6 ms·

I'd love to go back to the days where I didn't have to endure the 20+ external scripts (mostly ads, analytics, social and "optimization") that some crappy dev h

by davb 11y ago

I'd love to go back to the days where I didn't have to endure the 20+ external scripts (mostly ads, analytics, social and "optimization") that some crappy dev has crammed into their markup, just to read an article or browse a store. Maybe we need a content oriented alternative to the web browser. Maybe a modern Gopher. Display preferences are handled by the client. Sure, support video and audio. Support tables. But keep it minimal. Put all the scripting on the server side, as it should be. Lock down the specification - do everything to stop it becoming web browser 2.0. Then we wouldn't need junk like AMP. Maybe it would take off well in some nice to start with.

anonbanker 11y ago
wasn't all of your needs met by RSS? why did everyone stop using it after Aaron died?
- Navarr 11y ago
  I use RSS daily. That said it doesn't prevent ads or tracking scripts. It's just HTML stuffed in XML
  - newjersey 11y ago
    I've been flirting with no script on my desktop computer. I'm actually pleasantly surprised by how much actually work. Give it a shot if you use Mozilla Firefox.
    - redtuesday 11y ago
      Absolutely, nearly since it's inception it is the first addon I install.
    - phjesusthatguy3 11y ago
      The first thing I do after firing up a new copy of firefox is install NoScript, uBlock Origin, and Ghostery. I set all three to block everything and then set a) NoScript to temporarily allow top-level sites by default b) Ghostery to allow disqus (because lots of the sites I read use disqus). I rarely allow anything to bypass uBlock, and give sites three chances unblocking script sources in NoScript (mostly ajax.googleapis.com). If unblocking three sources in NoScript still doesn't get me the content I want, I generally just close that tab and don't go back.
      - newjersey 11y ago
        Don't quote me on this but I think Ghostery is supposed to whitelist the benign stuff on Google domains such as googleapis.com automatically. I don't know enough about technology in general or NoScript in particular to tell whether this was a recent change or if it is then whether NoScript wants to mess with configuration for existing installations (my gut reaction is probably not as this is a little different from just getting updated fanboy's list for ad blockers).
- frozenport 11y ago
  Reddit/HN are the same interface but with relevant content and community interaction.
- lvs 11y ago
  What? Everyone stopped using it when Google Reader died.
stuartaxelowen 11y ago
Core problem is that creators of value want to be paid for it. The delivery medium doesn't change that.
- gue5t 11y ago
  No, I don't. I'm sure many others creators feel the same.
  - Trundle 11y ago
    You and all the other freebie guys are welcome to create content without all the extra scripts then. Pretty simple no? It would appear though, seeing as this is considered a pretty big problem, that the vast majority of people do want to be compensated.
    - MichaelBurge 11y ago
      I can see at least 5 viewpoints someone might have about ads on their site: * They don't care about the money and don't want ads on the site. * They're someone whose content is the advertising. A database consultant might write an article on using indices to speed up low-selectivity queries. He doesn't need to plaster his site with ads, but his articles do serve a secondary purpose of advertising himself. Or something like Angie's List, where people literally visit the site with the goal of being advertised to. * They don't mind unintrusive ads, and these help provide money and motivation to work more on the site. Google ads would be acceptable here. * In addition to their site's primary content, they also write sponsored content for companies that give them enough money. * They only care about extracting as much value from their site as possible. They might hire ghostwriters on Fiverr to write cheap articles, apply SEO techniques to get them to rank higher than they should, and then plaster noisy ads and popups everywhere. They might buy cheap traffic on low-contested keywords, and redirect them to sites with more expensive ads to arbitrage the traffic. They might have a form to collect your name, email address, and phone number; and then sell your information to a mortgage reselling company. They might have loud ads that play music on page load, that automatically play video, that pretend to be a Windows error dialog, that look like download buttons, etc. Some of these are arguably the ad networks' fault, but the maintainer of the website is ultimately responsible for anything that appears on his website. They might release news articles with clickbaity headlines just to drive traffic to their ads. I think most people take offense to #5. A minority also take offense to #3, since these track location and can form profiles of you between pages. I don't think anybody really minds the #2 or #1 people. If you banned ads entirely, you'd still be able to monetize using method #2.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
blhack 11y ago
You can just disable javascript. That seems to fix 99% of the problems. I use the scriptblock addon for chrome. Give me HTML. Let my browser render it. If I need some fancy-sauce like websockets, then I will selectively enable them.
- davb 11y ago
  > You can just disable javascript And break an increasing number of websites. What I'm suggesting is a platform where this isn't even a thing. I open my client and I'm guaranteed that all services on the network won't blast me with ads, lazy load content, have page weights of 1MB+ (for a 50KB article), won't let third party advertisers track me via their JavaScript. And they all just work. Every time I open the uBlock panel, I see even more new domains pop up that aren't on block lists yet. One big UK detailed had over 50 external scripts. Worst is when a sites main layout JS relies on a function in some third party as JS (trackThisGuy()) and completely fails when that code isn't present - block the ad provider, site breaks.
  - edraferi 11y ago
    I hate that sites fail to render without JS and dozens of calls to third party sites. At least degrade gracefully back to a readable page!
grey-area 11y ago
External scripts are not a requirement, just an option, and it's quite possible to optimise pages without something like amp or FB instant articles. The web is really well suited to content heavy sites, it's just being used to do all the things humans like to do (spam,ads,control over access), as gopher would be if it were popular. I think your problem is more with the behaviour than the medium and if you restrict the medium people would just look elsewhere.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- pekk 11y ago
  The whole point is that people who wanted to do spam, ads and paywalls would look elsewhere.
  - grey-area 11y ago
    The problem is with humans, not the medium; even plaintext can easily carry spam, pointless content or links etc and it's very hard to separate from real valuable content, in fact it me be considered both by different people.
oldmanjay 11y ago
You basically described HTTP and web browsers, but with restrictions on the type of content that can be created based on nothing more than your preferences. The market in general has spoken pretty clearly that they want more capability, so I just can't grant that you have a real point. The popularity of your concept on HN is no real surprise given the conservative bent of some techies, but it's the sort of opinion that gets no traction out in the world because it relies on retarding progress.
TrevorJ 11y ago
I've often thought that RSS would fit this role well, if only there was a way to display and reply to comments on the content as well. RSS readers are great for consuming content without all the BS, but I just miss being able to interact with the reactions other people have about the story so I find myself clicking through to the 'real' article about half the time anyway.

