51–60 of 219 posts
Really excited to see Discord rejected. Watching Discord take over open source and free culture communities has been disheartening to say the least.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Requiring a browser You realize we’re talking about Mozilla, right? > requiring social media They’re explicitly choosing between social media platforms...
My point is that any social media platform is not an acceptable IRC requirement, nor is requiring a social media account an acceptable requirement for any IRC requirement. And Mozilla, more than perhaps anybody else, should be aware that web browsers facilitate surveillance of users.
I have no idea why you think browsers are a tool to facilitate surveillance to a greater extent than dedicated clients. If a nation state or corporation can compromise your browser, they can realistically compromise your entire OS.
It's great to see 3/4 of the options are open source! Whatever happens, I really hope the community get behind the open source options and don't let more things get eaten up by commercial silos cough slack cough. I'm partial towards Matrix/Riot.im - the progress made on those projects is awesome and they really have a highly usable product, with bonuses such as e2e encryption and federation.
Setting up a Matrix server is a lot harder than you might think, especially when you start talking about federation and identity management.
The mxisd[1] project has recently disbanded due to what I believe to be philosophical differences with the Matrix maintainers vision of identity management.
I like a lot of things about Riot/Synapse, but I would suggest you try setting up your own Matrix server if you haven't yet. It's not what I would call highly usable.
Mind you, I have only tried setting up the reference implementation (Synapse/Riot). I would be interested in seeing a write-up/comparison done by Mozilla as part of these trials.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
My point is that any social media platform is not an acceptable IRC requirement, nor is requiring a social media account an acceptable requirement for any IRC requirement. And Mozilla, more than perhaps anybody else, should be aware that web browsers facilitate surveillance of users.
IRC is a social media platform. The fact that it predates Github by two decades doesn’t mean it’s not social media. I don’t know know what you’re actually opposed to. A blanket disapproval of “social media” isn’t particularly meaningful, so there’s nothing of substance in your complaint to respond to. I have no idea why you think browsers are a tool to facilitate surveillance to a greater extent than dedicated client…
>I have no idea why you think browsers are a tool to facilitate surveillance to a greater extent than dedicated clients.
Because that's simply factually the case? IRC networks do not give my IRC client proprietary tracking scripts to run. With an IRC client if any third party code execution occurs, it's due to an exploit in the client. On the other hand with web browsers, servers sending malicious scripts for the browser to run is par for the course.
Typical modern web browsers (even Mozilla's own) are total disasters, particularly in their default configuration. Why the hell aren't they shipping with resist-fingerprinting turned on by default? Because it would mildly inconvenience some users, and despite all their good intentions and positive words, they still prioritize user perception of convenience over privacy.
Why the hell they have slack and not discord eludes me.
I have full faith that, if I had left a computer running, in the corner of my home, with an IRC client open, it would have been able to maintain a connection to Freenode (not continuously, but just work) for fifteen or more years. Personally I don't think IRC will ever be replaced. Well, it will, but it'll happen when my generation dies and gets fully replaced with the New Shiny. I _hope_ that some sort of real, prop…
It's rock solid in what it does, I have zero doubt about that or your 15 year claim. But even if the protocol works, if the user base isn't being added to it will die eventually.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
IRC is a social media platform. The fact that it predates Github by two decades doesn’t mean it’s not social media. I don’t know know what you’re actually opposed to. A blanket disapproval of “social media” isn’t particularly meaningful, so there’s nothing of substance in your complaint to respond to. I have no idea why you think browsers are a tool to facilitate surveillance to a greater extent than dedicated client…
I think you know exactly what I'm referring to and are trying to drag the conversation into the weeds of vocabulary pedantry. I am of course talking about internet companies who turn user data into an asset. The facebooks, twitters, linkedins (same owner as github) etc of the world. You know that's what I'm talking about. Freenode is a far cry from facebook. > I have no idea why you think browsers are a tool to facil…
Then say that instead of rambling about social media like a tinfoil hatter. It’s totally fine if you don’t want to support Facebook or Github or Twitter. This isn’t just about “social media”, though.
> IRC networks do not give my IRC client proprietary tracking scripts to run.
There’s so much here to unpack. If you choose to use a communication tool that adds tracking scripts to your browser, then you have chosen to use a tool that tracks you. If Slack, for example, is sending your browser tracking beacons, then the problem is Slack and not the browser.
The same issue could apply to your IRC client if you chose poorly. The same can also be said of the IRC server you connect to. Indeed Mozilla is currently running their own IRC server and undoubtedly can track you if you choose to use their communication platform.
Best I can tell, what you actually want is to have the ability to use any client divorced from the service, and also to avoid your login being tracked by any “social media” service. I can understand the latter even if I don’t particularly care about that myself. The former is essentially pining for the early days of the internet when browsers rendered only text, and essentially no one actually cared about them. Essentially any platform that reaches a high level of richness supports tracking you. Email has the exact same issue because it supports images from servers. And yeah you can fix it, but only by giving up the richness that users actually want.
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requiring a single commercial entity like github is a really bad idea. Sure it'll be fine for a few years but when github goes belly up or gets bought and the new CEO cuts all extraneous projects, then you're hosed.
You realize they're owned by Microsoft yes?
It might or might not be well managed in the years to come. Case in point, Skype. It was "the" tool to use for office communication. Hardly anyone I know uses Skype nowadays.
Why are they even considering Slack which is a proprietary IM service? Come on, they are Mozilla. Matrix which is federated and is proposed like a "better XMPP" is more like it.