The state of the internet 2023
2y 10mon ago by kbin.social/u/Roundcat in memes@lemmy.ml from media.kbin.social
I think a lot of people here don't understand the danger of this fully and dismiss it with "Just use Firefox, problem solved".
Unfortunately, once this becomes widely available, that is once Chrome ships it, websites will start to use it.
Maybe Amazon will just not sell to you anymore when you're browsing with Firefox?
Maybe YouTube wont serve any videos if you're using Linux?
Your bank will certainly implement this and only allow Windows 11 with Edge or some shit like that.
Once this is implemented, we will all suffer, even if we're using better alternatives right now.
Your bank will certainly implement this
My brother in Christ, it was 2020 before my bank supported passwords longer than 8 characters. We have 30 or 40 years before we need to worry about the banks.
Some banks are still running windows 98 internally, admitedly so long as said system isnt connected to the internet it should be fine.
Lol, not to mention Cobalt and other horrors that are lurking in Legacy systems no one has looked at in 50 years.
I'm thinking mainframe terminals, where the character has to be in the right place on the screen in order to store something in RAM.
Even worse, how many systems are still using punch cards? How often do those cards need to be replaced?
I'm glad you're liking it.
You may think so but hackers have managed to access data on air gapped computers
Win 98
This isn't true, this can't be true and I refuse to believe it.
I sincerely hope that your local ATM never crashes and you never have to see the windows xp logo.
@xavier666 @vaultdweler13, it's true, For internal use with PCs connected to the central server itself and not to the network, it is used for compatibility with corporate software, sometimes still very old Windows. This, when using it on the one hand only in a specialized way and on the other hand only locally, is more than enough. The same in factories in production for the automation of some valve or machinery with repetitive processes, a super-pc with a NASA OS is not needed.
For PCs at workshop, I can understand Win98. The OS is just a bootloader to a single application. But for banking, it's a terrible security hazard.
@xavier666, only if it is used in subsidiaries where they have to manage money movements over the network, but not in local administrative applications where it is irrelevant, as in all purely local uses. In monoapplications in this area, even an old MsDOS will be worth it.
They have traveled to the Moon with an SO from a Tamagochi.
As long as it's isolated to local use, I guess it's fine. But if it connects to the internet, may lord have mercy on the firewall.
I posted this elsewhere in this thread but hackers have managed to access data on air gapped computers
Unfortunately nothing is safe from determined hackers. The question is if anyone cares enough to steal your bank's data
Have you ever rooted an android phone?
The google SafteyNet Attestation is the precursor to browser DRM. It's essentially phone DRM.
There are many banks that have apps that require you to pass at least the basic level attestation, if not the CTS profile matching that fails the moment you modify any system level resources, even the bootloader
luckily you can force disable CTS so it falls back on the basic level, for most apps at least. You will never have access to Google or Samsung pay though, as it actually knows your phone model should support CTS and will autofail if it no longer reports that it does.
Alongside that apps like Pokemon GO and Netflix also require at least basic attestation to function - demonstrating the DRM and anticheat capabilities of such a system.
https://github.com/Magisk-Modules-Repo/MagiskHidePropsConf
This can help you pass CTS. It worked for me. Funny thing is, I don't even remember which app I did it for. Whatever it was, I ended up not using it after all the trouble. As for my banking apps, they only care about root, so Magisk's denylist does the job.
Nah, I'm still running a stock ROM on a pixel 3a. Looking at this guide, it looks like this tool is dead. So unless it works on android 12, I can't use it.
Enabling strict denylist actually causes my phone to break, it will randomly cause my phone to freeze up, and fail to load on phone unlock to the point I have to go into safe boot to disable my Magisk modules, only then will it boot correctly. - maybe I'm denying the wrong system apps for strict mode to work. I have still added apps to the denylist, however.
Im currently using universal Safetynet Fix to pass basic Attestation, and the only thing that fails to work is google wallets "tap to pay" feature. Which doesn't matter as my NFC reader is broken in any case.
Oh, I didn't notice it's dead. I just had it bookmarked because I remember spending a lot of time trying all sorts of workarounds before it and none of them ever worked (for CTS).
I used this for Android 11; there's a good chance it'll still work for that version. But like I said, I ended up not needing it anyway - my phone doesn't even have NFC! I think I mostly just did it as a FU to Google rather than for actual utility. :D
Just thought it worth mentioning that there are/were workarounds for CTS. Don't know how things are now on Android 12 and 13.
I find it funny how the most root-resistant app I've ever encountered is McDonald's coupons app. I can trick Google Pay into working on my rooted phone, I tricked Revolut and two national banks. Heck, even my government-issued digital ID was tricky but I eventually got it working despite root and unlocked bootloader, both of which it didn't like. But McDonald's? None of the workarounds work whatsoever .
I'm rooted and on LOS and can use any app I need (including banking apps, paypal, and netflix - i don't use samsung/google pay). The only app i can't get to work is one stupid food delivery app. It's weird af.
Yes, US banks.
Banks in europe are much more up to date with tech.
They have APIs to sink transactions with external providers like nordigen API.
They have 2FA that is linked to your national identity card which is chipped
Nationally used apps that are universal 2FA linked to national IDs that banks, medical, and government services all tap into
Everything is contactless payment nowadays, the US just recently started contactless cards
Inter-bank transfers without external apps like venmo
There are MANY problems with EU people getting their banks to work on a rooted phone.
They will absolutely implement DRM if someone sells the bullshit to them under the illusion of "safety."
