Bonum Certa Men Certa

The 'Modern' Web

Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer

I Just Call It “Diarrhea Code” When I Encounter a Website That Won’t Work in SeaMonkey.



When you’re not nice to idiots who make “Modern” stuff, like “Diarrhea Code”, they pretty much just ban you from everything.



It’s “bad” to be opposed to bloated Web sites that stick out a sign saying you’re not welcome here because they’ve made a mess and it only works in Firefox and Chromium.



The reason I call code meant for Chromium “Diarrhea Code” is because it reminds me of what happens to a toilet bowl after you had too much Taco Bell and Mountain Dew. Stuff goes flying everywhere, it’s nasty, it makes the paint peel off the walls. It makes the buttons melt off your shirt. And you can’t wait to get rid of it.



20 years ago people began to push for what the Web is now. Binary blobs that run untrustworthy applications in your browser, too much JavaScript, HTML files that are several MB long and impossible to read that call out to this.



And they criticized people like me for writing clean, readable, markup, which was parsed, displayed, and presented to the user, over dial up modems, in a matter of seconds.



In 1999, you could right-click on my site and read the entire source code of the page. You didn’t have to take my word as to what was in there. I couldn’t have hidden much in there if I wanted to. HTML 3 and 4 were clean and readable by humans.



People said the situation where browsers would “forgive” slightly bogus tag use or the occasional typo (which I checked for) was “unacceptable” and now you have Microsoft Azure pumping in stuff that’s barely even code when you try to pay your electric bill with ComEd, and Chrome, Firefox, and Edge happily try to make sense of tens of megabytes of that.



Today in the GNOME room I was somewhat horrified to learn that you can make a Firefox .desktop that can handle mailto: with a Webmail “provider”.



I responded,



Webmail *barf*



They all have different interfaces. Piles of JavaScript, their spam filtering is not uniformly effective, and they almost always have ads and tracking scripts, or at least whitespace where the ads are supposed to go. Consider SeaMonkey Mail.



Now if you do load Outlook in Firefox, it tries to register itself to handle mailto: *rolls eyes* with a banner that pops up. Also, I have to lie to Google about my SeaMonkey UA with a pref to make it think I’m Thunderbird, even though the underlying Mail code IS FROM THUNDERBIRD.



Jamie Zawinski’s “Law of Software Envelopment” said that all programs expand until they can read email.



Giving mail so some garbage Web browser, which is made to run “Diarrhea Code” is only about the worst way you could expand something to read email.



Email belongs in a reader that supports POP3 and IMAP. Email should be text-only.



Sylpheed is a good Email program, but I doubt it could even handle GMail because of the entire OAuth debacle and needing to load a Web page to handle that, which sniffs to see if you’re “on the list” of allegedly secure “apps”, like Thunderbird, which just rewrote the entire GUI.



Someone already wrote why WASMs are terrible for security.



They have introduced an entire unique set of CVEs (listed in the monthly Mozilla patch updates, WASMs are roughly 10% of the attack footprint of the entire Firefox browser!) that will never stop, and they’re on by default in Tor Browser.



If you use a Web browser to handle your mail, eventually what they’re probably going to do is just rewrite the entire “Web” thing into a WASM blob which is so much worse than “Diarrhea Code”.



It won’t even be markup and scripts anymore. Just a binary program you can run it like it is, and none of your extensions (NoScript, ublock-origin, etc.) can act on the elements as they come in.



WASM is part of the Google trap to destroy the Open Web.



Widevine (Web DRM…I turn it off) and WASM are the warm up band for WEI.



And why wouldn’t you trust some skeevy porn or bittorrent site to send a WASM your way?



After all, Windows is a *very secure* operating system because you can just trust the operating system company that already has 95% of the total malware to make sure that WASMs can’t do any harm. 😛



And Mozilla can *obviously* make sure they stay in the “sandbox”. *LOL*



Even when they do stay in the browser sandbox, they can still do a lot of damage. They can spy on the user. They can mine crypto.



Crypto Miners that load in Web pages boasted that they were early adopters of WASM and they could use the victim’s phone or laptop to mine “Monero” at “70% of the speed of a native program”.



Turn it off.



Security Posers talking about “threat models” and “Secure Boot” in the firmware are just absolutely laughable in light of all of the new threats the same people, and the companies that handle them, stuff into everything.



This is worse than ActiveX and Internet Explorer. At least all you had to do to stay safe from that was find some other browser.



