Another rant on web browsers

[UCyborg]

https://lukesmith.xyz/articles/every-web-browser-absolutely-sucks/

Not mine, but found it amusing.

[sinfulosd]

I like his "Cuck Licenses" article as well, I think this guy makes a lot of good points.

HTTPS everywhere is a sensible universal browser feature as well. There are no places where using HTTP is preferrable to using HTTPS if available. If there are reasons to ever use HTTP only or to view ads, they are so rare as to hide them away in the Settings Menu.

I think this might upset some people here in this forum, due to their opinion in "Not everything have to be in HTTPS protocol", despite that HTTPS would always provide more good than nothing.

Edit: Note that he also uses Librewolf with Arkenfox user.js (Redundant experience) as his (presumably) main browser for daily browsing. Maybe he is basing his opinion about it from that browser's perspective.

[Gemmaugr]

Not very amusing.

Not only does he want to eat his cake but also still have it, but he fundamentally thinks his "default" passable browser setup is to everyone's tastes. Not so (especially not caving to each and every "modern web" API that google wants to force on everyone). A modular browser with powerful addons that everyone can mix and choose would allow both him and others to have their own "perfect" browser.

HTTPS isn't needed everywhere. I personally use browser history quite a lot. He can't even be bothered to change a simple startpage, even in "palememe".. He wants it all served to him on a silver platter from the get-go.

He wants his google chromium QTWebEngine browser coded in google's Go programming language and to comply with all of googles API's..

If he can let go of his prejudiced view of Pale Moon and also his biased love for google, he'd see that what he wants already exist:

Code: Select all

Summary

A browser...

1    Must actually work.
2    Must be free and open source software.
3    Must make no unsollicited connections.
4    Must block unsollicited ads and other sensible defaults.
5    Must have sensible options for history and cookies.
6    Must not be cluttered by features irrelevant to browsing.
7    Must not clutter the filesystem.
8    Must be written in a fast language light on system resources.
9    Must have a configuration file.

Tell me when a browser finally meets these requirements.

1 Pale Moon works.
2 Pale Moon is free and open source.
3 Pale Moon makes no unsolicited connections (after you change the home page).
4 Pale Moon blocks ads (with uBO and eMatrix).
5 Pale Moon allows him to have no history, or custom history settings.
6 Pale Moon has no clutter or bloat.
7 ? I'm not sure he'll ever get over this one, as even the single PM developer folder is something he objects to, apparently?
8 "Fast language" is debatable.
9 I'm actually not sure about this one.

So, that meets almost everyone one of his requirements, bar one or two.

[UCyborg]

1. Barely, but don't mind me for seeing reality for what it is.

All I really want is a browser without lag spikes, memory leaks and with font rendering that don't make my eyes bleed. Is that too much to ask?

So yeah, still waiting for that browser.

[Basilisk-Dev]

Dishonorable mention definitely goes to Pale Moon. Being an independent browser, you would think they would jump at being less annoying. Nope: ~/.Moonchild Productions right in your home directory. Capital letters and whitespace: a big eff-yew to Unix-based operating systems. (I think they made this lower-case now?)

This is something that always frustrated me as well, even before I was involved in the UXP/Pale Moon community in any way. It's literally the reason I chose the pseudonym Basilisk-Dev, so there'd be no space. Definitely agree that as a new user checking out the browser, the name of the directory is a big screw you to *nix users. That being said I understand that isn't Moonchild's intention and that it's too late to change it at this point.

[Mæstro]

Luke Smith is a troll who baits his readers and does not deserve attention. He clearly possesses the programming knowledge and leisure time necessary to produce a browser to his tastes, and claims it should be easy, but gives no hint of doing so. At least Spyware Watchdog had a few browsers he liked, and accepted us after following his own steps for mitigation.
Elsewhere on the site, Luke denounces Matrix as a Mossad trap, complains about ‘the System’ in deeply uncanny ways* and otherwise rants about them in ways which are simply embarrassing. Discussing people and outrageous opinions like this gives them false legitimacy. They thrive on the outrage; Luke Smith profits from stoking the flames on his YouTube channel, which his personal site advertises. Indeed, for this reason, I should advise that this thread be locked. I hope my message here can warn others. Trolls thrive on enraging others and arousing morbid fascination, and I would be lying if I said I did not feel these upon reading him. Protect yourselves!

In any case, I can confirm that Pale Moon’s directories for Linux are now lowercase. Although /.moonchild productions is two words, this has never caused me any problems.

*Nazi propaganda often referred to the Weimar era as die Systemzeit, ‘the age of the System’.

[Basilisk-Dev]

Off-topic:
Disagree. He seems pretty sensible to me, outside of the fact that personally I consider the GPL to be the "cuck license".

That being said I do agree the thread should be locked.

[Night Wing]

I thought I would chime in here since I am not a power user.

Luke Smith's comments do not sway me in any way. Mainly because his comments for me are too technical in nature along with the power user jargon. And I have a feeling the non-power users on the internet are more like me and not the power user types.

After demoing a browser for a period of time, I only have three criteria to make a decision on a browser to keep using it.

1) A browser I like to use.
2) A browser I want to use.
3) A browser I need to use.

And sometimes these three criteria are not in the same order of preference, but those three criteria have to be there.

This is the reason why I have been using windows Pale Moon when I found it 2011 (or around that time) when I was using Windows 7. Then again when linux Pale Moon was publicly released in January of 2014 when I was using Linux Mint 13.

Pale Moon is not perfect for obvious reasons since some websites do not render properly. So I needed a backup browser to compliment Pale Moon. But I use the same three criteria when I need a backup browser and Waterfox fills those likes, wants and needs. This is the long and short of it for me.

[Moonchild]

Just rehashing the same things again that certain other people have already stated. Nothing new there.

And "must not clutter the file system"...? Bloody get over it already. Spaces in file system names has been a thing for a very long time.

point 9 is covered by the mozconfigure system which we fully support.

So.. what he wants is right there, he just can't bring himself to accept it, and instead wants to reinforce his own bad predisposition in another ragebait article? If he's that unhappy he should just fork something and work on making it exactly the way he wants a browser to "not suck", instead of just writing "rants".

Locking as suggested.