Hell, the US had handwritten "vaccine cards" for covid while European nations even had open source user spinoffs on nationally funded apps linked to national IDs to manage COVID vaccination and testing passes.
I wonder if that would be a valid anti trust violition ?
If we lived in a sane country all 4 major tech companies would have already been brought to court over this in like, 2016. (Microsoft for the second time…)
To be fair to America, I don't think there are any sane countries left. Finland had an actual neo-Nazi as minister and while it didn't last longer than Truss or even half of it, the party that is ministerial party is still there with similar ideas. They just had forethought to not write 14/88 in an old electoral ad. We are tied for first place still in the least corrupt countries and 5th in most democratic countries.
Google search has become very bad and is easily replaced by basically any search engine. YouTube is still unparalleled though.
It's IE6 all over again.
Would apple just roll over on this? Or would they fight to make sure safari is also an option to freely use the internet (or at least severely limiting apples ability to do something similar) And websites that depend on ads, the number of Firefox and safari users have to be greater than the number of users who use ad-blockers. So wouldn’t it negatively affect ad income on websites if they implemented it and cut out all non-chromium browsers?
I think apple would figure out some very creative ways to fuck it's customers, some more.
Did Firefox even say that they would not implement it as well? Are there any informations on that?
Doesn't that also mean they lose customers or possible transactions which could have made them money?
For the millionth time, Stallman was right.
Yep, you send me html, my browser can interpret it any way that I want it to. If I want to ignore all of the image and script tags, I can. I don't need Chrome or even Chromium. As Stallman says, you should know what is running on your system.
We need to go back to html and css. Using an ad blocker and noscript literally breaks webpages. I just want to read the article! You know the content ppl actually come for
But how is all the bloat going to get to you then? HTML with some images is equally functional and loads in a fraction of the time, because it is actually efficient. Nobody could want that could they?
How the fuck are people using the internet without an adblocker?
It is pracitcally impossible to differentiate content from ads. And i was just talking about all the bloat without the ads. Thank you for sharing this, i never thought it'd be this bad.
It's such a bizarre situation. Either you heavily limit Javascript and basically destroy all web apps or you embrace it and get laughably slow websites with walls of ads that beg you to log in to actually view the page. Like if you look into it, it's genuinely shocking how much software is a web browser running JS under the hood.
I can see legitimate uses for java script, like popping out a menu. But it seriously needs its capabilities restricted.
You can pop out menus with CSS.
needs its capabilities restricted
This is a bad take. How are you gonna do that? Force ECMA to scrap all the functionality deemed 'bad'? Wave a magic tech wand? At the end of the day JS is a tool, and like any tool it can be abused for nefarious purposes. The issue is that advertisers abuse this tool, and the sites they pay to be shown on allow it. Not because insert scripting language exists.
It just occured to me that I wonder how a text browser addresses all this
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/07/25/voters-progressive-trump-harvard-youth-poll-gop/
Just tried it on browsor 
That doesn't mean his strategy and approach is good.
That doesn't mean his strstegy and approach is good.
Who cares? Whether or not Stallman is a likeable person isn't what's important. His ideas are.
The way he presents them and approaches certain subjects is what's offputting. He's got this black and white atitude towards the world and how things work, when in reality, everything is just a shade of gray.
Could you give an example?
He says IoT devices are bad. He says most Linux distros are bad just cuz they don't use everything GPL licensed in them. Says don't use this, don't use that, yet the alternatives to what he proposes are... just no usable in the 21st century. Read pages in plain HTML, yeah right 😒.
It's the lingo he uses, he marks everything as bad, except for GNU or GPL licensed software. And that is off putting to most people and is why many new projects don't even use the GPL any more, they use MIT or BSD quite more often. The complete lack of any legal support for GPL projects from the FSF is also another reason. "There are just too many, we don't have enough lawers". Have you ever thought about, IDK, paying those people? Like you win one lawsuit, make a deal with the owner of the licensed work for him/her to invest part of the winning over to the FSF in order to actually pay these lawers and other people involved in the process. Do the same with every case, and you have yourself a sustainable system. No one wins this way, except those who infrindged the GPL license.
My 2 cents... doesn't mean that I'm right, but these are one of my personal reasons why I steer away from the FSF and RMS. These people are stuck in bitterness and grudges, no real insentive to offer a viable alternative whatsoever. It's like the Pale Moon project, except PM is much worse.
That's the price of internal consistency. Nothing you say is an argument against any of his points, you just don't want to give up the comforts you've gotten used to over the last decades. I get it, I don't want to either, but our lack of commitment is precisely why companies are able to abuse users so freely.
He's not giving viable alternatives! He just says "don't use this, don't do that". That's not constructive at all, just the opposite.
Times have changed, people change, technology changes. I was against using a smart device up until about 3 or 4 years ago, until I realized how way way behind I was behind everyone and how practical it can be. While everyone was just carrying around their phone and took pics of things that they needed to remember, I had to do the same with a camera... not to mention I had to remember to bring it with me every time I might need it (and you can't always know upfront if you're gonna need it or not). On the other hand, my phone is always with me, regardless if I need a camera or not.
This is just an example, there are so many other examples that make life easier. RMS and the FSF has nothing to offer, nothing to put on the table as a viable alternative, except "don't use that". They could have so much money flowing into the FSF just by copyright lawsuits, they could practically be swimming in money, but no, they decide to do everything on a volentary basis. You can't win if the playing field is always tilted towards the corps. You can only win if you play with their rules, and their rules are, invest money! They can have enough money to invest in devs as well, devs that will probably make a viable alternative of an OS to actually run on phones and be completely open sources, but... no, that's against their practices and beliefs 😒.
