Technology

Reader view is pretty good at decluttering the web and uses less power on laptop and phone as well.

uBlock is terrible, use brave browser. I cant even use the internet with ublock or adblock plugins, the amount that leaks through is annoying AF.

hey how to upload pic on comments section?

The reason sites all have the cookie permission dialog now is because of the GDPR, which has the right idea on data privacy, but the implementation wound up being so terrible that it winds up doing this.

GDPR is not at fault here though, since it does not require asking for consent if the processed data is necessary for the purpose of the provided service. For example, a web shop usually wouldn't have to ask for permission to store items in the shopping part because that is a necessary part of the online shopping process. In that sense, requiring the consent dialog for all unnecessary purposes is better as you can at least see who's trying to screw you over. Don't kill the messenger here.

I think it's also important to remember that websites can only get away with these annoyances because it a) is easily automatable and b) has been the default mode of operation for decades. If restaurant waiters today started asking guests if they could sell info on what and when you ate, who you were with, and what you looked like, everyone would be creeped out. Before GDPR, it was pretty much normalized to do the same thing on the internet without even asking for consent.

I feel like that's where online payment systems really let us down. If there was an easy universal way to pay a few cents to view content and it wasn't a privacy and fee nightmare, I'm sure people would have no problem doing that. Digicash systems come to mind, I hope they could make a comeback one day.

But I also fear a lot of the damage could've been done already, kids who grow up with the internet now will probably only remember big tech platforms and may not be very eager to try out something more complicated.

The first big problem was malware in ads (and web in general). This has caused people to install adblocks on their parents' and friends' devices.

Then there were the annoying ads: autoplaying videos, popups and other shit. This has caused a lot of normies to install adblockers themselves.

Then the privacy concerns, where even basic users notice that they look at a product on one store and now the recommendations follow them everywhere.

But the marketing companies keep pushing, and the OS providers like Google, MS and Apple keep restricting what you can install on your machine, this is a full-on war between users and the big tech.

Nobody was complaining about small banner ads. But they just have to keep pushing and break things. It's like with banks, or mythological creatures - insatiable.

Running servers got expensive

No it didn't. Running a server today is dirt cheap compared to the bad old days. So is registering a domain. Getting a TLS certificate doesn't cost anything at all.

However, there are a lot more people here now. It used to be you could feasibly run a moderately popular website off a single server and it'd be fine. Now, with billions of people on the Internet, you need an army of servers distributed around the world if your site gets even remotely popular.

But also the consent banners are just clumsy and annoying.

That's a feature, not a bug. Consent banners were manufactured as a way to turn public opinion against GDPR and generate political pressure to repeal it. “Look at how those Europeans ruined the web!” GDPR was supposed to pressure these unscrupulous advertisers into giving up their spooky tracking, but they did this instead. And it's working—most people blame GDPR for ruining the web, not the sleazeballs who actually ruined it.

I use uBlock Origin in Firefox, with all the boxes ticked. It's not only adds it blocks also plentiful of trackers. Just to make my visits on today's web usable. As a result, my laptops / smartphone resources are saved up, more battery time or cooler device as example.

Personally I like ads, totally ok for it - if informative, sharing some kind of relevant value with greater good. Companies should let the product or service itself advertise, not throw these on people constantly.

Lemmy feels like the old internet IMO and I'm really enjoying it so far! :)

I upvoted and chuckled, but please use Imgur or similar links while the entire ecosystem is being hit by the Reddit hug of death :)

Full text RSS would make it even more readable!

Excellent post, and I love your sites minimal, old school design. I finally found the right corner of the internet where people actually think about this kind of thing! It's so frustrating how over the years search engine results just give you bloated, pointless articles that exist only to rank high in SEO and get ad revenue.

I too have been using the site:reddit.com method, but it sucks to essentially only have one for-profit website as the one I use to research things.

I'm gonna send you a reply to your article some time later. I am too tired right now.

My short review is that you want to separate the backend from the frontend. Backend processes your request and emits a JSON response. Frontend, be it CLI, web client or a smartphone app, just sends your request and shows the response in a human-friendly way. I did it in a similar fashion for my project.

I just looked up into my search history and saw I am either:

1. not confident with the website address I remember;
2. looking for an API documentation;
3. looking for some real-world projects (when choosing one of several frameworks/ways of doing things);
4. confused AF and needy for hints (especially for large problems or life/long-term choices);
5. looking for images/visual ideas;
6. looking for what my old friends do now (am I a boomer?).

Well, for the last two I cannot think of any solution. Problem (2) can be substituted with in-reference search (cppreference.com, lib.rs, docs.rs, developer.mozilla.org). However, sometimes I want to be sure that I am using the real link to the real thing, not the scam one. For example, I sometimes want to get access to the official latest GLSL specification, or sometimes overhyped people tend to name things by their marketing brands. Like, I ask 'What is X?' (WhatsApp, for instance) and I get a response 'X is .. just X, it's really good' and when I need to find what is X, I usually search on Wikipedia, because on the web search I would only see the promotions of X.

(I'm out, wait for chapter 2)