The end of the web browser

drhowarddrfine said:
The internet is all about marketing and entertainment. Servers are not slow. The amount of data and downloaded programs during a page visit is what makes things slower as marketing's quest for more eyes continues.
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Nope. In the beginning of the WWW bandwidth was the issue - we all used analog modems to connect to it. So many people were very driven to squeeze every byte out of their homepage they could.

Nowadays bandwitdth is not the issue any longer, we got more bandwith available than we probably will ever need for this.

Also the amount of data is not necessarily the issue, but in how many different files from different server it comes is an issue. Latency is what nowadays makes web pages slow.

That's why all new crappy HTTP standards, v2 and v3 included many improvements to battle latency. As side effect this also includes domain name resolving, since usually a web page nowadays takes stuff from many places over the net, and why modern browsers invented DNS prefetching.
 
hardworkingnewbie said:
Also the amount of data is not necessarily the issue, but in how many different files from different server it comes is an issue. Latency is what nowadays makes web pages slow.
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That is what I was trying to point out. Server X pulls content from A B C D , so X can't reply until it has data from A B C D.
 
hardworkingnewbie said:
Nope....So many people were very driven to squeeze every byte out of their homepage they could.
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That's what I said in my second paragraph.
hardworkingnewbie said:
the amount of data is not necessarily the issue, but in how many different files from different server it comes is an issue.
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Different files doesn't matter. Computers work faster than the internet can carry it. Good systems cache those different files and don't fetch them every time it's accessed.
hardworkingnewbie said:
v2 and v3 included many improvements to battle latency.
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No it doesn't. It allows concurrent fetching of data along with binary compression. It doesn't speed up the network latency.
hardworkingnewbie said:
usually a web page nowadays takes stuff from many places over the net
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Not every page from everybody. Only big companies do that.
 
drhowarddrfine said:
Not every page from everybody. Only big companies do that.
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Many of the so called "frameworks" that are popular in web development these days are also used in content management systems that are used by "everyone" because it makes it easy to set up a web site, a blog or whatever. None mentioned, none shamed. So what do these frameworks have to be ashamed of? For one thing; the only thing they don't download from somewhere else when a web browser visits the web server in question is locally (user) generated content.
10, 20 or 50 megabytes of fonts to make sure that the writing looks good? Downloaded from another server.
Stock images used for headers or other embellishment on a web page? Downloaded from another server.
Other more or less vital meta data? Downloaded from another server.
And of course it is written so that until the last bit of all this "fluff" is downloaded, your web browser won't show even a word of the real information on that web page - which is what you, the user, was interested in.

Unless everybody switches to static web content systems, the web will continue to be a quagmire - with users always waiting for content.

Web developers should be forced to use C64s or similar limited machines so they would experience the effect all this convenience has on the people who use the systems they make.
 
tingo said:
Web developers should be forced to use C64s or similar limited machines so they would experience the effect all this convenience has on the people who use the systems they make.
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I would be more generous and allow them to use a Samsung nc10 Nettop, but that is indeed to much.
 
The problem as I see it is that people are doing online banking in the first place. You should visit your bank, make the tellers and managers know who you are, and do everything in paper-trailed cash transactions. Humanity: fat, lazy, stupid...makes it harder for those of us who "understand" where things are headed.
 
tingo said:
10, 20 or 50 megabytes of fonts to make sure that the writing looks good?
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Fonts are always interesting. What looks good to you may not look good to me. Toss in internationalization and what a mess.

kent_dorfman766 valid points. Very valid. I think some of it depends on the degree of online banking one is doing. Quick login to see if a check cleared or maybe transfer between a couple of accounts especially if you work odd hours is about the extent I think of.
Put an app on your phone and have access to everything and take a picture to deposit a check: no thank you. Lose your phone and you are effectively up the creek without a paddle or a canoe.
 
kent_dorfman766 said:
The problem as I see it is that people are doing online banking in the first place. You should visit your bank, make the tellers and managers know who you are, and do everything in paper-trailed cash transactions. Humanity: fat, lazy, stupid...makes it harder for those of us who "understand" where things are headed.
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It has nothing to do with being fat, lazy, or stupid lol. Yeah if I want to get a loan I'd visit a branch, but there's no need to go to the bank every time you want to withdraw cash. You don't even have to go up to the teller. Yeah ATMs have paper trails too! Then you have ally where you can manage all your accounts CDs/IRAs/checking/savings and do transfers. How the hell am I supposed to pay bills if I don't do online banking? Sit there and waste more time writing checks and hope it goes through on time or doesn't get lost in the mail? Yeah, no. Have you ever used a debit card in a store to buy something? Guess what? That's online banking. Or do you just carry a wallet full of cash all the time where if you lose it or get robbed there's no way to recoup your money. Zero liability if you lose your debit/credit card and someone makes purchases with it. It's a thing. What you're suggesting is a big waste of time and very inefficient.
 
