Although I wish more browsers made it easier to selectively enable it per site, like Orion.
Although I wish more browsers made it easier to selectively enable it per site, like Orion.
And good riddance. I really don't get any personal value out of the vast majority of modern web apps. Much, but not all, of what we do on the web could be via a much more basic interface.
... but it won't be.
Delivering information and digesting it from users is the purpose of the web as the user sees it. HN is a good example of a website meant to do this. No ads, minimal algorithms, no feature creep beyond a traditional news-and-comment feed.
Only one problem: that doesn't drive engagement. I come to HN because I'm genuinely interested in the content and discussion here. Being interested in content and discussion, though, is not nearly as profitable as being addicted. A lot of the UI elements and behaviors of websites today are meant to drive addiction, and thus, engagement.
Hell, HN itself might not even be profitable or even break-even. It's the side-project of YC; something that exists to further the profit-building exploits of that organization.
You mean you’d like to use a web browser as a document viewer instead of an operating system? This ship has sailed a decade ago, at least.
Heck, stuff sometimes breaks without me even trying to disable anything, like airbnb login via facebook popup stopped working suddenly few months ago (biggest internet mistake I ever done many years ago, as a host I am locked to specific well-rated account and airbnb support told me they can't migrate my account to another form of auth).
Edit: just saw its 'per site' - that would work for me, but not for my parents who live far. But damn I don't want to do this active fight of cat and mouse with whole internet. Firefox/ublock origin user here, on both desktop and phone for many years. Internet looks utterly horrible when I open it somewhere without those, hell youtube with all those ads is absolutely ridiculous shit service. Apple devices I've seen aren't that good either, shame that would be a great selling point for me.
JS is a core part of the modern web experience. 10 years go MAYBE Noscript would work, I never bothered, you end up having to whitelist a bunch of sites anyway even 10 years ago.