Well, I'm sorry but, you don't offer anything, just forbid things. Maybe I really don't want to use this or that technology, but it makes my life easier, so I'd rather use it than not 🤷. Saying "don't do this, don't do that" is the exact same mentality that PM has regarding stuff that doesn't work with the browser. "Just don't visit those sites". What? It's a browser, it fails at it's primary purpose, to browse websites. I'm sorry, but that is unacceptable. When your product doesn't fulfill it's primary purpose and your only reaction is "just don't do that", you need to seriously rethink what you're doing and in which direction this project is going.
Why didn't you bring a small notepad, easily fitted in a pocket or small bag to take notes of things to remember, instead of a camera? Dumb phones may have had note functionalities too, I'm not sure.
Stallman gives plenty of alternatives instead of just forbidding technology, but you're gonna brand them 'non-viable' so there's no reason to give you a list.
Because I'd have to remember to take a piece of paper and a pen as well 😒. Cuz who carries a piece of paper and a pen nowadays, practically no one.
And you can't always just write down things. Let's say I'd have to write down wirings of cables. Digital cameras are a godsend regarding these things, you take a few shots before you disassemble, done deal, that's it. Instead of endlessly writing down color codes, markings and whatnot.
The alternatives are not viable in this day and age. They take away too much time because you either do things like they were done 20+ years ago, or jumping through hoops to avoid certain things, to, once again, achieve the same thing that can be achieved in 2 clicks/taps if we just use the corps'es evil software.
I am sorry, but that is not an alternative. It's like saying that you can't use lawnmowers or trimmers from now on, you can only use a sickle. Why? Well, they run proprietery software, thus are bad for you... would you seriously consider that, or just say "man, you're nuts!" and just continue to use them anyway?
Do you also consider remembering to take your wallet and phone with you a hassle? You're creating an issue where there isn't one.
But OK, have a smartphone and use it to take photo-notes, I do that too. But I also try to use libre alternatives for software even if they are not as good as their proprietary counterparts, because that's the right thing to do for a lot of reasons.
Also funny that you're mentioning lawnmowers, because tractors have a huge issue with proprietary software, with farmers having to resort to hacking their (bought!) vehicles in order to repair them, to avoid paying thousands of dollars to John Deere for "authorized" (read: extorted) repairs.
You agree that the corpos are "evil" and yet you do nothing to avoid using their software, you're not willing to be discomforted in the slightest for a good cause. That's worse than Stallman's approach, in my book.
OK, let's consider this. One, a pen could leak oil. A phone, no. Papers in my pocket could get in the way of finding other things, like my keys for example. A phone, probably not (it's solid and stirdy and I could easily remove it from my pocket if I need to). A piece of paper can get easily lost while removing other things from my pocket. My phone, probably not. Enough reasons for ya?
I try to use FOSS alternatives as well, even if they aren't as good as their closed source counterparts. But if they're completely unusable, no, I don't use them.
Regarding the tractors, the same thing is happening with cars, look at the newest firmware/software limits that BMW imposes on their sports models regarding perscriptions to unlock the full potential of the car. It's the same thing, more or less. I don't agree with it, but why doesn't the FSF step up and make viable alternatives for these real world problems? what is their response to these outrageous things thay are happening nowadays? Nothing, silence. Why? Well, your guess is as good as mine, but my guess would be, one, not enough money to actually fight on the same playing field, two, not interested in things that are not in direct contact with software that can be installed on something PC compatible or at least a laptop... since, apparently, that's their thing, if it's not something that's either a PC or a laptop, they don't take an interest.
I do a lot of things to go out of my way to use software that is not as useful as closed source counterparts, but if it's our right useless to me, no, I don't use it. And there are examples of a lot of open source and FOSS software that is useless to me in it's current form. I'm sorry, I just don't like it, it doesn't meet my needs, whatever. It's just not for me. They say, make a PR... buddy, if I make a PR, that means that I have to get involved, I've been involved in a lot of stuff for free or very little pay in my life, I'm done with that, I don't have the time to do that now. I have a family and othe real world obligations that need my attention. If other younger people can take the torch and carry on, fine. If not, hey, I'll just use the closed source app... I'd rather use the improoved FOSS alternative, but if no one is working actively on it or if it's useless to me, hey, prorietery software it is 🤷.
Just use Firefox, Mozilla already put their stance forward as opposing this garbage
Firefox is faster than chrome anyway nowadays.
Nowadays? I think you mean since always :)
I get your sentiment, but chrome 1 was crazy fast and seemed barely functional coming from a world of toolbars for most people.
At the time people were like "I can't use this, there's only this search bar"
That may be true on desktop. But, unfortunately, the mobile app is way behind chromium. From being unresponsive, to outright buggy. It's not a good experince. It's been 2 years since the rewrite but it's not getting much better or even close to fixing most of its issue. Meaning, using firefox on android is a handicap on yourself.
Gonna need some statistics on this, because your anecdotal experience is not at all like mine. FF is totally useable on Android.
Ditto, I barely noticed the switch.
The only inconvenience is that it doesn't prefill my credit card details, which is probably a good thing from both a security and hip pocket angle anyway
I have used Firefox on many smartphones since 2014. It's not an anecdotal experience of mine. It's the difference between chromium based browsers on android being more efficient compared to Firefox. Here's the github issue which was open from 2020, now moved to Bugzilla: https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/12731#event-8105829420
If this did not happen it would not have been kept open for so long. Just search tab reload in closed issues you will people still complaining while the repo was accessible.
