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Web browsers need to stop. Enough is enough

drewdevault.com

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Re: Web browsers need to stop. Enough is enough

#21

Post by mathw »

saurik wrote: post #10
colesantiago wrote: post #4

> Enough is enough. What I don't like about this post is too much emotion, not much action. > If you’re a Google engineer who is still working on AMP, you are a disgrace to your field. Really? Career shaming? That's very low of the author to do. Why are they a disgrace?

Someone actively sits down and codes all the things that make the world a worse place, and they often do it after and despite all of the arguments for why it is bad; maybe you disagree that AMP is a problem--I, honestly, haven't made a decision there yet--but to be very blunt about it: we tend to attribute too many things to organizations and companies when there should be a list of very concrete names of engineers w…

We live in an unethical economy. Do you expect everyone to be able to live off founding an ethical startup?

Re: Web browsers need to stop. Enough is enough

#25

Post by detaro »

blub wrote: post #14

This is a vicious cycle of Google pushing new APIs to cement their grip on the Web and the web developers chasing fads to reduce their permanent sense of inferiority compared to native developers. You can see that this is the case when you look at Safari which tried to limit features. It's arguable whether that's because Apple limits the best APIs to native apps, or those features don't make sense or because of a com…

And you can see a bunch of the "fad" APIs, that make up the term "PWA", that Apple rejects as a form of an "user-focused, privacy-respecting web" - allowing cross-platform alternatives to native apps that can easily spy on more of the system. Especially on desktop platforms.

Even extreme ones like WebUSB: between the choice of "download an application and run it with normal privileges so it can update the firmware on a connected device" and "go to a website, confirm in a browser prompt the specific device the website can access, have it update the firmware and know that it didn't leave any traces elsewhere on the system and couldn't access other hardware", the latter has some good about it.

Re: Web browsers need to stop. Enough is enough

#26

Post by type0 »

blub wrote: post #15
colesantiago wrote: post #4

> Enough is enough. What I don't like about this post is too much emotion, not much action. > If you’re a Google engineer who is still working on AMP, you are a disgrace to your field. Really? Career shaming? That's very low of the author to do. Why are they a disgrace?

Silicon Valley is a really nice club with zero consequences for those that have been screwing up the internet and online privacy for decades. Therefore I don't think it's appropriate to now complain that somebody's calling these people a disgrace to their field. Recently we learned on HN of the revolving door between Mozilla and Facebook, straight from the mouths of former Mozilla/current Facebook employees. They wer…

Speaking of Web Browsers, I won't be surprised if FB introduces their own browser, this could potentially be so much more dystopian than Chrome it's scary that's a possibility. Chrome is already de facto mandated by some government agencies across the globe by virtue of that their authentication doesn't work in other browsers (not even Chromium in some cases).

Re: Web browsers need to stop. Enough is enough

#27

Post by Havoc »

This does ring true but stop everything isn’t the right answer either. Maybe rather a slowdown and less niche stuff. I mean the whole point of a browser is that it’s pretty generic and universal.

The trend to make everything an app annoys me more (ie each news service, Reddit etc). Whole point of a browser is to avoid that.

Re: Web browsers need to stop. Enough is enough

#28

Post by type0 »

mathw wrote: post #21
saurik wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone actively sits down and codes all the things that make the world a worse place, and they often do it after and despite all of the arguments for why it is bad; maybe you disagree that AMP is a problem--I, honestly, haven't made a decision there yet--but to be very blunt about it: we tend to attribute too many things to organizations and companies when there should be a list of very concrete names of engineers w…

We live in an unethical economy. Do you expect everyone to be able to live off founding an ethical startup?

Economy itself isn't unethical, the corruption is. Unethical business practices and unethical corporate cultures is what allows our societies to rotten from inside. Tax evasions for the biggest conglomerates of the World, media cheering and rooting for anti-competitive behaviors and we don't even have to mention the shady political ties that make all other abuses possible.

Re: Web browsers need to stop. Enough is enough

#30

Post by mrvenkman »

michaelhoffman wrote: post #2

> Mozilla just fired everyone relevant to focus on crap no one asked for like Pocket, and fad nonsense like a paid VPN service and virtual reality tech. Not disagreeing with the rest of this, but I love Pocket.

I think Pocket is great too ... a great selection of articles.
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