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I'm fed up with it, so I'm writing a browser

adayinthelifeof.nl

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Re: I'm fed up with it, so I'm writing a browser

#171

Post by gumby »

> I do not expect ANYTHING to come from this project. I do not expect to finish this project. And I do expect that - if nobody will follow me into helping the project - the project will be dead quite soon. I do not expect this project to become the dominant browser that will topple all the big players in the market.

This sounds like Linus' original announcement of Linux on comp.os.minix:

> Hello everybody out there using minix - I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones. This has been brewing since april, and is starting to get ready. I'd like any feedback on things people like/dislike in minix, as my OS resembles it somewhat (same physical layout of the file-system (due to practical reasons) among other things). I've currently ported bash(1.08) and gcc(1.40), and things seem to work. This implies that I'll get something practical within a few months, and I'd like to know what features most people would want. Any suggestions are welcome, but I won't promise I'll implement them :-) Linus (torvalds [at] kruuna.helsinki.fi) PS. Yes – it's free of any minix code, and it has a multi-threaded fs. It is NOT portable (uses 386 task switching etc), and it probably never will support anything other than AT-harddisks, as that's all I have :-(. —Linus Torvalds

Re: I'm fed up with it, so I'm writing a browser

#172

Post by ynniv »

phkahler wrote: post #156
nonrandomstring wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I get angry about not being able to do anything about anything. And this is my way of trying to do something about it. It's the best I can do. This attitude is gold, and it's what changes the whole world. What you said about the misery of "news" resonates with me. In psyops we call it "sapping". Propaganda designed to demoralise, dispirit and corrode resistance used to come from our enemies . The classic example wa…

>> As you do, I find the discourse around tech to be a pit of dismissiveness, avoidance, denial, resignation, and learned-helplessness. Do you think this is why people are abandoning the GPL license in favor of MIT/BSD? Something about the fight the GPL aims to win being a hopeless fantasy? In the face of the sentiment you and OP express, I'd think GPL usage would be widespread.

As a developer my problem with the GPL is that it's less free than other licenses. It's an interesting legal hack, but it can only succeed in its goals by boiling the ocean. I just want to write things, and sometimes making money involves not publishing all of your source code. Having to choose between options and idealism limits the popularity of GPL projects.

Re: I'm fed up with it, so I'm writing a browser

#173

Post by failrate »

jaytaph wrote: post #59

OP here. Thanks for the pos/neg/neutral comments everybody. Some remarks: Yes, there are a lot of browsers out there where I can contribute to which would be more efficient. But that would result in just a few browsers instead of a lot of browsers. I'm all for the last one, as this would give people options. This IS a pet project. I never told anyone otherwise. I would start writing it even when I wasn't fed up with…

I wrote a browser in Ruby yonks ago just to see what the hard parts were. It was great fun, and I learned a lot, so more power to you.

Re: I'm fed up with it, so I'm writing a browser

#175

Post by rendall »

loxdalen wrote: post #142
lijok wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Stuff is bad, fascism is on the rise, mega corporations control more and more wealth, those two things feed on each other, book banning in the US, war in Ukraine, my country is burning due to global warming, ... and all of this bad news damages the psyche. Turn off the news. We are living in unprecedentedly peaceful and prosperous times, and it's only getting better day by day. That is a fact. If you feel otherwise…

> We are living in unprecedentedly peaceful and prosperous times, and it's only getting better day by day. The Deputy Secretary-General of the UN begs to differ [1]. I like a positive attitude, but outright ignoring the reality is not the solution to handle negative developments in the world imo. Sure, statistics can lie but saying things are better than ever and always getting better is also not a fact as you say. […

Let us take as granted it that "the number of violent conflicts is the highest since World War Two". Let us assume that this is accurate.

Nevertheless, these statistics are globally better than any previous century: rate of people dying in war, poverty, child mortality, child education, female education, access to clean water, access to food, access to medical care, economy, life expectancy, crime rate, number living under democracy.

It will always be possible to point at one or another thing and truthfully say that thing is worse than it has been for a long time.

