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nonrandomstring

Me too.

I've a simple but strict set of security rules for whether I'll use a website.

- it does not want to run javascript

- that I can access it over Tor without being blocked

- that it will work in a text based browser like elinks

Despite the protestations by idealogues that no such sites exist, HN meets all those requirements, as do dozens of useful sites I regularly use.

If and only if I get to evaluate the quality of a site based on those requirements, I may eventually register, with nothing more than an email, in order to post replies.

Quora fell off that list long ago. More recently so did StackExchange.

Often I find that things break as soon as Cloudflare proxies are involved.

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You must agree that for almost every web-based product, designers and product managers can safely decide to completely ignore all people who have requirements like yours without it ever affecting their success.

Not only can they ignore such users, they have to.

And yet here I am, the annoying fly in the ointment of your hypothesis, no?

One thing I like about HN is that they make the same amount of money off of me whether I run JavaScript or not. I imagine we can agree there...

Oh indeed. What a wonderful training set this will make one day when it's sold. We'll be too sore to sit down in the morning, but right now at least we're getting a reach-around.

Given that HN has a public API to export all the conversations nobody needs to wait for that day to make it into a training set. In fact, I would be extremely surprised if it hasn't already been trained on.

Yes I absolutely do agree with that.

Designers and product managers may completely ignore people like me, trample all over our needs and ignore us. Why would they care about the one percent. All good luck power to them and their values.

But I am also not the least bit concerned with whether their products are a success or not. Why would I care if they do not?

Yet I cannot concur that "almost every" site does. No, there are some that do. Moreover, those sites seem to self curate as being of very good quality. So I am happy that there are thoughtful, intelligent people out there who "get it". When they stop, so do I, and just move on. It's not personal and I'm not invested in them.

It’s not 1%, more like 0.005%.

You're not even 1%, maybe .000001%

My experience running websites tells me that ignoring people like you is actually mandatory because they'll take up all your time and have opposite tastes of contributing users.

> people like you

eeeeeeeewww! That's not a great look is it!?

^^^ delete button maybe?

> have opposite tastes of contributing users.

The people you exclude are unlike the contributing users.... yep no tautology there then :)

Hmm I was going to say something about Stallman-like fanaticism, but then I remembered Stallman proved to be mostly right...

Richard is most concerned about injustices toward people that take away their freedoms. I am most concerned about the security of people and how software makes them insecure in order to profit from, or abuse them. These are proximate but different.

It is a bit worrying that both freedom and security are thought 'fanatical' by some.

> It is a bit worrying that both freedom and security are thought 'fanatical' by some.

Because those are your grandpa's and your dad's causes, respectively. The operative word for this generation is "consent."

Manipulate someone into giving Consent and you can do whatever the hell you want to them. They asked for and agreed to the abuse!

It all starts with clicking "I accept."

My skin crawls anytime I see someone bring it up; it's a red flag that someone is trying to apply BDSM protocol negotiation to an otherwise-simple interaction. Attorneys do this shit too. People only ever do it at all when they're trying to rewrite the rules in their favor.

> It all starts with clicking "I accept."

You don't have to click 'I accept'. If the dialog is too complex to figure out what you're accepting, click reject or close the page.

If there is no obvious reject (even if there is a hidden one) just close the page and never come back.

In all honesty I think grandpa's and dad's causes were getting home with all their arms legs still attached, but I hear you. Once the sound of trumpets fades and the flags are folded, it's hard to get out of your head what has been internalised so deeply. Yeah they're just words, usually uttered by men who've sacrificed nothing.

But hey, this thing about "consent". Jolly interesting. Because not a single person I've met born after 2000 really has the capacity

I do not mean that in a disparaging way, but I do mean it in a serious legal sense. I don't think that in the 21st century the vast majority of adults have the capacity to consent to digital contracts. It started with EULAs, and has since plunged the entire legal profession into degeneracy. It's total failure to protect the lives of common people from technology predators is shameful.

> It is a bit worrying that both freedom and security are thought 'fanatical' by some.

I'm afraid any discourse that's similar to religion in how it's done is 'fanatical' for me. No matter if it's about $DEITY, blockchain, "AI" or freedom.

Edit: oh, forgot Oppenheimer and Barbie. Haven't seen them and never will. I can't stand cults in my entertainment either.

