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A lot of web browser software just isn't very good. I have mentioned how to do better way in my opinion. One principle is that the user can customize everything

A lot of web browser software just isn't very good. I have mentioned how to do better way in my opinion. One principle is that the user can customize everything and it assumes the user know what they are doing and wants it, while the data from the remote server is assumed to be hostile (regardless of whether it is HTTPS or not). There are other principles too, to use. (One feature of Firefox I don't like is when you try to save a webpage it tries to use the title of the document by default; the title does not usually make a very good filename. The filename in the URL is often better.) However, often HTML/HTTP(S) is just the wrong protocol for many things (I am not so sure it is so good for this Hacker News either!); we have other protocols as well as other file formats, such as plain text over HTTP, plain text over gopher, telnet/SSH for interactive sessions, IRC for chat, NNTP, SMTP, MIDI, and one reason I invented Remote Virtual Table Protocol for exposing data sources.

kiwidrew 8y ago
> However, often HTML/HTTP(S) is just the wrong protocol for many things Indeed! First we lost all of the IP protocols except TCP and UDP, thanks to aggressive firewalls. NAT managed to kill any hope of end-user hosts acting as true servers, so we ended up with a client-server internet. Another round of aggressive firewalling killed off pretty much everything except for 53/udp, 80/tcp, and 443/tcp. Middleboxes playing with unencrypted DNS and HTTP then broke 53/udp (good luck introducing new RR types or extending the protocol now!) and 80/tcp. Now we're left with HTTPS on 443/tcp as our only remaining protocol that actually works reliably for end users in the real world internet. [Not to mention the fact that iOS and Android 8+ both prevent applications from holding long-lived server connections. Want real-time notifications? No choice but to go through the vendor's push notification service.]

kiwidrew 8y ago

> However, often HTML/HTTP(S) is just the wrong protocol for many things Indeed! First we lost all of the IP protocols except TCP and UDP, thanks to aggressive firewalls. NAT managed to kill any hope of end-user hosts acting as true servers, so we ended up with a client-server internet. Another round of aggressive firewalling killed off pretty much everything except for 53/udp, 80/tcp, and 443/tcp. Middleboxes playing with unencrypted DNS and HTTP then broke 53/udp (good luck introducing new RR types or extending the protocol now!) and 80/tcp. Now we're left with HTTPS on 443/tcp as our only remaining protocol that actually works reliably for end users in the real world internet. [Not to mention the fact that iOS and Android 8+ both prevent applications from holding long-lived server connections. Want real-time notifications? No choice but to go through the vendor's push notification service.]