this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2026
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Firefox
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As an amateur web dev I can say stuff like jpegXL which allows for smaller and higher quality images is cool, and regardless browsers let websites run arbitrary javascript code, so it's naturally insecure.
@Blisterexe Admittedly, most don't run java anymore, or do they? And see that's really the point for me: these security limitations are inherent to the build, and if you'd wanted security, you would have done it differently, not be relying on conning users into updating "for their own good" by dangling new features. It's an inherently stupid, cheap, and insecure way to design a system to operate.
Javascript isn't java, to be clear, and I think I need to clarify how websites work because it's not obvious and I think
Basically early websites were just html, basically just a way of having documents and links to other documents. Very quickly they added css for styling and, later, javascript so that people could add more advanced functions in websites. Assuming you're using the mastodon web client, you wouldn't have been able to write your comment without javascript.
So the site sends html, css and javascript files to your computer, and your browser draws the page on your screen by following the instructions, then executes the javascript. This is a horrible way of doing things, because (1) web standards aren't standard, browsers can support any feature they want in any way they want, so websites can work fine on one browser and not on another, and google can add any feature to chrome that websites will support that mozilla is forced to also implement, otherwise those websites will be broken. And (2) running random code with no user input is a horribly insecure way of doing things.
Nobody can change this, because it's a every website is made for it and every browser is made for it. There are alternatives but you can't access anything meaningful from it.
This means that Mozilla has to constantly update the browser to fix vulnerabilities, because the way the web works in inherently insecure and nobody can do anything about it, and the standards it supports constantly change for reason out of their control. Every browser auto-updates for the same reason. Mozilla changes the UI and implement AI at the same time because they're scared normies will drop the browser and use something else (read: chrome) if they don't.
If you don't want a browser that skips all that and doesn't support running random code then you can use something like netsurf, but it won't run every website. Otherwise you can use a browser like librewolf that doesn't add antifeatures.
Not saying you should use firefox, just that I hope you can see why they do what they do.