Write site-specific extensions to replace sites' JavaScript code
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Re: Write site-specific extensions to replace sites' JavaScript code
#2[deleted]
Re: Write site-specific extensions to replace sites' JavaScript code
#3This is ridiculous. GNU should be badgering those sites to open source their client JS, or funding competitors that will.
Trying to encourage people to enter into an endless game of Whac-A-Mole fixing and re-fixing browser extensions to work with sites as they update isn't a solution.
Who here is going to spend countless hours on that thankless task?
Re: Write site-specific extensions to replace sites' JavaScript code
#4I don't understand this at all?
"Many websites damage users' freedom by sending nonfree JavaScript programs to the user's browser."
Eh? I'm assuming it means libraries like jquery or alpinejs or analytics etc? Because if I write specific JS for my site, that is not 'free' either.
"Otherwise, you need to use the browser debugging facilities to figure out what data and commands the JavaScript code sends to the server—in effect, its undocumented API"
Erm, no? You've visited my site that I have built, you can either use it as is, or not use it - your choice - but don't start trying to mess about with it and sending stuff, I might be terrible at writing backend side and sending things wrong blows up a server.
Very strange article.
Re: Write site-specific extensions to replace sites' JavaScript code
#5The article seems to exist in an imagination of artificial concerns.
* Whether the JavaScript is free, as in beer, isn’t something most users care about.
* It isn’t that site owners don’t understand or care. It’s that they want to make money by hoarding analytics from stalking users and everything else is trivial.
The goals of the article aren’t invalid or misplaced though. They just need a slight realignment to match real world concerns.
* Users somewhat care about privacy. Privacy is largely misunderstood and educating users is painful but it’s still more productive than forcing a non-concern.
* Users detest poor performance. Spyware for money is frequently bloated and poorly written swelling bandwidth and CPU usage.
The best solution to this, both technically and from user concerns, is to separate logic from content. If web content were largely without application logic, such as turning off JavaScript, everything gets faster and privacy gets better. If web applications were void of content there are fewer data points to associate and stalk against user concerns. That separation is what GNU should focus upon to achieve their goals of libre JavaScript.
Re: Write site-specific extensions to replace sites' JavaScript code
#6The article seems to exist in an imagination of artificial concerns. * Whether the JavaScript is free, as in beer, isn’t something most users care about. * It isn’t that site owners don’t understand or care. It’s that they want to make money by hoarding analytics from stalking users and everything else is trivial. The goals of the article aren’t invalid or misplaced though. They just need a slight realignment to matc…
Thanks for the article. I agree this article may be too technical focused. However, with current JS api accessing GPU and many other hardware, I often visit site with JS turned off. It would be good to rewrite or block certain JS APIs. Maybe split JS API to categories. Stuff that change CSS color to be in group, and stuff that access GPU/WebGL and accessing hardware of the computer put that in another group. Seems like browser vendor really ought to think about that, I don't want to enable JS just so it can start accessing all kinds of stuff. But some JS to play with CSS of the page are quite nice to have around.
Re: Write site-specific extensions to replace sites' JavaScript code
#7I'm curious what GNU considers "non free" JavaScript. If it's any JS without a "free" license, then I would imagine that the vast, vast majority of websites are non-free.
The website I work on has been in development for 3 years with more than a dozen engineers. The source code is proprietary, i.e., not free as in speech.
The app is React, so blocking all non-free JS would render the site as a blank page. An extension would have to replicate the entire front-end.
They expect volunteers to faithful replicate thousands of man hours of work for every single website? It appears to me that in making this request they didn't think through the difficulty of the task.
Re: Write site-specific extensions to replace sites' JavaScript code
#8I don't understand this at all? "Many websites damage users' freedom by sending nonfree JavaScript programs to the user's browser." Eh? I'm assuming it means libraries like jquery or alpinejs or analytics etc? Because if I write specific JS for my site, that is not 'free' either. "Otherwise, you need to use the browser debugging facilities to figure out what data and commands the JavaScript code sends to the server—i…
Because if I write specific JS for my site, that is not 'free' either.
Note that the article is talking about licensing. Whether or not your JS code is 'free' depends on the license you've applied to it. In the case of sites that use things like Angular or React the user knows that code isn't using a permissive, open license, so the folk at GNU are attempting to block the code coming from the server, inject their own code that does the same thing but more freely, and still have a working version of your site. It's an interesting idea albeit perhaps incredibly not-useful if you don't care deeply about software licenses.
Re: Write site-specific extensions to replace sites' JavaScript code
#9"We could also solve the problem by convincing the webmasters to correct their sites to function without the JavaScript code, but convincing them proves to be very difficult, since mostly they don't understand the issue, let alone care about it"
First who use the term webmaster? Second implying that a target audiences of your product is too stupid to understand the importance of what you selling doesn't seem like a great start to me.
Re: Write site-specific extensions to replace sites' JavaScript code
#10"We could also solve the problem by convincing the webmasters to correct their sites to function without the JavaScript code, but convincing them proves to be very difficult, since mostly they don't understand the issue, let alone care about it" First who use the term webmaster? Second implying that a target audiences of your product is too stupid to understand the importance of what you selling doesn't seem like a g…
> First who use the term webmaster?
That's a little old-fashioned, but nothing like «The author uses the gender-neutral third person singular pronouns and possessive adjective “perse,” “per,” “perself,” and “pers.”»