12 Matching Annotations
  1. Dec 2022
    1. Spend some time with Arc, the new browser from The Browser Company of New York.

      https://arc.net/

      First I've heard of this.

  2. Apr 2022
    1. work-around

      Bookmarklets and the JS console seem to be the workaround.

      For very large customizations, you may run into browser limits on the effective length of the bookmarklet URI. For a subset of well-formed programs, there is a way to store program parts in multiple bookmarklets, possibly loaded with the assistance of a separate bookmarklet "bootloader", although this would be tedious. The alternative is to use the JS console.

      In FIrefox, you can open a given script that you've stored on your computer by pressing Ctrl+O/Cmd+O, selecting the file as you would in any other program, and then pressing Enter. (Note that this means you might need to press Enter twice, since opening the file in question merely puts its contents into the console input and does not automatically execute it—sort of a hybrid clipboard thing.) I have not tested the limits of the console input for e.g. input size.

      As far as I know, you can also use the JS console to get around the design of the dubious WebExtensions APIs—by ignoring them completely and going back to the old days and using XPCOM/Gecko "private" APIs. The way you do is is to open about:addons by pressing Ctrl+Shift+A (or whatever), opening or pasting the code you want to run, and then pressing Enter. This should I think give you access to all the old familiar Mozilla internals. Note, though, that all bookmarklet functionality is disabled on about:addons (not just affecting bookmarklets that would otherwise violate CSP by loading e.g. an external script or dumping an inline one on the page`).

  3. Jan 2022
  4. Nov 2021
    1. A Web Browser Built for Me by Robin Rendle https://www.robinrendle.com/notes/a-web-browser-built-for-me/

    2. I think of the Kindle and what enormous potential that browser had to change our relationship with the internet, to push it towards a web that you read (instead of one that tries so very hard to read you).

      I love the phrase "a web that your read instead of one that tries so very hard to read you."

  5. Apr 2021
    1. Over the years, the machinery of targeted advertising has frequently been used for exploitation, discrimination, and harm. The ability to target people based on ethnicity, religion, gender, age, or ability allows discriminatory ads for jobs, housing, and credit. Targeting based on credit history—or characteristics systematically associated with it— enables predatory ads for high-interest loans. Targeting based on demographics, location, and political affiliation helps purveyors of politically motivated disinformation and voter suppression. All kinds of behavioral targeting increase the risk of convincing scams.

      a succinct summary of the harms of tracking and adtech

    2. The power to target is the power to discriminate. By definition, targeted ads allow advertisers to reach some kinds of people while excluding others. A targeting system may be used to decide who gets to see job postings or loan offers just as easily as it is to advertise shoes. 
    3. You should have a right to present different aspects of your identity in different contexts. If you visit a site for medical information, you might trust it with information about your health, but there’s no reason it needs to know what your politics are. Likewise, if you visit a retail website, it shouldn’t need to know whether you’ve recently read up on treatment for depression. FLoC erodes this separation of contexts, and instead presents the same behavioral summary to everyone you interact with.
  6. Oct 2016
    1. Way back in the beginning of time, IBM's OS/2 Warp operating system shipped with a web browser (sorry, I can't remember its name) that would show your browsing history as an outline.
  7. Apr 2016
    1. JavaScript creator Brendan Eich is working on a browser that blocks tracking, and replaces ads with less obtrusive ones. Websites can sign up to get a cut of the income from those ads. They'll also have a way for users to pay to visit sites ad-free.

      http://brave.com/<br> https://github.com/brave<br> https://twitter.com/brave

      It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Naturally, those obtrusive advertisers won't like it. I'd love it if sites I visit often could give me ads for stuff I might actually buy, especially if they received a generous cut of each sale.

  8. Oct 2015