For the millionth time, Stallman was right.
Yep, you send me html, my browser can interpret it any way that I want it to. If I want to ignore all of the image and script tags, I can. I don’t need Chrome or even Chromium. As Stallman says, you should know what is running on your system.
We need to go back to html and css. Using an ad blocker and noscript literally breaks webpages. I just want to read the article! You know the content ppl actually come for
But how is all the bloat going to get to you then? HTML with some images is equally functional and loads in a fraction of the time, because it is actually efficient. Nobody could want that could they?
How the fuck are people using the internet without an adblocker?
It is pracitcally impossible to differentiate content from ads. And i was just talking about all the bloat without the ads. Thank you for sharing this, i never thought it’d be this bad.
It’s such a bizarre situation. Either you heavily limit Javascript and basically destroy all web apps or you embrace it and get laughably slow websites with walls of ads that beg you to log in to actually view the page. Like if you look into it, it’s genuinely shocking how much software is a web browser running JS under the hood.
I can see legitimate uses for java script, like popping out a menu. But it seriously needs its capabilities restricted.
You can pop out menus with CSS.
needs its capabilities restricted
This is a bad take. How are you gonna do that? Force ECMA to scrap all the functionality deemed ‘bad’? Wave a magic tech wand? At the end of the day JS is a tool, and like any tool it can be abused for nefarious purposes. The issue is that advertisers abuse this tool, and the sites they pay to be shown on allow it. Not because insert scripting language exists.
It just occured to me that I wonder how a text browser addresses all this
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/07/25/voters-progressive-trump-harvard-youth-poll-gop/
Just tried it on browsor
That doesn’t mean his strategy and approach is good.
That doesn’t mean his strstegy and approach is good.
Who cares? Whether or not Stallman is a likeable person isn’t what’s important. His ideas are.
The way he presents them and approaches certain subjects is what’s offputting. He’s got this black and white atitude towards the world and how things work, when in reality, everything is just a shade of gray.
Could you give an example?
He says IoT devices are bad. He says most Linux distros are bad just cuz they don’t use everything GPL licensed in them. Says don’t use this, don’t use that, yet the alternatives to what he proposes are… just no usable in the 21st century. Read pages in plain HTML, yeah right 😒.
It’s the lingo he uses, he marks everything as bad, except for GNU or GPL licensed software. And that is off putting to most people and is why many new projects don’t even use the GPL any more, they use MIT or BSD quite more often. The complete lack of any legal support for GPL projects from the FSF is also another reason. “There are just too many, we don’t have enough lawers”. Have you ever thought about, IDK, paying those people? Like you win one lawsuit, make a deal with the owner of the licensed work for him/her to invest part of the winning over to the FSF in order to actually pay these lawers and other people involved in the process. Do the same with every case, and you have yourself a sustainable system. No one wins this way, except those who infrindged the GPL license.
My 2 cents… doesn’t mean that I’m right, but these are one of my personal reasons why I steer away from the FSF and RMS. These people are stuck in bitterness and grudges, no real insentive to offer a viable alternative whatsoever. It’s like the Pale Moon project, except PM is much worse.
Stop using chrome. Yes brave is chrome
@nicman24 Fox is chrome…
are you saying firefox is chrome? because i wanted to thank you for exposing me to the stupidest shit ill read today, thank you for getting it out the way early.
I think he means Firefox is not Chromium-based; Chrome is a proprietary code base, no one can access it besides internal Google employees. Chromium, on the other hand, is open source, and is what browsers such as Edge, Brave and Opera are based off of. Chrome is also based off Chromium, it’s the closed source browser Google distributes. Think of Chromium as Android, and the Pixel UI as Chrome. So no, I doubt he means Firefox is Chrome.
Edit: seeing from the other comments, downvotes, and that the comment has been edited, he most likely made a typo and typed “Firefox is chromium.”