I can 100% guarantees you that Quora didn’t die because of people who didn’t want to run JavaScript or be able to access it over Tor.

Surely my absence played no pivotal role in their downfall. I didn't even know Quora had "died". How sad. RIP Quora. But a tjpnz said:

"They're also driving away contributors with more altruistic motivations"

Now, I can agree with that, because I see a very strong alignment between the set of people who strongly uphold their own values and have self-respect, and those who stand up for the rights of others and have something to give.

The "walled garden" internet basically drives away people who give a fuck.

One other way of saying “drives away people who give a fuck” could be saying those people are self-aggrandizing, self important, always yelling at the top of their lungs about their zealotry telling everyone at first opportunity about how they turn off JavaScript and don’t contribute the much to the discussion

I liken people like this to the Amish. They balk at modernity as being incompatible with their beliefs. So they withdraw from the world and live life as they see fit.

What they don’t do is go around all the time yelling at people telling them how their lifestyle is wrong or constantly telling other people how they don’t use certain technologies.

That really flipped your wig didn't it?

I'm intellectually curious, what you're so deeply invested in that was just threatened?

He’s right, people who always talk about they don’t use sites that require Javacript adds about as much to the conversation as people who show up in television conversations and say “I haven’t owned a television in 20 years, do people still watch TV?”

Forget about me for a moment.

Does Javascript really mean something important to you?

Not running JavaScript in 2024 is like putting a speed governor on your own car that limits you to going 35 miles an hour.

It serves no useful purpose

> It serves no useful purpose

No useful purpose to who?

What purpose do you have for removing functionality that has been part of the web since the 90s?

Of course. What I do not want or need is code that's been part of the web since about 2016-2020, which is arbitrary code execution by complete strangers. Not even in a sandboxed disposable web browser.

Now I suspect you'll want to tell me how actually Javascript is perfectly safe... and that's a conversation we can save for another day for the sake of both our dignity and friendship. I'm afraid it's my job to know otherwise.

Well despite your appeal to authority…

If you knew about that many exploits in the wild, surely you could (white hat) tell the company who created the browser or (black hat) make a lot of money by selling it to three letter agencies or private companies that sell it to three letter agencies.

However, in the real world, a fully patched Android or iOS operating system - especially one that is in “lock down mode” is not any more susceptible to Zero day exploits than the number of other exploitable parts of the OS that you also don’t have any control over.

And even if you only run open source software, how long was the OpenSSL bug in operating systems before it was discovered?

Do you use your mobile’s messaging system? That’s been one of the primary targets of exploits that will target you directly.

I appreciate your sincere and sweet overtures scarface, but I'm just not that kinda javascript girl. You're right though, everything out there is riddled with holes. Let's not give up though.

If we stick with that analogy, then since HN requires no Javascript, it's more like we're having a discussion on a radio show, and I am saying "I don't really watch much TV", no?

What I hear is that Javascript is a means of speed and power to you. And for you, forgoing that power would serve no useful purpose. Do I understand that correctly?

What I am wondering is, do you think that for other people, they should, maybe even must, feel the same way? Even if they are very pleased just listening to the radio?

Well, how many people do you really think disable JavaScript and want to browse the web over Tor?

It's not completely unrelated I think.

It's hard to me to see how a site with a vision like Quora (had) can continue existing for long after they start ignoring accessibility issues.

Sounds like I should be looking for a Stack Overflow alternative too.

(I'm suspecting that this might be related to the recent issue of better accessibility also making it easier to abuse for neural network based abusers, and it certainly looks like a hard problem to solve for the most popular websites.)

Accessibility is important. But it doesn’t relate to success of a company. Besides, modern screen readers and even accessibility affordances on modern cell phones - at least iPhones - don’t struggle or care whether the site uses JavaScript

This is not what users seem to say ?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39211037

> But it doesn’t relate to success of a company.

I am wondering what you mean by "success" of a company here? Is that purely financial success? Or rate of growth or something like that?

Financial success or rate of growth

Right and those are good things. Noble things. There's nothing wrong with making a few pennies and jobs for others.

But they are not the only things that define the success of a person, or a company. WOuld you agree?

> Sounds like I should be looking for a Stack Overflow alternative too.

SO went to hell when they started demanding ready to copy paste answers instead of 'teach the man how to fish' answers.

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