My opinions only.
Don't denigrate writing checks. It's not that difficult or at least hasn't been for me to get them in the mail in enough time to get there worst case and then I can check online for it to clear. For me it's all about who/what has direct access to a bank account.
 
chessguy64 said:
Segmentation faults have to do with memory. He's using a netbook from 2008 with 1 GB ram and a weak CPU.
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Swap should prevent those crashes if memory is exhausted. Something else is at play. I use an R60 Thinkpad (1 Gig, i686) and web browsing is fairly decent after installing an SSD so long as adblock is on.

Again, if it is OpenBSD, in the past they have very strict limits set in login.conf so that no single process can go above 512MB. The OP might want to check that too.
 
kpedersen said:
so that no single process can go above 512MB.
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512 MB Ram is a lot. I have a virtual server with that amount of RAM in total. Running sendmail, cyrus imap, apache, webmail client and other daemons. All without any problems.

20 years ago FreeBSD run on 4 MB Ram, 1GB Harddisk was enough for the whole OS. And The CPU speed was some Mhz. Now 2 GB Ram became too little.

Developers behave as they had infinite resources, and hence nothing is enough for their programs.
 
hruodr said:
I would be more generous and allow them to use a Samsung nc10 Nettop, but that is indeed to much.
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EVERY site my company developed worked on EVERY device we could test on EVERY time if we could possibly help it. We didn't slap things together and call it a day. But, then again, we were professionals.
 
mer said:
Don't denigrate writing checks. It's not that difficult or at least hasn't been for me to get them in the mail in enough time to get there worst case and then I can check online for it to clear. For me it's all about who/what has direct access to a bank account.
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I have 3-4 books of checks from years ago. I never use them. Even service companies have POS machines now if they require payment same day. (plumbers etc). The thing is I don't want to have to worry about whether the check is arriving and clearing on time for the bill if I'm delaying a bit on payment, or whether I'm writing 100% legible on the check. I can just log in, click a button, and instantly send payment in seconds. The debit is posted much faster, and it's easier to do accounting because you can see everything in 1-2 days and you're not waiting for some check that hasn't been deposited yet. You also have to pay a lot to buy checks themselves. No way will I go back to the old way of writing out checks to pay bills. And I think most people these days would agree on this. Faster, cheaper, easier.. Just better. It's actually pretty hard to hack into someone's bank account, if their password is good. It's more likely your debit card you used somewhere will be used for fraud. But then there's FDIC insurance anyway. If someone wants to hack my bank account and steal the few hundred dollars I keep in my checking at any given time, go for it. I'll just get it back anyway and that's certainly not going to deplete all my funds lol. I don't worry about online banking. I think writing checks actually opens you up to identity theft even more than online banking, actually. You're sending this stuff through the mail with your address, name, bank info, and account number on it. Just saying. ?
 
At some point in time a company winds up making a decision to end of life/stop supporting "old stuff". Older versions of software, older hardware, doesn't matter what. How long did it take Microsoft to drop support for Win95/WinXP? As a user you don't want to "fix it if it ain't broke" but that means you have to give and take. Older software that you can no longer get support for? Depending on what it is, one can accept no support and older versions. Seriously how many people actually need the latest version of a word processor or Quickbooks? Almost no one.
Web browsers? I think are a catch-22:
current versions have fixed security issues in older versions. The catch is a lot of those security issues happened because of poorly implemented features. So one typically wants a more secure web browser, but that comes at the cost of bloat.

chessguy64 There are risks associated with everything. It's up to an individual to determine the level of risk they are comfortable with and act accordingly. The problems arise when one is forced into a level of risk they are uncomfortable with simply because it's easier for someone else (like a bank). So you do what works for you, let others do what works for them, who cares if the what works is different. That's all I'm saying. Agree, disagree, I really don't care.
 
mer said:
So you do what works for you, let others do what works for them, who cares if the what works is different. That's all I'm saying. Agree, disagree, I really don't care.
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I wasn't trying to swing him so that he stops writing checks and does all payments online. If that works for him, great. Awesome. He can send all that juicy info through postal mail each month with the illusion that it's somehow more "secure" than online banking, and that that's a better way of doing things. But "don't denigrate writing checks".. No.. denigrate writing checks and here's why. But yeah, nice way to try to ignore all the points I made. Great stuff.
 
Firefox + Strict Policy + Ublock Origin + Privacy Badger + Decentraleyes and automagically you can browse internet even with an hardware like mine:

Code: 
OS: Armbian (22.11.1) armv7l
Host: Hardkernel Odroid XU4
Kernel: 5.4.225-odroidxu4
CPU: Hardkernel ODROID-XU4 (8) @ 1.400GHz
Memory: 907MiB / 1990MiB

?
 
