses
| love it this way and stays this way until its made obsolete
| by something else.
| tolciho wrote:
| The feature where the cpu fans run after a webpage displays
| a table with about 30 items in it is pretty swell. Others
| might cry w.t.f. and avoid using such bad software as much
| as possible.
|
| The feature where Firefox repeatedly changed your
| preferences and helpfully showed PDF with the JavaScript
| jank was pretty terrible. Changing that preference a third
| time won't make it any more charming. Yes, yes, the cattle
| are supposed to be OK with the "movement" of their cheese,
| move along now, nothing to see here.
|
| > ... clothing, shaving, coffee - everything
|
| Uh, no. Coffee in America started out cheap and for the
| masses (following some sort of Tea Party, I think it was)
| and then even more for the masses (now with pre-ground
| beans, instead of using the mill in the stock of your
| Sharps Carbine) and only very recently has there been a
| movement towards not-mainstream "hipster elitist circle"
| coffee made by purists.
|
| > Things don't become worse
|
| This is not what I've read; for example, British church
| organ making went through a rough patch around the decade
| of 1900 or so. With a little study of history more such
| examples could doubtless be found. One might even be
| optimistic that the modern web might pull itself out of the
| "big miasma"[1] that it has sunk into. But if the powers
| that be are blind to criticism, and go on about "tooling
| issues" or whatever, eh, it might be a while before changes
| can be made for the better.
|
| By the way, Arnold Toynbee said some pretty funny things
| about blind elites.
|
| [1] gemini://diesenbacher.net/
| lupire wrote:
| "original ideals" is a bit of a fantasy. Technology has
| always been used for both good and bad (and which is which
| is is subjective). It's human nature.
| 323 wrote:
| 20 years from now there will be HN posts like "In my good old
| days we wrote efficient Electron apps that only used 2 GB of
| RAM to display a todo list, today's developers are lazy, there
| is no need to ask the AI to synthesize such a simple app, and
| certainly it shouldn't need a QPU (QuantumProcessorUnit) to
| run".
| aliqot wrote:
| One can only hope we'll still have mrtksn to set them
| straight.
| seti0Cha wrote:
| Back in my day, when kids heard older people talking, they
| listened because they knew they were hearing from someone with
| more experience than themselves. Kids these days lost their
| ways and think that knowledge and judgement are achieved in
| youth and then gradually fade away.
|
| Just kidding, back in my day kids assumed the same thing.
|
| Also, this exact conversation has been happening since the web
| was created. Linked article is evidence of that.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| I agree with your commentary along the lines of o tempora o
| mores, when you could argue the pattern remains largely the
| same.
|
| In a more practical way though, some new things are good,
| some new thing are bad. It makes sense to adopt good stuff
| and cut off the bad. Deck? Mostly good. Requiring phone
| number to play a game? Bad. Naturally, it is a very
| subjective process and we are bound to disagree on details.
|
| Not that long ago a family member tried to use the same
| argument used here ( its a generational thing; old people
| just hate new stuff ) when trying to convince that Venmo is
| actually good as I was trying to gently indicate that maybe a
| payment system that by default announces to the world[1] I
| just spent X on Y may not be the best thing since sliced
| bread. Working near that space I was amused, but each to
| their own ( and I certainly am not going to tell the guy how
| to raise his kids ).
|
| [1]https://www.cnet.com/news/privacy/venmo-explains-why-
| transac...
| rpdillon wrote:
| This strikes me as somewhat dismissive. My take is that the
| concerns raised in 1999 are even more true now. The problems we
| have with low-quality, bloated websites with questionable
| content are worse, and the rise of 'software that knows best'
| is only accelerating. If anything, this seems precient.
| gspencley wrote:
| Also notable is this statement in the context of modern SaaS
| products:
|
| "Who knows whether a new version will be available and usable
| when the current one stops working?"
|
| With SaaS products the company can go out of business; they
| can change the product on you without your opt-in, making it
| unusable (or less usable) for your purposes and there is no
| way to downgrade to the previous version; they can stop
| supporting your web browser; your account can get disabled or
| compromised; new policies and regulations on data retention
| and privacy could render a particular SaaS product unusable
| for your purposes.
|
| What are you meant to do if a SaaS tool you depend on
| suddenly stops working? How do you install the old version
| and get back to work?
