It's a great read, and there were quite a few snippets I didn't know - for example, I didn't know that it was Arthur Lewbel who tried to juggle upside down.
Thank you for this.
For what I'm interested in (which is mainly just information minus all the cutsey Web 2.0 design nonsense), the emacs-w3m browsing experience is fantastic. It's 100% readable plain text, displayed consistently just the way the rest of my terminal text is displayed. It integrates 100% in to my editor, allowing me to use it to its full potential.
emacs-w3m is way more powerful and customizable than other text-mode browsers like lynx, elinks, or standalone w3m itself. Also, the kind of emacs/vim integration that Firefox extensions like It's All Text offers also pales in comparison to what emacs-w3m offers, as there is no context switching with emacs-w3m -- you're always in your editor. Firefox extensions like Pentadactyl and Vimperator are good but, again, they're limited compared to emacs-w3m and its tight integration with emacs, they're not written in elisp, and so the impedance mismatch between the browser, editor, and extension is greater.
I don't know if any of this matters to you, but if it does, you should give emacs-w3m a spin.
Made a example here to show you the difference: http://imgur.com/a/D6qUa
It's way easier to read the text in the second example, as I added more space between the rows. The font itself is fine.
In addition to refusing to collect more data than it needs, this is a good reason to switch away from Chrome/Safari/whatever.
[1] https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-reader-view-clu...
I'd say they did provide a solution in the form of AMP, which of course is much better for them because at the very least they get to suck in more data (and still display ads!).
Of course it's also entirely possible that the Chrome team just hasn't prioritized this feature.
Maybe it's not a very good time to bring that up, as soon there will be little left to brag about in this regard.
While I applaud your comment, I think there is more to consider. Initially the text has no formatting. Someone had to insert the markup. And why did they add the markup? Why not just give us the text and let us add our own, if we want it?
If we have a program, e.g. a custom text-filter, that can strip html tags and other markup (formatting) from original text (content), then why do we need a browser?
As a matter of practice, I use a text-only browser in VGA textmode. All text looks the same, same VGA font, and the look of every website is much more consistent than with a graphical browser, not to mention other benefits such as text being larger, no bright white page backgrounds, less eyestrain, complete absence of web ads, no auto-loading of tracking elements, etc.
With a text-only browser and without javascript many website design choices become irrelevant. All websites more or less look the same. This makes reading much easier and faster. It allows me to focus on the content, i.e., the data, instead of potentially being distracted by web design i.e. the presentation of data.
Needless to say it would be easy to write html "targeting" a text-only browser. It is very forgiving and "normalizes" variation that might otherwise be a problem.
(Do not misinterpret this comment: I have great respect for talented web designers but there are sometimes situations where design can get in the way of consuming data, as in the case of the OP.)
"Reader View" appears to be solving a problem that graphical browsers themselves created. These browsers make web design relevant and thereby enable not only spectacular, creative web design, but also difficulties in reading for some users, among other problems.
Not knocking use of "Reader View" - it is very useful - but just providing a different perspective on why markup is being used to begin with and other ways to achieve easier reading with larger text (and easily adjustable column width).
The very early ideology of HTML was to describe structure and content fairly minimally so that browsers could display it in whatever manner was right for the user.
But it turned out that content producers had more influence with browser makers than did content users (who after all don't pay anyone but the ISP). And they want to have control over the user's screen, speaker and (ultimately) brain. Hence pixel-perfect formatting, advanced CSS and of course JavaScript.
But that has sort-of changed for Mozilla. Their competitors have all the close relationships with content producers, so they are trying to become friends with users again. And thus their incentives have shifted to trying to recover the original virtues of the web out of the current set of technologies.
It's a tricky thing to do, and I wish them luck.