However, as bad as things are, as truly grim and miserable and precarious the lives of some people, we do indeed live in times of unprecedented peace and prosperity.

Re: I'm fed up with it, so I'm writing a browser

#176

Post by i_am_a_peasant »

jaytaph wrote: post #59

OP here. Thanks for the pos/neg/neutral comments everybody. Some remarks: Yes, there are a lot of browsers out there where I can contribute to which would be more efficient. But that would result in just a few browsers instead of a lot of browsers. I'm all for the last one, as this would give people options. This IS a pet project. I never told anyone otherwise. I would start writing it even when I wasn't fed up with…

Shut up and hack!

Re: I'm fed up with it, so I'm writing a browser

#177

Post by lacrimacida »

jaytaph wrote: post #59

OP here. Thanks for the pos/neg/neutral comments everybody. Some remarks: Yes, there are a lot of browsers out there where I can contribute to which would be more efficient. But that would result in just a few browsers instead of a lot of browsers. I'm all for the last one, as this would give people options. This IS a pet project. I never told anyone otherwise. I would start writing it even when I wasn't fed up with…

Scratch whichever itch you may have, especially the ones you can learn from. Some itches give birth and evolve into bigger things.

Re: I'm fed up with it, so I'm writing a browser

#178

Post by lijok »

loxdalen wrote: post #142
lijok wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Stuff is bad, fascism is on the rise, mega corporations control more and more wealth, those two things feed on each other, book banning in the US, war in Ukraine, my country is burning due to global warming, ... and all of this bad news damages the psyche. Turn off the news. We are living in unprecedentedly peaceful and prosperous times, and it's only getting better day by day. That is a fact. If you feel otherwise…

> We are living in unprecedentedly peaceful and prosperous times, and it's only getting better day by day. The Deputy Secretary-General of the UN begs to differ [1]. I like a positive attitude, but outright ignoring the reality is not the solution to handle negative developments in the world imo. Sure, statistics can lie but saying things are better than ever and always getting better is also not a fact as you say. […

1. I didn't suggest "outright ignoring reality"

2. Yes, violent conflicts are increasing. That does not mean we are not living in historically the most peaceful times. This is indeed a case of statistics, while not outright lying, being selectively singled out to present a narrative. How many people are dying in these violent conflicts? How many people are being displaced? Child mortality, war crimes being committed, lasting negative economic impact, negative impact on international relations, etc, etc, etc, are all factors in whether or not the world is becoming more peaceful or not, and the overwhelming majority of those factors are improving.

3. "things are better than ever and always getting better is also not a fact as you say." - I challenge you, in your own time, to disprove that statement. That exercise does wonders for a persons outlook on life.

Re: I'm fed up with it, so I'm writing a browser

#179

Post by nicce »

pacifika wrote: post #50

What an interesting article. For me I can relate to the central tenet of trying to exert control over the level and kind of content I consume on a daily basis. I’m sure that will help mental health. The Twitter clients of years past have shown how using filters and regexes, muting and blocking, it is somewhat possible to shape this content stream. Also I think local AI has some power to weed out content it can detect…

Unfortunately, everyone who provides these big feeds (Reddit, Twitter, et al.) don't like that their content is being filtered by third parties and clients. Because they want to keep their users on their platform as long as possible, and their algorithms are designed for it. So they actively make it very difficult to do so, by banning these clients.

On Instagram, you can't even fast forward videos because of that. They want you to watch them fully.

We really need clients for "feed of feeds", but how can we do that if we don't have access to the feeds? The browser could be a solution, but pages needs to be filtered based on the source code of the page, individually.

Re: I'm fed up with it, so I'm writing a browser

#180

Post by rendall »

nicce wrote: post #168
rendall wrote: post #161

> And how about browser-specific extensions that make sites unusable from other browsers (sorry, you cannot view your gmail with Firefox. Please install google chrome)? This has happened, and as soon as lawyers find a way out of monopoly issues, it will happen again. If anything would rile the regulators, Google making Gmail compatible only with Chrome would do it.

I think there have been already notifications in Google's services that this will fully work only in Chrome.

I use Firefox with Gmail every day and have never seen such a message.
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