Now all Mozilla does is blind copy things from Google.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Many Microsoft "Assets" Are Fabricated Baloney (to Game the Numbers)
At times it seems like what we deal with are many weak patents (on algorithms), valuations or speculations based on hype ("hey hi"), and stocks held by Microsoft and its own staff
"Internal Changes at Red Hat / IBM"
It seems like quite a few people are leaving
Confirmed in French Media: Mass Layoffs (10% Culled) in Microsoft France
Now some reports in French
Microsoft in Freefall in Finland
Can Finland eradicate Windows from all its infrastructure, including core operations that are sensitive to sabotage by cracking?
Google's Chrome Passes 70% and Web Standards Are Dying
The Web is quickly becoming devoid of any standards
Slopwatch: Plagiarism and Ponzi Scheme, Bubble About to Burst Entirely, Admits Goldman Sachs
the hype that Google News and The Register MS actively participate and profit from
The Register MS Says "AI Web Crawlers Are Destroying Websites", So Why Does The Register MS Help 'AI' Companies? (Spoiler: Money)
People need to call out The Register MS on its hypocrisy
Slopfarms Already Peaked, They Will Die When Slop Companies Run Out of Money to Borrow
slopfarms will lack an actual "engine"
 
Techrights Has Been Subjected to Calls of Violence (and Death Threats), It Never Condoned Violence
I have no sympathy for people who call violence "free speech" and then get in trouble
Condoning Violent Behaviour and "Free Speech"
perhaps Microsoft Lunduke lost touch with what constitutes violence
Takeaway From the Google Verdict: GAFAM Has Too Much Control (Even Over the US Government and Courts With Government Appointees)
Many people feel disappointed but hardly surprised by the verdict
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) Turns 40 in One Month
As noted a few days ago, several times in fact, many people now recognise the importance of the FSF's mission, even if most people don't know what the FSF is
"Voluntary" Layoffs at Microsoft (to Game the Numbers, Sugar-Coating a Crisis)
"Employees interested have until the end of October to volunteer."
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 02, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, September 02, 2025
Links 02/09/2025: Oligarch Tech and Text Encoding Concerns in Ada
Links for the day
"People on LinkedIn Saying That They've Left Red Hat."
We already saw signs of it a month ago and named some of the people
Gone With the BRICs (or BRICS): "Linux 8" in Cuba
GAFAM must be worried
Telecompaper Reports Microsoft to Reduce the Workforce by Another 10% (in France)
Imagine what this will do to staff's morale
India is Back to Windows 8 (Market Share Down to 8%) as Android Soars to a New Record High
For Microsoft, India is a runaway market
Links 02/09/2025: SCO Summit and Russia Suspected Of Jamming GPS
Links for the day
Gemini Links 02/09/2025: Mediterranean Marriage and Staying Connected at 35,000 Feet
Links for the day
Links 02/09/2025: Attacks on Unions, Microsoft TCO, and DDoSing a Growing Problem
Links for the day
Why We Publish Information About the SLAPPs (But Not About the Legal Process), an Abuse of Process by Americans Trying to Silence Critics of Their Employer, Microsoft
It doesn't take thousands of pages to explain something simple
Internet Relay Chat Didn't Fall Off a Cliff
IRC will turn 40 in less than 3 years from now
The UEFI 9/11 - Part V - This is Not a Drill (Disable "SecureBoot" Now)
A "9/11" Coming
There's No Obligation to Speak to Anybody
The very fact that "bkuhn" is till spending time in social control media says a lot about his poor judgment
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, September 01, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, September 01, 2025
Microsoft Trying to Force People to Resign (Amid Mass Layoffs) a Strategy That Takes Its Toll
Microsoft seems to be circling down the drain and the "final flush" will be the moment the "hey hi" (AI) bubble implodes completely
Google Simply Cannot Be Trusted
Only fools would trust GAFAM
Admission That a Third Party (or Parties) Funds the SLAPPs Against Techrights
This can end up costing them over a million dollars
Modifying and Writing One's Own Computer Programs is Not a Crime (or: Google Proves That Stallman Was Right)
We're generally gratified to see so many positive mentions of him
Why We Stopped Publishing Videos (for Now)
We'll probably get back to videos one day, but it's hard to say when or to what extent
What Animal Rights Activism Teaches Us About Sympathy and Focus
It's possible to believe that the planet is warming, that we must do something about it, and still eat eggs and butter
When You Turn Web Sites About Tech Into Political Sites
A lot of people fall into the trap of catering only for particular groups
Gemini Links 02/09/2025: ROOPHLOCH 2025 and Lagrange 1.19 Released
Links for the day
Gemini Links 01/09/2025: News Corp. WSJ and A Month With NixOS
Links for the day
“Sideloading” Never Killed Anybody
There are many online discussions this week about the misnomer "sideloading"
Slopwatch: Google News as FUD Vector Against Linux and Plagiarism Enhancer, Serial Slopper (SS) Uses LLMs to Googlebomb "Linux"
Slop destroys the Web not just by screwing with search engines and helping plagiarists. It's also responsible for de facto DDoS attacks...
Links 01/09/2025: "Attacks on Science" and China's "Soft Power" Grows
Links for the day
Links 01/09/2025: Fresh Backlash Against Slop and "Norway’s Electricity Crisis is About to Hit Britain"
Links for the day
Writing and Coding Isn't Always Enough
Last year we had to assume a role we didn't have before: litigants
Links 01/09/2025: Catching Up (Mostly via Deutsche Welle), "Windows TCO" Effect in UK
Links for the day
Gemini Links 01/09/2025: Linguistic Barriers and "Web 1.0 Hosting"
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, August 31, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, August 31, 2025
Autumn Has Come
Autumn should be exciting in all sorts of ways; it'll also mark our anniversary
The UEFI 9/11 - Part IV - External Interference
They all seem to be playing a role in crushing Software Freedom and self-determination for users