Edit 2: Mistakenly said that Chromium was what Firefox was based off of when I meant to say Brave. My bad. I’m well aware Firefox isn’t Chromium-based(I use it for that reason), I was just confused as to why this person was saying he meant Firefox was Chrome, when the comment read “firefox is not chromium”. I later realized(in the above edit) that they must have written “firefox is chromium”, before editing it to “firefox is not chromium” after realizing he messed the comment up.
Incorrect dukk. Firefox isn’t built on Chromium, Firefox predates google let alone Google chromium.
I’m not saying Firefox uses Chromium? I specifically said that Firefox ISN’T based off Chrome/Chromium.
Edit: Never mind, I see that I messed up the post.
But you left it up like a real OG, respect.
Firefox is the only major browser standing today that’s not based on Chromium, so you’re right there.
Firefox does not predate Google. Firefox is a descendant of Mozilla, which started as a broken chunk of quickly open sourced Netscape Navigator 4.0 code. Netscape’s engineers ripped out everything they didn’t hold a license to and dumped it raw (and uncompilable) on the web for the OSS community to rebuild. This happed just before Netscape was finished being acquired by AOL.
AOL did rebrand Netscape Navigator as AOL Browser, but it didn’t gain any significant market share.
Google was founded about the same time (about two years later) as Netscape Navigator was released. So, you can either say Firefox’s history is older than Google or the actual Firefox project is younger than Google.
In February 1998, approximately one year prior to its acquisition by AOL, Netscape released the source code for its browser and created the Mozilla Organization
Google Founded September 4, 1998
Mozilla, Gecko and what everyone now commonly refers to as Firefox predates Google.
Edit: you’re technically correct of course, however I wasn’t about to complicate my reply with Netscape, Mozilla and Gecko history when the OP I was replying to was saying Firefox was built on Google Chromium.
Nope. Firefox doesn’t use Chromium at all. It’s based on Gecko, an entirely different codebase that predates chromium.
Gecko, the underlying engine behind Firefox, is an entirely different code base from Chromium
Firefox doesn’t use chromium. It uses Gecko, which is an entirely separate codebase.
Firefox uses their own engine IIRC, that’s why more people should be using it so we can get some competition with Chromium.
I think the management’s recent decisions, as well as the removal/lack of power-user features for those users, have moved a lot of people away from Firefox, myself included. They really need to focus on providing really good software, not get caught up in trying to chase trends or forcing services people don’t want. This WIRED article does a good job explaining the issues.
I am keeping an eye on Pulse Browser, which is an experimental fork of Firefox with uBlock Origin pre-installed and some UI customisations. They’ve got a sidebar with “web panels” very much like Vivaldi’s Panels, and they’ve got vertical tabs like Edge. People also seem to be posting suggestions to their discussion page on GitHub. It’s early days, but if they listen and try to implement some of the suggested features to their best ability, it could be a much better Firefox than Firefox itself.
Yeah but if you dont support Mozilla Firefox the project will run out of resources and only one engine will be left chromium.
Oh, I support Gecko. More browser engines to compete against Chromium the better. I just can’t support Firefox in its current state right now. Thankfully, Pulse seems to be picking up the slack in places.
Thank you for mentioning a non-chromium browser with vertical tabs, genuinely something FF would benefit from.
No problem! Tree Style Tabs might also do the job on base Firefox with nested tabs, but it’s not as streamlined as Pulse or Edge, especially if you want to hide the tab bar (you have to edit .CSS files).
edit: okay enabling both features, moving the main side panel to the right and enable tab collapsing makes a great space-saving setup.
edit 2: now i’m using pulse as my main browser
Ikr
But that’s also not private as has been claimed as a reason to go FF. The only reason to use FF is only to not use chrome. Not for all the reasons that chrome is bad.
Tor Browser, LibreWolf, and Arkenfox JS are the most secure and private browsers you can get and they’re all based on Firefox. If they’re not private enough for you, I don’t know what is
I think a lot of people here don’t understand the danger of this fully and dismiss it with “Just use Firefox, problem solved”.