| mrtksn wrote:
| I completely agree with the criticism of bloat but IMHO that
| is a problem because the tooling to achieve the "modern
| software" is bad, not because of the requirements for modern
| software.
|
| In other words, the criticism is fair but the solution of
| attempting to freeze time or even try to go back is not
| right. Sometimes though, when things get very bad going back
| to the basics and re-do everything can work.
| nine_k wrote:
| No. It's not about anything old; it's about stripping things
| down to their essence.
|
| A browser that can render text, and not much beside the text,
| emphasizes the text of a page, which, for many pages, is the
| content the user came for. Everything else is fluff.
|
| In modern times, "Reader mode" in browsers does the same thing:
| removes fluff to make reading easier.
|
| _Of course_ it 's great that now browsers support advanced
| features and enable amazing interactive pages like
| https://ciechanow.ski/internal-combustion-engine/, or just
| "simple" GMail. But such pages, and such highly interactive web
| _applications_ , are fewer and further between than most pages
| that provide value by showing just static text and static
| images.
| hulitu wrote:
| > are probably a manifestation of fading youth.
|
| When a program needs 3 build systems to build (ninja, meson,
| make) is probably a manifestation of exuberation.
| mrtksn wrote:
| I completely share these feelings but IMHO the products
| should't go back in time to ease the burden of the artisans.
| The tools should improve.
| dkarl wrote:
| I don't remember ever being excited about disruptive software
| updates. If anything, I'm more patient at sitting through an
| app update on a weak cell signal than I was when I was younger.
| gspencley wrote:
| I remember the days of waiting for the early adopters,
| reading the reviews and letting bug fixes and patches get
| released before making an informed decision to upgrade, if
| upgrading was considered worth it.
|
| For things like security patches, pushing updates has been a
| net positive IMO.
|
| For absolutely everything else, it's a disaster. I always
| used to think that the "free software purists" were a bit too
| radical for my tastes ... but now, in the era of SaaS, I find
| myself agreeing with them. I want to own and be in control of
| my hardware and software. Let me decide if upgrading is worth
| it.
| r90t wrote:
| Its a great experience to open HN website which is not overloaded
| w/ javascript. And even greater to go to another website which is
| even more lightweight. This feels like a good and friendly
| internet
| controversial97 wrote:
| Around 1996 or 1997, I saw netscape showing an small animated
| gif. Every cycle, the memory use of netscape went up by the size
| of the gif. On a machine with 4MB of RAM it did not take long to
| stop working.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| Do you mean the throbber (image that animated to show when a
| page was loading)?
|
| http://www.netscape-communications.com/netscapes-throbber-an...
| controversial97 wrote:
| It was an animated gif on a web page.
| _greim_ wrote:
| It's interesting that the author would associate "frames, tables,
| and other fancy features" with a lack of interesting content. I
| assume tables are included because they were widely misused at
| the time, not because tabular data wasn't interesting.
|
| I have a button in my toolbar called "dammit" which strips away
| every iframe, embed, object, audio, and video from the page,
| multiple times per second. These are considered foundational
| elements in the web platform and yet, when they disappear, pages
| seem to magically collapse into something readable.
| ccvannorman wrote:
| Can you share how this works / code snippet? Would love to add
| this to my "Fk the modern internet" toolset. (I also use
| TamperMonkey which injects client js when url patterns are
| matched, to get rid of annoying cookie modals.)
| makach wrote:
| Insight! Good points still valid today. Although I wonder if the
| author has changed his opinion on browser.
| [deleted]
| BaudouinVH wrote:
| Not Mosaic but worth browsing : the capsules in the Geminiverse (
| https://gemini.circumlunar.space/ ) have no modern browser
| gimmick at all and a very good signal-to-noise ration. #my2cents
| rvieira wrote:
| Side note, the links took me to the Delorie page and DJGPP. That
| was a blast from the past.
| raverbashing wrote:
| True, and the page still works (and looks the same)
|
| Looks like his most recent work is with RH
| https://developers.redhat.com/author/dj-delorie
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| I still use this strategy, though these days, I primarily use
| Mosaic and Netscape for testing.
|
| I tend to browse without JavaScript enabled, except for places I
| already trust to not abuse it. And if there is anything blocking
| me from accessing the page, such as a modal dialog, a cookie
| notice, a survey, a prompt to sign up for the newsletter, I close
| the tab.
