Modern Web Means Proprietary Trash

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Sep 25, 2023

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.