6 ms·

We need a Web again. A hypertext document browsing system. Update the basic elements like they should have been updated 20+ years ago (sortable tables seems lik

by asark 8y ago

We need a Web again. A hypertext document browsing system. Update the basic elements like they should have been updated 20+ years ago (sortable tables seems like a no-brainer to include in base HTML, there's got to be a way to update frames so they suck less and fit 90+% of the legit uses of AJAXy page updates, improved form elements like you get in a real GUI toolkit, file upload with preview, and so on) but NO javascript, NO talking to any server behind the user's back. Once the page loads my network connection should be silent until I click a link. I should get a preview of what a form's about to send. Anything but a GET to any server but the one I'm currently on, flatly disallowed. Somewhere you can browse hypertext documents with high performance, in safety, with no spying. This one can be abandoned to spyware and apps. Whatever. That's fine. But I don't want safe hyptertext browsing comingled with the same program that can and constantly does load spyware and other abusive junk.

the8472 8y ago
Inject this HTTP header and you have the web 1.0 back: Content-Security-Policy: sandbox allow-forms allow-top-navigation; Restrict default-src to self and your second requirement is covered.
- asark 8y ago
  You misunderstand, I think. The problem is that the ecosystem of the modern web is entirely and irreverisbly full of spying and user-hostile junk, due to decisions that were made. TL;DR you can't have Javascript with anything close to its current capabilities and also have a safe and user-controlled Web. I don't want some restricted version of web sites that work OK in current web browsers, provided you're very careful not to leave those sites. I don't want constant fiddling with umatrix or custom privacy settings that break 90% of the Web. I want a safe hypertext browsing system back, in its own program that will kick open a "real" web browser (with warnings and flashing lights) if you try to link from it to the spyware web, like if you try to open a PDF. As long as I'm in it, I shouldn't have to worry about any links I open trying to spy on me. I shouldn't have to track down which tab in this system is making my nigh-supercomputer laptop's UI stutter (hi, Asana, Trello, Slack, Jira). None of them should break because of my privacy settings—privacy, old-school web style, should be the only way it operates. I want a safe-only Web that is for browsing hypertext documents. The current web can keep the spying, security vulnerabilities, resource-eating, and apps. I know I'd still have to use it, and that's fine, I just don't want safe, secure, resource friendly browsing to happen alongside this shitshow, because then it's not safe and secure.
  - erik_seaberg 8y ago
    > open a "real" web browser I'd call that launching a Javascript app, which rarely touches the World-Wide Web beyond that single point.
whatislovecraft 8y ago
> Somewhere you can browse hypertext documents with high performance, in safety, with no spying. How do you propose the no-spying part? With laws passed by country? Nothing in your setup prevents spying, and spying is extremely lucrative in a capitalistic society, so people will still find a way to spy. You are putting all your trust in the server. But those servers are where the spying would move to if it needed to. You cannot create a technological system that prevents spying, since you have not removed the incentive to spy. Make it illegal to do targeted marketing and then you will have a dramatic reduction in spying. You'll also have a short-term dramatic drop in economic efficiency, something the HN crowd is likely to decry as equal to the end of the world. But I think it's much more likely that we build a sustainable society with good, long-term-growth economics if we put more limits on capitalism. Edit: Facebook doesn't care if you're reading those documents on some simple text-web. They'll find out anyway, either via your absence from the 'regular web' or any other clue they can find. The spying won't stop just because you're using some primitive technology.
- asark 8y ago
  Under what I propose you could only do stuff like recording a user's entire session, including mouse position and typing-in-progress in text fields, which is commonly and easily done on the modern web for "UX research", with the complicity of the browser itself. The point is that the server may log your requests, sure, but they can't gather tons of extra info without your seeing it (post previews) and they can't effectively stick a camera over your shoulder while you look a their pages. No more abusive, close session tracking. Best you can get is "the user, personally, made this request at this time". Which is way the hell better than where things are at now. I agree we also need to outlaw mass collection of info about people, or at least put in place such massive penalties for leaks that no sane company without a really compelling reason would dare store such things. Hopefully that'd end the damn credit card company and loyalty card and credit system spying, too, or at least force them to shape the eff up. I'd just also like a hypertext network that cannot constantly spy on me or eat an entire core because "programmer productivity". That's all.
  - iguy 8y ago
jlarocco 8y ago
There's nothing stopping you from browsing that way if it's what you want. Install uMatrix, uBlock, and a couple other extensions, and you can lock down pages as much as you want. You can even take it a step further and use an older browser that doesn't support the modern features you're complaining about. Unfortunately, what you can't do is force everybody else to participate. HTML3 still works great in modern browsers, but the people making the sites want to use modern features.
- anoncake 8y ago
  > There's nothing stopping you from browsing that way if it's what you want. There is. Pages that don't work without Javascript.
  - jlarocco 8y ago
    That was my point. You can control your browser, but you can't control what other people offer up.
    - anoncake 8y ago
      And that's what's stopping them from browsing a sane web.
      - jlarocco 8y ago
        Sorry, but nobody's twisting their arm to use those websites. Making yourself out to be a victim doesn't make it so.
        krageon 8y ago
        Saying that you have perfect choice when half of the things you need to use use dark patterns rife with abuse does not make it true either.
      - krapp 8y ago
        >And that's what's stopping them from browsing a sane web. What, that people have too much freedom to express themselves? When did hacker culture become so... fascist?
rhizome 8y ago
Due to techniques and services like jsdelivr, many sites will prevent you from even seeing any of the content without loading all of the JS they want you to be running.
- dorgo 8y ago
  No problem. Hit the back button and select one of the alternatives from 10k+ search results.. Edit: and don't forget to add the broken website to your "remove from search results" addon, so you never see it again in search results..
  - A2017U1 8y ago
    Can I change websites for paying my electricity bill? How about accessing government services? Sure they offer an in person alternative, but due to the prevalence of online usage they've been able to dramatically cut the number of physical agencies. Try booking a flight and hotel without js. It's just not possible, you can't simply "use another airline" you have to use an entirely different booking medium.
basch 8y ago
Ill go a step further, and say I wish the view was decoupled from the data in a way that my browser controls the view template. The fonts, the column size, the page colors. So whether i browse to cnn, nytimes, espn, etc, the pages look identical. My browser can have maybe 20 page templates built in, and sites can specify which templates work best for their content (article, video, forum, search results, recipe, howto)
clairity 8y ago
i think we still have it, with wikipedia and personal blogs for example. it's just been largely subsumed in our minds by web apps and the commercial web. but there are plenty of interconnected hypertext documents that are primarily documents to be read and shared using http(s) without an intermediary organization (like facebook or google).

