Pale Moon & the AnyBrowser campaign

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freedom4all
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Pale Moon & the AnyBrowser campaign

Unread post by freedom4all » 2023-01-09, 15:34

I just ran across this, thought it might be something PM would be interested in getting behind. https://anybrowser.org/campaign/index.html

It's a voluntary commitment to make websites viewable on any web browser. All there really is to it is displaying a badge somewhere on the website (e.g. palemoon.org). It's an old campaign going back to the Netscape days, but still in active use by some websites and becoming more and more relevant in current times.

For browser users, they have a numbers of pre-written letters (though outdated) that people can send to websites if the website fails to work on the user's browser of choice - a common complaint here.

Is it effective? Probably not.. but as the website puts it, every little bit helps. I can hardly disagree with that
Last edited by freedom4all on 2023-01-09, 15:59, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Pale Moon & the AnyBrowser campaign

Unread post by Lucio Chiappetti » 2023-01-09, 15:44

Glad to see the AnyBrowser site was recently updated. I was a follower of that campaign long ago, and it's good it's been resurrected.
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Re: Pale Moon & the AnyBrowser campaign

Unread post by freedom4all » 2023-01-09, 15:58

I wouldn't say it's been resurrected per se, it's still pretty outdated. But I see no reason why we can't help to force the campaign back into relevancy. The PM project is big enough to have an actual impact in drawing attention to the problem. It's like the web is going back to the dark ages of the "Best viewed in IE" era with websites like Wix blocking access to their millions of websites from users of Pale Moon and others.

I personally like this badge the best https://anybrowser.org/campaign/bvgraphics/a-borg.gif :D

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Re: Pale Moon & the AnyBrowser campaign

Unread post by somdcomputerguy » 2023-01-09, 20:46

Most of the sites' content (ie; the letters) are outdated but the date on the home page shows Aug. 2022, so who knows what the actual state of the project is. I became interested in the idea of that project quite a few years ago, but only late last year did I start to include an AnyBrowser graphic on my site. I sent an email to the author at that time but have revcd no response which I'm not worried about anyway. I don't know if my email was read or not, and again it doesn't really bother me. I didn't use any of the provided graphic examples, but used an edited version of the sites' header image.
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Re: Pale Moon & the AnyBrowser campaign

Unread post by Moonchild » 2023-01-09, 22:06

I'm not sure about this one because the premise of any browser is unattainable. e.g. some niche mobile browsers would fall under "any". MSIE 6 would fall under "any' as well. If the project's very name suggests something impossible...
Putting such a label on my websites would basically be a lie, so I won't.
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Re: Pale Moon & the AnyBrowser campaign

Unread post by andyprough » 2023-01-09, 22:07

This best-viewed through any beer glass is a much needed campaign.

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Re: Pale Moon & the AnyBrowser campaign

Unread post by RealityRipple » 2023-01-09, 23:53

Gotta support Lynx, IE4 at the HP Jornada 720's resolution (615x158 after toolbars and scrollbars), and Uriel for Temple OS.

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Re: Pale Moon & the AnyBrowser campaign

Unread post by Moonchild » 2023-01-10, 10:53

RealityRipple wrote:
2023-01-09, 23:53
Gotta support Lynx, IE4 at the HP Jornada 720's resolution (615x158 after toolbars and scrollbars), and Uriel for Temple OS.
Just no. May as well use gopher then! :coffee:
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Re: Pale Moon & the AnyBrowser campaign

Unread post by Lucio Chiappetti » 2023-01-10, 16:37

RealityRipple wrote:
2023-01-09, 23:53
Gotta support Lynx
Maybe not lynx --dump, but what about wget and curl ? It looks like most sites designed for file exchange (not viewing web pages) nowadays can't be used with automatizable tools like wget and curl because of the way preliminary authentication is handled :thumbdown:
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Re: Pale Moon & the AnyBrowser campaign

Unread post by RealityRipple » 2023-01-10, 18:51

Lucio Chiappetti wrote:
2023-01-10, 16:37
RealityRipple wrote:
2023-01-09, 23:53
Gotta support Lynx
Maybe not lynx --dump, but what about wget and curl ? It looks like most sites designed for file exchange (not viewing web pages) nowadays can't be used with automatizable tools like wget and curl because of the way preliminary authentication is handled :thumbdown:
cURL will get the job done if you pass the right headers. And you can get the right headers directly from your browser's dev tools. Every browser these days has "Copy as cURL" as a context menu entry for requests in the network tab. Website auth methods are rarely complex, at least compared to binary protocols.

