5 ms·

It doesn't help your position the fact that you are unable to express it without belittling anybody who disagrees with you using stuff like "stay stuck in 1992"

by baghira 11y ago

It doesn't help your position the fact that you are unable to express it without belittling anybody who disagrees with you using stuff like "stay stuck in 1992" ("If you don't like America you should go to Russia!"). Also, the links/lynx jokes have really gotten tired, plenty of people browse the web with ublock, no(t)script, webgl and webrtc disabled and so on. The pretense that anybody who tries to retain a modicum of control on what its browser does and does not it a luddist is frankly irritating. And the whole language debate is completely off point, we have plenty of safe(r) languages for writing stuff, the misguided idea is that the only way to do so is to use javascript and stick the resulting program inside the browser.

ronjouch 11y ago
> It doesn't help your position the fact that you are unable to express it without belittling anybody who disagrees with you using stuff like "stay stuck in 1992" ("If you don't like America you should go to Russia!"). True, that was useless, could have just said "I and many users do want these features" . Thanks, and sorry anon. > the links/lynx jokes have really gotten tired, plenty of people browse the web with ublock, no(t)script, webgl and webrtc disabled and so on. The pretense that anybody who tries to retain a modicum of control on what its browser does and does not it a luddist is frankly irritating. That wasn't a links joke, I could have phrased it with your own words "You can install ublock, no(t)script, and disable webgl/webrtc if you want a simple browser letting you read static html documents" , and "But I can't, every website require these features now" would still be an answer. My conclusion isn't that "anyone trying to retain a modicum of control on what its browser does and does not is a luddist" --and I do use some of these extensions too--, it's that the barebones web experience anon wants is broken now (and probably forever), due to: a. Sadly, non-respect of progressive enhancement in cases where it's possible (documents). b. The fact that _some_ parts of the web are increasingly not documents, but whole apps whose progressive-enhancement baseline (running without all the bells and whistles) would do nothing because they depend on these features. > And the whole language debate is completely off point, we have plenty of safe(r) languages for writing stuff, the misguided idea is that the only way to do so is to use javascript and stick the resulting program inside the browser. Yes. Development practices, testing, fuzzing, and safe(r) languages, like Rust.
- baghira 11y ago
  Ok, I guess that I misread the tone of your post (i.e. we largely agree). I don't however think that the web it that broken without those features (javascript being the harder one to police). Judging from the browsing habits of my family members, they don't spend nearly as much time inside web applications as the HN news cycle would lead me to believe: some news sites, some webmail (and even there, when presented with a decent looking mail application they happily switched), the most basic functions of facebook, and "utilities" i.e. web banking, traveling, university websites. None of these uses requires the ability to play quake3 inside firefox, or are really applications inside a webpage. Same probably goes for all the browsers in the workplace, for instance. I'll agree with you that few sites will do progressive-enhancement (and decent accessibiliy), I'm just disappointed in the defeatist attitude of browser vendors and expert users: the idea of having a browser safe mode that you can lock down doesn't strike me as such an impossiblity and it would give some incentive to developers to put their act together.
  - ronjouch 11y ago
    > None of these uses requires the ability to play quake3 inside firefox, or are really applications inside a webpage. Maybe, for now. But WebRTC/WebSockets have a value proposal for real-time interaction in collaborative office suites. Canvas/WebGL have one for performance in authoring tools and for articles illustrations. Documents are readable in your default serif/sans-serif set, but WebFonts are a good designer/author tool just like fonts are in print. Etc... Renouncing this added value because each new feature increases the attack surface sounds like throwing the baby with the bathwater. > I'm just disappointed in the defeatist attitude of browser vendors and expert users: the idea of having a browser safe mode that you can lock down doesn't strike me as such an impossiblity and it would give some incentive to developers to put their act together. Two thoughts: 1. Such a "Safe mode" disabling features presents high risks of breaking tons of sites, leaving non-expert users in the dark, and these users are the most likely to be clueless about what's wrong and may just switch to another browser. In the case of JavaScript, Firefox is actually going the opposite way of what you want, by making it harder to disable it [1]. The closest to your wish with Firefox is probably to use their LTS version, ESR, where the dust settled for a little while more (but which ironically, was affected by today's exploit ^^). 2. Can what you are proposing be a "mode"? Take the "Reader View" mode of recent Firefox builds, proposing a Readability-like mode streamlining long reads: this one is clearly a _mode_, you click on it, the text turns big, page gets sepia, side content disappears, you know you're in it and you're not going to constantly browse with it. But would you alternate between "default" mode and "Safe" mode? What a terrible choice to make, you would certainly stay on "Safe" mode, and at this point it becomes transparent that the browser constantly altering content, deepening cluelessness for non-expert users in case of breakage. 2.1. EDIT this reminds me a lot of Polaris tracking protection [2], a project/feature of recent Firefox builds to block http requests of trackers, for privacy. I use the feature, and even I, a moderately "expert" user, was left puzzled when it blocked all the images an article (can't recover it, it was a Russian article/domain of a photographer exploring the remnants of a space shuttle launch military site). Anyway, Polaris had the images domain in its blacklist and blocked them. Glancing at the console, I saw Polaris blocking and disabled the time of a page refresh. But how to handle this simply for non-expert users? This is tough to implement, and directly opposes the "don't break userland" equivalent of the web. [1] http://limi.net/checkboxes-that-kill/ http://limi.net/checkboxes-that-kill/ , https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=873709 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=873709 , https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5968237 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5968237 [2] https://wiki.mozilla.org/Polaris#Tracking_protection https://wiki.mozilla.org/Polaris#Tracking_protection