|
| Over time, I have found that type of rude lack of consideration
| for the reader's cognitive load and ability to correlate highly
| with low-quality content that is a waste of my time to read, so
| this practice also saves me a lot of reading time.
|
| And every day, my Internet gets better and better.
|
| I like the term "featurism", I'm going to try to remember it.
| exitb wrote:
| Are there any version of Mosaic that are able to handle modern
| HTTPS?
| danjoredd wrote:
| Honestly thinking on making a Mosaic clone. Without CSS or
| Javascript, I imagine it won't be terribly difficult to put
| together
| mhd wrote:
| I've been quite impressed by the Gemini browser
| LaGrange[1]. Does it's own antialiased text rendering
| straight to SDL. Automatic site coloring as an option.
| Would be neat to see something like this with basic HTML
| 3-ish support (basic tables, lists etc)
|
| [1]: https://gmi.skyjake.fi/lagrange/
| lupire wrote:
| Why not start by disabling JS and CSS in an existing
| browser?
| danjoredd wrote:
| Im just saying I think making a new Mosaic would be a fun
| project. Been watching Andreas Kling do his browser
| hacking lately and it looks like a lot of fun
| asddubs wrote:
| you mean andreas kling
| danjoredd wrote:
| Right. I love his livestreams but I struggle with his
| name a lot. Apologies
| classichasclass wrote:
| Bolt it on! Here's XMosaic 2.7b5 with TLS 1.3 on my own
| SPARC. (Disclosure: my project.)
|
| https://oldvcr.blogspot.com/2022/07/crypto-
| ancienne-20-now-b...
| josteink wrote:
| Probably if using a local HTTP proxy to relay the actual
| traffic?
| II2II wrote:
| I don't know about Mosaic[1], but there are many alternatives
| out there. I frequently use elinks as a text only browser
| since it makes an attempt to layout pages (most pages have
| some form of layout to handle navigation elemnts these days).
| There are also browsers that handle graphics, but not
| scripting or CSS, if that is what you want.
|
| [1] I have heard of people trying to get Mosaic to work on
| modern machines, but I think the efforts were restricted to
| rebuilding the software rather than adding features.
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| Still plenty of websites which run on HTTP. I know mine
| certainly do.
|
| Security isn't everything, there's also accessibility to
| think about.
|
| HTTPS breaks in many circumstances when it's not needed,
| including on current browsers.
|
| You can also use a stripping proxy.
|
| Bigger issues I've encountered with actually using Mosaic is
| that a) it does not support the Host header, so you must have
| a dedicated IP address, and b) it doesn't like semicolons in
| then Content-Type header, which most of today's servers
| include.
| imiric wrote:
| > Security isn't everything, there's also accessibility to
| think about.
|
| TLS is not just about security. It also protects the
| authenticity of your content, ensures privacy and even
| accessibility for your visitors. Without it, any node
| between your visitor and your server could inject content
| and JavaScript to do all sorts of nefarious tracking and
| profiling.
|
| These days there's really no excuse for using plain HTTP on
| public facing sites. Please rethink your decision.
| Beldin wrote:
| It's not just your site: an HTTP site allows for
| injecting HTTP urls for images/css files on other sites,
| e.g. <link src="http://target.site/...">
|
| If target.site's auth or session cookies aren't properly
| protected, this is sufficient for stealing them [1]. And
| plenty of sites have insufficient protection on their
| cookies [1].
|
| [1] http://www.open.ou.nl/hjo/papers/compsec21.pdf
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| Actually, there is a very good excuse: I want to access
| the content I need with the browser and configuration I
| currently have, and without the ability to alter it.
|
| While the threat of MITM is technically true, thanks to
| being on a relatively safe networks segment, I have yet
| to encounter it happening in the real world, except in
| cases of captive portals, when I actually want it to
| happen.
|
| I think it is largely an over-stated threat for most
| read-only applications.
|
| The impact on accessibility, on the other hand, is real
| and huge.
| neurostimulant wrote:
| You must be lucky. My cellphone carrier used to injects
| scripts and ads on plain http requests. Imagine seeing
| ads on wikipedia. Now that https is everywhere, this
| behavior is largely stop.
| myfonj wrote:
| There was similar discussion about "provide un-encrypted
| access to your pages for accessibility" few months ago
| here at HN under "Consider disabling HTTPS auto
| redirects" post [1].
