5 ms·

uMatrix also allows you to whitelist web workers, which are a typical component for js crypto mining

inetknght 8y ago
Which column do those fall under? I see cookie/css/image/media/script/xhr/frame/other. I assumed they're under web workers but, me not being a web developer, am not sure. I absolutely 100% do not want web workers (service workers?) enabled in any way shape or form. Any website which uses one is, in my opinion, not only extremely poorly designed but uses anti-patterns.
- jerrysievert 8y ago
  > I absolutely 100% do not want web workers (service workers?) enabled in any way shape or form. Any website which uses one is, in my opinion, not only extremely poorly designed but uses anti-patterns. that's kind of an unfair statement. web workers are extremely useful for moving computation away from the (single) gui thread, allowing the page to load and process large amounts of data without locking the main browser thread. what you're saying is equivalent to saying "any program that uses threads is poorly designed and uses anti-patterns". while, like threads, there can be bad uses for them, they can be used extremely effectively for good.
  - inetknght 8y ago
    > what you're saying is equivalent to saying "any program that uses threads is poorly designed and uses anti-patterns". No, what I'm saying is that I want my web browser to have a light footprint. The browser from 10 years ago works perfectly fine: it rendered and displayed text and images and didn't require hundreds of megabytes or even gigabytes of disk space. The anti-pattern is the idea that so many new things are "needed".
    - jerrysievert 8y ago
      > No, what I'm saying is that I want my web browser to have a light footprint. but that's not what you said (I'm not trying to be antagonistic) - you called using a specific part of the browser an anti-pattern and poorly designed. > The browser from 10 years ago works perfectly fine: it rendered and displayed text and images and didn't require hundreds of megabytes or even gigabytes of disk space. and alternately, the ed editor also works perfectly fine: it edited files, and is 57k (likely more than it needs to be). but for some reason most people don't use it very often, instead opting for vim, emacs, atom, or even eclipse. needing new things isn't an anti-pattern, it's simply the growth of the environment.
      - inetknght 8y ago
        > but that's not what you said (I'm not trying to be antagonistic) - you called using a specific part of the browser an anti-pattern and poorly designed. You're right. Where do you think the statements contradict each other? I don't think they do. > and alternately, the ed editor also works perfectly fine: it edited files, and is 57k (likely more than it needs to be). but for some reason most people don't use it very often, instead opting for vim, emacs, atom, or even eclipse. As a matter of fact, I use vim a lot. > needing new things isn't an anti-pattern, it's simply the growth of the environment. From what problem did this need arise?
        jerrysievert 8y ago
        > As a matter of fact, I use vim a lot. which is miles ahead of ed (and vi for that matter), adding a ton of extra features when ed works perfectly well for editing files. so why use vim? > From what problem did this need arise? from the same problem that threads in general arose - some part of the program blocking another part of the program, making for a bad experience. javascript runs in a single thread for the whole page - so anything that is blocking in any way, due to processing data, dealing with loading data, rendering any sort of 3d for you, mixing audio, really anything that would give you any sort of interactive experience could block the whole page from being responsive. you might as well as from what problem threads arose - same answer. it's true that we had fairly primitive cooperative multi-threading in c using lngjmp and setjmp, but it's still a lot better to fire up another thread when doing tasks like the above, especially when dealing with a gui is also involved, such as with the web. I'm happy to provide concrete examples, if you want.
    - erinaceousjones 8y ago
      Website != Web application. The "anti-patterns" are super useful to those of us who are using all of them to create functional cross-platform applications ;) I feel that there's a disconnect between website devs and webapp devs, and that the latter win when it comes to adding new functionality. The people who want to use the web as a generic platform are the ones that are turning it into an operating system by itself, which by nature is going to cause bloat, but people still think of it as "hey, it's 'just' a web browser!" when in reality they're becoming almost another whole layer of abstraction that allows arbitrary programs to run on any OS. I agree that the adoption of new unnecessary technologies by websites that don't need them makes for a frustrating experience. Like, when I go to a small-town newspaper's website to read an article, I have to wait seconds for the custom font to load, elements pop in and out of existence as third party advertiser code loads, a video somewhere starts autoplaying, I have to click through a GDPR consent form, a cookies-ok form, a "subscribe with your email" screenjacker, social media buttons appearing reflow the text, ......... yeah it's BAD. I think the issues we encounter come from the wheel-reinvention and the fact that web counterparts of existing technology tend to eschew things like security and scheduling in order to quickly catch up.