by asark 8y ago

the8472 8y ago

Inject this HTTP header and you have the web 1.0 back: Content-Security-Policy: sandbox allow-forms allow-top-navigation; Restrict default-src to self and your second requirement is covered.

asark 8y ago
You misunderstand, I think. The problem is that the ecosystem of the modern web is entirely and irreverisbly full of spying and user-hostile junk, due to decisions that were made. TL;DR you can't have Javascript with anything close to its current capabilities and also have a safe and user-controlled Web. I don't want some restricted version of web sites that work OK in current web browsers, provided you're very careful not to leave those sites. I don't want constant fiddling with umatrix or custom privacy settings that break 90% of the Web. I want a safe hypertext browsing system back, in its own program that will kick open a "real" web browser (with warnings and flashing lights) if you try to link from it to the spyware web, like if you try to open a PDF. As long as I'm in it, I shouldn't have to worry about any links I open trying to spy on me. I shouldn't have to track down which tab in this system is making my nigh-supercomputer laptop's UI stutter (hi, Asana, Trello, Slack, Jira). None of them should break because of my privacy settings—privacy, old-school web style, should be the only way it operates. I want a safe-only Web that is for browsing hypertext documents. The current web can keep the spying, security vulnerabilities, resource-eating, and apps. I know I'd still have to use it, and that's fine, I just don't want safe, secure, resource friendly browsing to happen alongside this shitshow, because then it's not safe and secure.
- erik_seaberg 8y ago
  > open a "real" web browser I'd call that launching a Javascript app, which rarely touches the World-Wide Web beyond that single point.