Bugzilla issue from 2 years ago: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1752594
The migrated issue from github: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1807364
Thanks for the concrete reply! I assume if this bug is affecting me it's just not enough of an issue to be noticable on my hardware (Pixel 5)
I use it because I can use it to block ads. If a page doesn't work, I'll use chrome.
I actually use Chrome on Windows. I just dislike ads more than I like Chrome.
I am basically the same. I'm loving the ability to use uBlock Origin across phone and desktop and practically never see ads, but some sites just don't work for me in Firefox. Like anything where I have signed up with my Google account, or my online banking. In which case I have Chrome installed as a backup. If I could purge it completely I would, but this works for now.
That has not been my experience with FF on mobile and my phone is a few years old
Yeah, to be honest the FF Android experience just can't match Chromium.
I don't really NEED to, so I'm not switching from Firefox anytime soon, but I wish they'd at least fix recently closed tabs reappearing every time I reopen the darned thing...
Stop using chrome. Yes brave is chrome
@nicman24 firefox is not chromium....
Gecko, the underlying engine behind Firefox, is an entirely different code base from Chromium
I think he means Firefox is not Chromium-based; Chrome is a proprietary code base, no one can access it besides internal Google employees. Chromium, on the other hand, is open source, and is what browsers such as Edge, Brave and Opera are based off of. Chrome is also based off Chromium, it’s the closed source browser Google distributes. Think of Chromium as Android, and the Pixel UI as Chrome. So no, I doubt he means Firefox is Chrome.
Edit: seeing from the other comments, downvotes, and that the comment has been edited, he most likely made a typo and typed “Firefox is chromium.”
Edit 2: Mistakenly said that Chromium was what Firefox was based off of when I meant to say Brave. My bad. I’m well aware Firefox isn’t Chromium-based(I use it for that reason), I was just confused as to why this person was saying he meant Firefox was Chrome, when the comment read “firefox is not chromium”. I later realized(in the above edit) that they must have written “firefox is chromium”, before editing it to “firefox is not chromium” after realizing he messed the comment up.
Incorrect dukk. Firefox isn’t built on Chromium, Firefox predates google let alone Google chromium.
I’m not saying Firefox uses Chromium? I specifically said that Firefox ISN’T based off Chrome/Chromium.
Edit: Never mind, I see that I messed up the post.
But you left it up like a real OG, respect.
Firefox is the only major browser standing today that's not based on Chromium, so you're right there.
Firefox does not predate Google. Firefox is a descendant of Mozilla, which started as a broken chunk of quickly open sourced Netscape Navigator 4.0 code. Netscape's engineers ripped out everything they didn't hold a license to and dumped it raw (and uncompilable) on the web for the OSS community to rebuild. This happed just before Netscape was finished being acquired by AOL.
AOL did rebrand Netscape Navigator as AOL Browser, but it didn't gain any significant market share.
Google was founded about the same time (about two years later) as Netscape Navigator was released. So, you can either say Firefox's history is older than Google or the actual Firefox project is younger than Google.
In February 1998, approximately one year prior to its acquisition by AOL, Netscape released the source code for its browser and created the Mozilla Organization
Google Founded September 4, 1998
Mozilla, Gecko and what everyone now commonly refers to as Firefox predates Google.
Edit: you’re technically correct of course, however I wasn’t about to complicate my reply with Netscape, Mozilla and Gecko history when the OP I was replying to was saying Firefox was built on Google Chromium.
We're all technically correct so far. Since that's the best kind of correct I say we high five and enjoy reveling in our knowledge of nerddom history.
Nope. Firefox doesn’t use Chromium at all. It’s based on Gecko, an entirely different codebase that predates chromium.
Firefox doesn’t use chromium. It uses Gecko, which is an entirely separate codebase.
Firefox uses their own engine IIRC, that’s why more people should be using it so we can get some competition with Chromium.
I think the management's recent decisions, as well as the removal/lack of power-user features for those users, have moved a lot of people away from Firefox, myself included. They really need to focus on providing really good software, not get caught up in trying to chase trends or forcing services people don't want. This WIRED article does a good job explaining the issues.
I am keeping an eye on Pulse Browser, which is an experimental fork of Firefox with uBlock Origin pre-installed and some UI customisations. They've got a sidebar with "web panels" very much like Vivaldi's Panels, and they've got vertical tabs like Edge. People also seem to be posting suggestions to their discussion page on GitHub. It's early days, but if they listen and try to implement some of the suggested features to their best ability, it could be a much better Firefox than Firefox itself.
Oh, I support Gecko. More browser engines to compete against Chromium the better. I just can't support Firefox in its current state right now. Thankfully, Pulse seems to be picking up the slack in places.
Thank you for mentioning a *fork of a non-chromium browser with vertical tabs, genuinely something FF would benefit from.
No problem! Tree Style Tabs might also do the job on base Firefox with nested tabs, but it's not as streamlined as Pulse or Edge, especially if you want to hide the tab bar (you have to edit .CSS files).
edit: okay enabling both features, moving the main side panel to the right and enable tab collapsing makes a great space-saving setup.
edit 2: now i'm using pulse as my main browser
Ikr
But that’s also not private as has been claimed as a reason to go FF. The only reason to use FF is only to not use chrome. Not for all the reasons that chrome is bad.
