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-- Meta line: 20 text/gemini
Some will argue that browsing with w3m is not actually browsing, as w3m is not a browser. Their definition of browsing probably runs along the lines of "get lubed up and wrestle with a JavaScript Application", for which w3m is no good. I consider this a feature.
> To use the Mastodon web application, please enable JavaScript. Alternatively, try one of the native apps for Mastodon for your platform.
Otherwise, there are many--too many--sites to browse in w3m, even if some of them say or look kind of funny.
notice
javascript required to view this site
why
measured improvement in server performance
awesome incremental search
By the principle of least astonishment, a text site should have a text option; this site must be satire, or, worse, the work of a True Believer. I mean, sure, maybe you can shave a few cents off of your electrical bill by generating the HTML many times on the clients. The debate here may revolve around "should the edge node be dumb, or smart?"
but mandating JavaScript and therefore a "heavyweight champion" browser probably requires that we dip our toe into
> You are viewing this page in an unauthorized frame window.
>
> This is a potential security issue, you are being redirected to https://nvd.nist.gov
>
> You have JavaScript disabled. This site requires JavaScript to be enabled for complete site functionality.
There is a CVE database to download, probably more useful than being lectured on whatever an "unauthorized fame window" is. But hitting up those CVE pages does work in w3m well enough, the funny text aside. Maybe the feds have a sense of humor?
And why you would want to have JavaScript running about whilst searching for the JavaScript vulnerability du jour? Luckily, humans handle cognitive dissonance pretty well.
> Chrome's eighth zero-day fix in 2022
>
> Chrome version 107.0.5304.121/122 fixes the eighth actively exploited zero-day vulnerability this year, indicating the high interest of attackers against the widely used browser.
This is not very funny. （笑）
Or maybe there is humor value in such a trash operating system being so heavily encouraged and virtually mandatory for "keeping up with the Joneses"? Gallows humor, I suppose.
> The FBI recommends individuals take the following precautions ... Use an ad blocking extension when performing internet searches
Put on yer muckin' waders, boy, because this here pond is filthy!
> Checking if the site connection is secure
>
> Enable JavaScript and cookies to continue
> www.science.org needs to review the security of your connection before proceeding.
> Ray ID: 7a7dff37ad6cc648
> Performance & security by Cloudflare
Yeah, how about "no".
> HTML pages are like puzzles you have to reconstructs[sic] to try to understand what the person is talking about. And, on most occasions, there's nothing to be found. The writer is only trying to attract attention, not to say something.
News sites often suffer from this problem. Let's try the head of an article from the New York Times, something of a paper of record.
> Sections
> SEARCH
> Skip to contentSkip to site index
> Technology
>
> Today’s Paper
> Technology|Resignations Roil Twitter as Elon Musk Tries Persuading Some Workers to Stay
>
> • Give this articleGive this articleGive this article
> •
> •
> • 2735
>
> Elon Musk’s Twitter Takeover
>
> • An Exodus of Employees
> • Inside Musk’s Takeover
> • Fake Accounts Create Havoc
There is certainly a fair amount of noise on this page, more than one would see in print. Coherence is lacking from the long preamble, mixin of random links, and presumably images and ads and those dreadful popups if you make the error of using a JavaScript Application. Apparently some browsers have some sort of reader mode to help make this less bad? And the funny thing: why was reader mode invented? Was the signal to noise ratio a bit out of whack, perhaps?
Or, consider the following web page, which for me was spread out across three pages:
versus a text treatment of a similar problem:
Can you see any differences in presentation and clarity of the problem? Basicallly the modern web site speads the information out all over the place--that signal to noise ratio, again--and even if you are brave enough to fire up a browser:
< mauke> the funny thing is that even in a graphical browser the
actual content on glot.io is tiny
There are of course mandatory(?) web pages that mandate JavaScript. Let's see how a recent one went.
< highplainsdruid> the interactive web is pretty useful
< thrig> no, not really, just emailed some Dentist that their
web form is broken
It was a pretty website (and the CPU fans were running) but looks don't count for much when the "Submit" button is broken, and nothing indicates what the error is or how to fix it. Perhaps required input was missing from one of the previous four tabs, or maybe the site requires Internet Explorer. On some sites you can change the User-Agent to Internet Explorer and then things magically start working. Funny, that.
Fragility is a word that comes to mind; use the wrong browser or miss one form element and failure. Then you'll need effort from a HTML programmer to say why, then probably more code to check for missing elements on previous tabs, or maybe some justification as to why the JavaScript Application is not portable beyond Internet Explorer, or whatever name Internet Explorer goes by these days.
I do have w3m set to send "Internet Exporer 8" as the User-Agent; this of course surfaces various broken sites that waste time checking this header. Firefox, in the rare case I do need to fire it up, bears the User-Agent of something like "bloaty bloatware" which has the pleasant effect of knocking gmail back to no-JavaScript mode.
Strcat_charp(s, "User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 8.0; WOW64; Trident/4.0; SLCC2; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; .NET CLR 3.0.30729; Media Center PC 6.0; .NET4.0C; .NET4.0E; MS-RTC LM 8)\r\n");
Ain't she a beauty?
tags #legacyweb #w3m #javascript #humor #security
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