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Shadow: New browser engine made almost entirely in JavaScript

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Re: Shadow: New browser engine made almost entirely in JavaScript

#221

Post by akoboldfrying »

leventonportera wrote: post #216
akoboldfrying wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If AI-powered ad blocking becomes ubiquitous, it will mean the end of high-quality free services like Google Search, Gmail, Google Maps, Google Translate and YouTube, for all of which I much prefer to pay with my attention rather than cold, hard cash. I have no doubt that current AI is capable of this (in fact I'm sure it would be trivial for GPT-3.5 and well within reach of even locally-run LLMs), the question is wh…

I don't use google search (most of the time) as it's inferior - it ignores what I'm searching for, and substitutes what it thinks I should be searching for - and it's been doing that for years. There were free search engines before there were ads. I don't use gmail because why would anyone want to use gmail for anything but temporary throwaways that'll get spammed. I don't use google maps. nokia heremaps and openstre…

>No, I don't want a map that needs a data connection.

Google Maps has had the ability to download maps for offline use as long as I can remember -- at least since 2013.

>This does not support your argument, because that's a service that is free, and does not display ads.

All Google services are ad-supported, at least indirectly. That's because Google pays for their development and upkeep, and Google's primary income stream is ads.

Re: Shadow: New browser engine made almost entirely in JavaScript

#222

Post by akoboldfrying »

seanhunter wrote: post #213
BoiledCabbage wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An argument I read that has merit is that ad supported services does democratize the web for developing countries. If for example youtube with all of its information or even Google search required a subscription, suddenly a lot of people who make significantly less than the average for the developed world would no longer be able to access those resources. I still hate the ad surveillance everywhere, but it was a poin…

> An argument I read that has merit is that ad supported services does democratize the web for developing countries. You know who has seeded that argument into the public domain? PR agencies working for the advertising industry. It doesn't have any merit whatsoever. People in developing countries don't like ads any more than anyone else.

>People in developing countries don't like ads any more than anyone else.

Almost no one likes ads. What many people do like is the trade-off of some ads for access to high quality services that would otherwise cost them money.

Re: Shadow: New browser engine made almost entirely in JavaScript

#223

Post by skrebbel »

toast0 wrote: post #168
DarkNova6 wrote: post #2

This guy knows his audience well. He answers the question of "but why?" in the first sentence: > So I started making a browser engine (for fun) a few days ago, it felt kind of inevitable so here we are And I got to admit, it is pretty neat.

I mean, I wrote an IRC client in mIRC script... It was fun (and not very usable)

That's actually very impressive. mIRCscript is absolutely awful.

Re: Shadow: New browser engine made almost entirely in JavaScript

#224

Post by bhaney »

chii wrote: post #140
bhaney wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ad companies would get approximately every website in the world to use this technique I really doubt it, but if that did happen then I could simplify my filter list to just a single wildcard. Silver lining.

and stop participating in online society? Are you going to stop buying from ecommerce sites, viewing youtube, and reading your gmail? I think it's an inevitable future tbh. The users have lost - they just dont know it yet. Google's WEI [1] is their first foray into this, and i dont doubt there will be future iterations they try to push through. The browser-in-browser is but one alternative idea. [1] https://en.wikipe…

> and stop participating in online society?

The parts of it that try to force ads on me, sure.

> Are you going to stop buying from ecommerce sites, viewing youtube, and reading your gmail?

I would, yeah. I've already stopped using all google services to whatever extent possible and deleted my google account long ago. I do sometimes watch a youtube video (in an external player) if one is linked to me, but I don't think I'd particularly miss youtube if it were gone altogether.

I would hope that there will remain at least one e-commerce site that doesn't try to force ads on me. But if there isn't, I'll drive to the store.

Re: Shadow: New browser engine made almost entirely in JavaScript

#225

Post by skrebbel »

phito wrote: post #200
postalrat wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it's a great language that many people use every day.

I don't know how people can say that JS is a great language with a straight face. Sure it has a lot of advantages mostly due to how widespread it is. But it's really obviously not a great programming language by itself...

Fwiw I think JavaScript is quite good. Also I think TypeScript is the best programming language I’ve ever used (and I’ve used a lot of them).

