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Facebook adds 5 divs, 9 spans and 30 CSS classes to every post in the timeline

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Re: Facebook adds 5 divs, 9 spans and 30 CSS classes to every post in the timeline

#161

Post by disease »

bastawhiz wrote: post #41
sly010 wrote: post #26

I wonder at which point will we just stream pages as interactive video content with a text optimized codec. Most pages on the internet are bloated to the point where it might just make sense. (I am not advocating, I am predicting)

At a previous job in the not-too-distant past, we needed to support IE7 for contractual reasons. I'd unironically floated the idea of launching a VM on the server running Firefox, and starting a VNC session, streamed over frames of a GIF. Clicks and keypresses would be transmitted with AJAX calls. In a later project, we played with the idea of using an asm.js-compiled Webkit to render SVG (with embedded HTML) into a…

Sounds a bit like Apache Guacamole, which is sometimes used for presenting old software to users via a web setup.

Re: Facebook adds 5 divs, 9 spans and 30 CSS classes to every post in the timeline

#162

Post by MiddleEndian »

b123400 wrote: post #153

I read it somewhere that Chinese websites are taking this kind of obfuscations to the next level. The simple ones are randomly ordered divs re-layouted by JS at runtime. The complicated ones include custom font files which characters and glyph don't match, so for example abc would look like "123".

The font one seems like it's pushing it too far even for regular users since it breaks copy and paste.

Also this all seems like it would break accessibility regulations.

Re: Facebook adds 5 divs, 9 spans and 30 CSS classes to every post in the timeline

#163

Post by reaperducer »

At first I thought that this might be another good indication that having "Facebook" on your resume isn't the golden egg it once was.

Then I realize it's even better than before because it demonstrates for a potential employer that you'll push whatever buttons you're asked to in exchange for money, regardless of whether it's good for the user, the internet, or society as a whole.

Re: Facebook adds 5 divs, 9 spans and 30 CSS classes to every post in the timeline

#164

Post by andrepd »

asdkhadsj wrote: post #107
duxup wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like a fun challenge. It's just ads. If we're talking about some ad for a coffee maker, whatever. Now their whole selling data to unscrupulous folks, taking money from parents via their kids, selling fake news that makes people hate other people (now that gets into the ad space...) .... That's where I'd want to nope out.

Thank you. I feel like ads have such a bad rap because of the state of the internet. Yet, what does everyone expect? Is it shocking that content providers want money for their product? And yes, I know, some sites and ads do terrible things. The actively hurt viewership. BUT, isn't that the same with everything ? Even my groceries are getting worse as companies seek ways to increase profits without pissing me off; the…

To me ads are fundamentally about misleading you, manipulating you, or in short: making you do something that you wouldn't do otherwise. This to me is morally wrong on a base level. Advertisement is an attempt to attack/manipulate your vulnerable mammal brain to make you do something against your interest (be it buying a product, voting on someone, etc). In other words, to do something that you wouldn't do rationally, or wouldn't do without this prodding.

Re: Facebook adds 5 divs, 9 spans and 30 CSS classes to every post in the timeline

#165

Post by nuclear_eclipse »

nickv wrote: post #89
packetslave wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I need to meet the team I'll be working with before accepting an offer. It's the only way to know if they're competent, can communicate, and are not assholes. This is exactly how Facebook's onboarding process works (at least in engineering). You spend 3-4 weeks in "bootcamp" classes (React 101, IOS 101, etc.). After that, you spend another 3-4 weeks auditioning teams -- you sit with teams that have open headcount f…

Is this process for new college grads or senior engineers? I can't imagine principals go through this process, do they?

All engineering hires go through bootcamp, period. The only engineering hires that don't go through team selection are domain experts hired for a specific team/role ahead of time.

Re: Facebook adds 5 divs, 9 spans and 30 CSS classes to every post in the timeline

#166

Post by jandrese »

MiddleEndian wrote: post #162
b123400 wrote: post #153

I read it somewhere that Chinese websites are taking this kind of obfuscations to the next level. The simple ones are randomly ordered divs re-layouted by JS at runtime. The complicated ones include custom font files which characters and glyph don't match, so for example abc would look like "123".

