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Harder to keep loving Firefox

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  Harder to keep loving Firefox VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> - 2025-04-05 21:41 -0500
    Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox Frank Miller <miller@posteo.ee> - 2025-04-06 05:20 +0200
      Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> - 2025-04-06 04:32 -0500
        Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> - 2025-04-06 04:36 -0500
    Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox John Diamond <invalid@invalid.invalid> - 2025-04-06 04:24 +0100
      Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox occam <occam@nowhere.nix> - 2025-04-07 11:59 +0200
    Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox Newyana2 <newyana@invalid.nospam> - 2025-04-06 09:44 -0400
      Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> - 2025-04-06 17:48 -0500
        Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox Newyana2 <newyana@invalid.nospam> - 2025-04-07 08:10 -0400
          Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> - 2025-04-07 13:32 -0500
            Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox Newyana2 <newyana@invalid.nospam> - 2025-04-07 15:31 -0400
              Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> - 2025-04-07 19:01 -0500
          Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox Jeff Barnett <jbb@notatt.com> - 2025-04-07 13:49 -0600
            Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox (PS) Jeff Barnett <jbb@notatt.com> - 2025-04-07 13:52 -0600
            Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox Newyana2 <newyana@invalid.nospam> - 2025-04-07 17:29 -0400
              Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> - 2025-04-07 19:57 -0500
                Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox Newyana2 <newyana@invalid.nospam> - 2025-04-07 22:25 -0400
                  Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> - 2025-04-07 22:54 -0500
                  Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> - 2025-04-08 06:58 +0100
                    Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox Newyana2 <newyana@invalid.nospam> - 2025-04-08 08:37 -0400
              Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> - 2025-04-08 06:55 +0100
                Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox Newyana2 <newyana@invalid.nospam> - 2025-04-08 08:47 -0400
                  Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox fredl@invalid.com - 2025-04-08 14:50 -0500
                    Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox Schugo <schugo@schugo.de> - 2025-04-08 22:18 +0200
                      Harder to keep loving Firefox News <dnews@triffid.co.uk> - 2025-04-09 10:20 +0100
                        Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox Schugo <schugo@schugo.de> - 2025-04-09 20:50 +0200
                          Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox Newyana2 <newyana@invalid.nospam> - 2025-04-09 17:06 -0400
                    Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox Newyana2 <newyana@invalid.nospam> - 2025-04-08 17:19 -0400
                      Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox Frank Miller <miller@posteo.ee> - 2025-04-08 23:55 +0200
                        Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox Newyana2 <newyana@invalid.nospam> - 2025-04-08 20:12 -0400
                        Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox candycanearter07 <candycanearter07@candycanearter07.nomail.afraid> - 2025-04-09 15:10 +0000
                          Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> - 2025-04-09 16:27 +0100
        Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox Schugo <schugo@schugo.de> - 2025-04-07 19:27 +0200
        Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox The Real Bev <bashley101@gmail.com> - 2025-04-11 11:50 -0700
          Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> - 2025-04-11 16:45 -0500
            Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox The Real Bev <bashley101@gmail.com> - 2025-04-13 09:29 -0700
              Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox Mark Lloyd <not.email@all.invalid> - 2025-04-13 17:15 +0000
                Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox The Real Bev <bashley101@gmail.com> - 2025-04-13 12:36 -0700
                Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> - 2025-04-13 16:54 -0500
                  Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox Nobody <jock@soccer.com> - 2025-04-13 16:05 -0700
                  Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox Winston <wbe@UBEBLOCK.psr.com.invalid> - 2025-04-14 03:11 -0400
                    Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> - 2025-04-14 06:21 -0500
                      Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox The Real Bev <bashley101@gmail.com> - 2025-04-16 08:03 -0700
                        Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox Nobody <jock@soccer.com> - 2025-04-16 08:17 -0700
                          Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox The Real Bev <bashley101@gmail.com> - 2025-04-16 08:49 -0700
                        Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox John <Man@the.keyboard> - 2025-04-16 16:43 +0100
                          Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox The Real Bev <bashley101@gmail.com> - 2025-04-17 09:59 -0700
                        Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox Mark Lloyd <not.email@all.invalid> - 2025-04-16 16:40 +0000
                          Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> - 2025-04-16 14:22 -0500
                            Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox Schugo <schugo@schugo.de> - 2025-04-16 21:42 +0200
                              Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> - 2025-04-16 19:33 -0500
                    Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox The Real Bev <bashley101@gmail.com> - 2025-04-16 07:59 -0700
                Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox Char Jackson <none@none.invalid> - 2025-04-13 23:46 -0500
                  Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox The Real Bev <bashley101@gmail.com> - 2025-04-13 23:22 -0700
                    Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox Dave Royal <dave@dave123royal.com> - 2025-04-14 08:07 +0100
                Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox candycanearter07 <candycanearter07@candycanearter07.nomail.afraid> - 2025-04-14 17:40 +0000
      Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> - 2025-04-09 02:17 -0500
    Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox Dave Royal <dave@dave123royal.com> - 2025-04-07 08:36 +0100
      Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> - 2025-04-07 05:52 -0500
        Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox Dave Royal <dave@dave123royal.com> - 2025-04-07 13:05 +0100
          Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> - 2025-04-07 13:54 -0500

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#12951 — Harder to keep loving Firefox

Mozilla says they will continue supporting Manifest version 2 (MV2) for
the foreseeable future.  That means extensions, like uBlock Origin, can
continue providing their full functionality instead of getting crippled
under Manifest version 3 (MV3), like uBlock Origin Lite.  However, how
long is the foreseeable future is vague.  Could be another 10 years.
Could be tomorrow.

https://blog.mozilla.org/en/products/firefox/firefox-manifest-v3-adblockers/

If Mozilla ever decides to decouple from Google (a different
install-time default search engine, no SafeBrowsing feature, and still
no anti-fingerprinting measure to block 3rd-party font foundaries, like
Google's, that track where you're visiting) then Mozilla's revenue will
drop by 86%.  Anti-Google decisions Mozilla made, like continued MV2
support, could get rescinded.  Less code to test and maintain.  If they
don't decouple from Google, and Google makes some big changes to
Chromium which Mozilla feels compelled to follow, supporting MV2 could
be an unbearable onus.  

While I have some qualms about Brave (e.g., horror stories about users
losing all web browser data, like passwords, due to failed sync between
instances of Brave, but I use Bitwarden as a cross-web browser password
manager, so Brave's fucked Sync might not affect me), its shields are
built into the web browser instead of using add-ons that are vulnerable
to deprecated MV2 shifting (and forced) to MV3.  Still, I'd like to use
Brave Shields with uBlock Origin (full MV2 version, not the crippled MV3
"Lite" version) for overlapped coverage, yet in June 2025 Google is
removing the core code to support for MV2, so even Chromium variants,
like Edge, that use the ExtensionManifestV2Availability policy won't be
able to support MV2 add-ons after that.  They are Chromium variants,
Google is removing the MV2 code, the MV2 override policy will stop
working, so all Chromium variants will lose MV2 support.  Brave,
Vivaldi, and the ilk are too small to do their own dev work to
re-implant and maintain the MV2 code that was previously integrated
within the Chromium codebase.

Firefox is not the fastest web browser on the desktop PC.  It (Fenix) is
painfully slow on Android.  While Firefox Android supports extensions,
like uBlock Origin, it can be a pain to use not only because it is slow,
but also because it doesn't support some web doc features of other web
browsers.  Firefox is very poor at rendering gradients, for example, and
for many other web standards.

Firefox is hard to love
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmjUlFIaNLE

I'm so glad that I don't have to code web docs and program scripts for
use under Firefox.  I'm just a user now.  Reminds me of the days where
web devs had to test for which browser was visiting a web site to decide
which block of code to deliver to the client, like they had to do for
Internet Explorer, and now for Firefox.

https://www.zdnet.com/home-and-office/networking/why-googles-legal-troubles-could-hasten-firefoxs-slide-into-irrelevance/
https://techcrunch.com/2024/11/05/mozilla-foundation-lays-off-30-staff-drops-advocacy-division/

If Mozilla loses a major portion of their revenue (86%) with the loss of
influx from Google, is Mozilla going to survive?  I wish they would, but
I live in the real world, not in dream land.  With a huge loss of
revenue, Mozilla would have to do more cutting than just more layoffs.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/google-controls-an-illegal-monopoly-in-internet-search-us-judge-rules/

With no imposed penalties, the promised spanking never happens, so
Google doesn't have to change anything yet.  It'll remain business as
usual: the bribing continues, and Mozilla continues to get their bribe.