  - masswerk 8y ago
    Maybe, this is exactly what a user doesn't want. Maybe, we should have a confirmation banner (including an estimate of the CPU load), like for getMedia, autoplay, etc?
- staticassertion 8y ago
  It isn't a column. It's where the mixed content and other flags are (The vertical strip of 3 dots). You can use the "*" scope and enable "Forbid web workers". Be warned that this will break Google's captcha.
  - inetknght 8y ago
    Perfect, thanks!
- untog 8y ago
  > Any website which uses one is, in my opinion, not only extremely poorly designed but uses anti-patterns. I'd be curious to know how you come to that conclusion, since web workers are primarily used to shift heavy computation off the main thread and deliver a better user experience. And service workers exist to make sites available offline. I'm unsure how either is an "anti-pattern".
  - inetknght 8y ago
    Exactly what heavy computation does a web site need to perform? If you have heavy computations to perform and display then perhaps it's time to consider writing a native application. If you need to work offline then perhaps it's time to consider writing a native application.
    - RussianCow 8y ago
      This is an extremely short-sighted view of the web. There are many advantages to web apps vs native, the biggest of which is that I can access the same app with the same configuration from (hypothetically) any browser on any device. It is also (generally) easier to develop a web app than a native app, all else being equal. Personally, there are plenty of services I would never use if they required me to install a native app.
      - inetknght 8y ago
        In theory, the internet should be a place where our conflicting opinions about how to use our hardware can coexist. Unfortunately, the internet is slowly evolving where that's not the case. If we want to turn the web into native apps, that's fine. Give me the same amount of control over the web that I have over native apps. With a native app, I can control exactly how much CPU/disk/network it uses. I can have the app re/start automatically and I can work with it natively in literally whatever language I choose. Not only that but the web browser typically does a piss-poor job of isolation between sites. With a web app, everything is more difficult (if not nigh-on impossible). And what do I, as the end user, actually gain in the end? Nothing that I didn't have ten years ago with far less complexity. Ultimately at the end of the day it's my device. Some random third party person should not be permitted to use my device to execute or store whatever they want just because I randomly, accidentally, or was coerced into clicking on a malicious URL.

Which column do those fall under? I see cookie/css/image/media/script/xhr/frame/other. I assumed they're under web workers but, me not being a web developer, am not sure. I absolutely 100% do not want web workers (service workers?) enabled in any way shape or form. Any website which uses one is, in my opinion, not only extremely poorly designed but uses anti-patterns.

jerrysievert 8y ago
> I absolutely 100% do not want web workers (service workers?) enabled in any way shape or form. Any website which uses one is, in my opinion, not only extremely poorly designed but uses anti-patterns. that's kind of an unfair statement. web workers are extremely useful for moving computation away from the (single) gui thread, allowing the page to load and process large amounts of data without locking the main browser thread. what you're saying is equivalent to saying "any program that uses threads is poorly designed and uses anti-patterns". while, like threads, there can be bad uses for them, they can be used extremely effectively for good.
- inetknght 8y ago
  > what you're saying is equivalent to saying "any program that uses threads is poorly designed and uses anti-patterns". No, what I'm saying is that I want my web browser to have a light footprint. The browser from 10 years ago works perfectly fine: it rendered and displayed text and images and didn't require hundreds of megabytes or even gigabytes of disk space. The anti-pattern is the idea that so many new things are "needed".
  - jerrysievert 8y ago
    > No, what I'm saying is that I want my web browser to have a light footprint. but that's not what you said (I'm not trying to be antagonistic) - you called using a specific part of the browser an anti-pattern and poorly designed. > The browser from 10 years ago works perfectly fine: it rendered and displayed text and images and didn't require hundreds of megabytes or even gigabytes of disk space. and alternately, the ed editor also works perfectly fine: it edited files, and is 57k (likely more than it needs to be). but for some reason most people don't use it very often, instead opting for vim, emacs, atom, or even eclipse. needing new things isn't an anti-pattern, it's simply the growth of the environment.
