6 ms·

Too bad that browsers are depreciating both RSS (ie, firefox removed feed rendering support) and HTTP (ie, firefox pushing HTTPS only). And HTTP3 isn't even tcp

Too bad that browsers are depreciating both RSS (ie, firefox removed feed rendering support) and HTTP (ie, firefox pushing HTTPS only). And HTTP3 isn't even tcp anymore it uses the google-mostly QUIC on udp. For the corporate web RSS and HTTP are dead. But as a non-corporate human person I'll be sure to keep RSS and HTTP alive on my webservers.

ocdtrekkie 5y ago
HTTP 1 will outlive the death of HTTP 3, QUIC, and Google. New standards come and go, old standards exist forever. RSS will probably make a comeback eventually: The ability to automatically process information is a common wheel we reinvent.
- forgotmypw17 5y ago
  It's true, and especially HTTP/1.1 has a whole 25 years worth of browsers which are still usable today! I think as the nostalgia/retro factor kicks in, it will become cool again to support "Any Browser". A few common questions about this are: Security exploits: Yes, you do have to do this on a safe network, but at least over where I am, the Internet is safe enough for me to visit un-malicious websites, perhaps using a VM. The difficulty of it: It's moderately difficult, but quite doable, with certain constraints combined with progressive enhancement. (HTTP/1.0 browsers are slightly more difficult to support, because you need a dedicated IP address, as there is no Host: header yet. Netscape 1.x, IE 1.x and 2.x, Mosaic are quite usable if you can get this set up.)
nightpool 5y ago
Chrome on Android just trialed a new RSS-based "follow" feature a few months ago: https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/20/22445284/google-rss-chrome-android-feature-test https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/20/22445284/google-rss-chrom...
- themodelplumber 5y ago
  Wow! Didn't expect that. I guess I had better check what's even available in my feeds, and where it's coming from...
lucideer 5y ago
On RSS I'd agree, but I think you've missed the mark on HTTPS. HTTP-over-TLS works fine across all "versions" of HTTP, HTTPS has been supported by browsers since 1994; over half a decade before RSS was even a thing. Your criticisms of HTTPS seem more targeted at HTTP3, but that's actually a separate topic (HTTP3 may be HTTPS-only in practice but that's not the specific aspect you're critiquing). RSS/Atom also work fine over HTTPS.
- selfhoster11 5y ago
  HTTP over TLS does not work fine for all versions of HTTP. A fully updated install of Windows XP is essentially incapable of establishing a modern TLS connection because everyone removed support for older crypto. It follows that modern TLS is a crypto treadmill that ejects older devices as soon as they cannot keep up with security updates.
  - georgyo 5y ago
    Windows XP... I cannot tell if you are trolling or not. It hasn't received patches in 10 years, so having it connected to the internet at all is a bigger problem than it's lack of tls1.3 support.
    - selfhoster11 5y ago
      I'm absolutely not trolling. I regularly have to use an old XP machine for various tasks, and as long as it's firewalled properly (preferably only allows traffic to a pre-set list of servers) and the security surface is reduced by removing unused services, it shouldn't be too risky to use for special-purpose tasks. General-purpose browsing is a whole different matter. I wouldn't advise anyone to do that unless on a patched, up to date and supported machine.
      - roywashere 5y ago
        If you go on using a pre-set list of servers, you also would be able to do reverse HTTP proxies. Using a pre-set list of servers with many sites is not easy, because they'd use CDNs and such. So basically you can only use it for your 'own' websites and then you can control crypto on server side.
anderspitman 5y ago
I think that QUIC and HTTP/3 are great, but I worry that HTTP/1.1 will eventually be abandoned. I think it's important to be able to implement basic HTTP functionality with a few lines of code.
- masklinn 5y ago
  > I worry that HTTP/1.1 will eventually be abandoned. HTTP/2? Sure HTTP/1.1? Not a chance. It's too widespread and too valuable, and the floor is too low. Unless Google starts a singular effort against it and manages to pull in the other big cos while avoiding the ire of the liberal states, which seems unlikely.
  - vbezhenar 5y ago
    HTTP 1 is magical. It's so simple to generate or parse. It'll never be abandoned just because of that reason.
    - divbzero 5y ago
      Yes, headers in text plus body in any content type is incredibly simple and flexible. It’s hard to imagine redesigning HTTP/1 to be any more straightforward.
  - anderspitman 5y ago
    I sincerely hope you're right. I certainly intend to always support it on my services. But it's all too easy for me to imagine a world where Chrome/Blink drops support.
    - hopesthoughts 5y ago
      Chrome doesn't actually support RSS anyway. There are extensions for it, but it doesn't actually support it.
tootie 5y ago
RSS is still the predominant format for syndicating podcasts. I think it's to come under attack by big players looking to build a walled garden (Spotify and Apple in particular) but it's hanging on.
jedimastert 5y ago
RSS is just an XML format, and I don't think in-browser support was what was holding it together. There's still plenty of readers, and there's nothing stopping other readers from popping up. It'd be like saying Firefox is deprecating JSON because it doesn't have a nice viewer for it...
- thaumasiotes 5y ago
  Firefox has an excellent JSON viewer.
- superkuh 5y ago
  They also removed the little RSS icon that shows up in the URL bar on autodiscovery of RSS feeds by HTML head entries. That hurts RSS far more than removing the render did. It's part of a series of intentional moves to depreciate RSS and Atom.
  - jedimastert 5y ago
    What purpose would they have to intentionally deprecate RSS/Atom?
    - superkuh 5y ago
      It's not used by Netflix/Youtube/etc so it's not important to Mozilla's current leaders.
      - hopesthoughts 5y ago
        It's definitely used by Youtube. Youtube has RSS feeds for all channels.
exdsq 5y ago
Is HTTP3 quic on non-Chromium browsers?
- TheCycoONE 5y ago
  QUIC was brought to the ietf for standardization and they decided to separate the transport protocol from the application protocol and potentially support other application protocols over quic in the future, resulting in http3 becoming a separate spec. https://quicwg.org/base-drafts/draft-ietf-quic-http.html https://quicwg.org/base-drafts/draft-ietf-quic-http.html
maccolgan 5y ago
even worse, QUIC embeds layering violation into the protocol, it can be ok as a web browser-web server protocol to minmax the TTB, but cannot be a protocol to build new applications
hopesthoughts 5y ago
A majority of the feeds I subscribe to are https these days.