Unfortunately, once this becomes widely available, that is once Chrome ships it, websites will start to use it.
Maybe Amazon will just not sell to you anymore when you’re browsing with Firefox?
Maybe YouTube wont serve any videos if you’re using Linux?
Your bank will certainly implement this and only allow Windows 11 with Edge or some shit like that.
Once this is implemented, we will all suffer, even if we’re using better alternatives right now.Your bank will certainly implement this
My brother in Christ, it was 2020 before my bank supported passwords longer than 8 characters. We have 30 or 40 years before we need to worry about the banks.
Some banks are still running windows 98 internally, admitedly so long as said system isnt connected to the internet it should be fine.
Lol, not to mention Cobalt and other horrors that are lurking in Legacy systems no one has looked at in 50 years.
I’m thinking mainframe terminals, where the character has to be in the right place on the screen in order to store something in RAM.
Even worse, how many systems are still using punch cards? How often do those cards need to be replaced?
You mean Cobol? I’m literally working on migrating legacy cobol code to ODB for a banking client. I’m loving it (/s)
Win 98
This isn’t true, this can’t be true and I refuse to believe it.
I sincerely hope that your local ATM never crashes and you never have to see the windows xp logo.
@xavier666 @vaultdweler13, it’s true, For internal use with PCs connected to the central server itself and not to the network, it is used for compatibility with corporate software, sometimes still very old Windows. This, when using it on the one hand only in a specialized way and on the other hand only locally, is more than enough. The same in factories in production for the automation of some valve or machinery with repetitive processes, a super-pc with a NASA OS is not needed.
For PCs at workshop, I can understand Win98. The OS is just a bootloader to a single application. But for banking, it’s a terrible security hazard.
@xavier666, only if it is used in subsidiaries where they have to manage money movements over the network, but not in local administrative applications where it is irrelevant, as in all purely local uses. In monoapplications in this area, even an old MsDOS will be worth it.
They have traveled to the Moon with an SO from a Tamagochi.As long as it’s isolated to local use, I guess it’s fine. But if it connects to the internet, may lord have mercy on the firewall.
Have you ever rooted an android phone?
The google SafteyNet Attestation is the precursor to browser DRM. It’s essentially phone DRM.
There are many banks that have apps that require you to pass at least the basic level attestation, if not the CTS profile matching that fails the moment you modify any system level resources, even the bootloader
luckily you can force disable CTS so it falls back on the basic level, for most apps at least. You will never have access to Google or Samsung pay though, as it actually knows your phone model should support CTS and will autofail if it no longer reports that it does.
Alongside that apps like Pokemon GO and Netflix also require at least basic attestation to function - demonstrating the DRM and anticheat capabilities of such a system.
I wonder if that would be a valid anti trust violition ?
If we lived in a sane country all 4 major tech companies would have already been brought to court over this in like, 2016. (Microsoft for the second time…)
Would apple just roll over on this? Or would they fight to make sure safari is also an option to freely use the internet (or at least severely limiting apples ability to do something similar) And websites that depend on ads, the number of Firefox and safari users have to be greater than the number of users who use ad-blockers. So wouldn’t it negatively affect ad income on websites if they implemented it and cut out all non-chromium browsers?
I think apple would figure out some very creative ways to fuck it’s customers, some more.
It’s IE6 all over again.
Technically the idea is that if Chrome has barely any market share (will never happen, but let’s pretend), they cannot implement this as it will anger and lock too many users out of day to day life.
However…
With Google Search and YouTube being by far the most 2 popular websites in the world, I think they still could. The vast majority of people would never give those up and if they’re told to use another program to access them, they absolutely will, meaning in an ideal world with a browser competition, they can easily destroy it immediately.
DRM is stupid because it interferes with paying customers and isn’t effective. If there’s a will there’s a way
I guess we have to get a subscription on top of our monthly internet bill to use the internet.
