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Comment by Moodles | Hacker News Reader

I appreciate articles that look into topics in some depth that I’m curious about. But I really dislike the author’s strident writing style. Now, if there’s a single exaggeration or untruth from the author, It’ll throw the rest of the article in doubt for me. I think it would be better if it was a bit more dispassionate.

Another thing I’ve noticed in security (and I actually work in this field) is that if a project makes some progress but doesn’t address all the things (e.g. Signal end-to-end encryption for the masses but it uses a phone number or isn’t federalized), people criticise so strongly. It’s like, ok, but give some (actually a lot) of credit because it’s literally the best option right now?

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Most of the article is in fact factually incorrect.

The main thesis is that: Brave's adblocker is just uBlock Origin and so it's better to just use uBlock Origin on FF.

But Brave's adblocker is not just uBlock Origin so the entire article falls apart.

Everything else is just trying to misrepresent everything in the worst possible light.

> It is said that this might be a backdoor. But I don’t want to get conspiracist. I prefer giving you verifiable facts. I’ll limit myself to inform you about suspicious activities.

Righttt... we're not children, we all know what you're trying to do here.

On mobile, it's not as easy to say "use FF Android". Desktop FF is fine, and it's what I use, but on mobile FF is not as fast as Chromium based browsers. Text-heavy content is fine everywhere, but for sites that are more interactive, Chromium based browsers usually deliver less choppy performance.

The entire blog reads like a conspiracy theory 4chan /g/ fever dream

It's a personal website, not a corporate blog. Why does it have to be dispassionate? The tone is strident, but there are no personal attacks or abusive language used.

Huh? I’m not saying there should be a law. I’m just saying I think it would be more effective and persuasive if it was more dispassionate. It’s my personal opinion.

OK, thanks for the clarification. I misunderstood your earlier comment.

Is the writing very strident? To me it didn’t really come across as such, though I guess standards differ when it comes to largely technical writing compared with other types of writing (e.g. on politics).

> But I really dislike the author’s strident writing style.

Colorful and emotional language gets attention. Dispassionate writing doesn't. Whenever I see people criticize an author for a little rhetorical flair, I play the famous "Pirates of the Caribbean" scene in my mind:

Hacker News: "Your article is the most strident and obnoxious piece of technical writing I've ever heard of"

Author: "Ah, but you have heard of it!"

I think this is a popular narrative, but I don't think it's true. Especially in HN, some of the best articles I can remember aren't angry people being obnoxious, but can even be highly-technical and entirely dispassionate.

Also, I am not sure people do remember these types of articles. Perhaps they remember some notion of the content, but I'm doubtful many detractors would remember the author.

my ideal article tells me everything I need to know in simple language, without meander or emotion. that’s rare even here

Yeah clickbait sells, but I’m saying if there’s a single error, combined with the emotional tone, I’m more likely to discount the whole article and think they’re just extremely biased and blinded by their emotions.

this is one of the major problems with the current media landscape. all publicity is good publicity. look at Trump. look at the Paul brothers. HN is one of the few safe harbours from that. personally, I’d like to keep it that way

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