Yeah, it looks like I'm panning Firefox.  I wish it would really
survive, but in a much better state than currently.  I wish Mozilla
would stop wasting their resources (which they've reduced through 
layoffs) on stupid crap, like AI, and focus on making their *web browser* 
work better.  And I sure hope the "foreseeable future" for MV2 support
is another decade out, or longer, or until MV3 extensions manage to
figure out how to emulate the MV2 API calls they used to have available.
With MV2 about to die in Chromium variants (June 2025), and to continue
using one, looks like I'll have to find something that operates outside
the web browser, like Adguard (which isn't free except as lureware) for
both Windows and Android; however, that doesn't have all the cosmetic or
non-networking protection offered by uBlock Origin.  I wish Mozilla
would expend its reduced resources on making a better web browser
instead of wasting effort on fluff.  As the video is titled, it's
getting harder to love Firefox.

https://privacytests.org/

That makes LibreWolf look preferrable to Firefox (on which LibreWolf is
based, just as is the Tor web client), but Brave is better than most,
too, including Firefox (but I know some users have issues with some
decisions by the Brave CEO, or their ties with crypto, and that stupid
Brave Rewards crap which can be ignored/disabled).  If I switch to
LibreWolf, hopefully it supports all the about:config tweaks that I've
already done in Firefox.  I doubt the privacy testing used a hardened
Firefox, and why LibreWolf scored so much better.

However, in considering which web browser with which I go forward,
Firefox just has too many deficiencies regarding rendering and latest
HTML/CSS support.  It not just about privacy for which Firefox is very
good once hardened (which requires more expertise than for the typical
user) upon which I decide which web browser to use going forward.  I've
used Firefox for about 11 years, but it's time to reconsider.  Just
because I've used something for a long time won't make me a fanboy of
it, nor does choosing to switch make me an anti-fanboy.  I stay open
minded to choose what is best now, not what great in some heyday for a
product.  Alas, picking a web browser seems more about selecting the
least evil choice.

Firefox is Gecko based, and has rendering deficiencies.  Brave is
Chromium based and has, for example, no problems in properly rendering
gradients.  LibreWolf is Firefox based, so I'm back to Gecko with its
rendering deficiencies.  If LibreWolf is just a hardened Firefox then I
already have that with all the tweaks I've done in Firefox, but that
would be a lot of about:config tweaks to record to know what I've done
in Firefox to harden it.  I have Firefox Desktop (on Windows) and
Firefox Mobile (on my Android phone), so I can sync them, but they are
very different web clients, especially since Mozilla took away
about:config in Firefox Android.  Was considering LibreWolf, but see it
has no Android client.  Sigh.  I suspect LibreWolf is just a hardened
Firefox (on Windows), but no way to harden Firefox Android other than
add the uBlock Origin add-on.  Who knows, maybe after testing others
I'll find Firefox my best choice.

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#12954

VanguardLH wrote:
[..snip..]
> If LibreWolf is just a hardened Firefox then I
> already have that with all the tweaks I've done in Firefox, but that
> would be a lot of about:config tweaks to record to know what I've done
> in Firefox to harden it.

Use a "user.js" file for that and you can copy it around. BTDT

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#12958

Frank Miller <miller@posteo.ee> wrote:

> VanguardLH wrote:
> 
>> If LibreWolf is just a hardened Firefox then I already have that with
>> all the tweaks I've done in Firefox, but that would be a lot of
>> about:config tweaks to record to know what I've done in Firefox to
>> harden it.
> 
> Use a "user.js" file for that and you can copy it around. BTDT

Might be something to start for a fresh install of Firefox to keep an
incremental log of all the about:config tweaks that were instead
recorded in user.js.  However, I've been using about:config like the
vast majority of users, and there is no export of about:config to store
[changed from default] preferences into user.js.

Doesn't prefs.js store the about:config settings?  I believe it saves
all settings, not just those you changed from the defaults.  Could I
migrate prefs.js from my Firefox profile to use under a LibreWolf
profile?

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#12959

VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> wrote:

> Frank Miller <miller@posteo.ee> wrote:
> 
>> VanguardLH wrote:
>> 
>>> If LibreWolf is just a hardened Firefox then I already have that with
>>> all the tweaks I've done in Firefox, but that would be a lot of
>>> about:config tweaks to record to know what I've done in Firefox to
>>> harden it.
>> 
>> Use a "user.js" file for that and you can copy it around. BTDT
> 
> Might be something to start for a fresh install of Firefox to keep an
> incremental log of all the about:config tweaks that were instead
> recorded in user.js.  However, I've been using about:config like the
> vast majority of users, and there is no export of about:config to store
> [changed from default] preferences into user.js.
> 
> Doesn't prefs.js store the about:config settings?  I believe it saves
> all settings, not just those you changed from the defaults.  Could I
> migrate prefs.js from my Firefox profile to use under a LibreWolf
> profile?

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1197798
  Just gotta be careful with major changes in Firefox, like with Fx 57, 
  29, 4.0, 3.6, 3.5, 3.0, and 2.0 - one orphaned or changed pref and 
  Firefox stops reading the user.js file; so you need to be careful as 
  to what prefs you put in that file and the order those prefs are in. 
  Prefs for extensions need to be last in the list, in case an extension 
  "disappears" or isn't undated in a timely manner.
  
Mozilla giveth, and taketh.  Preferences sometimes disappear.  If still
set in about:config, they have no meaning; i.e., they are ignored.
Those are orphaned preferences for FF version where they applied, but
don't later.

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#12955

On 06/04/2025 03:41, VanguardLH wrote:
> While I have some qualms about Brave (e.g., horror stories about users
> losing all web browser data, like passwords, due to failed sync between
> instances of Brave,

ZorinOS have decided to drop Mozilla and make Brave as its default browser. See their blog here:

<https://blog.zorin.com/2025/03/26/zorin-os-17.3-is-here/>

Read under "A new default web browser".

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#12970

On 06/04/2025 05:24, John Diamond wrote:
> On 06/04/2025 03:41, VanguardLH wrote:
>> While I have some qualms about Brave (e.g., horror stories about users
>> losing all web browser data, like passwords, due to failed sync between
>> instances of Brave,
> 
> ZorinOS have decided to drop Mozilla and make Brave as its default browser. See their blog here:
> 
> <https://blog.zorin.com/2025/03/26/zorin-os-17.3-is-here/>
> 
> Read under "A new default web browser".
> 

Zorin OS? If I were ever tempted to adopt it (as a replacement to
Windows 10), the Brave default would put me off it. Talk about a
lose-lose option. :-)

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#12961

On 4/5/2025 10:41 PM, VanguardLH wrote:
> Mozilla says they will continue supporting Manifest version 2 (MV2) for
> the foreseeable future.  That means extensions, like uBlock Origin, can
> continue providing their full functionality instead of getting crippled
> under Manifest version 3 (MV3), like uBlock Origin Lite.  However, how
> long is the foreseeable future is vague.  Could be another 10 years.
> Could be tomorrow.
> 
> https://blog.mozilla.org/en/products/firefox/firefox-manifest-v3-adblockers/
> 

   That "stupid Brave Rewards crap" is Brendan Eich's bright idea
for the future of the Internet. He's stated that the Internet can
only survive as a commercial entity. Shopping malls must replace
town commons. It's a deeply cynical and foolish vision.

   The current claims of Brave being for privacy are a cynical sales
pitch. The plan for Brave is to be an ad network; a middleman
between advertisers and websites -- both of which would have
to kowtow to Eich -- and pay him a kickback -- in order to take
part. Eich is offering you a tenth of a penny to get you onboard.
He's floating a fantasy of you having the role of powerful consumer.
You'll be able to make or break Crest or Colgate, Cocoa Puffs
or Lucky Charms, Ford or Lexus, through your power to choose which
ads you see.

    If Eich were not a tech insider this whole scam would have been
laughed out of the room by people who should know better.
But these are the same people who fell for gmail when it claimed to
be "by invitation only". They vastly overestimate their own
brilliance, mistaking aspergers savant skills for general intelligence.

   For the mainstream, Chrome works. Firefox often doesn't render
highly interactive pages. That doesn't seem to be changing. Chrome
is like the old IE. It's setting the pace and Mozilla are not keeping up.
99.5% of people are not going to edit about:config or even add
extensions. It's all too complicated. Webpages are increasingly
software programs, presented as "apps" and optimized for Chrome.
FF is already down to low single digits percentage of use. It's a
boutique browser. And now they're talking about running their own
ads!

   The overall best method to block spying is a HOSTS file. It also
blocks nearly all ads, simply because the ads are coming from
the same sleazy domains as the spying. You talk about fingerprinting
via Google fonts, yet Google fonts are on most webpages. They can
track you from site to site without needing to enumerate system
fonts. One line in HOSTS stops that. It's the same with Google maps,
googletagmanager, google-analytics, etc. They're watching you at
nearly every site. HOSTS can stop it.

