It is past time to kill the web browser

Hell No!

> so that the way you interact with the world is something you have control of.

You have much more control interacting with the web through a browser than any random app. You can view source code and data, disable JS, styles, or images, run bookmarklets, extensions, and user styles to modify pages, and do other stuff that *no* apps match.

> Who would knowingly have code downloaded to your machine which then opens connections to some unnamed IP address?

Don't most desktop and mobile apps do this also? At least with a browser you can open the networks tab and see exactly what URLs are hit.

> Bookmarks, seriously

Bookmarks are fine mostly. And there's plenty of other ways to save URLs.

> The OS independent display architecture that is (supposed to be) HTML is tolerable

I think it's bloody amazing we now have a viable OS-neutral way to distribute and view documents and apps. As a developer I find web tech pretty straightforward, though the JS ecosystem has become a bit crazy. I think it will all work out in the end though.

> (I am a typography snob and hate how web pages look)

Well change it. Unlike apps, you can change the way web pages look. You can delete parts of pages, change the layout, fonts and colors.

I find your observation at odds with how I interact with the web, though I can guess the basis of from where your disillusion / dissatisfaction stems from.

If you're speaking about Firefox's imperfect url history, yes that's annoying and was ever present in old versions of firefox, not that I know exactly why, it's just is that way from time to time, possibly leaky code itself or maybe other times more to do with a site's tricky web coding or getting the link confused with other cdn sources used to populate the page.

I don't think the WWW will move to a lower noise to bandwidth formula ... yes I find the ratio appalling at the moment was well for having to scroll more than I should to read the content, and put up with limited search results per page. However I'm lucky, I don't need an ad blocker as I don't even notice the ads, there's just annoying colourful blocks that impede my focused search for texty stuff.

Honestly if someone would have told me so many sites would load a page on a subject and it would struggle to manage 100 words back 20 years ago ... I would have never figured on turning the same page into five or more padded out with unimportant stuff ... but I guess these days that's what pays the bills.

I've moved my discussion here, where it has gotten some traction https://oldbytes.space/@bitsavers/109688913474142565

Last time I mentioned on HN I was browsing the web through an intelligent agent I heard from somebody who thinks I am violating the copyright of creators. Seems like you can't please everybody.

The companies who are paying for browser development want your eyeballs, preferably on their controlled content, with telemetry to them.

Of course. This is why Pocket is so vile.