Death to the bullshit web

_posts/2018-08-01-the-bullshit-web.md

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+---
+layout: post
+title: Coping with The Bullshit Web
+tags:
+- opinion
+---
+
+I recently came across [this post](https://pxlnv.com/blog/bullshit-web/) from
+Nick Heer castigating "the bullshit web." A term he uses to describe the fairly
+despicable state of modern web applications. While I overwhelmingly agree with
+the points he lays out, especially in his disparaging remarks towards
+[AMP](https://www.ampproject.org/), I think there's more to be said about
+alternative approaches for web users to once again experience the web without the
+bullshit.
+
+My personal computing setup is a bit towards the extreme, so I understand that
+most people will not utilize the approaches I favor, but I will list them here
+nonetheless.
+
+* **Navigating to mobile sites by default**: one easy trick which I've utilized
+  on a number of international data connections is to default to using a web
+  site's mobile version, even though I'm on laptop (heresy!). A number of sites,
+  excluding news sites, become much more pleasant for mobile users due to the
+  constraints on CPU and network most mobile devices have.
+* [NoScript](https://noscript.net): I have used NoScript, and it's Chrome
+  analogue
+  [ScriptSafe](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/scriptsafe/oiigbmnaadbkfbmpbfijlflahbdbdgdf),
+  for quite some time to block enormous amounts of JavaScript being loaded by
+  various pages. This is a very big hammer to wield against the bullshit web,
+  which makes it extremely effective but it requires a bit of understanding about
+  what domains contain adware or surveillance scripts versus those which are
+  simply part of the web application, despite being served from another domain.
+  Special dishonorable mention here to all the CloudFront users whose CDN domains
+  are completely opaque and impossible to determine whether they're serving
+  legitimate application code or adware.
+* [Tor Browser](https://www.torproject.org/projects/torbrowser.html.en): one
+  aspect of the bullshit web which I find particularly obnoxious is the
+  tracking, especially done on an IP basis. I've seen numerous people complain
+  in forums, and even within my own family, that "something creepy" was going on
+  when they saw an ad on an unrelated website for something they referenced in a
+  Facebook post, or had Googled. While NoScript by itself does an admirable job
+  preventing surveillance by tracker/beacon scripts, many larger web companies
+  will track you based on the browsr's fingerprint or your IP address. The Tor
+  Browser utilizes the Tor network to provide an anonymization layer upon which I
+  rely **heavily**. A non-trivial amount of my every day web traffic is routed
+  over the Tor network, further helping me opt out of the bullshit web.
+* `w3m`: as I mentioned in my blog post last year [In Defense of Being a
+  Console Luddite](/2017/02/10/being-a-console-luddite.html), you would be
+  surprised how much faster everything gets when you cut the web down to it's
+  most basic, content-centric, components. While only a small percentage of my
+  traffic ends up going through the `w3m` text-based browser, I find it quite
+  useful for quickly getting answers without ever leaving my terminal (where I'm
+  typically working anyways).
+
+
+Most of these approaches are good for the web-as-a-document-centric-universe,
+but perform much more poorly with the web-as-an-application-platform. For many
+web applications there is simply no practical way around a heavy browser-based
+experience (e.g. Confluence, Jira, Slack). For these applications I don't have
+much advice except to "vote with your wallet", or as is the case for many
+people, advocate internally for better tools which are lighter weight or
+support alternative nad more native interfaces.
+
+
+Regardless of how you accomplish it, I hope you'll echo Nick's closing rally
+cry:
+
+**Death to the bullshit web**.