Can’t wait to have to subscribe to everything and they’ll still sell my data
Not one-for-one, but the BBC actually wanted to put a tax on broadband bills in response to the resentment towards the TV License.
*loicense
Maybe there wouldn’t be so much resentment if they didn’t send you threatening letters despite not using the service?
It’s also stupid because it’s encryption but Bob and Eve are the same person.
Just use Firefox, Mozilla already put their stance forward as opposing this garbage
Firefox is faster than chrome anyway nowadays.
Nowadays? I think you mean since always :)
That may be true on desktop. But, unfortunately, the mobile app is way behind chromium. From being unresponsive, to outright buggy. It’s not a good experince. It’s been 2 years since the rewrite but it’s not getting much better or even close to fixing most of its issue. Meaning, using firefox on android is a handicap on yourself.
I use it because I can use it to block ads. If a page doesn’t work, I’ll use chrome.
I actually use Chrome on Windows. I just dislike ads more than I like Chrome.
Google in 2004: don’t be evil Google in 2023: turns into Dr. Evil
Something-something die as a hero or become the villain.
Now we can scream that they’re truly evil
API changes*
No no, they changed their beer. I hear they added more hops to it.
Changing a beer to an IPA is actually a pretty good analogy, according to this beer lover who doesn’t like overly hoppy ones…
Nah, nah, it was the International Phonetic Alphabet. Can’t have something like that on the 'murican internet.
Nah, it was definitely meant to mean the Ion Probe Analysis, a technique that uses a focused beam of hydrogen ions to to probe the surface of a material to measure its elemental composition and isotopic ratios.
use a vpn. when will they make VPNs illegal? 2060? 2050? 2030? 2024? August 2023?
Ok, I’m going to need to see some ID.
Oh no, not the Pub Environment Integrity
Easy there, McLovin
Deliberate typo for increased engagement.
witter bought y musk
Le X
dab ym spoo!
… Are those words?
Read it backwards
Ah yes, 2023. The year I wore a pirate hat and touched more grass. Soon they’ll be bribing the govt to make going outside illegal.
Soon they’ll be bribing the govt to make going outside illegal.
That was 2020
Oh don’t worry, it’s poisoned and the animals are gone. Once the heat bakes off the greenery, there will be no reason at all to go out there except to get to your car
One more time if anyone says that capitalism breeds innovation we need to show them this ¡!
restricted capitalism does that. regular capitalism makes monopoly.
Does it though? Universities seem to be doing the heavily lifting innovation-wise.
This is innovation though, an internet wide DRM would be quite an impressive technical feat. It’s just not innovation built to benefit you and me, it’s built to benefit Google’s true customers, advertisers
Oh almost like if in capitalism they didn’t say that oligarchys are a problem. What we needed is to send these giants down.
That would prove difficult considering money rules, you can make people do you bidding, make them disappear and suffer little to no consequences.
So what we needed is a decent anti-monopoly, anti-oligarchy force.
Just like when the us gov dismantled AT&T into thousands of smaller different cervices and that created things like mobile rputhers and etc.
Soo the, Google at this point is putting down more inovatjon that he is bringing it to the table.
Problem is not capitalism, it’s all that power centered in the same place. Almost like a dictatorship.
Well that was when anti trust laws actually worked ! Alphabet , meta etc are literally sucking americans poor. Still we dont see anything !
Tbh as a Climat activist who grew up surrounded by deniers …yhe… the feeling of hopeless is strong. But hey I have been seeing slow and gradual change, when things are getting bad.
At least in your scenario (at the moment) when they go down we might be able to reverse the worse consequences. Unlike climate where we probably just fucked.
Our planet has had good and bad climates , but humans have fucked it intentionally and there seems to be nor reluctance or remorse in the rich to fuck it even more , it will probably end in jeopardising human life , mostly the poor will suffer and die , but i am quite sure that planet will find ways to recover ! Once the humans are gone !