     UO is not going to stop all that. It would be
too disruptive commercially and would risk having effects on webpage
display, which would mean that UO would lose business. The ideal
security/privacy product is the one that has a single button and
doesn't do anything, because it's very easy to use. :)

   (I tried to introduce the woman I live with to NoScript. It was
just too complicated for her to use. She understands script toggling
and CSS toggling because they work as single functions that either fix
a webpage or don't. But when
12 companies are trying to run script, and you don't even know
what script is, how do you decide whether to enable "optimizely.com"?)

   I think it would be great to see Mozilla lose Google funding. They're
making an absurd 1/2 billion dollars a year and what do they have
to show for it? They just keep cranking out releases, without addressing
the lack of support for some webpages. I have to keep Ungoogled
Chromium for sites like my dentist and doctor. They simply won't
work on FF. Even my webhost, Knownhost: The "control panel" layout
is all messed up in FF. We can't ask these people to fix their pages.
The webmasters don't even understand HTML! They're using dummy
tools and testing only in Chrome.

   I'm afraid that Mozilla have lost the vision they started with. They
were going to keep the Web open by combatting IE's monopoly.
Now Google/Chrome/Apple/Safari have a monopoly and Mozilla is
feeding off their kickbacks. It's like government workers who have
to figure out how to spend a massive funding allotment.

    I once dated a scientist many years ago. They had a routine: Go
to DC and ask the dept of Energy for funding. Then come back and
do the 500th experiment to research the effects of acid rain. Today
it's global warming. They just keep researching the topic du jour.
If they don't spend the money, they won't get it next year. If they
don't research a "burning question of the day" then they won't get
money. Losing Google's money might be the only thing that could
save Mozilla. Then they'd have to either return to the original vision
or quit.

   But there's also another issue that's not talked about much: The
general population has been shifting from producer to consumer.
Most people want computing devices only for services and
entertainment. Those people don't care about, nor understand,
privacy, or even software. They just want their Amazon order to go
through, or their computer game to work. It's interactive TV. MS are
even coming out with an MS Office-only device. Firefox was originally
a product for a far less ignorant online population, designed to provide
a non-corporate interface for the Internet. The fact that they're failing
is not entirely Mozilla's fault. It's also that the population has changed.
People want shopping, notifications and so on. Firefox must try to be
a consumer entertainment product while also being a browser made for
an enduser who's Internet-literate. In the long run, only legislation
to support rights and privacy is going to change things.

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#12968

Newyana2 <newyana@invalid.nospam> wrote:

> That "stupid Brave Rewards crap" is Brendan Eich's bright idea for the
> future of the Internet. He's stated that the Internet can only
> survive as a commercial entity. Shopping malls must replace town
> commons. It's a deeply cynical and foolish vision.

Actually the Web would not survive without an influx of money.  When it
started, it was paid for by universities and taxes to the gov't.  What
you pay your ISP is just an entry fee.  Foolish to believe the Web will
or should ever be free.  That access is mostly free is what gets users
into feeling entitled, like kids whose parents pay for everything.

Just like I disable all telemetry inside of Firefox, Pocket, and other
crap in Firefox, I'll be disabling all the Rewards crap in Brave.  My
feeling about crypto is it is a stock market selling junk bonds and
penny stocks, and it's all about perceived value rather than real value.
If you buy into cryptocurrency, you have to watch it just like you watch
the stock market when you buy shares.

> The current claims of Brave being for privacy are a cynical sales
> pitch. 

They list all the Google crap they remove from Brave at:

https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/wiki/Deviations-from-Chromium-(features-we-disable-or-remove)

It's not just what claim, just like it's not just the vague marketspeak
from Mozilla about what they claim about Firefox.  I looked at
independent testing agencies to see how they rated privacy of multiple
web browsers.  Firefox was mediocre (as installed before tweaking), but
LibreWolf, a hardened Firefox, way one of or the highest rated, and
tested equal to Brave regarding privacy.  Brave seems like a de-Googled
web browser.

As for Mozilla somehow being better than Brave, well, Mozilla gets a
huge bribe from Google, but they're planning on commercial ventures to
compensate when they lose that revenue.  Mozilla is going commercial,
too, so don't try holding up Mozilla as better than Brave.

> But these are the same people who fell for gmail when it claimed to
> be "by invitation only". 

The invitation-only subscription was to allow Google time to load test
and tweak their e-mail service, not because it was some scam to make it
appear only the elite of users could get it.  I've used various software
that was free at first, because they wanted to acquire enough users to
test their service and software, but when their load-test cycle was over
then the software was no longer free, and they started charging for it.

Also remember that Gmail was NOT an e-mail service to which you could
connect local e-mail clients.  It started out as a purely web-based
e-mail service.  You had to use a web browser to use it.  That's why
Google vision of e-mail does not match up with e-mail standards.  They
could do it their way, because it was all on their send.  Then they
decided to add support for e-mail protocols, but did not fully
relinquish how their webmail client behaved.

> 99.5% of people are not going to edit about:config or even add
> extensions. 

But we here are not in that nebulously claimed 99.5% of Firefox users.
I don't speak here like I'm speaking to the vast majority of users that
install software, but never investigate its settings, what they do, or
how I can tailor the software to how best I can configure to what I
want.

> It's all too complicated. Webpages are increasingly software programs,
> presented as "apps" and optimized for Chrome.

As noted in the video, dev testing with Firefox is a nightmare.  That's
why most devs code for Chromium, especially since that is where  71%
(66% Chrome + 5% Edge-C) of the web visitors.  Few prefer to design for
a niche market of 3% for Firefox.  They target the largest audience, not
a nearly absent one.

>    The overall best method to block spying is a HOSTS file. 

No thanks.  While that works to block at a domain level only, not all
domains are evil just because a subdomain or webhosted user is evil.
The whole effort of the blocklists (EasyList, Adguard, Adblock Plus,
etc) is to make the Web faster, safer, and more private, not to block it
all out.  For example, a lot of spam crap is homed at CDNs (Content
Network Delivery providers), but web site also offload a lot of their
bandwidth by using CDNs for the web pages, CSS, scripts, images, and
other content.  There are spam sources at Akamai, but then Microsoft
puts a lot of their downloads and web content at Akamai, too, so
blocking by domain smacks a hell of a lot more than just the spam
sources there.  A hosts file is like using a house to swat a fly.

Hosts files will do NOTHING to eliminate nuisances withing a web page
that gets delivered.  Ever hit a web site that pops up "Sign up with
Google"?  Well, you could add the entire web site to your hosts file, or
you could use cosmetic filtering to eliminate that nuisance.  You still
get to visit the web site, but without the nuisance.  There is no way
filtering by domain lets you still visit while getting rid of in-page
nuisances.  While the pre-compiled blacklists include cosmetic filters,
you can add your own.  For example, I added a rule in uBO that blocks
3rd-party fonts, but that still allows 1st-party fonts.  Would be stupid
to just block fonts en masse, and hope your web client can find a
close-enough matching system font.  If you compile a list of hosts where
something irritates you at each one, there wouldn't be many places left
for you to visit, and you'd be back to the number of sites you could
visit as though you were back in 1992.

Hosts files do nothing about out privacy issues.  There is no filtering
on CSP (Content Security Policy) reports.  Blocking CSP will never break
a web page, only eliminate sending reports to some 3rd-party for
analysis.  Hosts files will not uncloak canonical names (CNAMEs).  Hosts
files will not show the punycode version of a hostname using UTF-8
characters to prevent you from visiting a look-alike named web site, but
then hosts files can't specify UTF-8 named web sites since only ASCII is
permitted inside a HOSTS file.  Hosts files will not disable, by
default, Javascript and then let you choose if and when to enable it.
Hosts files will not disable hyperlink fetching.

If you want, you can still add hosts files to an adblocker, like Peter
Lowe's or Dan Pollock's hosts files, but they are overly aggressive,
slow to update, and operate only on domains as does any hosts file.  You
would have to translate to punycode all those UTF-8 named web sites to
add a domain using its ASCII equivalent, but that assumes the web client
will handle the punycode equivalent instead of trying to match on the
UTF-8 string.  

Oh, and with hosts files, there is no easy way to enable/disable them
inside the web client.  It's either on or off.  To unblock a domain in a
hosts file that you do want to visit, you would have to rename or move
the hosts file so the web client cannot find it, and then rename or move
it again so the web client can find it later; however, when made to
disappear from the web client to access one domain, you've just
unblocked all the other domains, too.  Instead of opening one window to
let in some fresh air, you have to open ALL windows and doors at the
same time.