The font one seems like it's pushing it too far even for regular users since it breaks copy and paste. Also this all seems like it would break accessibility regulations.

China has accessibility regulations?

Re: Facebook adds 5 divs, 9 spans and 30 CSS classes to every post in the timeline

#167

Post by yason »

I don't really object to ads per se. I'm used to ads in television and in newspapers, magazines. I even remember reading ads very carefully in a couple of computer mags when I was a teenager. Good ads can be entertaining and informative as well. Stupid or simple ads you just skip over.

However, there are some traits I'd still like to see in ads:

- they live in a dedicated box that doesn't make it harder to read the actual content. I focus on one thing at a time. If it's the content, it's not the ads. If you make a good ad, it might be your ad

- they don't flash or animate to distract my eyes

- they would ideally have some (textual) content I could pause to read for details if I'm interested

- they wouldn't necessarily change all the time: it would be nice to have the same ad placed on a site for a week or two, so I could come back to it if I find it interesting. Print media has this advantage. I still remember some iconic ads from my youth. I have absolutely no idea which ads, brands, or names I've happened to see online today

- they don't hog my cpu, my gpu, or my battery; they don't get to execute code or try to spy on my online life: just a nice image is enough

- youtube and other video services wouldn't serve ads longer than 10 seconds: it is about the time I can still hold my attention to continue with the video. Placing two-minute ads in youtube episodes just causes me to mute the ad and continue watching some other video. I wouldn't mind a few 10 second clips of reasonably well-matched ads in a programme that lasts half an hour.

I understand someone has to pay for the bandwidth and service but the only way an advertiser can get to visit my head is to ask gently, humbly, and make it worthwhile for me. Flashing, popping, intruding or forcing is not going to make it. This is why we have adblockers.

Re: Facebook adds 5 divs, 9 spans and 30 CSS classes to every post in the timeline

#168

Post by jandrese »

keithpeter wrote: post #144
agumonkey wrote: post #20

meanwhile https://text.npr.org/ ps: thanks for the comments below, I was curious about similar websites

It would be ace if there was a way to get older stories. I am resorting to reader view generally.

I've found it extremely difficult to track down stories I've heard on the radio on their website. The search function is really useless and even on the day of the broadcast I struggle to find the headline they used for the piece. If I'm going back a couple of days later it's usually a failure.

It looks like it should be so easy on the surface, just scan down the list of segments till you find the one you want, but for some reason I always struggle.

Re: Facebook adds 5 divs, 9 spans and 30 CSS classes to every post in the timeline

#169

Post by bostik »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #145
asdkhadsj wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you. I feel like ads have such a bad rap because of the state of the internet. Yet, what does everyone expect? Is it shocking that content providers want money for their product? And yes, I know, some sites and ads do terrible things. The actively hurt viewership. BUT, isn't that the same with everything ? Even my groceries are getting worse as companies seek ways to increase profits without pissing me off; the…

I run an old collaborative writing (roleplaying) forum populated mostly by teens that's paid for by a banner ad. When I read HN comments about ads, I see people who are forgetting what ads have actually gotten us: more people able to create more things that are available to everyone for free. HNers like to say "well, then adapt your business model," but look at the incredibly friction that exists for getting people t…

The problem isn't ads per se, it's all the crap around them:

  * invasive, industrial grade stalking
  * wasted screen real estate 
  * trackers
  * page load time 
  * bloated third-party garbage
  * blinkenlights
  * dark patterns
  * bandwidth hogging
  * CPU hogging
  * drive-by-malware potential (compromised ad network is an incredibly powerful attack vector)
And so on. Quite a long time ago I actually wrote down what I consider the minimum standard for acceptable ads: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10521930 ; anything more intrusive is as good as toxic waste.

Re: Facebook adds 5 divs, 9 spans and 30 CSS classes to every post in the timeline

#170

Post by FilterSweep »

If I were to rate my development ability to most HN devs, I would be rather mediocre.

But isn’t this a bit juvenile a workaround for FB? It seem rather easy to workaround this as an ad blocker. Just a little doc tree parsing and regex?

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