Re: Shadow: New browser engine made almost entirely in JavaScript

#226

Post by seabass-labrax »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #194
BoiledCabbage wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An argument I read that has merit is that ad supported services does democratize the web for developing countries. If for example youtube with all of its information or even Google search required a subscription, suddenly a lot of people who make significantly less than the average for the developed world would no longer be able to access those resources. I still hate the ad surveillance everywhere, but it was a poin…

I am from a developing country. One which banned advertising in its biggest city. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cidade_Limpa https://99percentinvisible.org/article/clean-city-law-secret... There are plenty of online resources which don't require ads. Sibling comment mentions Wikipedia, Open Street Map also comes to mind. We need more of these in this world. Not this ad-supported nonsense.

I love the concept of advertising-free cities! It's actually the advertising situation with public transport that I have found particularly frustrating where I am. For instance, some bus seats have transport maps on the ceiling above them, but others have private advertisements. Likewise, some stations have dozens of electronic advertising boards where they could have timetables. Perhaps they could at least have a button on them to switch them momentarily to a map or timetable.

I wonder how many millions of people have missed their train/bus connection because they couldn't find a departure board among the billboards.

Re: Shadow: New browser engine made almost entirely in JavaScript

#227

Post by edg5000 »

chatmasta wrote: post #74
EvanAnderson wrote: post #30

There's a product here that's been waiting to happen for awhile. I've been anticipating somebody cross-compiling another browser engine to WASM but this works, too. Deliver your site only to the "inner browser" (that the user has no control over because it's heavily obfuscated and tricked-out with anti-debugging code) and you eliminate all ad blockers. Throw some DNS-over-HTTPS w/ certificate pinning in for good meas…

This might be something you fear, maybe even legitimately, but it seems hyperbolic to assign an equivalence to your worst fear and the passion project of an individual who made this and probably does not have any of the nefarious intentions you default to attributing to anyone who could create something resembling it.

As a developer, JavaScript does not scale due it lacking static checkability and for some, performance. So we slap TypeScript on top, which mostly solves this problem. But starting a massive browser UI project today, I think Qt on WASM + WebGPU makes a lot of technical sense. That would have the added commercial benefit of making ad blocking harder. Although the binary could be cracked by a modified browser. The eternal cat and mouse game continues.

Re: Shadow: New browser engine made almost entirely in JavaScript

#228

Post by seabass-labrax »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #189
akoboldfrying wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> mind rape I'll bite. Is hearing or seeing any idea that you have not previously consented to likewise mind rape? If not, where do you personally draw the line? And, just as importantly, who do you feel should get to decide in the general case?

Not at all. I draw the line at consent. Nothing wrong with HN showing me your comments. I came here to see comments. If they started showing up while I'm watching a video somewhere else I would feel violated and swiftly block them. Nothing wrong with showing me products when I open a store app. That's what I opened the app to see. Showing me products while I'm trying to read an article is a violation. Advertising is…

Most online advertisements are as intrusive from a mental attention perspective as a door-to-door salesman is intrusive from a personal space perspective. Yet, the former is somehow considered acceptable even in societies where the latter is completely taboo.

I always try to make sure my online contributions are worthy of the valuable attention of their readers they take up.

Re: Shadow: New browser engine made almost entirely in JavaScript

#229

Post by synecdoche »

djtango wrote: post #185
scarface_74 wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no such thing as a high quality ad supported service. Ads make the user experience worse in every single circumstance. I forget how bad Google Search is until I get a new computer/phone without ad blocking enabled

I find Maps and YouTube are still good products

YouTube censors arbitrarily. And censoring is the companion of propaganda. With lying by omission being a close friend.

Re: Shadow: New browser engine made almost entirely in JavaScript

#230

Post by akoboldfrying »

hotnfresh wrote: post #197
akoboldfrying wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If AI-powered ad blocking becomes ubiquitous, it will mean the end of high-quality free services like Google Search, Gmail, Google Maps, Google Translate and YouTube, for all of which I much prefer to pay with my attention rather than cold, hard cash. I have no doubt that current AI is capable of this (in fact I'm sure it would be trivial for GPT-3.5 and well within reach of even locally-run LLMs), the question is wh…

The end of ad-supported services makes room for open protocols, open source, and regular old commercial software. All of which have suffered from lack of interest—from developers and users—in this environment where they have to compete with “free”.

I agree that that there would be an upswing in those things, but I'm not at all certain that the resulting environment would be any better for the average user -- certainly not in the short term, while people's expectation (which has by now become built into our culture) to get almost anything they want online "for free" remains.
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