Another defect with hosts files (if read from the file system instead of
cached into memory as additional blocklists in an adblocker) is the
speed of opening and parsing the hosts file to look for a matching
domain.  The hosts file is not cached in memory nor is it a binay
database, but just a text file that has to get reopened, parsed, and
scanned for each DNS request looking for a matching domain.  For large
hosts files, like the pre-compiled ones that most users get from
elsewhere since they rarely build their own, I did a test long ago, and
found 17 ms got added to each DNS lookup by using just the MVPS hosts
file.  Doesn't sound like a lot of extra time to add to a DNS lookup,
but remember there is a DNS lookup for EVERY resource in a web page, and
there can be hundreds of external resources (images, scripts, CSS, other
web content), so it builds up to slow your web client.  Adblockers, if
you add hosts files, eliminate overlap in their subscribe blocklists,
and put the resultant list in a binary database in memory for a quick
lookup.  Hosts files used as such (files in the OS file system) will
slow your DNS requests of which there can be hundreds per web page.
There isn't just a single DNS lookup for the domain you visit, but for
all resources in a web doc that access content at other domains.  The
Web has long no longer been about one web site serving up all content.

> You talk about fingerprinting via Google fonts, yet Google fonts are
> on most webpages. They can track you from site to site without
> needing to enumerate system fonts. One line in HOSTS stops that. 

Nope.  A hosts file identifies domains, not content in web docs
delivered from there.  You could try to add fonts.google.com to your
hosts file, but that won't stop access in a web doc to other font
foundaries.  Some sites, for performance reasons, do not access Google
fonts directory, but maintain a cache of them; however, that font cache
may not be at their primary domain, but offsite, like at a CDN.

> It's the same with Google maps, googletagmanager, google-analytics,
> etc. They're watching you at nearly every site. HOSTS can stop it.

I prefer a fly swatter over a cannon.

>      UO is not going to stop all that. It would be
> too disruptive commercially and would risk having effects on webpage
> display, which would mean that UO would lose business. 

Blocking 3rd-party fonts can result in a web page that is hard to
understand.  My pharmacy likes to use a web font that has arrows, and
other symbols, to indicate what a button element will do.  Without those
3rd party fonts, and with no onhover mouse event to popup a bubble
telling what an element does, you don't know what will be the effect of
clicking on that element since a placeholder is shown in place of the
blocked font.

Unlike a hosts file where you cannot exclude a web site that uses 3rd
party fonts but you want them used there, an adblocker can define an
exclusion to the font block rules.  I allow 1st-party (same-domain)
fonts, but block 3rd-party fonts; however, I can add exceptions where
the lack of those 3rd party fonts make it nearly impossible to know how
to use a web site, like my pharmacy.  You cannot have site-specific
exceptions in a hosts file.  It's all or nothing to block the entire
font foundary.  Google isn't the only one.

> I think it would be great to see Mozilla lose Google funding. 

Well, at least, looks like they are looking into alternate revenue
streams, but then many users start bitching they're going commercial.

> I have to keep Ungoogled Chromium for sites like my dentist and
> doctor. They simply won't work on FF. 

And Brave looks to be another unGoogled web browser.  

Plus its adblocker is integral within the web browser, not an add-on.
Brave, and your UnGoogled web client rely on the Chromium code.  Google
is removing the Manifest v2 code from Chromium in June 2025.  Chromium
variants will lose the ability to continue supporting MV2 add-ons.
Policies to override the loss of MV2 will cease to work, because the
supporting code in Chromium is gone.  

Any reliance on MV2, like to use a full-featured adblocker (e.g., uBlock
Origin), in Chromium is gone.  While Google has already blocked any new
MV2 additions to their play store, in a couple months even the already
installed MV2 add-ons will cease to function ... unless you fix on an
old version of Chromium.  MV2 and MV3 only affect add-ons, not
adblocking code within the web client itself.  I was going to try Brave
with its adblocking along with uBO as an add-on, but it'll be just
another couple of months when uBO goes dead because MV2 died in
Chromium, and it is not my intention to stick with an old and
non-updated version of a web client.

There is a deficiency in the adblocking code residing within the web
client instead of using an add-on: how often the blocklists and cosmetic
filters get updated.  With an add-on, the blocklists get updated every
few days.  With the adblock code embedded within the web client, the
blocklist and cosmetic filters are updated when the web client gets
updated.  It's part of the build process to compile the new adblocking
code and lists into the web client.  A program is not allowed to
self-modify in place.  You can update it, and that's when Brave gets its
update blocklists.  They say they update about once a month.

> Losing Google's money might be the only thing that could save Mozilla.
> Then they'd have to either return to the original vision or quit.

It would definitely force them to become self-sufficient, or die.  But
it also means they'd have to become more commercial.  More for-profit
than not-for-profit.  However, that they might manage to survive does
not mean they will make Firefox the better web client.  I suspect if
they find replacement revenue that we will continue to see focus on
fluff, and experiments that waste their resources.

>    But there's also another issue that's not talked about much: The
> general population has been shifting from producer to consumer.
> Most people want computing devices only for services and
> entertainment. Those people don't care about, nor understand,
> privacy, or even software. 

Well, how many consumers know how to fix their own washing machine.
They buy it, and just want to press buttons to do their laundry.  Most
consumers haven't a clue how to do even basic maintenance on their cars.
Most consumers are stupid.  However, that's not the audience here.

They just want their Amazon order to go
> through, or their computer game to work. It's interactive TV. MS are
> even coming out with an MS Office-only device. Firefox was originally
> a product for a far less ignorant online population, designed to provide
> a non-corporate interface for the Internet. The fact that they're failing
> is not entirely Mozilla's fault. It's also that the population has changed.
> People want shopping, notifications and so on. Firefox must try to be
> a consumer entertainment product while also being a browser made for
> an enduser who's Internet-literate. In the long run, only legislation
> to support rights and privacy is going to change things.

Remember when you used to answer a call by saying "Hello?", and wait
until the caller identifies themself.  Now the callees say "Hi, Mark",
because their phone has already identified the caller by Caller ID, or
by contact matching.  Texting has devolved humans into gibbering idiots
who don't know grammer, don't use punctuation, or use inane
abbreviations.  Usenet was a professional community until AOL dumped
their users into Usenet, and attrition has somewhat returned Usenet to a
more professional community.  The more features added to HTML, CSS, and
scripting, the more it gets abused, misused, and turned, like you say,
into web apps instead of web docs.

Yes, people are ignorants at something, and they want to stay that way.
There are lots of topics on which I am ignorant.  I don't want to be nor
ever will be a neurosurgeon, so I don't educate myself in that field.  I
probably know more about human anatomy than the average person, but that
was due to my curiousity.  I know folks that learn a career, like a
plumber, who once trained don't want to learn anymore than about
changing building codes.  Everyone is an ignorant on something.

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#12973

On 4/6/2025 6:48 PM, VanguardLH wrote:
> Newyana2 <newyana@invalid.nospam> wrote:
> 
>> That "stupid Brave Rewards crap" is Brendan Eich's bright idea for the
>> future of the Internet. He's stated that the Internet can only
>> survive as a commercial entity. Shopping malls must replace town
>> commons. It's a deeply cynical and foolish vision.
> 
> Actually the Web would not survive without an influx of money.  When it
> started, it was paid for by universities and taxes to the gov't.  What
> you pay your ISP is just an entry fee.  Foolish to believe the Web will
> or should ever be free.  That access is mostly free is what gets users
> into feeling entitled, like kids whose parents pay for everything.

   Take a breath, V. You get going and end up arguing
simply for the sake of winning an argument. Most of what
you're saying is not making sense. The Internet is not
funded by ads. It's certainly not funded by browser
makers doubling as ad networks.

   I always hear the same arguments from Brave users:
"They promise privacy and I just skip the ads part."
Then Brave is going to go out of business. It's pure
sleaze to start with. There's no way Brave works out
well. Either the plan fails, or Brave becomes a commercial
Internet filter, favoring websites that do deals with Eich.
(OK, maybe there's a third possibility that Eich finds
Jesus and invests his fortune in a clean browser. But don't
hold your breath.)

    Your "not my problem" thinking is a big part of the
problem online. Much of the Internet is a case of spoiled
consumers. We try to grab free trinkets while holding
onto our wallets. Companies like Google try to vacuum
your wallet while you're busy grabbing the trinket. It's
dishonesty on both sides. Brave is carrying on that
tradition, giving you a lie to fool yourself with. Meanwhile,
you're strenuously blocking all ads, pretending that Brave
ads are an optional "feature".

    Either Brave will collapse or they'll vacuum your wallet.

