Bonum Certa Men Certa

The World Wide Web is a Dangerous Place -- GNU/Linux Sites Included -- Because of Misuse of JavaScript and Other Bloat

PIA hypocrisy



Summary: Too many Web sites have turned themselves into computer programs (with a lot of proprietary and sometimes malicious JavaScript) rather than pages to be rendered

Google Analytics is not new. I remember the day Google bought Urchin and turned it into a centralised, over-the-Web spying monster. I wrote quite a lot about it in USENET, as did others (at the time). USENET is now known to many as "Google Groups" (after Google bought yet another company) and the decentralised nature of the original Web is largely gone by now. Platforms like Pleroma, Mastodon, Diaspora and so on have attempted to tackle it, but is it too late? Maybe.



Nowadays when we visit a Web site we rarely end up accessing just one single site (or domain). It's a bloated mess that is being justified poorly, owing to devices getting more powerful, browsers adding more features, and Webmasters forgetting to K.I.S.S. Techrights has behaved and has looked almost identical since 2006. We didn't get seduced into sending special fonts for visitors to download and render at their end. Sites aren't posters and it's the substance that counts, not looks.

I am sad to say that nowadays I literally dread and thus hesitate to even enter (click a link to) certain GNU/Linux sites. Phoronix recently added spyware to all the pages (Michael told me that the parent company pressed for it), causing it to slow down and do all sorts of mysterious things to the browser of the visitors (it's proprietary code, thus impossible to tell what's going on). To Phoronix's credit, unlike some other GNU/Linux sites it did not go over the top with various other scripts (sometimes connecting the visitors to dozens of different sites/spies).

Disappointingly enough, Linux Journal keeps bragging about privacy (to help its parent company, a VPN company) make more sales or add subscribers when both site -- Linux Journal and the parent company (PIA) -- put Google Analytics in all pages. How can they pretend to value privacy and preach to that effect when sending all the log data (and beyond) to Google?

Our main drawback here is that we don't support encryption in page-serving (that would slow things down), but that mostly means that one's ISP will be able to tell what pages, not just what site, get visited. Some time in the future we might adopt containers and with the migration we might also add HTTPS protocol. One sure thing is, such adoption can limit reach/compatibility, raise requirements at the user's side, increase maintenance overhead, and even cause 'downtime' (expired certificates). In the interests of keeping the site light and easily accessible we will, for now, avoid JavaScript.

Recent Techrights' Posts

On Groupthink, Mindless 'Sheep', and Toxic Online Cults
This week, treat yourself to a life free of social control media
BetaNews is Run and Written by Bots That Make Clickbait
At least one author is doing this
 
Same Month Judge Suggests Selling Chrome (Compelling Google to Give It Away) Chrome Surpasses Two-Thirds of "The Market", Based on Surveyor
tackling Google's browser monoculture is still a priority
[Meme] Trying to Terrorise Critics
How Microsofters roll...
Illegitimi Non Carborundum
If you try to suppress our publication, we'll not just bark back but also bite
Why This Site Became "Simple" a Year Ago
Light is good, heavy is bad
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, November 25, 2024
IRC logs for Monday, November 25, 2024
Links 26/11/2024: International Microsoft Outages, Microsoft Mass Layoffs Bigger Than Reported Last Friday
Links for the day, Deutsche Welle and CBC focus
Gemini Links 26/11/2024: Not Pagan, Emacs Wiki, and More
Links for the day
Links 25/11/2024: Egypt Harasses Bloggers, The University of Michigan Has Become Like a Corporation
Links for the day
Links 25/11/2024: Climate News, Daniel Pocock Receives a Fake/Fraudulent €17,000 Electricity Bill
Links for the day
[Meme] Microsoft: Our "Hey Hi" Hype is Going So Well That We Have MASS Layoffs Every Month. Makes Sense?
Contradiction
Latest Mass Layoffs at Microsoft Are Confirmed, Bing and Vista 11 Losing Market Share
They tried to hide this. They misuse NDAs.
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, November 24, 2024
IRC logs for Sunday, November 24, 2024
Gemini Links 25/11/2024: Purity and Cory Doctorow's Ulysses Pact, Smolnet Portal and SGI
Links for the day
Technology: rights or responsibilities? - Part VIII
By Dr. Andy Farnell
GNU/Linux Reaches All-Time High in Europe (at 6%)
many in Europe chose to explore something else, something freedom-respecting
Patents Against Energy Sources That Reduce Pollution
this EV space (not just charging) is a patent mine field and it has long been that way
DARPA’s Information Innovation Office, Howard Shrobe, Values Compartmentalisation But Loses the Opportunity to Promote GNU/Linux and BSDs
All in all, he misses an opportunity
Wayland is an Alternative to X
the alternative to X (as in Twitter) isn't social control media but something like IRC
BetaNews, Desperate for Clicks, is Pushing Donald Trump Spam Created by LLMs (Slop)
Big clap to Brian Fagioli for stuffing a "tech" site with Trump spam (not the first time he uses LLMs to do this)
[Meme] Social Control Media Bliss
"My tree is bigger than yours"
Links 24/11/2024: More IMF Bailouts and Net Client Freedom
Links for the day
Gemini Links 24/11/2024: Being a Student and Digital Downsizing
Links for the day
Techrights' Statement on Code of Censorship (CoC) and Kent Overstreet: This Was the Real Purpose of Censorship Agreements All Along
Bombing people is OK (if you sponsor the key organisations), opposing bombings is not (a CoC in a nutshell)
[Meme] The Most Liberal Company
"Insurrection? What insurrection?"
apple.com Traffic Down Over 7%, Says One Spyware Firm; Apple's Liabilities Increased Over 6% to $308,030,000,000
Apple is also about 120 billion dollars in debt
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, November 23, 2024
IRC logs for Saturday, November 23, 2024
[Meme] GAFAMfox
Mozilla Firefox in a state of extreme distress
Google Can Kill Mozilla Any Time It Wants
That gives Google far too much power over its rival... There are already many sites that refuse to work with Firefox or explicitly say Firefox isn't supported
Free (as in Freedom) Software Helps Tackle the Software Liability Issue, It Lets Users Exercise Greater Control Over Programs
Microsofters have been trying to ban or exclude Free software
In the US, Patent Laws Are Up for Sale
This problem is a lot bigger than just patents
ESET Finds Rootkits, Does Not Explain How They Get Installed, Media Says It Means "Previously Unknown Linux Backdoors" (Useful Distraction From CALEA and CALEA2)
FUD watch
Techdirt Loses Its Objectivity in Pursuit of Money
The more concerning aspects are coverage of GAFAM and Microsoft in particular