Bonum Certa Men Certa

Modern Web Means Proprietary Trash

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Sep 25, 2023

Red Panda

ONE sort of end of Firefox is nigh; Firefox needs users more than users need Firefox and, well... technically it's still out there, and for some platforms it is essential [1], some forks of it exist too [2] (Waterfox has just been mentioned by Zenwalk), and Google moves to eliminate anything that's not a "webapp" [3].

Technically, Mozilla still works within the W3C [4], but Mozilla is financially beholden to Google and thus we cannot expect any pushback or for Firefox to "reclaims the Web" a second time around. All we see is stagnation by complexity and monoculture; it gets worse every year. Google formats and Wasm are even being championed by bloggers who should know better, so it won't be long (or much longer) before the majority of the Web is proprietary, patented, and with DRM on top.

Thankfully our new site generates Gemini pages at the same time it makes HTML pages. The old (WordPress) site used more or less the same theme since 2006, so it was compatible with very old browsers (two decades in ages); today's "modern" WordPress is a pile of JavaScript and it demands "modern" Web browsers to be accessible. Screw that, we're out.

Related/contextual items from the news:

  1. The Talospace Project: Progress on the Firefox ppc64le JIT
    A picture is worth a thousand Wasm opcodes. This is further along than we've gotten on earlier drafts. More soon.
  2. Waterfox : the new way to go for browsing ? [Ed: Waterfox claims to no longer be owned by a spying company, System1]

    At the time when Firefox, Chrome, and most legacy browsers are heavily blowted with trackers, and are about to be forced by governments to integrate spying code and backdoors : Waterfox seems a good option for browsing !

  3. Cameron Kaiser: Google ending Basic HTML support for Gmail in 2024
    Understandably they're saying little about it publicly, but word is getting around that Google's fast, super-compatible Basic HTML mode for Gmail will be removed in a few short months. "We’re writing to let you know that the Gmail Basic HTML view for desktop web and mobile web will be disabled starting early January 2024. The Gmail Basic HTML views are previous versions of Gmail that were replaced by their modern successors 10+ years ago and do not include full Gmail feature functionality."
  4. Tantek Çelik: W3C Technical Plenary and Advisory Committee (TPAC) Meetings 2023
    Last week’s second hybrid TPAC, held in Sevilla, Spain, felt very different in a number of positive ways. This post is a summary of impressions and varied types of meetings I participated in, each of which merits its own post.
  5. www which wasm works

    We’ve gotten libjxl built for wasm. It was a struggle, but we got it done, and we’re ready to run it. WASM is a straightforward standard designed for ease of implementation, so this should be a walk in the park.

Other Recent Techrights' Posts

[Meme] One Person, Singular Pronoun
Abusing people into abusing the English language is very poor diplomacy
New Article From Richard Stallman Explains Why He Says He and She for Unknown Person (Not 'They')
"Nowadays I use gender-neutral singular pronouns for a person whose gender I don't know"
Lookout, It's Outlook
Outlook is all about the sharing!
Updated A Month Ago: Richard Stallman on Software Patents as Obstacles to Software Development
very recent update
Is BlueMail a Client of ZDNet Now?
Let's examine what BlueMail does to promote itself
 
Site Priorities and Upcoming Improvements
pages are served very fast
Ending Software Patents in Recent Years (Software Freedom Fighters MIA)
not a resolved issue
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, November 29, 2023
IRC logs for Wednesday, November 29, 2023
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news
Links 30/11/2023: Rushing Patent Cases With Shorter Trial Scheme (STS), Sanctions Not Working
Links for the day
Links 30/11/2023: Google Purging Many Accounts and Content (to Save Money), Finland Fully Seals Border With Russia
Links for the day
The 'Smart' Attack on Power Grid Neutrality (or the Wet Dream of Tiered Pricing for Power, Essentially Punishing Poorer Households for Exercising Freedom Like Richer Households)
The dishonest marketing people tell us the age of disservice and discrimination is all about "smart" and "Hey Hi" (AI) as in algorithms akin to traffic-shaping in the context of network neutrality
Links 29/11/2023: VMware Layoffs and Too Many Microsofters Going Inside Google
Links for the day
Just What LINUX.COM Needed After Over a Month of Inactivity: SPAM SPAM SPAM (Linux Brand as a Spamfarm)
It's not even about Linux
Microsoft “Discriminated Based on Sexuality”
Relevant, as they love lecturing us on "diversity" and "inclusion"...
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, November 28, 2023
IRC logs for Tuesday, November 28, 2023
Media Cannot Tell the Difference Between Microsoft and Iran
a platform with back doors
Links 28/11/2023: New Zealand's Big Tobacco Pivot and Google Mass-Deleting Accounts
Links for the day
Justice is Still the Main Goal
The skulduggery seems to implicate not only Microsoft
OpenBSD Says That Even on Linux, Wayland Still Has a Number of Rough Edges (But IBM Wants to Make X Extinct)
IBM tries to impose unready software on users
[Teaser] Next Week's Part in the Series About Anti-Free Software Militants
an effort to 'cancel' us and spy on us
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news
Permacomputing
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Professor Eben Moglen on How Social Control Media Metabolises Humans and Constraints Freedom of Thought
Nothing of value would be lost if all these data-harvesting giants (profiling people) vanished overnight
IRC Proceedings: Monday, November 27, 2023
IRC logs for Monday, November 27, 2023
When Microsoft Blocks Your Access to Free Software
"Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches." [Chicago Sun-Times]
Techrights Statement on 'Cancel Culture' Going Out of Control
relates to a discussion we had in IRC last night
Stuff People Write About Linux
revisionist pieces
Links 28/11/2023: Rosy Crow 1.4.3 and Google Drive Data Loss
Links for the day