   I still remember the first time I went online by myself.
My neighbor had AOL and told me how to log in. I was
intrigued. I logged in, then the first thing I saw was a
popup that I coulddn't dismiss. "Do you want to order a
new credit card?" | "Yes." | "Ask me later."

   Huh? That's not right! I gradually came to see that a
lot of things on the Internet were not right. It was like
ungoverned territory. Lots of people were contributing
lots of very inspiring things. Lots of people were also just
trying to vacuum wallets. The refusal of people
to actually maintain honesty and integrity, and require
it of others, is what allows the scamscape to happen.

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#12976

Newyana2 <newyana@invalid.nospam> wrote:

> VanguardLH wrote:
>
>> Newyana2 <newyana@invalid.nospam> wrote:
>> 
>>> That "stupid Brave Rewards crap" is Brendan Eich's bright idea for the
>>> future of the Internet. He's stated that the Internet can only
>>> survive as a commercial entity. Shopping malls must replace town
>>> commons. It's a deeply cynical and foolish vision.

No "town commons" here.  You can buy or otherwise acquire goods or
services for absolutely free at town commons?  These are gov't centers,
are they, that are paid with taxes?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commons

Oh, they are paid for, but indirectly by you and other stakeholders.
They really are not free.  Here we have shopping malls where the
shopkeepers pay for rental space, employee wages, and so on, and pass
those costs through their prices to customers rather than communal
assets paid by a collective which can then be unevenly shared.

>> Actually the Web would not survive without an influx of money.  When
>> it started, it was paid for by universities and taxes to the gov't. 
>> What you pay your ISP is just an entry fee.  Foolish to believe the
>> Web will or should ever be free.  That access is mostly free is what
>> gets users into feeling entitled, like kids whose parents pay for
>> everything.
> 
> Take a breath, V. You get going and end up arguing simply for the sake
> of winning an argument. Most of what you're saying is not making
> sense. The Internet is not funded by ads. It's certainly not funded
> by browser makers doubling as ad networks.

The Internet is not a nebulous entity unto itself.  It has resources and
manpower that gets paid for.  The Internet is not some altruisitic
venture where someone pays for everyone else.  Without ads there are no
sales.  No sales means no revenue.  No revenue means the entity
disappears you were using for free.  Altruism only works for tiny very
low-cost ventures often as a sideline using spare cash.

If you had a warehouse full of goods to sell, but didn't tell anyone,
you wouldn't sell any, and you'd go broke.  Even if you had stuff others
desparately wanted (e.g., toilet paper), others wouldn't know you had
any if you didn't tell them.  If you ran a library for free, would you
survive without some revenue to pay building rental, property taxes,
electricity, your employees wages, and buy the books to populate your
library?  How would you eat without money coming in?

Why do you think we users have railed against ads?  It wasn't about
their existence, but their ridiculous abundance and irritating methods
of presentation.  They're flashy to get our attention, interspersed
within articles to distract us, sometimes misleading, and generally
quite obnoxious and interruptive, all because the Web is not doling out
static documents.  We aren't back on HTML v2 in 1995.  As technology
progressed, we got more content -- good, unwanted, and bad.  Death tolls
went up, too, as we developed more lethal weapons.

Yes, I like to have some control over what content I see, just like I
can mute my TV, or even turn it off, but then I miss part of the show.
I get magazines where postcards fall out trying to get me to buy
something.  The newspaper has ads, because subscription fees are not
going to sustain the newspaper company.  Ads are everywhere to support
those entities.  Why should the Web be different?  They provide a
service, and you expect them to pay for your entitlement.

Commercialism requires advertising.  If you declare the Web should not
be a commercial venture, you're arguing we should have the Web of
pre-1992 when it was paid for by taxes and tuition.  What do you think
the Web would cost you if you had to pay for all its resources you
access?  We could have another Internet, or regress 30 years, where
there are no ads, but you pay for every resource you access to
compensate for the operating costs to provide those resources.  You want
to acess a database?  Pay for it.  You want to view current news or
sports?  Pay for it.  Pay for everything you access, and, voila, they
don't have to distribute ads to generate revenue to sustain themselves.

Where did you ever work for free?  Your employer paid you, and they
NEVER marketed their wares, so no one knew what they had, so no one ever
bought from them, so how did the employer have any money to pay you?  I
exclude gov't workers since the gov't doesn't have to advertise to get
their taxes.

> I always hear the same arguments from Brave users: "They promise
> privacy and I just skip the ads part."

How do you skip ads you don't see?  Are you claiming their built-in
adblocking does not work?

> Then Brave is going to go out of business. 

You are privy to their company financials?  I have not found where they
publish quarterly or annual financial reports.

The sources I found on company information on Brave Software, Inc wanted
me to pay for the information.  OMG, it's not free.  I did find partial
info at:

https://rocketreach.co/brave-software-profile_b5bee7d8f9d74975
https://growjo.com/company/Brave_Software
https://getlatka.com/companies/brave.com

So, why do you claim they're dying?  Unlike authors of Chrome and
Mozilla variants that are hobby projects, Brave operates as a business.

As for their user count, see:

https://brave.com/blog/2021-recap/
(Have not found user counts for 2022+.)

Doesn't look to me like Brave is dying.  Brave's market share is 1.5%, a
24x increase since January 2019, but that stat is underreported (*).
Brave started 10 years ago.  Mozilla started back with Netscape some 30
years ago, but is dying with now only 2.5% market share.  Firefox's
heyday is long over.  Brave is definitely not a mainline web browser,
but neither is Firefox, anymore.

(*) Brave does not use a unique User-Agents that identifies itself, but 
    reports itself as Mozilla, Chrome, or Safari, so market share stats 
    on Brave are mixing its market share into those for other web 
    browsers.  

    https://api-dashboard.search.brave.com/app/documentation/web-search/request-headers

    https://brave.com/glossary/user-agent/
    The Brave browser generates user agent strings that set nonessential 
    data elements to more general values. For example, instead of 
    declaring the browser is Brave, the user agent string will claim the 
    browser is Chrome. Similarly, it will say the browser on your iPhone 
    is Safari instead of Brave. This circumvents fingerprinting efforts 
    by making you appear less unique, and more like any other user.
    
  Many Firefox users already know about tricks or add-ons to change the 
  User-Agent header to make it look like a different web browser.

  This is similar to trying to track which versions of Thunderbird are 
  getting used, but after Mozilla chopped the User-Agent header to 
  just "Mozilla Thunderbird" instead of including the version of it and 
  on what OS platform.  How do you track market share on versions of a 
  client that doesn't identify itself, or says it is something else?  
  You can't.  That's why Brave gets underreported for market share since 
  it gets mixed/confused with Chrome or Safari.
  
  Makes me ponder if I should change Firefox's User-Agent to see if it 
  suddenly is more compatible at more sites.  Nah, that doesn't change 
  the code in Firefox to actually make it more Chrome compatible.

> Meanwhile, you're strenuously blocking all ads, pretending that Brave
> ads are an optional "feature".

You're making unsubstantiated claims.  If Brave were full of ads, there
would be a roar of online citations from disgruntled users saying that
the adblocker does not work in Brave.  They'd complain of seeing more
ads than less as with other web browser with adblocker add-ons.

> Either Brave will collapse or they'll vacuum your wallet.

Please provide proof that:
- Any Brave user has to pay for it initially or ever.  They have premium 
  services, just like Mozilla, but we're not discussing those here.
- Their adblocker doesn't work.
- Users are forced to participate in their Rewards option.
- Users are forced to see ads.

I read the same diatribe against Brave, but it's regurgitated FUD.
Someone else said, so someone else repeats it.  Yes, Brave is in
business to stay in business.  They are not self-destructive nor
altruistic nor are they a hobby project where the author gets paid by
someone else while working on the hobby project as a volunteer.  I
volunteer at the food shelf and animal rescue shelters, but I still get
wages from my employer.

You're using Firefox.  So, how to you validate you using a web browser
from a company that gets a $520M/year bribe from Google?  How long would
Mozilla survive on just donations?  Have you ever donated to Mozilla?

Have you looked at Ladybird?

I have to wonder how the Ladybird project (https://ladybird.org/) will
survive without donations (oops, there goes some of your money),
subscriptions, other payware services, or, ooh, ads.  The folks working
on it get wages from some employer, and the project relies on funding
(https://ladybird.org/#sponsors).