by baghira 11y ago

ronjouch 11y ago

> It doesn't help your position the fact that you are unable to express it without belittling anybody who disagrees with you using stuff like "stay stuck in 1992" ("If you don't like America you should go to Russia!"). True, that was useless, could have just said "I and many users do want these features" . Thanks, and sorry anon. > the links/lynx jokes have really gotten tired, plenty of people browse the web with ublock, no(t)script, webgl and webrtc disabled and so on. The pretense that anybody who tries to retain a modicum of control on what its browser does and does not it a luddist is frankly irritating. That wasn't a links joke, I could have phrased it with your own words "You can install ublock, no(t)script, and disable webgl/webrtc if you want a simple browser letting you read static html documents" , and "But I can't, every website require these features now" would still be an answer. My conclusion isn't that "anyone trying to retain a modicum of control on what its browser does and does not is a luddist" --and I do use some of these extensions too--, it's that the barebones web experience anon wants is broken now (and probably forever), due to: a. Sadly, non-respect of progressive enhancement in cases where it's possible (documents). b. The fact that _some_ parts of the web are increasingly not documents, but whole apps whose progressive-enhancement baseline (running without all the bells and whistles) would do nothing because they depend on these features. > And the whole language debate is completely off point, we have plenty of safe(r) languages for writing stuff, the misguided idea is that the only way to do so is to use javascript and stick the resulting program inside the browser. Yes. Development practices, testing, fuzzing, and safe(r) languages, like Rust.

baghira 11y ago
Ok, I guess that I misread the tone of your post (i.e. we largely agree). I don't however think that the web it that broken without those features (javascript being the harder one to police). Judging from the browsing habits of my family members, they don't spend nearly as much time inside web applications as the HN news cycle would lead me to believe: some news sites, some webmail (and even there, when presented with a decent looking mail application they happily switched), the most basic functions of facebook, and "utilities" i.e. web banking, traveling, university websites. None of these uses requires the ability to play quake3 inside firefox, or are really applications inside a webpage. Same probably goes for all the browsers in the workplace, for instance. I'll agree with you that few sites will do progressive-enhancement (and decent accessibiliy), I'm just disappointed in the defeatist attitude of browser vendors and expert users: the idea of having a browser safe mode that you can lock down doesn't strike me as such an impossiblity and it would give some incentive to developers to put their act together.
- ronjouch 11y ago
  > None of these uses requires the ability to play quake3 inside firefox, or are really applications inside a webpage. Maybe, for now. But WebRTC/WebSockets have a value proposal for real-time interaction in collaborative office suites. Canvas/WebGL have one for performance in authoring tools and for articles illustrations. Documents are readable in your default serif/sans-serif set, but WebFonts are a good designer/author tool just like fonts are in print. Etc... Renouncing this added value because each new feature increases the attack surface sounds like throwing the baby with the bathwater. > I'm just disappointed in the defeatist attitude of browser vendors and expert users: the idea of having a browser safe mode that you can lock down doesn't strike me as such an impossiblity and it would give some incentive to developers to put their act together. Two thoughts: 1. Such a "Safe mode" disabling features presents high risks of breaking tons of sites, leaving non-expert users in the dark, and these users are the most likely to be clueless about what's wrong and may just switch to another browser. In the case of JavaScript, Firefox is actually going the opposite way of what you want, by making it harder to disable it [1]. The closest to your wish with Firefox is probably to use their LTS version, ESR, where the dust settled for a little while more (but which ironically, was affected by today's exploit ^^). 2. Can what you are proposing be a "mode"? Take the "Reader View" mode of recent Firefox builds, proposing a Readability-like mode streamlining long reads: this one is clearly a _mode_, you click on it, the text turns big, page gets sepia, side content disappears, you know you're in it and you're not going to constantly browse with it. But would you alternate between "default" mode and "Safe" mode? What a terrible choice to make, you would certainly stay on "Safe" mode, and at this point it becomes transparent that the browser constantly altering content, deepening cluelessness for non-expert users in case of breakage. 2.1. EDIT this reminds me a lot of Polaris tracking protection [2], a project/feature of recent Firefox builds to block http requests of trackers, for privacy. I use the feature, and even I, a moderately "expert" user, was left puzzled when it blocked all the images an article (can't recover it, it was a Russian article/domain of a photographer exploring the remnants of a space shuttle launch military site). Anyway, Polaris had the images domain in its blacklist and blocked them. Glancing at the console, I saw Polaris blocking and disabled the time of a page refresh. But how to handle this simply for non-expert users? This is tough to implement, and directly opposes the "don't break userland" equivalent of the web. [1] http://limi.net/checkboxes-that-kill/ http://limi.net/checkboxes-that-kill/ , https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=873709 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=873709 , https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5968237 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5968237 [2] https://wiki.mozilla.org/Polaris#Tracking_protection https://wiki.mozilla.org/Polaris#Tracking_protection