Tor Browser, LibreWolf, and Arkenfox JS are the most secure and private browsers you can get and they're all based on Firefox. If they're not private enough for you, I don't know what is
DRM is stupid because it interferes with paying customers and isn’t effective. If there’s a will there’s a way
I guess we have to get a subscription on top of our monthly internet bill to use the internet.
Can't wait to have to subscribe to everything and they'll still sell my data
Not one-for-one, but the BBC actually wanted to put a tax on broadband bills in response to the resentment towards the TV License.
*loicense
Maybe there wouldn't be so much resentment if they didn't send you threatening letters despite not using the service?
One more time if anyone says that capitalism breeds innovation we need to show them this ¡!
restricted capitalism does that. regular capitalism makes monopoly.
Does it though? Universities seem to be doing the heavily lifting innovation-wise.
Well yes, but universities certainly do not stop Nestlé from selling their own products so cheap that local businesses (which refused to get bought up by Nestlé) go bankrupt because they can not sell their only product with a loss.
I was responding to the first half "restricted capitalism does that"
What's your point? Monopoly does not imply innovation.
My point is that captialism doesn't have as big a role in innovation as many would claim.
Captialism also leads to monopoly when unchecked. I was responding to the first half.
This ain't capitalism, this is going back to a rent based economy.
Aka: Techno Feudalism
Let me just point you to this:
https://doctorow.medium.com/autoenshittification-cb851c2574fb
Paywall!
This is innovation though, an internet wide DRM would be quite an impressive technical feat. It's just not innovation built to benefit you and me, it's built to benefit Google's true customers, advertisers
Yeah... They find innovative ways to milk us of our money and attention and annoy the heck out of everyone
Oh almost like if in capitalism they didn't say that oligarchys are a problem. What we needed is to send these giants down.
That would prove difficult considering money rules, you can make people do you bidding, make them disappear and suffer little to no consequences.
So what we needed is a decent anti-monopoly, anti-oligarchy force.
Just like when the us gov dismantled AT&T into thousands of smaller different services and that created things like mobile routhers and etc.
Soo the companies like Google (for example), at this point are putting down more inovation than they are bringing into the table.
Problem is not capitalism, it's all that power centered in the same place. Almost like a dictatorship.
Well that was when anti trust laws actually worked ! Alphabet , meta etc are literally sucking americans poor. Still we dont see anything !
Tbh as a Climat activist who grew up surrounded by deniers ...yhe... the feeling of hopeless is strong. But hey I have been seeing slow and gradual change, when things are getting bad.
At least in your scenario (at the moment) when they go down we might be able to reverse the worse consequences. Unlike climate where we probably just fucked.
Our planet has had good and bad climates , but humans have fucked it intentionally and there seems to be nor reluctance or remorse in the rich to fuck it even more , it will probably end in jeopardising human life , mostly the poor will suffer and die , but i am quite sure that planet will find ways to recover ! Once the humans are gone !
Oh for fuck sake, yes when I say planet I mean the delicate ecosystem that supports all life. See even better I still get downvoated by shit heads
The problem isn't capitalism, it's just the system that allows power to be centralized through market forces and used to bribe regulatory bodies. Oh wait...
Shit man I would love to hear how you would stop power concentration in communism or any other form of government.....
I mean, it's all innovation in some way... Just all anti-consumer.
So you want government to do this?
Anarchy please
Like, seriously, went through the last 10 years spending a good chunk of my day on Twitter and Reddit using Chrome, and suddenly I'm on Lemmy/Mastodon on Firefox.
Firefox's been better since Quantum.
It feels like much much faster than Chrome, not gonna lie.
And ram efficient
That is only because it doesn't keep all tabs loaded in RAM all of the time though.
If you open the same pages with the same installed extensions on both you will see similar RAM usage. It is only on restoring sessions or longer-term sessions that you will see a difference because FF will reload the page when it is activated again where chrome will keep it in RAM.
At least that used to be the case.
I mean yes, that's the main reason, but that doesn't make it any less true. I like being able to have a couple extra tabs open just to have them there, not having them to use up resources seems kind of like a given.
This is my exact change. They want to shittify things I'll switch or just stop using it. I'm at my breaking point.
Eerily feels like I wrote that comment.
Seriously... my oldest account on Reddit was 12 years old. I've been through so many changes that turned me off, but the API stuff was the last blow, and the CEO's love for Elon Musk just sealed the deal.
Did not hear about that. He sucks, but Elmo sucks more.

Elmo sucks?
Lol I think he meant Elon.
Add me to the list with a side of furiously searching for security and privacy of cloud storage services and figuring out which Linux I want to use. I'm shaking my head at how complacent I got with my services. I always do my due diligence when starting to use anything but I somehow forgot to keep up in the past couple of years.
Do you miss anything?
I won't lie that it's been an adjustment. Old habits die hard. Reddit is the one that I am more certainly done with. No one is on Mastodon yet so I do browse Twitter a little bit to get updates on the stuff I like, but don't interact there anymore.
I miss a lot of my niche content
Well, best thing to counter that is to be the change you want to see. Start the community for the niche you miss the most/know the most about. Post something daily for two weeks + do a call for mods, and before you know you'll have at least some activity. I (helped) to bootstrap openstreetmap@lemmy.ml this way, and the community has about 1 top level post per day on average now. Not a lot, but a good start.
Google in 2004: don’t be evil Google in 2023: turns into Dr. Evil
Something-something die as a hero or become the villain.
Now we can scream that they're truly evil
The "don't be evil" shtick was tongue in cheek to start either. Thry always ended up in it to make money.
API changes*
No no, they changed their beer. I hear they added more hops to it.