by davb 11y ago

anonbanker 11y ago

wasn't all of your needs met by RSS? why did everyone stop using it after Aaron died?

Navarr 11y ago
I use RSS daily. That said it doesn't prevent ads or tracking scripts. It's just HTML stuffed in XML
- newjersey 11y ago
  I've been flirting with no script on my desktop computer. I'm actually pleasantly surprised by how much actually work. Give it a shot if you use Mozilla Firefox.
  - redtuesday 11y ago
    Absolutely, nearly since it's inception it is the first addon I install.
  - phjesusthatguy3 11y ago
    The first thing I do after firing up a new copy of firefox is install NoScript, uBlock Origin, and Ghostery. I set all three to block everything and then set a) NoScript to temporarily allow top-level sites by default b) Ghostery to allow disqus (because lots of the sites I read use disqus). I rarely allow anything to bypass uBlock, and give sites three chances unblocking script sources in NoScript (mostly ajax.googleapis.com). If unblocking three sources in NoScript still doesn't get me the content I want, I generally just close that tab and don't go back.
    - newjersey 11y ago
      Don't quote me on this but I think Ghostery is supposed to whitelist the benign stuff on Google domains such as googleapis.com automatically. I don't know enough about technology in general or NoScript in particular to tell whether this was a recent change or if it is then whether NoScript wants to mess with configuration for existing installations (my gut reaction is probably not as this is a little different from just getting updated fanboy's list for ad blockers).
frozenport 11y ago
Reddit/HN are the same interface but with relevant content and community interaction.
lvs 11y ago
What? Everyone stopped using it when Google Reader died.

stuartaxelowen 11y ago

Core problem is that creators of value want to be paid for it. The delivery medium doesn't change that.