    - inetknght 8y ago
      > but that's not what you said (I'm not trying to be antagonistic) - you called using a specific part of the browser an anti-pattern and poorly designed. You're right. Where do you think the statements contradict each other? I don't think they do. > and alternately, the ed editor also works perfectly fine: it edited files, and is 57k (likely more than it needs to be). but for some reason most people don't use it very often, instead opting for vim, emacs, atom, or even eclipse. As a matter of fact, I use vim a lot. > needing new things isn't an anti-pattern, it's simply the growth of the environment. From what problem did this need arise?
      - jerrysievert 8y ago
        > As a matter of fact, I use vim a lot. which is miles ahead of ed (and vi for that matter), adding a ton of extra features when ed works perfectly well for editing files. so why use vim? > From what problem did this need arise? from the same problem that threads in general arose - some part of the program blocking another part of the program, making for a bad experience. javascript runs in a single thread for the whole page - so anything that is blocking in any way, due to processing data, dealing with loading data, rendering any sort of 3d for you, mixing audio, really anything that would give you any sort of interactive experience could block the whole page from being responsive. you might as well as from what problem threads arose - same answer. it's true that we had fairly primitive cooperative multi-threading in c using lngjmp and setjmp, but it's still a lot better to fire up another thread when doing tasks like the above, especially when dealing with a gui is also involved, such as with the web. I'm happy to provide concrete examples, if you want.
  - erinaceousjones 8y ago
    Website != Web application. The "anti-patterns" are super useful to those of us who are using all of them to create functional cross-platform applications ;) I feel that there's a disconnect between website devs and webapp devs, and that the latter win when it comes to adding new functionality. The people who want to use the web as a generic platform are the ones that are turning it into an operating system by itself, which by nature is going to cause bloat, but people still think of it as "hey, it's 'just' a web browser!" when in reality they're becoming almost another whole layer of abstraction that allows arbitrary programs to run on any OS. I agree that the adoption of new unnecessary technologies by websites that don't need them makes for a frustrating experience. Like, when I go to a small-town newspaper's website to read an article, I have to wait seconds for the custom font to load, elements pop in and out of existence as third party advertiser code loads, a video somewhere starts autoplaying, I have to click through a GDPR consent form, a cookies-ok form, a "subscribe with your email" screenjacker, social media buttons appearing reflow the text, ......... yeah it's BAD. I think the issues we encounter come from the wheel-reinvention and the fact that web counterparts of existing technology tend to eschew things like security and scheduling in order to quickly catch up.
- masswerk 8y ago
  Maybe, this is exactly what a user doesn't want. Maybe, we should have a confirmation banner (including an estimate of the CPU load), like for getMedia, autoplay, etc?
staticassertion 8y ago
It isn't a column. It's where the mixed content and other flags are (The vertical strip of 3 dots). You can use the "*" scope and enable "Forbid web workers". Be warned that this will break Google's captcha.
- inetknght 8y ago
  Perfect, thanks!
untog 8y ago
> Any website which uses one is, in my opinion, not only extremely poorly designed but uses anti-patterns. I'd be curious to know how you come to that conclusion, since web workers are primarily used to shift heavy computation off the main thread and deliver a better user experience. And service workers exist to make sites available offline. I'm unsure how either is an "anti-pattern".
- inetknght 8y ago
  Exactly what heavy computation does a web site need to perform? If you have heavy computations to perform and display then perhaps it's time to consider writing a native application. If you need to work offline then perhaps it's time to consider writing a native application.
  - RussianCow 8y ago
    This is an extremely short-sighted view of the web. There are many advantages to web apps vs native, the biggest of which is that I can access the same app with the same configuration from (hypothetically) any browser on any device. It is also (generally) easier to develop a web app than a native app, all else being equal. Personally, there are plenty of services I would never use if they required me to install a native app.
    - inetknght 8y ago
      In theory, the internet should be a place where our conflicting opinions about how to use our hardware can coexist. Unfortunately, the internet is slowly evolving where that's not the case. If we want to turn the web into native apps, that's fine. Give me the same amount of control over the web that I have over native apps. With a native app, I can control exactly how much CPU/disk/network it uses. I can have the app re/start automatically and I can work with it natively in literally whatever language I choose. Not only that but the web browser typically does a piss-poor job of isolation between sites. With a web app, everything is more difficult (if not nigh-on impossible). And what do I, as the end user, actually gain in the end? Nothing that I didn't have ten years ago with far less complexity. Ultimately at the end of the day it's my device. Some random third party person should not be permitted to use my device to execute or store whatever they want just because I randomly, accidentally, or was coerced into clicking on a malicious URL.