Changing a beer to an IPA is actually a pretty good analogy, according to this beer lover who doesn't like overly hoppy ones..
Fuck, IPA is the only type of beer I like consistently.
Well, to each their own, I guess 🤷
To me, it tastes like if elderberries and pine needles were able to defecate, they did so in the same bucket and then a ferret pissed in it 😛
Nah, nah, it was the International Phonetic Alphabet. Can't have something like that on the 'murican internet.
Nah, it was definitely meant to mean the Ion Probe Analysis, a technique that uses a focused beam of hydrogen ions to to probe the surface of a material to measure its elemental composition and isotopic ratios.
use a vpn. when will they make VPNs illegal? 2060? 2050? 2030? 2024? August 2023?
Easy there, McLovin
Ok, I'm going to need to see some ID.
Deliberate typo for increased engagement.
witter bought y musk
*Oh, yeah, it's big brain time*
dab ym spoo!
hmmm IPA 🍺
Plus the paid streaming services adding ads back in and they are all the SAME fucking ads?
🎶 Do what you want because a pirate is a free, you are a pirate! 🎶
Ngl I am so done with streaming services asking for device specs and blocking things on my devices that I pirate stuff anyway !
🎶Yar yar figle di fi🎶
I just dusted off my pirate flag, the rising costs of everything has made it impossible for me to do the legal thing.
I'll start my journey sailing the vast sees upcoming weekend.
Reddit don't have IPA on tap anymore?
I don't want their IPA, I want my Ruby Beer
Ah yes, 2023. The year I wore a pirate hat and touched more grass. Soon they'll be bribing the govt to make going outside illegal.
Soon they'll be bribing the govt to make going outside illegal.
That was 2020
Oh don't worry, it's poisoned and the animals are gone. Once the heat bakes off the greenery, there will be no reason at all to go out there except to get to your car
We'll make out own internet! With blackjack and hookers!
You know what, forget the internet!
You jest but I'm feeling pretty ready to switch to mesh networking. I'd rather have a libre internet than faster bandwidth.
Does anyone else think that maybe this may cause a shift back to times before internet
Honestly, reddits API change was an awful thing to do but my phone usage has plummeted since then. I've been trying Lemmy but it's not been an easy 1:1 replacement and I find myself not engaging or feeling so invested in conversations and content as much.
That works in my favor, though, because I really have been spending way too much time looking at screens anyway.
Most corporate media tries to get you to spend too much time on their apps/sites. Getting on the fediverse felt like moving on from a toxic ex.
Honestly this is just depressing. And a little scary ?
Corporate greed is taking new heights and the things we took for granted are being taken away. It is all so dystopic...
Yeet.
Wait, Google's doing what now?
They want to implement a "feature" so websites only load for you, if your browser, OS and hardware are deemed "trustworthy" aka you load every ad and malware that the website wants to shove down your throat.
Oh God... I think I'm going to be sick. It's too easy to see how you could weaponize this against dissenters.
Don't like something about our product? Have fun being banned from the internet!
Not even dissenters, just people in general. That's why they're likening it to DRM. Run something nonstandard on your system (ie Linux)? Get with the program. It's a continuation of "you don't own anything, use it how we want you to use it or don't use it at all."
Fuck this goes deeper than I thought
From what I gathered even if u have installed a browser on ur phone that is not signed by play store or app store google may block it , so fennec / bromium and other f droid products google may decide to tag as malicious !
Isnt this already a thing with many webapps already , I had to dual boot windows coz some uni websites refused to run detecting linux on my system !
That's just fucked. I guess I'm lucky that my Uni doesn't really give a shit. During the pandemic, they were even chill enough for us to use alternative software here and there, since we weren't allowed to come in and use the PCs on site.
In some cases you can spoof a windows user agent, couldn’t do that with this proposal though.
There are times I build my own browser and OS probably in future ( basically building open souce code , sometimes removing ssignatures and enhancements) , I wonder if I will be able to use stuff then !
Or you could just use Firefox? Mozilla has stated that it opposes this stuff.
Firefox is my primary browser on my stable systems , I am talking of the side projects ! There is a good possibility that soon the websites will block forks of firefox and other FOSS projects !
? They’re just following the end game of capitalism, they’re trying to squeeze every last bit of profit out of the internet that they can, it has nothing to do with the internet “threatening” power, they already took care of that with all of the spying laws they passed when the internet started getting popular
interest rate hikes, VCs are demanding their money back and companies are scrambling to become profitable/more profitable.
Edit: forgot to address the other point, they don't really care about us spreading ideas as long as we don't actually threaten their power. There is absolutely 0 threat of a socialist revolution anywhere in the west right now
Here the conversations and our attention are not directed by profit and power seeking interests.
I agree Lemmy is better. But, can you really be sure that every post and comment on this platform is made by a real person with no hidden agenda?
Capitalism is on a regular decline. It's typically good for development, then after the dust settles it declines.
I don't think the "spying laws" are what makes the internet controlled. It's the constant, huge waves of misinformation and weak thought, which are enabled by those "spying laws", among others ways. Just my two cents, tho.
That’s fair, didn’t think of that in the moment
"the rulers" dude, this isn't D&D
You've done it, the bourgeoisie are no more!
Nope... it's far worse.
Why watch the news when you can learn everything from memes
I hadn't heard of the YouTube thing. Doesn't matter because I don't use it, but it's still outrageous.
I am willing to watch an ad or two every 15 minutes, so long as they are no more than a minute total of wasted time. This ultra-monetization crap where it's a minute and a half every 5 minutes is why people use AdBlockers and pirate media.