The dystopian literature I was forced to read in my youth was presented as a warning. Now it has become an instruction manual, and the cashless society scam is just another tool in their arsenal. I'd mention the great disservice to the public that Bill Clinton did by enacting the digital signatures act but it would go over the heads of most readers. I'm sure there were those who foresaw the coming dark ages at the fall of the Holy Roman Empire, and realized how futile it was to fight the tide. Just hoping I'm six feet under before it becomes unbearable.
 
mer said:
I've had no issues using chromium or firefox to open/read local html files. The syntax on the search bar for a file is weird, file:// plus whatever the slashes you need for the path. At least on firefox I can still configure the oldfashioned menu bar at the top which has "Open File" ...
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You don't have to use that, you can just type the path. Chromium is slightly better in that '~' will list your /home directory rather than search for tilda.
 
kent_dorfman766 said:
The dystopian literature I was forced to read in my youth was presented as a warning. Now it has become an instruction manual, and the cashless society scam is just another tool in their arsenal. I'd mention the great disservice to the public that Bill Clinton did by enacting the digital signatures act but it would go over the heads of most readers.
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There are much worse things to worry about.

kent_dorfman766 said:
I'm sure there were those who foresaw the coming dark ages at the fall of the Holy Roman Empire, and realized how futile it was to fight the tide. Just hoping I'm six feet under before it becomes unbearable.
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That particular dark age only lasted for 9 years until Napoleon was shipped off to St Helena. You may be thinking of the Western Roman Empire.
 
kent_dorfman766 said:
The problem as I see it is that people are doing online banking in the first place. You should visit your bank, make the tellers and managers know who you are, and do everything in paper-trailed cash transactions. Humanity: fat, lazy, stupid...makes it harder for those of us who "understand" where things are headed.
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I encourage you to visit other places in the world; maybe you will get a broader view on how communities around the world differ.
I live in Norway. Here there are no physical bank offices, no tellers and no checks anymore.
You can withdraw cash in grocery stores, convenience stores and so on. Deposit cash? Almost impossible.
Heck, there are even places who don't accept cash, only credit cards or electronic payment (even if the law make our cash currency a mandatory way to pay in this country).
 
kent_dorfman766 said:
Just hoping I'm six feet under before it becomes unbearable.
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May be it is even worse in Europe. The EU leaders try to implement mass surveillance of all electronic communication. In the past the EU judges have always scraped the laws. But the politicians try that procedure year by year. The argument is to countermeasure porn with children.

Here in Germany most "top" politicians who have failed got a better paid job the EU government. One of the best examples seems to be Ms von der Leyen. Her father has been the president of Lower Saxony in the north of Germany and his family has excellent relations to the "high society". She seems to be paranoid or just stupid. In worst case this is just a mask and she and her co-poilticians are clever and follow a plan.

EDIT: If this is too much politics: Dear moderators feel free to remove this contribution.
If I think after writing - which is the wrong order - the thread is already drifting. I do not want to make it worse.
 
Every now and then I despice web browsers. In being un-missable it is just to find the one that sucks less. That's why I regretted SeaMonkey disappearing and the trouble with LuaKit. Both are fine browsers. Luckily LuaKit is running well now.

Websites (indeed) are made for the latest and most feature rich browser. At performance cost, although hardly noticable on today's fast computers. I remember back in 1995 making my own website, just on HTML 1.0 and avoiding CSS and frames like the plague. Today aparently everybody should have 'the optimal personalized web experience®' only when you want to check the news (with pictures), join the forum and doing some banking. The cost of this all in computer resources shows up when I quit X at the end of the day and my TTY shows an endless output of barf, caused by bad coded websites, failing javascrips and magical telemetry from who knows what website I visited.

But websites on a box with a cable internet connection on a 15 inch screen just does the job. And it does the job way better than on a smartphone.

Firefox is my need-to-hate tool, because it always works. Daily updates of this software causing a cynical grin -- wonder what is going better tomorrow. Probably something that doesn't add noticably to my 'optimal personalized web experience®'.

Because it is my hated-do-it-all, I have to force myself using the better alternative -- LuaKit in my case. The psychology on this sometimes keep me from sleeping.

Am I that spoiled, that I also want to have the best browser experience all time, on each and every tab I open? Do I really need this 'feature rich' experience? What about just browsing content? Don't I have enough pictures of cats, motorbikes and Scandinavian sunsets? Why not just open sysutils/screen in TTY, fire up mutt and newsboat, check messages and headlines and call it a day? Use www/lynx to browse my collection of how-to's and Vim tricks?

Because I would miss you lot over here? The forum tells me I'm using an outdated browser when using www/lynx and I'd better install Chrome... So with TTY I would miss half the fun (hope at least some of you would miss my contributions too...). Maybe indeed, I'm spoiled surfing some social media every day.

So when I seem a bit silent in coming days, I might be in my own psycho-social-behavioural experiment to reduce useless surfing. Maybe I'll drop a line to say 'hi' on the FreeBSD IRC ;-)

On SuckLess KISS browsers: dillo and surf are great to use when you open a local file from your file manager -- it just gets the content.

On my 15 inch monitor: I gave my 21" to my son, who replaced it by some huge curved panorama. For me I got myself two used 15" Ilyama ProLite E380S for a few euro's, one as a spare. Text and windows nice together, keeping my eyes from flashing left-right over half a meter to read something, or having something not right in front of me on the screen.

On smartphone-future: they are OK to check the bus and train time table, do some urgent email for work while travelling. For banking it is easier to schedule and automate payments. For the rest those things are over-rated and over-prized, IMHO.

I should read a book more often. Those paper things.

Cheers,
 
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