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

Michael “Monty” Widenius: It Started in 1983 With Richard Stallman (RMS)
The other co-founder of MySQL is a bit notorious for confronting RMS rather viciously
For the Second Time in a Few Weeks Microsoft Lunduke Makes False Accusations Against Senior Red Hat Staff to Incite a Despicable 'Troll Army'
Nothing that Microsoft Lunduke claims of says can be trusted
 
Links 03/10/2025: Lawyers Caught Using LLM Slop Explain Why They Did It, LibreSSL 4.1.1 and 4.0.1 Released
Links for the day
FSF Board Grew 50% Since Last Year, Has New President, Turns 40 in Two Days
It's a good move for the FSF and - by extension - for software freedom
Links 03/10/2025: Conflicts, Death of TypePad, and TikTok/CheeTok Gives a Boost to Far Right Groups in Europe
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 02, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 02, 2025
Slopwatch: Linux Journal, Google News, and LinuxSecurity
They carry on polluting the Web with fake articles
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: Kubernetes With FreeBSD and robots.txt
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: 'Open' 'AI' Resorting to Gimmicks and Fake Funding, Europe’s ‘Drone Wall’ Discussed
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: Brave Passes 100M Users Milestone, Kodak Selling Its Own Film Again
Links for the day
su lisa && rm -rf /home/ibm/power
Novell was ruined by another person from IBM, Ronald Hovsepian
A Record Demand at Microsoft: Demand to Cancel
What we're witnessing is a very ungraceful destruction of XBox
Microsoft is Losing Europe
Hence all the "support" and "discount" offers that are limited to Europe
The Free Software Foundation Starts Fund-raising for 40th Anniversary
New pop-up 2-3 days ahead of the 40th anniversary event
Systemd Breaks Networking in Debian and Microsoft Staff Rushes to Make Face-Saving Excuses in LWN
Microsoft's bluca is already there in the comments, his Microsoft money pays for LWN to let him leave comments early
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 01, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 01, 2025
What the End of XBox Will Look Like: a Fiery Crash
XBox is the next Skype. It won't last much longer. Expect many more layoffs.
Richard Stallman is Going to Finland to Give a Talk Next Thursday
A day later he speaks in Sweden
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: SMTP Pipelining and End of ROOPHLOCH 2025
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Plagiarism, Fake Articles, and FUD About Linux
not a day goes by without Google News feeding FUD from slopfarms
Gemini Links 01/10/2025: Chat Control and End of Life
Links for the day
Links 01/10/2025: Long Covid Risk Reiterated, "Bitcoin Queen" Caught
Links for the day
Links 01/10/2025: EA $55 Billion Deal is Debt and Slop "Raises Vishing Risks"
Links for the day
Bluewashing at Red Hat Means Redundancies
The man who sold Red Hat to IBM meanwhile became a Microsoft Mono booster
After Killing OpenSource.com, IBM ('Red Hat') and OSI Told Us OpenSource.net Would Replace It (But That Didn't Happen)
Now it's time to move on, perhaps tarnishing the "Open Source" label some more (for whatever sponsor wants this)
Linux is Not a Community Project, It's a Wall Street Product
The core goal should be freedom
Bad Actors Abusing the Free Software Community, Vandalising It Using Rogue Politics and Old Tactics
Oil giants have long attempted to do this; now, the digital equivalent of Big Oil does this in technology
Social Control Media Isn't the Future, The Federation or Fediverse Isn't Growing, People's Accounts Vanish for Good
users' accounts will get deleted, not just become inactive
IBM is Failing, This Helps Show Wall Street is Entirely Detached From Actual Commercial Performance
IBM is unable to grow, it's just constantly shrinking
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 30, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, September 30, 2025
Clerical Aspects of Publishing and Development
In Free software, the management aspects are considerably reduced
Slopwatch: Fake Articles and Google News Promoting "Linux" Spam or Bot-Generated Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD)
These slopfarms help misplace blame
Third Wave of Microsoft Layoffs in September, This Time Many in Liverpool Affected
Be ready for more waves of layoffs ahead of the so-called "results" in late October