gue5t 11y ago
No, I don't. I'm sure many others creators feel the same.
- Trundle 11y ago
  You and all the other freebie guys are welcome to create content without all the extra scripts then. Pretty simple no? It would appear though, seeing as this is considered a pretty big problem, that the vast majority of people do want to be compensated.
  - MichaelBurge 11y ago
    I can see at least 5 viewpoints someone might have about ads on their site: * They don't care about the money and don't want ads on the site. * They're someone whose content is the advertising. A database consultant might write an article on using indices to speed up low-selectivity queries. He doesn't need to plaster his site with ads, but his articles do serve a secondary purpose of advertising himself. Or something like Angie's List, where people literally visit the site with the goal of being advertised to. * They don't mind unintrusive ads, and these help provide money and motivation to work more on the site. Google ads would be acceptable here. * In addition to their site's primary content, they also write sponsored content for companies that give them enough money. * They only care about extracting as much value from their site as possible. They might hire ghostwriters on Fiverr to write cheap articles, apply SEO techniques to get them to rank higher than they should, and then plaster noisy ads and popups everywhere. They might buy cheap traffic on low-contested keywords, and redirect them to sites with more expensive ads to arbitrage the traffic. They might have a form to collect your name, email address, and phone number; and then sell your information to a mortgage reselling company. They might have loud ads that play music on page load, that automatically play video, that pretend to be a Windows error dialog, that look like download buttons, etc. Some of these are arguably the ad networks' fault, but the maintainer of the website is ultimately responsible for anything that appears on his website. They might release news articles with clickbaity headlines just to drive traffic to their ads. I think most people take offense to #5. A minority also take offense to #3, since these track location and can form profiles of you between pages. I don't think anybody really minds the #2 or #1 people. If you banned ads entirely, you'd still be able to monetize using method #2.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

blhack 11y ago

You can just disable javascript. That seems to fix 99% of the problems. I use the scriptblock addon for chrome. Give me HTML. Let my browser render it. If I need some fancy-sauce like websockets, then I will selectively enable them.

davb 11y ago
> You can just disable javascript And break an increasing number of websites. What I'm suggesting is a platform where this isn't even a thing. I open my client and I'm guaranteed that all services on the network won't blast me with ads, lazy load content, have page weights of 1MB+ (for a 50KB article), won't let third party advertisers track me via their JavaScript. And they all just work. Every time I open the uBlock panel, I see even more new domains pop up that aren't on block lists yet. One big UK detailed had over 50 external scripts. Worst is when a sites main layout JS relies on a function in some third party as JS (trackThisGuy()) and completely fails when that code isn't present - block the ad provider, site breaks.
- edraferi 11y ago
  I hate that sites fail to render without JS and dozens of calls to third party sites. At least degrade gracefully back to a readable page!

grey-area 11y ago

External scripts are not a requirement, just an option, and it's quite possible to optimise pages without something like amp or FB instant articles. The web is really well suited to content heavy sites, it's just being used to do all the things humans like to do (spam,ads,control over access), as gopher would be if it were popular. I think your problem is more with the behaviour than the medium and if you restrict the medium people would just look elsewhere.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
pekk 11y ago
The whole point is that people who wanted to do spam, ads and paywalls would look elsewhere.
- grey-area 11y ago
  The problem is with humans, not the medium; even plaintext can easily carry spam, pointless content or links etc and it's very hard to separate from real valuable content, in fact it me be considered both by different people.

oldmanjay 11y ago

You basically described HTTP and web browsers, but with restrictions on the type of content that can be created based on nothing more than your preferences. The market in general has spoken pretty clearly that they want more capability, so I just can't grant that you have a real point. The popularity of your concept on HN is no real surprise given the conservative bent of some techies, but it's the sort of opinion that gets no traction out in the world because it relies on retarding progress.

TrevorJ 11y ago

I've often thought that RSS would fit this role well, if only there was a way to display and reply to comments on the content as well. RSS readers are great for consuming content without all the BS, but I just miss being able to interact with the reactions other people have about the story so I find myself clicking through to the 'real' article about half the time anyway.