Oh for fuck sake, yes when I say planet I mean the delicate ecosystem that supports all life. See even better I still get downvoated by shit heads
Yeah… They find innovative ways to milk us of our money and attention and annoy the heck out of everyone
I mean, it’s all innovation in some way… Just all anti-consumer.
Reddit don’t have IPA on tap anymore?
I don’t want their IPA, I want my Ruby Beer
Plus the paid streaming services adding ads back in and they are all the SAME fucking ads?
🎶 Do what you want because a pirate is a free, you are a pirate! 🎶
Ngl I am so done with streaming services asking for device specs and blocking things on my devices that I pirate stuff anyway !
🎶Yar yar figle di fi🎶
“What’s internet? It it like Googlenet but worse?”
-Some kid in the future
Wait, Google’s doing what now?
They want to implement a “feature” so websites only load for you, if your browser, OS and hardware are deemed “trustworthy” aka you load every ad and malware that the website wants to shove down your throat.
Oh God… I think I’m going to be sick. It’s too easy to see how you could weaponize this against dissenters.
Don’t like something about our product? Have fun being banned from the internet!
Not even dissenters, just people in general. That’s why they’re likening it to DRM. Run something nonstandard on your system (ie Linux)? Get with the program. It’s a continuation of “you don’t own anything, use it how we want you to use it or don’t use it at all.”
Isnt this already a thing with many webapps already , I had to dual boot windows coz some uni websites refused to run detecting linux on my system !
That’s just fucked. I guess I’m lucky that my Uni doesn’t really give a shit. During the pandemic, they were even chill enough for us to use alternative software here and there, since we weren’t allowed to come in and use the PCs on site.
Fuck this goes deeper than I thought
From what I gathered even if u have installed a browser on ur phone that is not signed by play store or app store google may block it , so fennec / bromium and other f droid products google may decide to tag as malicious !
There are times I build my own browser and OS probably in future ( basically building open souce code , sometimes removing ssignatures and enhancements) , I wonder if I will be able to use stuff then !
Or you could just use Firefox? Mozilla has stated that it opposes this stuff.
Firefox is my primary browser on my stable systems , I am talking of the side projects ! There is a good possibility that soon the websites will block forks of firefox and other FOSS projects !
Does anyone else think that maybe this may cause a shift back to times before internet
Honestly, reddits API change was an awful thing to do but my phone usage has plummeted since then. I’ve been trying Lemmy but it’s not been an easy 1:1 replacement and I find myself not engaging or feeling so invested in conversations and content as much.
That works in my favor, though, because I really have been spending way too much time looking at screens anyway.
Why watch the news when you can learn everything from memes
I hadn’t heard of the YouTube thing. Doesn’t matter because I don’t use it, but it’s still outrageous.
I am willing to watch an ad or two every 15 minutes, so long as they are no more than a minute total of wasted time. This ultra-monetization crap where it’s a minute and a half every 5 minutes is why people use AdBlockers and pirate media.
Be reasonable as a business, and you’ll get a reasonable response. Flood my free time with ads, and you get AdBlock and piracy.
God we need an alternative to YouTube
It’s called PeerTube, which is Fediverse/ActivityPub service for video.
The problem is that with video there’s a larger separation between users and content creators. Services like Mastodon and Lemmy can grow just from users switching to them because users themselves also post the content, but PeerTube isn’t going to grow until the people making videos start posting them there.
You’re neglecting the fact that fediverse tube instances can’t possibly take the load and the volume of videos being uploaded on YT. That is why almost none of them have open registrations, only admin approved registrations (you apply, than the admin chooses whether to approve or deny your application).
Fascinating
that’s what the problem is. youtube has a wide range of users who got cozy to the platform where many of them doesn’t even care about using adblockers. also, content creators got used to it. so making them shift their platform to something new is harder than making them shift from reddit to lemmy or twitter to mastadon.