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Re: Pale Moon & the AnyBrowser campaign

Unread post by Lucio Chiappetti » 2023-01-10, 19:02

RealityRipple wrote:
2023-01-10, 18:51
Every browser these days has "Copy as cURL" as a context menu entry for requests in the network tab.
Where is this precious item in Pale Moon ?
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. (G.B. Shaw)

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Re: Pale Moon & the AnyBrowser campaign

Unread post by Moonchild » 2023-01-10, 19:08

Lucio Chiappetti wrote:
2023-01-10, 19:02
Where is this precious item in Pale Moon ?
Attachments
Image1.png
"Sometimes, the best way to get what you want is to be a good person." -- Louis Rossmann
"Seek wisdom, not knowledge. Knowledge is of the past; wisdom is of the future." -- Native American proverb
"Linux makes everything difficult." -- Lyceus Anubite

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Re: Pale Moon & the AnyBrowser campaign

Unread post by Lucio Chiappetti » 2023-01-10, 20:45

Thanks, bookmarked ! :thumbup:

(I was looking in the main and preferences menus, never looked in detail to the dev tool "mouse" options)
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Re: Pale Moon & the AnyBrowser campaign

Unread post by Basilisk-Dev » 2023-01-10, 22:55

In my mind the statement "Supports Any Browser" means using as little JS and advanced CSS features to achieve your goals for your site. Most browsers can render HTML, it's the advanced Javascript client-side rendering in unneeded places that is the issue. Even browsers like Lynx and Mosaic will at least attempt to render HTML documents using the subset of HTML features they do support. If you do stupid things such as loading blog posts over Javascript through some sort of client-side rendering (for example see medium.com blog posts) then that rules all browsers that don't support the specific Javascript features you're using out of luck. They won't even be able to see the text of your blog post regardless of if the site is rendered in the way you intended.

To be clear, I'm not saying that you should never use Javascript or that client-side rendering is a bad thing. I'm just saying that they are used in places they should not be on a lot of modern sites, in many cases due to laziness or lack of knowledge from the developer of the site.
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Re: Pale Moon & the AnyBrowser campaign

Unread post by freedom4all » 2023-01-15, 16:46

Moonchild wrote:
2023-01-09, 22:06
I'm not sure about this one because the premise of any browser is unattainable. e.g. some niche mobile browsers would fall under "any". MSIE 6 would fall under "any' as well. If the project's very name suggests something impossible...
Putting such a label on my websites would basically be a lie, so I won't.
I appreciate that you give these kinds of topics a more critical analysis and I do understand your point here.

This idea really spawned out of frustration with Wix sites. I've been running across this almost daily lately. I wish there was a more reasonable solution that didn't cast such a broad net as "any browser under the sun" but still aimed at rejecting this nonsense

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Re: Pale Moon & the AnyBrowser campaign

Unread post by Moonchild » 2023-01-15, 20:05

If this is a WIX problem, then WIX is the one to poke. The webmasters of individual sites "Built with WIX" can't do much about this if the framework they rely on becomes broadly incompatible with the non-chrome web. Especially if they are basically slamming the door into user's faces. I know this will impact many commercial sites so it would be a good idea for WIX to remain more browser-agnostic.

I suggest you (and anyone else running into this issue) reaches out to them on bizdev@wix.com (be professional and kind, please. That is their business development desk, who will likely not respond well to flat out complaints without some detail in your post)
Off-topic:
P.S.: "enjoy a better online experience" with Chrome? How do they determine what my online experience would be like by using a piece of resource-hogging telemetry-laden software? XD
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Re: Pale Moon & the AnyBrowser campaign

Unread post by somdcomputerguy » 2023-01-15, 21:19

freedom4all wrote:
2023-01-15, 16:46
This idea really spawned out of frustration with Wix sites.
I believe the idea was spawned way before the Wix company was started in 2006.
anybrowser.org/campaign/index.html wrote:If you've come to this page, you're probably curious about the "Viewable With Any Browser" themed button on it. Here's my explanation. I am very unhappy with the current trend towards web sites designing only for specific browsers and ignoring others. It's extremely annoying to me to visit a web site and to find that I've been rejected until I come back with Netscape or Internet Explorer. It's also annoying to visit web sites that allow you in with any browser, but rely heavily on tags only supported in a few popular browsers, or leave out support for text browsers.
Here's a quoted quote from the site.
"Anyone who slaps a 'this page is best viewed with Browser X' label on a Web page appears to be yearning for the bad old days, before the Web, when you had very little chance of reading a document written on another computer, another word processor, or another network."
-- Tim Berners-Lee in Technology Review, July 1996
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Re: Pale Moon & the AnyBrowser campaign

Unread post by freedom4all » 2023-01-16, 00:18

somdcomputerguy wrote:
2023-01-15, 21:19
"Anyone who slaps a 'this page is best viewed with Browser X' label on a Web page appears to be yearning for the bad old days, before the Web, when you had very little chance of reading a document written on another computer, another word processor, or another network."
-- Tim Berners-Lee in Technology Review, July 1996
Yes, I was very clear about this being an old campaign in the original post. I was referring to Wix sites giving me the idea to open up this discussion here. Wix isn't the only offender though, just the most noticeable that comes to mind.

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Re: Pale Moon & the AnyBrowser campaign

Unread post by noellarkin » 2023-01-16, 11:03

I hope more people get onboard with campaigns such as this one. IMO a lot of the openness and flexibility of the internet is being subverted under the guise of 'compatibility issues'.

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Re: Pale Moon & the AnyBrowser campaign

Unread post by Moonchild » 2023-01-16, 11:42

Still nothing compared to the subversion under the label "safety and security"
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"Seek wisdom, not knowledge. Knowledge is of the past; wisdom is of the future." -- Native American proverb
"Linux makes everything difficult." -- Lyceus Anubite

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