What's going on with Wired? This page has an autoplay video ad below the article text and an anti-AdBlock full-screen subscription nagger that pops up a few seconds after page load.
I encourage you to consider that any website that runs arbitrary code on your computer _at all_ is hostile to your interests, by default. Websites today are becoming more programs than documents; rather than presenting you with a download dialog like you'd traditionally see with software, your browser is clicking "Download and Run" for you.
Cooper Quintin of the EFF had a Privacy Badger talk at LibrePlanet 2016 that emphasizes just how many third parties you are "trusting" when you visit a website.
https://media.libreplanet.org/u/libreplanet/m/ending-online-...
I spoke more generally:
https://media.libreplanet.org/u/libreplanet/collection/resto...
Also, half of HN would be out of a job :)
This is becoming an increasingly prevalent pattern. I really miss the document-oriented web of the late 90's / early 00's.
I don't understand why people inherently dislike Javascript (aside from, y'know, creepy ad networks).
If the web server is serving a DRM-ed program, that loads the human-viewable data over non-standard interfaces, all that breaks. Only humans in front of the web browser will be able to see the data.
Or sufficiently dedicated people to run a headless browser to run the Javascript and re-build the content and work on the rebuilt DOM. But also we now need NoScript, JS blockers, 3rd party blockers, and the publishers invest in anti-adblocks. It's a neverending arms escalation between those who want to restrictively publish information, and those that want the information without restrictions. So all this JS-based workaround to try to DRM things only brings more work for everybody involved, with minimal results.
NOTE: when I say DRM, I actually mean Digital Policy Enforcement - the publishers want to maintain their policies around access to their information (e.g. you cannot see this article without seeing this ad) using digital means. But DRM has a nicer twist to it - the uninformed may mistake the R for My Rights.
Seems to cover the intent of things quite nicely :)
Also conveys the intent quite nicely - plus you can keep the acronym ;-)
Let's consider a web document like this article here. Its stated goal is to be read by the visitor and thus deliver him value. So presumably, an article that's easier to read is better than one harder to read. An article that, ceteris paribus, consumes less resources on user end is better than one that consumes more.
Now we have a perfect technology to deliver that article. Plain old HTML. With a little bit of CSS on top. When what you want to send is text communicating a message, you need exactly zero JavaScript to do that successfully[0]. You barely even need much CSS - the default browser styles, raw as they are, are better than most web designers produce, if you care about providing value to the user.
Now if you don't, here starts JavaScript. Look at just what JS on Wired does and find me one line of code that actually serves the user. The JS there tracks you, shows you ads, shows you nagging popups[1], adds social media buttons that are somewhat useful if you want to exchange being tracked everywhere for convenience of not having to CTRL+TAB to that Facebook tab. In general, JS here is a waste of electricity (often in users' phone batteries).
You can run a similar analysis of other websites[2] and rarely if ever you'll find one when JavaScript does anything other than fuck users over more or less subtly. The technology is fine, but everyone[3] is using it for user-hostile purposes, and/or because of bad engineering. Think of all the scroll hijacking, JS rendering article text dynamically on a blog page, etc. Personally I dislike it from the very same reason I dislike crappy code.
--
[0] - Sure, JS can be used to qualitatively enhance the reading experience, to make it more pleasant and efficient. I accept that in principle, but I'll cede the point only when I see anyone other than Bret Victor actually doing it.
[1] - Wired, I appreciate that you wanted to say "thank you" to me for turning off uMatrix for a second, but could you please do not do that with a popup?
[2] - Web apps are a different topic; I don't think anybody is saying you should turn off JavaScript for GMail or Google Docs. But most of the sites on the web are not, and should not behave like web apps.
[3] - Except Bret Victor.
I didn't get the job.
Next I was joking with a friend that all the layers of abstraction added to the web are probably part of some big conspiracy by web developers to create artificial demand and job security. You run a heavy CMS but the bells and whistles confuse rather than help the user, and they'd rather pay for an hour of hour time than figure things out themselves. Your spa makes a simple series of documents feel like an app, with all the added complexity, but in the end the user couldn't care less about the full page transitions or parallax scrolling.
I have one simple rule: if it's about information retrieval, it's supposed to be a simple bloody document. If it's supposed to act like an app, it should look like an app. The latter is the propper use case for JS, but people are applying the latter to the former. This is not user centric design.
JS on a website that is otherwise not an app has its use cases ie. tabulated data, search, filtering, realtime data etc.
But a static website displaying a simple article has no fucking business running any code other than HTML/CSS on my computer.
JavaScript seemingly is more often used to degrade basic site functionality, rather than enhance it.
See idlewords.com/talks/website_obesity.htm
A saved webpage can stay as responsive as an ebook.
The data is already structured.
media.autoplay.enabled
To false, disables auto play media everywhere.
edit: I just realized it also affects youtube in an annoying way (have to skip ahead a bit or the video won't play at all). Would be nice if I could whitelist that.
So no more clicking on wired links for me!
Its one of the reasons I've stopped reading Fortune and Wired web articles.
That video (assuming we're seeing the same one) seems to be a short Wired production; unrelated content rather than advert.
Oh well, Wired just got itself removed from my adblock whitelist (after only a couple weeks on it).
Edit: yep, I just activated the "Anti-Adblock Killer | Reek" filter and it's gone.
Plus of course you can lift the restrictions selectively for each domain. From my experience it usually takes one or two domains to allow in order to get the needed functionality, and the rest (usually around 10) can be kept blocked.
Some months it would take 10+ pages of adverts to get to the first piece of content. And the worst was those glued-in cardboard ad pages in the middle - you can never really rip them out properly, and the magazine always inconveniently flops open at that page whenever you get close to it.
They're just trying to monetise the pants off the brand, and it's a real shame. I loved Wired. Not it's just another Outbrain-laden, cardboard-stuffed piece of junk.
But the video still plays.. I actually wonder how the coerce my Chrome to do that.
"Revenue is falling; quick, what should we do?"
"Shut up and keep digging."
They should update: We get it: Tracking you through multiple pages without your permission is not why you’re here for. But Tracking you through multiple pages without your permission help us keep the lights on.
Really. Find a better way to "keep the lights on". I wouldn't block ads if they would respect my privacy.
Turned off JS to read the article.
A little bit of investigation in the source shows that if you block 'www.wired.com/assets/load?*' with AdBlock (or your blocker of choice), then the page works fine, but without the annoying popup.
https://www.google.com/search?q=site://www.wired.com/2016/07...