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31895148
| danjoredd wrote:
| Not to mention people in the country suffer for featurism. In
| 2009 I had dial-up because broadband was unavailable where I
| was, and it took as long as 12 minutes to load some pages. I
| have since moved and no longer rely on dial-up, but I can only
| imagine how long it would take now with all the bloat
| happening. Honestly not sure how they do it these days.
| SuperSandro2000 wrote:
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| The comment seems overly dismissive. I believe parent raises
| a valid point.If we accept that we are consumers and
| capitalism theoretically expects that one is an informed
| consumer, it is primarily up to us to determine future shape
| of the landscape. Naturally, what follows seems to be:
|
| -we are not informed consumers -informed consumers are a
| minority -uninformed consumers are a boon to capitalism
|
| To you specific point, is it ivory tower to know what you
| want and make decisions that benefit you specifically and not
| partake in Zeitgeist just because everyone else is?
| narag wrote:
| _I like the term "featurism", I'm going to try to remember it._
|
| You're going to love the qualified version:
|
| https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=creeping%20f...
| layer8 wrote:
| > I like the term "featurism", I'm going to try to remember it.
|
| They actually could have translated it 1:1 as "featuritis". It
| basically means the same as "feature creep".
| _notreallyme_ wrote:
| Before closing the tab, I check if View -> Page Style -> No
| Style gives the text I was interested in reading. If i arrived
| on the page, chances are that there might be some information
| I'm looking for.
| m463 wrote:
| thanks, this is fascinating and useful
| tbran wrote:
| I feel like the strategy of closing sites with newsletter sign-
| ups, dialog, etc. is just going to waste your time. If I'm
| searching for something, I just want the information. Not gonna
| close websites till I find one that has no popups/modals!!
|
| Popup Blocker [0] and uBlock Origin for Firefox will do a
| pretty good job of getting rid of the junk you don't want.
|
| https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/popup-blocker...
| dwringer wrote:
| There are pros and cons to the approach. Information from
| such actively hostile sites tends to be of a lesser quality
| and of questionable reliability anyway IMHO.
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| It may seem that way, but I have found it to be very
| effective.
|
| In my comment, I was thinking of the context of links I click
| to from HN.
|
| But it also works when searching for information. When I
| close the tab of an unfriendly site, which, remember, likely
| has lower-quality information than an accessible one, I am
| immediately freeing myself to click the next link in the
| search results and get my information from an accessible site
| with higher-quality content.
|
| Given the disparity of the quality of content, it is quite
| likely that I would have ended up at the latter site anyway.
| checkyoursudo wrote:
| > I just want the information
|
| Certainly a reasonable choice on your part. We all want what
| we want.
|
| I have a friend who, when he goes grocery shopping, grabs the
| first item he sees from each of the items on his list. As far
| as I can determine, this is without regard to price, quality,
| or any other factor.
| c7b wrote:
| Statistically speaking, your friend should be getting
| average products from each category in the long run.
| Practically speaking, however, the assumptions that go into
| that statement likely won't hold, as supermarkets go to
| some lengths to make sure that the first item that meets
| your eye from any category is one of the pricier options.
| Spivak wrote:
| > one of the pricier options.
|
| More profitable for the store. The actual expensive stuff
| is on the top shelf. Eye level will probably be the store
| and the national brand which skew average or a little
| below.
| dr-detroit wrote:
| protomikron wrote:
| On-topic: It's true, basic design often correlates with better
| content.
|
| Off-topic: The author is one of the orignal authors of Gforth,
| one of the main Forth implementations.
| [deleted]
| jagger27 wrote:
| The source code of that page is beautiful.
| tannhaeuser wrote:
| > _Featurism is usually inverse proportional to content, and
| those who have content generally value being readable._
|
| (as related to features such as HTML frames and tables)
|
| Thanks for this quote attributed to Bernd Paysan I can now cite
| rather than formulating this over and over (for CSS grids,
| subgrids, columns, flexbox, functions, variables/custom
| properties and whatnot).
| badsectoracula wrote:
| I can understand frames, but tables are useful even for plain
| text content and even lynx and emacs (eww, not w3, not sure if
| they are related though) have support for them.
| hmry wrote:
| It might be talking about pages that used tables for
| styling/layout
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