Be reasonable as a business, and you'll get a reasonable response. Flood my free time with ads, and you get AdBlock and piracy.
God we need an alternative to YouTube
It's called PeerTube, which is Fediverse/ActivityPub service for video.
The problem is that with video there's a larger separation between users and content creators. Services like Mastodon and Lemmy can grow just from users switching to them because users themselves also post the content, but PeerTube isn't going to grow until the people making videos start posting them there.
You're neglecting the fact that fediverse tube instances can't possibly take the load and the volume of videos being uploaded on YT. That is why almost none of them have open registrations, only admin approved registrations (you apply, than the admin chooses whether to approve or deny your application).
Arguably the bigger problem is the sheer volume of video data. Any even slightly successful independent YouTube clone will be wiped out by the hosting costs.
that's what the problem is. youtube has a wide range of users who got cozy to the platform where many of them doesn't even care about using adblockers. also, content creators got used to it. so making them shift their platform to something new is harder than making them shift from reddit to lemmy or twitter to mastadon.
Fascinating
For those interested in actively opposing this - the following blog offers some advice on how to do so.
https://blog.yoav.ws/posts/web_platform_change_you_do_not_like/
cool, but occums razor doesnt work for tech corps
*Okham's razor
*Dwight Yoakum's Razor
You're right, but I like the other one
Dyslexic's being attacked by that font
I'm used to dealing with DRM, too. If it can be stripped out of a game or other software, it could be stripped out of the internet itself. Maybe some of the old cracking scenes that quit due to boredom will return for the challenge.
You can be sure as hell they will. If greater the force, the greater the resistance.
It’s interesting to think about from a technological point of view, and there could be multiple ingress points to combat it.
The proposal doesn’t have a complete implementation, but it in essence they want websites to ask browsers for a key if sorts (attestation). In theory this flow would be a lot like hoe notifications work. Keeping that in mind, when the website asks the browser, what’s stopping us from making our own attestation server?
Analog hole exists and will be prevalent on new internet unless they push DRM monitor https://xkcd.com/129/
tbh I'm just tired of all of this, we can't have nice things, ever... Every fucking thing in this world is being swallowed by corporate greed. Every service there's a catch, and I'm getting mad with it, things aren't made to serve their purpose, they only exist to make money and more money for people who already have infinite money, it's frustrating. Things need to change or everything is going to collapse... fuck companies, fuck billionaires, fuck stocks, fuck all of this
Well, well, well, would you look at that? We've done full circle, haven't we? It's time to go back to the old internet again.
back to usenet i guess lmao
Time to go smol.
You’d think fucking with our beer would have been the apocalypse moment
We are living in a real life 1984
War is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength.
Can someone explain? I'm definitely out of the loop on this one
shit, this sounds terrifying
We saw the mass adoption of the internet, which before was mostly used by a small group of techies. Now we might be heading to a split: The mass walled garden and a separate smaller but free internet.
The next internet will be Phoenix: born from the ashes of the old, dead internet
Unless things get really bad really fast and internet becomes so locked down you cant download anything that bypasses restrictions (vpn, tor, proxy)
Meta alternative to twitter (thread) was(is?) supposed to federate with the fediverse
I'd like to know more.
Basically, it would start by federating with the fediverse and once it gains traction start adding non-standard (and perhaps proprietary) features. Others would start to get a more broken experince, until to have an uninterrupted experince with you would need be on the threads version of the fediverse.
They seem to do everything in their power to make the internet less attractive to me. I guess I should be thankful for that, actually. Never a bad thing to spend less time with it.
IPA changes?
The ale will no longer be Indian or pale.
Hold on, what about Meta and the fediverse?
Threads is going to be federated. But lots of instances have already said they’re going to defederate it immediately, because lots of people expect that federation is part of the EEE business plan. That’s Embrace, Extend, Extinguish. Originally pioneered by Microsoft, it’s basically a way to kill off tech that you don’t want to compete with.
First embrace it, and do everything you can to be friendly towards the people using it. It’s an open standard, and you want to act inviting and supportive. Lull your competition into a false sense of cooperation.
Then extend it. Start creating proprietary additions which exist outside the standard. Do this under the guise of supporting the standard. These additions should be difficult for competitors to implement, but you maintain that this is all done to further improve the standard and bring more functionality to the end user.
Then extinguish the competition. Once you’re the de facto producer for this tech, (because users have come to expect those proprietary functions,) then lock down those proprietary changes so competitors can’t use them at all. Make the alternatives noticeably worse to use in every way, to force everyone into your (now closed standard) platform.
A good example of this is Microsoft Office. Ever notice that Word documents have historically been awful to try and open/edit in other word processors? This was because Microsoft was using EEE to make the other word processors worse. It’s also what Google does with Chrome, implementing non-standard additions then using their market share to bully competitors into joining; Every Firefox user has seen the dreaded “your browser isn’t compatible with this site. Use Chrome instead” message at least once.
Lovely, detailed explanation! :)
Thanks for the explanation! ;)
Meta's new Threads network is supposed to start federating via ActivityPub at some point.
well, i guess some silver lining is that threads is basically non-existent after its launch. The serious and place to be instances will block threads. If i need to go see something on threads i'll join an instance that allows it, but doubt i'd ever bother.
Didn't even bother checking it out.
I recently played Hacknet, a hacking game published in 2015. That game talks a LOT about being tracked on the Internet, telling you to delete logs and some IP address data in file headers.
