Post B4Zeu5Ii7vr0LM6d5U by oblomov@sociale.network
(DIR) More posts by oblomov@sociale.network
(DIR) Post #B4Zesque8VRlQiGL1k by oblomov@sociale.network
2025-11-22T09:41:06Z
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I'm going to brainstorm some considerations that have been floating around in my head since this subthread (cc @mcc @emaytch )https://mastodon.social/@emaytch/115589034225660586about «what are we left with after Firefox is gone» (or has become unusable). The only viable alternative currently is @palemoon, a hard fork so old that it has had time to mature into its own independent browser and engine, in contrast to e.g. @librewolf or @Waterfox that still closely follow upstream.1/
(DIR) Post #B4ZessifQ13L28fndI by oblomov@sociale.network
2025-11-22T09:44:52Z
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This is not to say that #LibreWolf and/or #WaterFox wouldn't be able to “walk on their own two legs” if #Firefox ever becomes unusable —it's just that they haven't had the opportunity to demonstrate it yet, so their viability remains a huge unknown. For example, will they be able to maintain the XSLT code once it gets removed? (from https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1990759 it's clear that the FF devs have no intention to listen to the community on that, just like they won't listen to feedback on AI)2/
(DIR) Post #B4Zet1MfHBnhqVRr5U by oblomov@sociale.network
2025-11-22T09:48:16Z
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So my first thought was not unlike @emaytch's: if the forks “live or die” by FF, then if FF goes down so do the forks. PaleMoon being independent gives us some respite, as does @servo being under active development —in the hopes that it becomes truly viable BEFORE #Firefox goes down: and of course we do not know yet if they'll stick with #Google's decisions about what is and what is not allowed on the Web, or if it will have the spine (and resources) to support tech that Google rejects.3/
(DIR) Post #B4Zet9lQ32M5tb5jma by oblomov@sociale.network
2025-11-22T09:57:49Z
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But then I thought: is it really that important? How much work is it actually to *maintain* a browser (as opposed to *develop* one, possibly from scratch)?This is where it starts to get interesting, especially if we stop to consider what a browser is, and what the World Wide Web is. And the interesting part is that we're currently in a process of “speciation”, if I may borrow a term from evolutionary biology.4/
(DIR) Post #B4ZetIBwiIKO2BZ2Ey by oblomov@sociale.network
2025-11-22T10:13:33Z
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The #WorldWideWeb was born with the intent to achieve an interconnected web of *documents*: and this is not only what it was in the beginning, but also what most of the open, independent web still is, even when it's more dynamically generated (wikis, blogs).What we've seen under the moniker of “Web 2.0” in the last 20+ years, but especially in the last decade, has been the development of a different _interpretation_ of the Web.5/#openWeb #indieWeb #WWW
(DIR) Post #B4ZetQoWejwQm9fxU8 by oblomov@sociale.network
2025-11-22T10:19:53Z
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Major corporations saw in the “Web 2.0” the opportunity to leverage this communication channel as a means to deliver services to the users, or, a rose by any other name, a way to write cross-platform application front-ends.This isn't exactly news to anyone who has been using the web more than a decade, but I think it's quite important to stress this again: the modern web features *both* kinds of websites: document repositories, and application frontends (“web apps”).6/
(DIR) Post #B4ZetZjtTKaGSOZt0y by oblomov@sociale.network
2025-11-22T10:24:21Z
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Web browsers are used to access *both* kinds of websites, but —and this is extremely important— the two kinds of websites have *very different requirements*.For example, The V8 #JavaScript engine that powers Chrome was specifically designed to improve the quality of service of web apps, and while the “web of documents” can at times benefit from said improvements, it doesn't have particular needs in this regard, except maybe to compensate for the deficiency of other components (esp. #CSS)7/
(DIR) Post #B4ZethsLDo5vguakIC by oblomov@sociale.network
2025-11-22T10:32:20Z
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A lot of the development efforts (both creative and destructive) in web browsers in the last decade+ has been going into fostering the “web app” vision of the web, to the detriment of the “web of documents” vision. From the removal of native support for #RSS and #Atom to the introduction of JavaScript APIs like #WebUSB or the “Web Environment Integrity” attempt, nearly all work done on browsers has been in this direction.8/
(DIR) Post #B4ZetpvTI3Lsew7MHY by oblomov@sociale.network
2025-11-22T10:46:31Z
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This difference isn't just a matter of feature sets; in fact, it's primarily a matter of _design principles_.A browser for the “web of documents” is a User Agent: it's a tool in the hands of users designed to maximize the usability of said documents.A browser for the “web of apps” is a Corporate Agent: it's a too in the hands of *corporation* designed to maximize the control *they* have on the user machine.9/
(DIR) Post #B4Zety01H1k9hMJ6Tw by oblomov@sociale.network
2025-11-22T10:49:03Z
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One can obviously see how this reflects in the development of Chrome with the removals of features that are unnecessary or, even worse, *detrimental* to corporate interests (the most famous recent such change is the introduction of the so-called Manifest v3 for WebExtensions to kill ad blockers), but you can also see in Firefox development when their “listening to the community” means doubling down on shoving unwanted genAI support everywhere and dropping XSLT.10/
(DIR) Post #B4Zeu5Ii7vr0LM6d5U by oblomov@sociale.network
2025-11-22T10:53:11Z
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Under this analysis, browsers like @Vivaldi are in a very precarious situation: on the one hand, #VivaldiBrowser is being developed under what is arguably a “web of documents” mindset, and in fact more in general as a “Swiss knife of the Internet”, similarly to classic #OperaBrowser (I've already written about this at length). On the other hand, its reliance on the #Google-controlled #Blink engine that is designed for the “web of apps” cripples it in its efforts:11/
(DIR) Post #B4ZeuF0I3H3qR7Z3lQ by oblomov@sociale.network
2025-11-22T10:58:14Z
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So @Vivaldi doesn't support JPEG XL because Blink has removed support for it, and will have no choice but to drop XSLT support following Chrome's timeline. The same holds for any other browser that depends on Blink, WebKit and soon even Gecko. This will make all of them less of a User Agent and more of Corporate Agents infiltrated in our machines.12/
(DIR) Post #B4ZeuMn769H4aZSeKu by oblomov@sociale.network
2025-11-22T11:04:51Z
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So, what I've been thinking is that it's time to realize that the “web of documents” and “web of apps” are two completely different beasts, only incidentally related to each other, and that it might not even make sense to waste efforts in developing tools that support both equally well.This means, in particular, that we may have to make peace with the fact that one browser might not be enough: we *will* need two of them.13/
(DIR) Post #B4ZeuUR4fyOmIXDA5w by oblomov@sociale.network
2025-11-22T11:08:58Z
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For me, this is already the case, BTW: although Firefox is my primary browser, I still have to resort to Chromium from time to time, either because some websites simply refuse to work correctly in Firefox, or because it's the only way to ensure a solid “separation of concerns” (Unsurprisingly, what I use Chromium for is the more corporate-y stuff.)And even without asking, I'm sure I'm not the only one, but let's have a poll. Do you use an alternate browser for some stuff?14/