ocdtrekkie 5y ago

HTTP 1 will outlive the death of HTTP 3, QUIC, and Google. New standards come and go, old standards exist forever. RSS will probably make a comeback eventually: The ability to automatically process information is a common wheel we reinvent.

forgotmypw17 5y ago
It's true, and especially HTTP/1.1 has a whole 25 years worth of browsers which are still usable today! I think as the nostalgia/retro factor kicks in, it will become cool again to support "Any Browser". A few common questions about this are: Security exploits: Yes, you do have to do this on a safe network, but at least over where I am, the Internet is safe enough for me to visit un-malicious websites, perhaps using a VM. The difficulty of it: It's moderately difficult, but quite doable, with certain constraints combined with progressive enhancement. (HTTP/1.0 browsers are slightly more difficult to support, because you need a dedicated IP address, as there is no Host: header yet. Netscape 1.x, IE 1.x and 2.x, Mosaic are quite usable if you can get this set up.)

nightpool 5y ago

Chrome on Android just trialed a new RSS-based "follow" feature a few months ago: https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/20/22445284/google-rss-chrome-android-feature-test https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/20/22445284/google-rss-chrom...

themodelplumber 5y ago
Wow! Didn't expect that. I guess I had better check what's even available in my feeds, and where it's coming from...

lucideer 5y ago

On RSS I'd agree, but I think you've missed the mark on HTTPS. HTTP-over-TLS works fine across all "versions" of HTTP, HTTPS has been supported by browsers since 1994; over half a decade before RSS was even a thing. Your criticisms of HTTPS seem more targeted at HTTP3, but that's actually a separate topic (HTTP3 may be HTTPS-only in practice but that's not the specific aspect you're critiquing). RSS/Atom also work fine over HTTPS.

