Bonum Certa Men Certa

Alexandre Oliva: The WWWorst App Store

Picture the most abusive app store.



Programs in it are meant to run on your own computer.



However, you have to be online to run them.



Every time you start them, they contact the app store.



If there is an updated version, it's installed automatically, no questions asked. You'd rather run the earlier version? Tough.



If the app store decides you're no longer welcome, the program won't start any more.



If the app store servers are offline, or if you are, it won't start either.






Programs in this app store must also hold your data in the app store's servers.



If the program won't start, you can't get to the data on the servers any more.



You may have downloaded backups of your data, but you'd have to figure out how to decode them without the program.






Sounds like a nightmare? It is. But it's also very real.



Well-known app stores are approaching this level of nastiness.



But they are just catching up with the real thing.



The most abusive app store is the business-driven perversion of the old user-empowering distributed hypertext system called "the Web".



Users have been encouraged to adopt "web apps" for much of their computing, paving the way for other app stores to follow suit.






"Web apps" are most often distributed as JavaScript (though Java and Flash have served similar purposes), automatically installed and executed on your browser.



But the problem is not that they're in JavaScript, or that it's your browser that runs them. It's that:





The app store owner takes all that control away from you, thereby gaining control over you.



You lose when the JavaScript code is nonfree software.
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/javascript-trap.html



But you also lose when it is (nominally) free software!






When the app / web site has so much control over what runs on your computer, the effect "is equivalent to using a nonfree program with surveillance features and a universal back door."
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/network-services-arent-free-or-nonfree.html
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-serve.html



The owner gets all the freedom, and you, the user, get none.



That's not a self-respectful way to do your computing.



It invades your privacy, it keeps you and your data hostage, it takes away your agency and your freedom when it comes to your digital life.






The web used to be a wonderful way to share information.



Web apps and mandatory JavaScript have turned it into the worst app store.



It is time to separate the WWWonderful from the WWWorst practices.



Here are some ways to help:





More generally:





Now, if you wish your site to give its users a taste of how the WWWorst app store feels to us, add to web pages you control the following JavaScriptlet:



document.body.textContent = 'Please disable JavaScript to view this site.'



If you wish, make "disable JavaScript" a link to this article.






Thanks to Richard Stallman for the inspiration to write about this issue, and for the encouragement to publish it.



Copyright 2021 Alexandre Oliva



Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this entire document worldwide without royalty, provided the copyright notice, the document's official URL, and this permission notice are preserved.



The WWWorst App Store

Recent Techrights' Posts

"What Comes After Free Software?" Wrongly Insinuates We've Reached the Goal (Prison is Not the Goal)
The oil tycoons use similar tactics against environmentalists, giving them fake "wins"
Making More Work Space
I learned the hard way that less is more in circumstances where more means distraction
MAHA is a Lie, Public Officials Never Valued Citizens' Health (They Still Value Private Businesses, Their Sponsors)
Reject demagogues
New Techrights Turns 2
Today starts the third year of the SSG-based Techrights
What Scares Them the Most is Independent News Sites That They Cannot Control and Censor
Wikileaks was a good example of this
If You Don't Control Your Online Platform, Then Someone Else is Controlling You
be (or become) independent
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Has a Policy on Racism and Sexism
In then future we'll show the misogyny and racial slurs
Links 22/09/2025: Murdochs Might Join Fentanylware (TikTok) 'Investors' (Masters), United Kingdom Recognises Palestinian Statehood
Links for the day
 
Code of Censorship
Extortion is peace
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) Has Un-cancelled the Best People, Just in Time for the Big 4-0
Mr. Oliva should have been there all along (since 2019)
Most "Modern" Technology Makes You Slower and Dumber
Because proprietary software makes you worse off
Free Software Foundation (FSF) Has a New Press Kit for the Weekend After Next Weekend (40th Anniversary)
miles better than social [sic] media [sic] quips, moderated by narcissists and oil tycoons.
Microsoft Had Two Waves of Mass Layoffs This Month (That We Know of) and It'll Get Worse for Microsoft Soon
Will the axe fall again by month's end?
Gemini Links 23/09/2025: Happy Equinox, Photronic Arts, and Perception Cognition
Links for the day
Lessons We've Learned After 17 Years of American Hosting
GAFAM is "all-in" with the "Trump agenda"
Back to Normal Now, We Plan to Do More In-Depth Series (or Multi-part Stories)
Articles (or series thereof) that contain philosophy are important to us
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, September 22, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, September 22, 2025
Microsoft Media is Panicking Amid Mass Layoffs Every Month, H-1B Fees, and "Seattle’s Tech Scene in Trouble"
In "late stage Microsoft", copyleft becomes proprietary
The Next Wave of IBM/Red Hat Layoffs Being Discussed Already
Red Hat is sort of disappearing the way Tivoli did
Oracle Started This Year With Slop. Then It Stopped.
Passing fads are like this
Distros That Run on PCs Made 20 Years Ago and Don't Use Systemd
Betas for now
The Complaint About Brett Wilson LLP - Part I - Abusing British Women on Behalf of American Men Who Abuse American Women
Transparency is important to us, so we've decided to make this series
Slopwatch: Google News and the Evident Slopfarm Infestation
This is what people get about Linux when they query Google for Linux
Gemini Links 22/09/2025: Esperanto Music History and Apps For Android
Links for the day
Links 22/09/2025: More American 'Censorship' (Retaliation for Journalism), Cheeto "Might Be Losing His Race Against Time"
Links for the day
The Blob Slop
Give me more words, give me some text
The 50-Pound Note Experiment and the "War on Cash"
Britain is actually seeing a rebound in cash payments, and it's not a temporary phenomenon
Slopwatch: Blaming the Victims for Microsoft's Failures and Plagiarising Phoronix
That's what Google has been reduced to: slop and slopfarms
Links 22/09/2025: Breaches, Windows TCO, and Arrests
Links for the day
Gemini Links 22/09/2025: Rabbit Hole and DeGoogling Fairphone
Links for the day
Links 22/09/2025: Russian War Planes Invade NATO Airspace While Dihydroxyacetone Man Escalates Attack on Free Speech Because of Critics
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, September 21, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, September 21, 2025
Links 21/09/2025: "Hey Hi" (Hype) Under Fire, Fakes Identified; Tesla Burns Family
Links for the day
Google's Software is Malware and Malware in Mobile Devices
Originally posted by Rob Musial
Links 20/09/2025: Hegemony Coming to a Close, Luigi Mangione Ruled Not Terrorist
Links for the day
Gemini Links 21/09/2025: "Charlie Kirk Was a Hateful Piece of Shit" and Slop Code Attempted by Microsofter
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, September 20, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, September 20, 2025