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Man, that is really a story. I do remember tabs. They were this revolution in browsing. You could look at two things so easily. "Open in New Tab". I love to "f

Man, that is really a story. I do remember tabs. They were this revolution in browsing. You could look at two things so easily. "Open in New Tab". I love to "folks these days" so I shall. Folks these days don't know what a revolution Firefox was. Before that there were no "web standards" or anything. You had IE6 compatible and Netscape compatible and this and that. Linux web browsers would struggle to render pages. They came up with these ACID tests and these standards. And Firefox was crazy back then. People now would lose their shit over the "lack of consent". People were talking about how they'd install Firefox and give it the IE logo so their parents would use it and everyone would talk up its leanness and this and that. You couldn't get Netflix on Linux. It needed Silverlight to enforce DRM. These days the web is the platform. The complexity in the runtime and every application runs on Linux. Man, I never could have guessed 20 years ago that this would happen. For me the fastest I've seen mind-blowing technology go from sci-fi to banal is LLMs. When TalkToTransformer first allowed you to do it there was this completion model that seemed insane. Like magic. Now, everyone I know uses an LLM for all sorts of things. It's so integrated into life. Wild.

bee_rider 1y ago
> And Firefox was crazy back then. People now would lose their shit over the "lack of consent". People were talking about how they'd install Firefox and give it the IE logo so their parents would use it and everyone would talk up its leanness and this and that. I always interpreted those sort of stories as kind of… somebody doing something they consider at least a little duplicitous. At the time though, there was the concept of a “family computer,” which isn’t really as much a thing anymore. Also it was assumed (whether or not it was true) that kids knew tech better than their parents, so there could at least be a kind of justification. “I’m modifying the shared resource that I know best in a slightly underhanded way so that my parents will use it better.” I dunno. I didn’t do that sort of thing but I was an annoyingly conscientious kid. > You couldn't get Netflix on Linux. It needed Silverlight to enforce DRM. These days the web is the platform. The complexity in the runtime and every application runs on Linux. Man, I never could have guessed 20 years ago that this would happen. Was 4K Netflix ever finally fixed on Linux? IIRC it was limited to lower resolutions for the longest time.
- Dylan16807 1y ago
  > I always interpreted those sort of stories as kind of… somebody doing something they consider at least a little duplicitous. Often it's a situation where someone doesn't really know what programs are, they just know that the blue E is the button for Internet. In that case it's not trickery to keep using the blue E on the Internet button, just practical labeling.

bee_rider 1y ago

> And Firefox was crazy back then. People now would lose their shit over the "lack of consent". People were talking about how they'd install Firefox and give it the IE logo so their parents would use it and everyone would talk up its leanness and this and that. I always interpreted those sort of stories as kind of… somebody doing something they consider at least a little duplicitous. At the time though, there was the concept of a “family computer,” which isn’t really as much a thing anymore. Also it was assumed (whether or not it was true) that kids knew tech better than their parents, so there could at least be a kind of justification. “I’m modifying the shared resource that I know best in a slightly underhanded way so that my parents will use it better.” I dunno. I didn’t do that sort of thing but I was an annoyingly conscientious kid. > You couldn't get Netflix on Linux. It needed Silverlight to enforce DRM. These days the web is the platform. The complexity in the runtime and every application runs on Linux. Man, I never could have guessed 20 years ago that this would happen. Was 4K Netflix ever finally fixed on Linux? IIRC it was limited to lower resolutions for the longest time.

Dylan16807 1y ago
> I always interpreted those sort of stories as kind of… somebody doing something they consider at least a little duplicitous. Often it's a situation where someone doesn't really know what programs are, they just know that the blue E is the button for Internet. In that case it's not trickery to keep using the blue E on the Internet button, just practical labeling.