selfhoster11 5y ago
HTTP over TLS does not work fine for all versions of HTTP. A fully updated install of Windows XP is essentially incapable of establishing a modern TLS connection because everyone removed support for older crypto. It follows that modern TLS is a crypto treadmill that ejects older devices as soon as they cannot keep up with security updates.
- georgyo 5y ago
  Windows XP... I cannot tell if you are trolling or not. It hasn't received patches in 10 years, so having it connected to the internet at all is a bigger problem than it's lack of tls1.3 support.
  - selfhoster11 5y ago
    I'm absolutely not trolling. I regularly have to use an old XP machine for various tasks, and as long as it's firewalled properly (preferably only allows traffic to a pre-set list of servers) and the security surface is reduced by removing unused services, it shouldn't be too risky to use for special-purpose tasks. General-purpose browsing is a whole different matter. I wouldn't advise anyone to do that unless on a patched, up to date and supported machine.
    - roywashere 5y ago
      If you go on using a pre-set list of servers, you also would be able to do reverse HTTP proxies. Using a pre-set list of servers with many sites is not easy, because they'd use CDNs and such. So basically you can only use it for your 'own' websites and then you can control crypto on server side.

anderspitman 5y ago

I think that QUIC and HTTP/3 are great, but I worry that HTTP/1.1 will eventually be abandoned. I think it's important to be able to implement basic HTTP functionality with a few lines of code.

masklinn 5y ago
> I worry that HTTP/1.1 will eventually be abandoned. HTTP/2? Sure HTTP/1.1? Not a chance. It's too widespread and too valuable, and the floor is too low. Unless Google starts a singular effort against it and manages to pull in the other big cos while avoiding the ire of the liberal states, which seems unlikely.
- vbezhenar 5y ago
  HTTP 1 is magical. It's so simple to generate or parse. It'll never be abandoned just because of that reason.
  - divbzero 5y ago
    Yes, headers in text plus body in any content type is incredibly simple and flexible. It’s hard to imagine redesigning HTTP/1 to be any more straightforward.
- anderspitman 5y ago
  I sincerely hope you're right. I certainly intend to always support it on my services. But it's all too easy for me to imagine a world where Chrome/Blink drops support.
  - hopesthoughts 5y ago
    Chrome doesn't actually support RSS anyway. There are extensions for it, but it doesn't actually support it.

tootie 5y ago

RSS is still the predominant format for syndicating podcasts. I think it's to come under attack by big players looking to build a walled garden (Spotify and Apple in particular) but it's hanging on.

jedimastert 5y ago

RSS is just an XML format, and I don't think in-browser support was what was holding it together. There's still plenty of readers, and there's nothing stopping other readers from popping up. It'd be like saying Firefox is deprecating JSON because it doesn't have a nice viewer for it...

thaumasiotes 5y ago
Firefox has an excellent JSON viewer.
superkuh 5y ago
They also removed the little RSS icon that shows up in the URL bar on autodiscovery of RSS feeds by HTML head entries. That hurts RSS far more than removing the render did. It's part of a series of intentional moves to depreciate RSS and Atom.
- jedimastert 5y ago
  What purpose would they have to intentionally deprecate RSS/Atom?
  - superkuh 5y ago
    It's not used by Netflix/Youtube/etc so it's not important to Mozilla's current leaders.
    - hopesthoughts 5y ago
      It's definitely used by Youtube. Youtube has RSS feeds for all channels.

exdsq 5y ago

Is HTTP3 quic on non-Chromium browsers?

TheCycoONE 5y ago
QUIC was brought to the ietf for standardization and they decided to separate the transport protocol from the application protocol and potentially support other application protocols over quic in the future, resulting in http3 becoming a separate spec. https://quicwg.org/base-drafts/draft-ietf-quic-http.html https://quicwg.org/base-drafts/draft-ietf-quic-http.html

maccolgan 5y ago

even worse, QUIC embeds layering violation into the protocol, it can be ok as a web browser-web server protocol to minmax the TTB, but cannot be a protocol to build new applications

hopesthoughts 5y ago

A majority of the feeds I subscribe to are https these days.