Unlike all the variants riding on Chromium's or Mozilla's coattails to
start with a web browser codebase (e.g., LibreWolf, Vivaldi, Brave,
Edge, etc), Ladybird is starting from scratch to build their own
rendering and script engines.  Totally independent of Google or Mozilla.
They aren't bootstrapping on the efforts of others, and no current plans
or efforts on a Windows version, or Android, or iOS.  Just Linux.

https://ladybird.org/#faq

They have paying jobs elsewhere, but Firefox, Chrome, and Brave are not
sidelines nor hobby projects.  Be aware that Ladybird also has their
sponsors.  Altuism only survives for so long, and does not scale well.
They accept donations, but that won't pay all the bills.  Pretty much
they're at the same state as was Mozilla back 2 decades ago.  

However, if you're a Windows user, Ladybird ain't for you as it
currently only supports Linux platforms.  They claim cross-platform
support, but that is a goal, not a reality now.  Maybe they'll add
Windows, but when will they get to Android and iOS?  I want the same web
browser on BOTH my desktop and phone.  They're not releasing until
mid-2026, and I doubt I'll use an introductory web browser, anyway.  I'm
not waiting until they get as robust as Firefox, Chrome, Edge, Brave, or
other current mainline web browsers.

If Ladybird were available today, covered both Windows and Android,
support for lots of add-ons, especially uBlock Origin or had a similarly
robust integrated adblocker, was as robust and reliable at rendering as
current mainline web browsers, and something more profound than another
hobbyist project than I'd be considering testing it as a replacement to
Firefox.  

I will be testing other web browsers to replace Firefox.  Which ones do
you suggest?  Nope, they cannot be Firefox variants to carry along the
same deficiencies that I want to eliminate, and cover both Windows,
Linux, and mobile (Android and iOS) platforms.  I might look at
unGoogled Chrome, but not if I have to keep recompiling it, and Brave
looks to be an unGoogled Chrome.

Criteria for replacement:
- Internal and robust adblocking.  No reliance on MV2 (which disappears 
  in July 2025) or MV3 which means not an add-on adblocker.
- As fast, or faster, than Chrome.
- Renders equally to Chrome.
- De-Googled.  Also means no bribes from Google.
- No telemetry, or can be disabled.
- Cross-platform: Windows, Linux, Android, iOS.  No or very little 
  crippling of feature set across platforms.
- Low CPU and RAM footprints.
- High configurability preferred.
- Prefer not a hobbyist project.
- High privacy and safety protections.
- Has a sync function to migrate bookmarks, passwords, etc between 
  instances of the web browser, and on all supported platforms.

I'm sure with more time and verbiage that I'd have a longer list of
replacement criteria, but I'd get lambasted more for being more verbose
(beyond what I already wrote).  Firefox is not perfect, and it's time to
investigate alternatives.  After testing, I might come back to Firefox
(although Fenix sucks), or I'll move on.  

I do similar with car insurance.  Every year I investigate coverage and
costs rather than just blindly renew with the same insurer.  I've done
the same with NNTP clients.  I trialed several.  I trialed Thunderbird 6
times with the last trial lasting 6 months until I couldn't stand it
anymore.  I do the same with office suites, anti-malware, and so on.
I'm not blindly loyal to any software, service provider, or brand.

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#12983

On 4/7/2025 2:32 PM, VanguardLH wrote:

> The Internet is not a nebulous entity unto itself.  It has resources and
> manpower that gets paid for.  The Internet is not some altruisitic
> venture where someone pays for everyone else. >   Without ads there are no
> sales.  No sales means no revenue.  No revenue means the entity
> disappears you were using for free.  Altruism only works for tiny very
> low-cost ventures often as a sideline using spare cash.
> 

    So the Internet is paid for by Amazon sales? That's an
interesting theory... I'm not going to keep arguing
with you. You don't even seem to know what you're posting.
It's just voluminous, manic drivel, not even focused enough
to be misleading red herring arguments.

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#12988

Newyana2 <newyana@invalid.nospam> wrote:

> On 4/7/2025 2:32 PM, VanguardLH wrote:
> 
>> The Internet is not a nebulous entity unto itself.  It has resources and
>> manpower that gets paid for.  The Internet is not some altruisitic
>> venture where someone pays for everyone else. >   Without ads there are no
>> sales.  No sales means no revenue.  No revenue means the entity
>> disappears you were using for free.  Altruism only works for tiny very
>> low-cost ventures often as a sideline using spare cash.
>> 
> 
>     So the Internet is paid for by Amazon sales? That's an
> interesting theory... I'm not going to keep arguing
> with you. You don't even seem to know what you're posting.
> It's just voluminous, manic drivel, not even focused enough
> to be misleading red herring arguments.

And, of course, Amazon would surive without any sales to compensate for
their costs of Internet operation.  You're now comparing a e-tail site
to non-sales sites -- sites that don't sell you anything directly, but
still have all those operational costs to provide Web access to them.

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#12984

On 4/7/2025 6:10 AM, Newyana2 wrote:
> On 4/6/2025 6:48 PM, VanguardLH wrote:
>> Newyana2 <newyana@invalid.nospam> wrote:
>>
>>> That "stupid Brave Rewards crap" is Brendan Eich's bright idea for the
>>> future of the Internet. He's stated that the Internet can only
>>> survive as a commercial entity. Shopping malls must replace town
>>> commons. It's a deeply cynical and foolish vision.
>>
>> Actually the Web would not survive without an influx of money.  When it
>> started, it was paid for by universities and taxes to the gov't.  What
>> you pay your ISP is just an entry fee.  Foolish to believe the Web will
>> or should ever be free.  That access is mostly free is what gets users
>> into feeling entitled, like kids whose parents pay for everything.
> 
>    Take a breath, V. You get going and end up arguing
> simply for the sake of winning an argument. Most of what
> you're saying is not making sense. The Internet is not
> funded by ads. It's certainly not funded by browser
> makers doubling as ad networks.
> 
>    I always hear the same arguments from Brave users:
> "They promise privacy and I just skip the ads part."
> Then Brave is going to go out of business. It's pure
> sleaze to start with. There's no way Brave works out
> well. Either the plan fails, or Brave becomes a commercial
> Internet filter, favoring websites that do deals with Eich.
> (OK, maybe there's a third possibility that Eich finds
> Jesus and invests his fortune in a clean browser. But don't
> hold your breath.)
> 
>     Your "not my problem" thinking is a big part of the
> problem online. Much of the Internet is a case of spoiled
> consumers. We try to grab free trinkets while holding
> onto our wallets. Companies like Google try to vacuum
> your wallet while you're busy grabbing the trinket. It's
> dishonesty on both sides. Brave is carrying on that
> tradition, giving you a lie to fool yourself with. Meanwhile,
> you're strenuously blocking all ads, pretending that Brave
> ads are an optional "feature".
> 
>     Either Brave will collapse or they'll vacuum your wallet.
> 
>    I still remember the first time I went online by myself.
> My neighbor had AOL and told me how to log in. I was
> intrigued. I logged in, then the first thing I saw was a
> popup that I coulddn't dismiss. "Do you want to order a
> new credit card?" | "Yes." | "Ask me later."
> 
>    Huh? That's not right! I gradually came to see that a
> lot of things on the Internet were not right. It was like
> ungoverned territory. Lots of people were contributing
> lots of very inspiring things. Lots of people were also just
> trying to vacuum wallets. The refusal of people
> to actually maintain honesty and integrity, and require
> it of others, is what allows the scamscape to happen.

I mostly agree with you saying the blame is two-way. In the Netscape 
days, users were very enthusiastic about the volunteer efforts but felt 
that there were too many unfriendly design decisions - recall that 
Netscape was like a TB and FF merge. The support was by donations.

I proposed, through the sponsored newsgroups, that we the users should 
be prepared to pay a small fee recurring for the use of the software to 
gain a voice in some of these feature decisions. The reaction to this 
proposal was so bad that I never could have imagined it: the ground fact 
was that the vast majority of users were "entitled spoiled brats" (ESB) 
and treated me as a nut case for making such a suggestion.

The ESB mentality is the same that seems to justify ripping off movies, 
software, and the like with Moral Turpitude.

Well the pendulum has been swing in the other direction for a while. A 
substantial portion of the software production community has decided to 
be paid for their products. There is nothing wrong with that. However 
ESB want to see themselves as the center of the universe and, frankly, 
that is just not going to work.