I think it's becoming reality.
The game tells you to delete the logs on servers because computers can track all incoming requests, which can be a problem when you are doing nefarious actions and looking through confidentional infornation. Tracking who is accessing a computer/server and why has been a common practice, especially for buisnesses.
You also don't actually need to delete the logs while playing. There are only 1 or 2 minor moments where there is a consequence for not doing that, and in those cases a fork bomb is also needed (to prevent leaving a disconnect log).
The actual scary part of the game is (SPOILERS) a big tech company developing a massive 0-day exploit and wanting to monopolize the patch for it.
F
Dont forget the drone tracking bill, remoteID. Louis Rossemann
This might be an unpopular and ignorant take.
Services like Reddit, Twitter and Youtube needs to make money somehow. They provide a service that the users enjoy, and it is fair that they want componsation for those services. Aslong as they are upfront with how and what you are paying with I think it is fine, and the user can themself choose not to use the service if they feel like the payment is too high.
It seems like we are whining about not being able to watch quality content for free. Even Lemmy needs donations or kind souls to keep running.
The DRM and Chrome changes might be worse... But in the end it is the same base argument, we need more competition to reduce the price or stop using services we don't like / want to pay for.
I wouldn't say its unpopular, but I do agree its a bit ignorant but not in the probably negative way you mean.
I think its your acceptance that its fundamental that "Business MUST profit and we MUST suffer to allow them to profit"
You're making a huge leap that we need to suffer through all of the internet getting worse just because a corporation wants to profit. Fuck Google, Fuck Reddit, fuck all businesses that fail. Who cares? We owe them nothing.
I guess they don't have to profit, but I believe they do have to cover their expenses (salary, hosting, etc). This is needed with capatalism or any other model (yes I know they have huge profits sadly)
I do agree that the market is failing, where we have way to little competition. Or that maybe a alternative to capatilism would solve the issue.
But in every thread here I feel like most people just expect to use everything on the internet for free, which is absurd to me. Why would anyone host a service like youtube if you didnt get any income from the users? The server costs alone must be huge.
Why would people write articles if they do not get any money from it?
Why would people write articles if they do not get any money from it?
Ever heard of Wikipedia?
Or blogs?
Weren't loads of people quitting reddit because they refused to have their free content contributions monetised?
Capitalism makes you think many things that aren't true: people only being motivated by money is one, humans being naturally selfish and greedy is another, and the notion that it is the best and only viable system. Are you starting to see a thread there?
It's all about maintaining the illusions it needs to continue to exist, but you can learn how to see beyond, and unlearn all these lies, you just have to be willing to.
I do agree that it is possible to be motivated by other things than money, but in todays society you need income to survive.
If we had other systems to deligate money to everyone I agree that we might not need to do things for money.
I love services that are free, and driven by communities that are motivated by what they are doing. But these services also need some kind of income today. Wikipedia is dependent on donations, mosts blogs have sponsors, ads or is used to further a career.
I have no issues with this, I will glady donate to Wikipedia, and I understand why blogs might have ads or sponsors in them. But if you enjoy a service it is kinda wierd to not want to give anything back to the creator.
I understand google is fucked, but we cant just sit back and not understand why a free version of youtube will not exist. Maybe youtube should just die, but why are we complaining about a comany taking payment for a service? Fuck google, fuck facebook, but don't complain that they want payment for huge expensive services that basically could not survive without any income.
Because they take payment already. What people don't like is being nickel and dimed. Google sells ads on the page. They sell ads in the videos. The creators sell their own ads and they ask for patreon and subscriptions and donations. It's too much. I pay for premium. Google logs me out, and then I start seeing video ads again. That's bullshit. For 10 bucks a month I should literally never encounter an ad on YouTube. That's not how it works. Now the price has increased by 50%. Why should I pay that? What benefit do I get? I can use invidious or libretube, or even host my own instance, and be far better off. No ads ever, including sponsored spots. At 10 bucks a month it wasn't worth my time. At 15, I'm insulted enough that it is.
On a side note, I'm autistic enough that I'll say the quiet part out loud. I care about someone making their reasonable living creating content. I don't care about the 'livlihood' of someone who's already so rich it doesn't matter, or some mega global corporation. And it's troubling that most ways you can support a creator end up doing much more to prop up companies or platforms that interact with them in a predatory way. It's not worth several hours of my time for creators to get a couple pennies. That's just a fact.
It's not my fault if a company decided it's not worth it to continue with the advertising platform it created. It's likely just as profitable as it ever was. They just take advantage of their huge size and its stifling effect on competition to squeeze us for everything they can. That's actually illegal and if our governments were doing anything they were supposed to they'd stop it.
Hey fellow autist, well said.
but in todays society you need income to survive
Only because a handful of obscenely wealthy people need it to be that way for them to maintain their power and way of life.
but why are we complaining about a comany taking payment for a service? Fuck google, fuck facebook, but don’t complain that they want payment for huge expensive services that basically could not survive without any income
I think what those companies are doing can safely be described as far beyond just making a reasonable income for what they do.
You are being played. I won't even take you as far as the possibility of a stateless, classless, moneyless society, way way before that we can get to the point where money isn't an obstacle because it is equally and equitably distributed. It is possible, it's the people who want to exploit you and others' labour as well as the world's resources for their own personal profit that are telling you you need this system that keeps them untouchable, why would you believe anything they say?
I'm fine with paying for YouTube premium. I find good value in it and like YouTube music. Fuck Google for continuing to push this though. I'm working on degooglefing myself.