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Why our website looks like an operating system
201–210 of 504 posts
Re: Why our website looks like an operating system
#202> Legally-required cookie banner > PostHog.com doesn't use third-party cookies, only a single in-house cookie You're legally required to let me opt out of that cookie. Unless it's essential to the site functionality, in which case you don't need the banner at all.
Man it's 2025 and we still WANT to opt out of cookies visually? Why don't we just have browsers that just do that.
If one wants full control cookies could just be disabled by default at the browser level (which also blocks local storage). I do this and just whitelist sites that actually need it (very few).
The issue is some sites won't display any content without cookies, even if it's unnecessary. The amount of React-using sites that will load the entire page only to a second later to fully blank out since the JS couldn't set local storage does get annoying (and can regularly be worked around by disabling Javascript if not used for anything substantial). A handful like this have appeared just this past week on the HN front page.
Re: Why our website looks like an operating system
#203This must have taken them a really long time. That worries me, don't they have other things to do? If engineers have so much free time that they can work on nice & fun things like this that aren't totally necessary, they must have overhired (which is wasteful and a sign of impending layoffs) or they don't have enough actual work to do (which is a sign the company is stagnating). Or the time and money required to do t…
Hi, OP here. I was employee #13 at PostHog, joining as a designer (who now moonlights as a design engineer). I'm responsible for the website. I've been part of crafting the brand for 4.5 years – joined when the company just started monetizing. There are only two of us who work on the website, myself and a front end engineer. (He was hired to work on the website and doesn't directly work in the product.) We've spent r…
The teams window seems to be broken for me, on a non latest version of Firefox. However the blog posts window in the submission works flawlessly.
In the teams window, The first page doesn't load the images but does the content, clicking another item in the menu does show the expected page but again with no images. At some point, clicking the menu items does not load the correct page. At some point after that the images load in, however the correct link to the correct post does not appear. I have to click about 6 times on the same menu link to see a cycling of different posts (possibly the ones I was clicking before) to see the expected post.
Re: Why our website looks like an operating system
#204Earlier quoted context omitted.
No your browser can just… choose not to send cookies. The website publisher has no say in that.
Cookies are the easiest way to keep track of a user, but if browsers regularly stop sending cookies then website operators will just find another method to fingerprint users and then we're back to square one with the law still requiring publishers to receive opt-in approval, but with no requirements on how.
> then website operators will just find another method to fingerprint users
Example: The identifier you get when you pass anti-bot challenges (Cloudflare, Anubis, etc).
Re: Why our website looks like an operating system
#205Why this feels so incredibly appealing compared to prevailing designs is probably something for a psychologist / cognitive scientist / neurologist (?) to answer -- there is certainly something here that warrants better study than what we in the software industry do in rushed blog posts. But I can personally speak to at least one aspect, having worked for a company that does high end web sites and strategy for large S…
> the speed and ease with which I can find what I want (as a potential customer) using that top navigation menu is superior to anything I've seen done so far.
The web catches up to the past again. :-) Despite all the modern attempts at simplified "delightful" interfaces, a well-structured menu bar is hard to beat.
Re: Why our website looks like an operating system
#206Earlier quoted context omitted.
The EU law is fine, the implementation used isn't. But never blame the EU laws for cookie banners; the law does not mandate banners at all, let alone the ones full of dark patterns to nag you into accepting anyway. That's all the industry. The industry could have come up with a standard, a browser add-on, respect a browser setting, etc but they chose the most annoying one to pester you, the user.
> let alone the ones full of dark patterns to nag you into accepting anyway. In fact the law pretty explicitly disallows dark patterns like that. Of course tech companies have a loosy-goosy relationship with the law at the best of times.
> In fact the law pretty explicitly disallows dark patterns like that.
Yes. For "cookie banners" the law in fact forbids hiding "Reject all non-essential and continue" to be given less visual weight than "Accept all and continue", let alone hiding it behind "More details" or other additional steps.
It also requires consent to be informed (i.e. you need to know what you're agreeing to) and specific (i.e. you can't give blanket consent, the actual categories of data and purposes of collection need to be spelled out) and easily revokable (which is almost never the case - most sites provide no direct access to review your options later once you've "opted in").
One good example I can think of for a "cookie banner" that gets this right is the WordPress plugin from DevOwl: https://devowl.io/wordpress-real-cookie-banner/ (this is not an ad, but this is the one I've been recommending to people after having tried several of them) because it actually adds links to the footer that let you review and change your consent afterwards.
EDIT: Sorry, I first misread "disallows" as "allows". I've amended my reply accordingly.
Re: Why our website looks like an operating system
#207It looks awesome but I clicked several bits and pieces and still have no idea what they do or what their product is.
Yeah. I found pictures of feet before I found their products.
I guess they assume visitors usually arrive at the home page rather than a blog post. A quick note/link in the blog post might be helpful for those of us stumbling around.
Re: Why our website looks like an operating system
#208Earlier quoted context omitted.
> EU law is just meritless pestering of people It is that. It has done literally nothing to improve anything whatsoever, in any country. And most of the "cookie management" scripts that people use, barely even work. Both the law and the way it's complied with in practice are a dumb solution to a problem that the EU should have forced browser vendors to solve. Only the user's browser can choose not to send back cookie…
If you like things the way they were before the law, just answer yes to all cookie banners you see. It does not take time if you don’t care to read it. Yours click yes, and they will remember you want to be tracked.
Dude, I was in France and browsed to a page and it was a full page cookie modal with like 3 buttons and all these sliders. Turns out everywhere in the EU has these insane page things.
Re: Why our website looks like an operating system
#209Earlier quoted context omitted.
> EU law is just meritless pestering of people It is that. It has done literally nothing to improve anything whatsoever, in any country. And most of the "cookie management" scripts that people use, barely even work. Both the law and the way it's complied with in practice are a dumb solution to a problem that the EU should have forced browser vendors to solve. Only the user's browser can choose not to send back cookie…
I read an interview with a bunch of different young people. They all basically said "I just click 'yes' or 'accept' automatically". It sounded like they all believed that this was something they had to do in order to get to the content. Bad implementation of the EU law indeed, as another comment said. It fails the purpose completely and just create more problems for nearly everyone.
In many cases it is required to access the content. Courts have allowed "Consent or pay" for sites such as newspapers.
Re: Why our website looks like an operating system
#210Why can't I use my keyboard (e.g. spacebar) to scroll on you website? Apparently I have to use a mouse all the time, and that's annoying. Most OS's have accessibility options (even a lot of websites do this).