I am willing to pay reasonable fees for software applications that 
deliver wanted capabilities and protect my interests and privacy; most 
users are not. Some companies realized they could get paid and not be 
responsible for protection: M$ learned how to directly intrude in our 
life while collecting our money; Google learned how to make money on the 
back end; the Government has been no help - they sued M$ for 
monopolistic practices while DARPA simultaneously required that 
financial sections of submitted proposals be done in Excel!; and Adobe, 
well their just Adobe.
-- 
Jeff Barnett

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#12985 — Re: Harder to keep loving Firefox (PS)

My reply was supposed to be to Newyana2's post prior to the one I now 
follow:

On 4/7/2025 1:49 PM, Jeff Barnett wrote:
> On 4/7/2025 6:10 AM, Newyana2 wrote:
>> On 4/6/2025 6:48 PM, VanguardLH wrote:
>>> Newyana2 <newyana@invalid.nospam> wrote:
>>>
>>>> That "stupid Brave Rewards crap" is Brendan Eich's bright idea for the
>>>> future of the Internet. He's stated that the Internet can only
>>>> survive as a commercial entity. Shopping malls must replace town
>>>> commons. It's a deeply cynical and foolish vision.
>>>
>>> Actually the Web would not survive without an influx of money.  When it
>>> started, it was paid for by universities and taxes to the gov't.  What
>>> you pay your ISP is just an entry fee.  Foolish to believe the Web will
>>> or should ever be free.  That access is mostly free is what gets users
>>> into feeling entitled, like kids whose parents pay for everything.
>>
>>    Take a breath, V. You get going and end up arguing
>> simply for the sake of winning an argument. Most of what
>> you're saying is not making sense. The Internet is not
>> funded by ads. It's certainly not funded by browser
>> makers doubling as ad networks.
>>
>>    I always hear the same arguments from Brave users:
>> "They promise privacy and I just skip the ads part."
>> Then Brave is going to go out of business. It's pure
>> sleaze to start with. There's no way Brave works out
>> well. Either the plan fails, or Brave becomes a commercial
>> Internet filter, favoring websites that do deals with Eich.
>> (OK, maybe there's a third possibility that Eich finds
>> Jesus and invests his fortune in a clean browser. But don't
>> hold your breath.)
>>
>>     Your "not my problem" thinking is a big part of the
>> problem online. Much of the Internet is a case of spoiled
>> consumers. We try to grab free trinkets while holding
>> onto our wallets. Companies like Google try to vacuum
>> your wallet while you're busy grabbing the trinket. It's
>> dishonesty on both sides. Brave is carrying on that
>> tradition, giving you a lie to fool yourself with. Meanwhile,
>> you're strenuously blocking all ads, pretending that Brave
>> ads are an optional "feature".
>>
>>     Either Brave will collapse or they'll vacuum your wallet.
>>
>>    I still remember the first time I went online by myself.
>> My neighbor had AOL and told me how to log in. I was
>> intrigued. I logged in, then the first thing I saw was a
>> popup that I coulddn't dismiss. "Do you want to order a
>> new credit card?" | "Yes." | "Ask me later."
>>
>>    Huh? That's not right! I gradually came to see that a
>> lot of things on the Internet were not right. It was like
>> ungoverned territory. Lots of people were contributing
>> lots of very inspiring things. Lots of people were also just
>> trying to vacuum wallets. The refusal of people
>> to actually maintain honesty and integrity, and require
>> it of others, is what allows the scamscape to happen.
> 
> I mostly agree with you saying the blame is two-way. In the Netscape 
> days, users were very enthusiastic about the volunteer efforts but felt 
> that there were too many unfriendly design decisions - recall that 
> Netscape was like a TB and FF merge. The support was by donations.
> 
> I proposed, through the sponsored newsgroups, that we the users should 
> be prepared to pay a small fee recurring for the use of the software to 
> gain a voice in some of these feature decisions. The reaction to this 
> proposal was so bad that I never could have imagined it: the ground fact 
> was that the vast majority of users were "entitled spoiled brats" (ESB) 
> and treated me as a nut case for making such a suggestion.
> 
> The ESB mentality is the same that seems to justify ripping off movies, 
> software, and the like with Moral Turpitude.
> 
> Well the pendulum has been swing in the other direction for a while. A 
> substantial portion of the software production community has decided to 
> be paid for their products. There is nothing wrong with that. However 
> ESB want to see themselves as the center of the universe and, frankly, 
> that is just not going to work.
> 
> I am willing to pay reasonable fees for software applications that 
> deliver wanted capabilities and protect my interests and privacy; most 
> users are not. Some companies realized they could get paid and not be 
> responsible for protection: M$ learned how to directly intrude in our 
> life while collecting our money; Google learned how to make money on the 
> back end; the Government has been no help - they sued M$ for 
> monopolistic practices while DARPA simultaneously required that 
> financial sections of submitted proposals be done in Excel!; and Adobe, 
> well their just Adobe.

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#12987

On 4/7/2025 3:49 PM, Jeff Barnett wrote:

> I mostly agree with you saying the blame is two-way. In the Netscape 
> days, users were very enthusiastic about the volunteer efforts but felt 
> that there were too many unfriendly design decisions - recall that 
> Netscape was like a TB and FF merge. The support was by donations.
> 

   I used Netscape from maybe '99, but wasn't it originally
a paid program? I thought they were forced to go free by
MS coming out with IE jazzed up with ActiveX. I think I
switched from IE when a Win98 update to IE5 screwed
up my system. IE5 was running slomo. I never figured
out why. So I switched and never went back.


> I proposed, through the sponsored newsgroups, that we the users should 
> be prepared to pay a small fee recurring for the use of the software to 
> gain a voice in some of these feature decisions. The reaction to this 
> proposal was so bad that I never could have imagined it: the ground fact 
> was that the vast majority of users were "entitled spoiled brats" (ESB) 
> and treated me as a nut case for making such a suggestion.
> 
> The ESB mentality is the same that seems to justify ripping off movies, 
> software, and the like with Moral Turpitude.
> 
> Well the pendulum has been swing in the other direction for a while. A 
> substantial portion of the software production community has decided to 
> be paid for their products. There is nothing wrong with that. However 
> ESB want to see themselves as the center of the universe and, frankly, 
> that is just not going to work.
> 
> I am willing to pay reasonable fees for software applications that 
> deliver wanted capabilities and protect my interests and privacy; most 
> users are not. Some companies realized they could get paid and not be 
> responsible for protection: M$ learned how to directly intrude in our 
> life while collecting our money; Google learned how to make money on the 
> back end; the Government has been no help - they sued M$ for 
> monopolistic practices while DARPA simultaneously required that 
> financial sections of submitted proposals be done in Excel!; and Adobe, 
> well their just Adobe.

     One other big category of mutual sleaze is cellphone apps.
Once again, people don't expect to pay for apps. So developers
end up selling personal data to get paid. Because they can.

     20+ years ago I was writing shareware and actually made
a decent side income for a couple of years. But the vast majority
would steal it. I'd try to obfuscate activation codes but they'd
be cracked in 24 hours. Kids found it a fun challenge. I expect
that's timeless. People who've never had to support themselves
don't understand having to work and pay for things. I sometimes
wonder about that now with music. What happened to all those
collections of 40K songs that almost every teenager seemed
to have downloaded?

    Interestingly, the people who paid me for my software were
nearly all from the US Midwest. Whether I asked for a donation
or officially charged, there were the people who felt that fair
was fair. And almost all were average Americans.

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#12989

Newyana2 <newyana@invalid.nospam> wrote:

> I used Netscape from maybe '99, but wasn't it originally a paid
> program? 

My memory has me thinking Netscape was released around 1992, Mosaic
before that, but it wasn't until 1994 when the "Web" (which lots of
users keep calling the Internet, but the Web is only part of Internet)
exploded to become a consumer-known product.  The Internet existed
before the Web which appeared in the early 1990's.

Let me check the history ... (meanwhile sing the Jeopardy theme song)

WorldWideWeb browser: 1990 (public domained 1993, dead 1994)
Cello: 1992 (first graphical browser, first to run on Windows)
Mosaic: January 1993 (gov't funding through NCSA at Univ of Georgia)
Netscape Navigator: late 1994 (AOL acquired 1997, decommissioned 2008)
IBM WebExplorer: 1994
Spyglass Mosaic became MS Internet Explorer: 1995
Internet Explorer: 1995 (integrated into Windows c.2003)
Mozilla: 2002 (spinoff project became Firefox)

I don't remember paying of any of the web browsers.  However, the Web
was not mature back then, so likely the web browser was whatever was
bundled with the OS back then, or you dug yourself out of all those CDs
that AOL pushed out in every store and postal mail.  However, access to
the Internet, and hence the Web, was not free nor were some of the
resources accessible via those methods.  The software was free (well, it
was already paid for through funding), but use was not.

> One other big category of mutual sleaze is cellphone apps. Once again,
> people don't expect to pay for apps. So developers end up selling
> personal data to get paid. Because they can.

Or they spamify their app, and charge to get ads removed (and sometimes
uncripple extra features).  Some authors never bothered to offer a
premium ad-free version.  Collecting the revenue was clumsy and slow,
the store got a cut of the purchase, and they'd make more (and
consistency) via click-throughs.

