draft0 - a shared blog by just some people

Really? That simple?

Don't get me wrong: I doesn't feel like an improvement to disable JavaScript entirely. There are browser extensions that let you control which pages are allowed to serve scripts and which scripts you want to execute. I've tried that, but it's complicated to get it right and frustrating because you always have to configure stuff while browsing and that never stops. But maybe it is an improvement despite not feeling like one at first. I mean, quitting to take drugs to which your brain has developed a strong chemical dependency also is often a worse experience than continuing to take them. But also often it's worth getting used to not taking them anymore. It also doesn't seem like an improvement to only use search engines with tiny indexes that rarely return with the ideal search result you hoped for. Maybe this isn't a viable choice. I think there is no search engine of that type with a large enough index to recommend it for daily use. Those projects just aren't there, yet. But that may just be one more reason to use and support them more. And since they do get rid of all the sites that do things that I don't like, it could be an improvement to get used to using them.

What does that mean in practice?

Some web sites don't have any images anymore, some web sites only load ads and recommendations, but not the actual article, modern closed-platform chat apps don't work, just as most other sites that can be called web apps, keyboard focus doesn't start at the main input field, some sites aren't readable because all their styles are missing, burrying the content between or under thousands of things that should have started out hidden or resized, on some sites certain links aren't working anymore, many audio and video players don't work because of attempts to prevent permanent file downloads and there are pretty much no ads. If you use a browser with a less than very popular rendering engine, add misaligned elements on many to almost all web sites, unreadable elements on some sites with unconventional styling and missing elements if they use unusual positioning options. If you only use a search engine that doesn't do commercial sites or whitelists desirable sites, add to that the feeling of trying out the web in 1995 unless you navigate to specific sites that you know contain what you are looking for. The web feels relatively small with a search engine like that. But even then it's huge. Maybe it's a quiestion of what you expect. If you really don't know what site you are looking for, use a universal search engine. If you have an idea where to find the information you are looking for, start at that site. It might be Wikipedia, Slashdot, Toms Hardware, an Invidious instance. The web is totally usable if you don't enter everything in the same search engine as a refrex. I thought it was great at a time where we didn't do that. And for the rest (missing content, non-working sites): Those tend to be the sites that I wanted to filter out in the first place. So the endeavour seems to work as intended.

There are also sites that I would like to read that just happen to use a CSS trick or JavaScript that isn't supported by all browsers. Those are sites that don't pay a lot of attention to accessability design guides but don't have any bad intentions. I've made sites like this myself before. This article is being posted to sites that fall in this category if you will. Feel free to contact makers of those sites to let them know that you would appreciate being able to read the pages. I know I should test a site in text browsers before publishing them. I never do. Nowadays I don't even test in any other browser than the main one that I'm using (except when using engine-specific style rules). We came to accept that it just looks the same in all browsers. That is something that web designers always wished for. And when Microsoft's browsers improved in this regard it felt like we were there. But it is also true that most users of the web use a browser with one of two/three engines (depends on where you make the cut and call it a new engine after a fork). I think it does still make sense to test a web site in different browser engines. It doesn't have to look great in a text browser (although that would be the best), but maybe Dillo and NetSurf. If you cover those two, you cover pretty much everybody and you don't even have to test the site in Firefox or Chromium.

So, what did I change? For work: Nothing. Corporate dictates what software I use for what. On my private laptop, I currently use NetSurf as my main web browser. I use LibreWolf for two purposes: Copying individual bookmarks or URLs from open tabs, and going to sites that don't work in NetSurf when I don't have the time to find an alternative solution. For chat apps I use their "native apps" although I suspect that they are all just the web apps shipped with their own browser. For social media I'm trying out different Mastodon/fediverse clients for Linux, which I wanted to do for a while anyway. For search I'm currently using various Searx/SearXNG instances. (I know, not that alternative. I don't want to ruin everything at once for me.) More than recently I deliberately navigate to a specific site instead of using a search engine and ending up on a site that I already knew. When looking for something on eBay, I don't find as many interesting things like before because the pictures are missing and I don't needlessly buy things as much now. When searching for some random information or doing some curiosity research I close many search results directly or very soom after opening them because they aren't displayed properly. So far that doesn't bother me much. I'm already used to having to close tabs again right away because of cookie banners and other popups that make it impossible to get to the content without finishing a maze and reading a bunch of things for at least a minute. Now I open and close more search results, but get my ansers anyway. On video platforms, I open the video in an external player. It's nicer to have the player of my choice with my prefered UI and my custom configuration anyway. Some sites simulaniously look worse and better at the same time. I may have to scroll a bit to the content and it is obvious that the page wasn't designed to look exactly like that. But at least I don't get any grafical animations, lots of side-loaded unrelated content or ads. For shopping my options are very narrow. I already stopped using Amazon for other reasons a while ago. It's really not as much of a hassle as people seem to think. But much more shops than I expected rely on JavaScript for purchasing or logging in nowadays. (Probably at least for a CAPTHA.) It's pretty much all, actually. According to my rule from earlier, those are apps though, and there would be better ways to implement those. So, I don't have a solution other than switching back to LibreWolf or an app on my phone when I need to buy something online. So far, I didn't actually need anything, though. For online banking, sending a message to my insurance, using the Wayback machine and I predict much more, it is the same. For some things I will try to find alternatives. For others I will realise I don't have to. For some sites that I want to consume for enternainment it's disappointing when they don't work. There are so many alternaives for entertainment in all categories. I have so many ebooks, web books, audio books, lecture recordings, podcasts, … that I would like to consume when I get the time and energy to, I really don't need whatever interesting thing I've just found or somebody has just recommended. But now that I know it's there, I don't want to miss out. So far, this has been largest part of my negative experience after switching. But I haven't been at it for long. I'm curious to see how this will go for me.

Edited in November 2025 (one year later) to add: This endeaver has not worked out for long. More and more I switched bach to LibreWolf and more and more I felt I had to use a site without wanting to look for alternatives. I also completely gave up using alternative search engines and when I started using a new PC I didn't even install any other browser than LibreWolf. I made several attempts at getting used at some of the aspects of a less complex and less commercial web experience. But it didn't stick, for the reasons you may have expected and not done the same experiment yourself. But there will be more attempts from me to get used to search engines with less commercial results. And I did get used to some things. Apart from exclusively using alternative Youube frontends and sometimes trying small search engines first, I more often in the past visit blogs, aggregators or web directories for browsing instead of social media feeds. And that is a great thing to get used to, I think.