whatislovecraft 8y ago

> Somewhere you can browse hypertext documents with high performance, in safety, with no spying. How do you propose the no-spying part? With laws passed by country? Nothing in your setup prevents spying, and spying is extremely lucrative in a capitalistic society, so people will still find a way to spy. You are putting all your trust in the server. But those servers are where the spying would move to if it needed to. You cannot create a technological system that prevents spying, since you have not removed the incentive to spy. Make it illegal to do targeted marketing and then you will have a dramatic reduction in spying. You'll also have a short-term dramatic drop in economic efficiency, something the HN crowd is likely to decry as equal to the end of the world. But I think it's much more likely that we build a sustainable society with good, long-term-growth economics if we put more limits on capitalism. Edit: Facebook doesn't care if you're reading those documents on some simple text-web. They'll find out anyway, either via your absence from the 'regular web' or any other clue they can find. The spying won't stop just because you're using some primitive technology.

asark 8y ago
Under what I propose you could only do stuff like recording a user's entire session, including mouse position and typing-in-progress in text fields, which is commonly and easily done on the modern web for "UX research", with the complicity of the browser itself. The point is that the server may log your requests, sure, but they can't gather tons of extra info without your seeing it (post previews) and they can't effectively stick a camera over your shoulder while you look a their pages. No more abusive, close session tracking. Best you can get is "the user, personally, made this request at this time". Which is way the hell better than where things are at now. I agree we also need to outlaw mass collection of info about people, or at least put in place such massive penalties for leaks that no sane company without a really compelling reason would dare store such things. Hopefully that'd end the damn credit card company and loyalty card and credit system spying, too, or at least force them to shape the eff up. I'd just also like a hypertext network that cannot constantly spy on me or eat an entire core because "programmer productivity". That's all.
- iguy 8y ago

jlarocco 8y ago

There's nothing stopping you from browsing that way if it's what you want. Install uMatrix, uBlock, and a couple other extensions, and you can lock down pages as much as you want. You can even take it a step further and use an older browser that doesn't support the modern features you're complaining about. Unfortunately, what you can't do is force everybody else to participate. HTML3 still works great in modern browsers, but the people making the sites want to use modern features.

anoncake 8y ago
> There's nothing stopping you from browsing that way if it's what you want. There is. Pages that don't work without Javascript.
- jlarocco 8y ago
  That was my point. You can control your browser, but you can't control what other people offer up.
  - anoncake 8y ago
    And that's what's stopping them from browsing a sane web.
    - jlarocco 8y ago
      Sorry, but nobody's twisting their arm to use those websites. Making yourself out to be a victim doesn't make it so.
      - krageon 8y ago
        Saying that you have perfect choice when half of the things you need to use use dark patterns rife with abuse does not make it true either.
    - krapp 8y ago
      >And that's what's stopping them from browsing a sane web. What, that people have too much freedom to express themselves? When did hacker culture become so... fascist?

rhizome 8y ago

Due to techniques and services like jsdelivr, many sites will prevent you from even seeing any of the content without loading all of the JS they want you to be running.

dorgo 8y ago
No problem. Hit the back button and select one of the alternatives from 10k+ search results.. Edit: and don't forget to add the broken website to your "remove from search results" addon, so you never see it again in search results..
- A2017U1 8y ago
  Can I change websites for paying my electricity bill? How about accessing government services? Sure they offer an in person alternative, but due to the prevalence of online usage they've been able to dramatically cut the number of physical agencies. Try booking a flight and hotel without js. It's just not possible, you can't simply "use another airline" you have to use an entirely different booking medium.

basch 8y ago

Ill go a step further, and say I wish the view was decoupled from the data in a way that my browser controls the view template. The fonts, the column size, the page colors. So whether i browse to cnn, nytimes, espn, etc, the pages look identical. My browser can have maybe 20 page templates built in, and sites can specify which templates work best for their content (article, video, forum, search results, recipe, howto)

clairity 8y ago

i think we still have it, with wikipedia and personal blogs for example. it's just been largely subsumed in our minds by web apps and the commercial web. but there are plenty of interconnected hypertext documents that are primarily documents to be read and shared using http(s) without an intermediary organization (like facebook or google).