>     Interestingly, the people who paid me for my software were
> nearly all from the US Midwest. 

Hey, that's me.  Heartland to IBM.  

> Whether I asked for a donation or officially charged, there were the
> people who felt that fair was fair. And almost all were average
> Americans.

When I worked at Sperry Rand (then Sperry, and then disasterously Unisys
when they let Burroughs acquire them), they had a software library.
Some was licensed, so the number of employees that could test the
software was limited.  Some was shareware, and, yeah, users stole it
unless it self-expired after a trial period.  I would check out MS Word,
WordPerfect, and other software, test it in a day, or two, and return to
the library after uninstalling and doing remnant file and registry
cleanup.  The librarians knew what was happening, but turned a blind
eye.  

When I became the custodian of software and licensing manager used by
the company that regulated distribution and recapture of software, I
became known as the licensing asshole (well, just "the asshole") since I
enforced strict seating and distribution.  

I had a manager that told me to keep using expired software, but
wouldn't buy a new license, so I refused to do the task until they got
another license.  I did budge a bit by saying that I would use the
software to do a work task if, and only after, I saw a purchase receipt
showing the company ordered a new license.  No, I did not fear for my
job.  They knew I wouldn't pirate.  Back then there were plenty of
lawsuits against companies using illegal copies.

We had software costing $65/seat, Training didn't want to spend the
money, so we offered a copy from out Alpha Lab for a host that was not
scheduled for testing for longer than the 2 weeks Training needed it.
They knew they had to return it in 2 weeks.  They were nonchalant about
the setup until I told them that I would wipe the drives on their
workstations if I found copies of the software after they claimed to
have returned it.  That got their attention.  The manager remarked that
the rooms are locked, but I told him that would be no obstacle to get
in, and showed him I could pick locks.  Even the combo lock wouldn't
stop me getting in.  Wiping their drives meant they lose everything, not
just the borrowed software.  I also worked as a Software QA Tester, so
my time was very short, and I told them I was not doing spending timee
with forensics on their workstations.  They noted I didn't have the
logins.  If they wouldn't login to let me look, well, I don't need to
use their OS to wipe the drives.

Eventually the shareware library got closed.  Someone like me replaced
the former liberal and blind librarian, and the requests to trial
shareware became so reduced there was no point in running the library.
The company got its software pirated (I pointed out a defect in their
volume licensing keys), and they became more sensitive and more aware of
the harm of pirating.

Many users have the attitude that it isn't stealing if they don't get
caught.  Great moral attitude, yup.  eBay had problems with sellers
slicing up volume licenses.  After informed, eBay killed those sellers,
and refunded their customers. Buyers still have to be alert, and inform.

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#12990

On 4/7/2025 8:57 PM, VanguardLH wrote:

> My memory has me thinking Netscape was released around 1992, Mosaic
> before that, but it wasn't until 1994 when the "Web" (which lots of
> users keep calling the Internet, but the Web is only part of Internet)
> exploded to become a consumer-known product.  The Internet existed
> before the Web which appeared in the early 1990's.
>


    I had a girlfriend back then who was a scientist and email other
scientists around the world. It was mainly just scientists and military.

> WorldWideWeb browser: 1990 (public domained 1993, dead 1994)
> Cello: 1992 (first graphical browser, first to run on Windows)
> Mosaic: January 1993 (gov't funding through NCSA at Univ of Georgia)
> Netscape Navigator: late 1994 (AOL acquired 1997, decommissioned 2008)
> IBM WebExplorer: 1994
> Spyglass Mosaic became MS Internet Explorer: 1995
> Internet Explorer: 1995 (integrated into Windows c.2003)

    IE was integrated in Win98. That was Active Desktop.
That was the famous cutting off Netscape's air supply. I
remember once reading an article at Wired. The author was
at MS for a meeting where that strategy was explained.
Very dramatic. Such animals.

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#12991

Newyana2 <newyana@invalid.nospam> wrote:

> IE was integrated in Win98. 

First available in the Windows 95 Plus Pack.  I got so many perks when
hired back then, even if just moving between different departments
within the same company (I'd ask, and usually I'd get) that I got many
versions of Windows and support tools for free.  Hell, you could attend
Microsoft seminars where they doled out free copies of Windows and
support tools, and their other products.  In fact, for one seminar, you
got for free a portfolio full of CDs with free licenses for ALL of
Microsoft's software products.  The employers paid for attendence at the
seminars, and the attendents got perks at no cost to them free.  It was
like giving candy to us techies.  So, I don't remember there was a cost
to the Plus Pack.  If there was, I never had to pay.

> That was Active Desktop.

ActiveX is an adapter/extension to COM and OLE.  Javabeans supported
more platforms, but ActiveX supported more programming languages.  It
was a means of bolstering the feature set of the web browser (not of the
desktop).  Besides Internet Explorer, AX was also used in MS Visual
Studio, MS Office, and Windows Media Player.  The same libraries
available to IE were available to other programs.  However, most webbies
saw AX controls embedded in web pages.  AX was OLE rebranded.  

Later I saw HTAs (HTML Applications) show up that used IE's libraries to
create UIs with logic behind them.  Web devs, and those who hired them,
wanted more than dumb static web documents.  They wanted them to be
interactive, and do input validation.  HTAs provided the features of
HTML to design a UI, and scripting to make the doc an application, and
that was either inside or outside of IE 5 (when HTAs became possible).

Active Desktop was about adding HTML to the OS desktop.  It allowed
adding web content to the desktop that could get updated.  AD was a
feature of IE 4, but as a separate and optional update.  It turned the
desktop into a web client.  The HTML content did not have to be rendered
within a web browser.  I don't recall seeing anyone use it, but my
experience was within a technical community, and not in one where users
want to prettify their desktop with weather, news overview, watching
stocks, constantly updated web docs, or other distracting drivel.  AD
content was visile without having to open the web browser (IE).

> That was the famous cutting off Netscape's air supply. 

Netscape, and even Mozilla today, suffered featuritis: putting more
priority on adding features than solidifying the web browser.

Netscape forked from Spyglass Mosaic which came from NCSA Mosaic.
Internet Explorer forked from Spyglass which came from Mosaic.  Each
boostrapped onto the same prior work.

> I remember once reading an article at Wired. The author was at MS for
> a meeting where that strategy was explained. Very dramatic. Such
> animals.

It was called the Browser Wars back then.  IE came out in 1995 in the MS
Plus! pack for Windows 95.  IE was always free (negating the cost to get
Windows).  Netscape Navigator (also negating the cost of Windows) was
not free until January 1998.  Think about it: for 3 years, or more, you
could buy Netscape, or you could use IE for free.  That lag severely
impaired acceptance by users, and they were forced to go open source in
1998 with the Mozilla project.  Hard to catch up with a snowball that
has been rollowing over 3 years to accumulate users.  You cannot compete
with a payware product against a free one unless your product is FAR
superior.  Not the case back then.

You can work hard to produce a superior product.  Or you can work hard
to harm your competitors.  Or you can do both.  As companies grow,
becomes more difficult to take the high road, and the more momentum to
overcome on bad or suspect decisions.  When survival is at stake, or
punishment is absent, humans lose their moral compass.

We have limited food and water, so we should apportion properly for
longest survival.  Oh wait, BANG.  Okay, more for the rest of us.

As a matter of cosmic history, it has always been easier to destroy than
to create. (Spock, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan).

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#12993

Newyana2 wrote:

> That was Active Desktop.

"Oh shit, my wallpaper has crashed again"

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#12995

On 4/8/2025 1:58 AM, Andy Burns wrote:
> Newyana2 wrote:
> 
>> That was Active Desktop.
> 
> "Oh shit, my wallpaper has crashed again"

:) I remember that. It was the main defining difference
between Win98 and WinME. The latter would occasionally
boot to a white screen with a red error message.

   It's striking today in retrospect. MS were trying to put
ads on the desktop *27* years ago. The Windows\Web
folder stored icons for the likes of Citibank and Forbes --
companies that had signed on to get in on the ground
floor of exploiting this captive audience of computer
users.

   Oddly, few people even noticed the Channel Bar billboard
on the Desktop. No one subscribed to "channels", which
were simply ads. No one even understood how to do it.
And besides, they were busy waiting for email to download.
How could they possibly be expected to use their 56K pipe
to download insurance ads, even if they could figure out
how to do it? But Billy Gates, self-proclaimed genius, had
this figured out even before the PC craze really flowered.
As is famously quoted repeatedly, our friend Billy "turned
the corporate ship on a dime" to figure out how to exploit
customers who used the Internet and not just customers
who used office software. Now THAT's genius!

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