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RIP Internet of old. The Internet is truly going to shit from all angles. Squeezed by ever rising costs to get on the net. Bombarded by ads on every single page

RIP Internet of old. The Internet is truly going to shit from all angles. Squeezed by ever rising costs to get on the net. Bombarded by ads on every single page (trying to browse the net on a mobile device and most sites take up 40-50% of screen real estate on ads). Subs on top of subs for every single service. We really are entering a dark era.

tester756 2y ago
Consider using Firefox + some kind of adblock
- spartanatreyu 2y ago
  Firefox and uBlock Origin on Android are amazing. Sometimes I'll randomly open something with Chrome by mistake and just seeing 70% of the article filled with pop-up ads makes my brain just shuts down thinking about regular people.
  - lupire 2y ago
    Except that Firefox + uBlock renders many, many websites and apps poorly.
    - bsjaux628 2y ago
      And still a better experience than chrome with ads, plus I almost never encounter a website with problems
      - hedora 2y ago
        I haven't hit any real problems with Firefox. Maybe it's the sites I visit. Mostly news, shopping, and tech stuff. The only real exception I can think of is that Google Meet's audio quality has recently been worse under Firefox than under Safari's. My guess is that the issue is on Google's end (since Firefox used to be fine), or that maybe Safari has access to some special microphone APIs.
        gordonfish 2y ago
        Since you mentioned Safari, I assume that you're on MacOS where Firefox and other alternative browsers are effectively hindered at the framework/API level there, as such browsers have problems there that don't occur Linux or Windows. For example, the audio in FF outside of Apple sounds real clear and overall great in my experience.
    - tarxvf 2y ago
      I can't think of a single one where Firefox and uBO cause issues.
    - MathMonkeyMan 2y ago
      It renders them correctly, just not always exactly the same as Chrome. It's hard to blame devs for not testing on a browser with so little market share. Some Javascript or maybe Canvas heavy pages run much more slowly on Firefox and are almost unusable on Firefox for Android. I find that this is rare, though. I'll keep using Firefox + uBlock + Personal Blocklist + Dark Reader + Disable Javascript + Disable CSS + Tampermonkey + Old Reddit Redirect + CORS Everywhere + Consent-O-Matic + Hide YouTube Shorts + Load Reddit Images Directly + ...
    - asadotzler 2y ago
      I find that 99%+ of sites render far better in Firefox with uBlock Origin than with Chrome. Pages render prettier, faster, and more readable. The 1% of pages that render worse are still faster and generally more readable if not quite as pretty. That's a trade I'll make any day.
    - gordonfish 2y ago
      I have yet to encounter a site, that wasn't broken server side in some way, that didn't render usefully. Please cite some actual examples.
    - spartanatreyu 2y ago
      Have you got any examples, because this has not been my experience at all. Not even in the slightest.
  - xinayder 2y ago
    Unfortunately, Firefox on Android still has a long way to go. I have to resort to using Chromite (Bromite fork) with NextDNS for adblocking, otherwise the browsing experience on mobile is not really good.
screamingninja 2y ago
Try NextDNS: https://nextdns.io/ https://nextdns.io/
gamepsys 2y ago
We must be on different internets. The one I'm on is having a golden era. * My current ISP offers greater than 1000/1000 fiber for a smaller monthly payment than my first home broadband connection in 2003. Adjust for inflation it's probably 1/2 the cost while being over 50 times better. It's incomparable to the dial up before then. * I don't see a lot of ads on the internet. If I see an ad on a website I either upgrade my adblock or I stop going to that website. * I don't have a ton of subscription services. If you were to tally my subscription services and weigh them against what I previously used for competing services I am saving a ton of money. Cable TV, DVDs, and CDs were expensive. * It's so casual and fun to jump on a voice call with a group of friends to play a game, or someone shares a screen of an anime and we have a little movie night. It's so easy to see what games my friends are playing. It's so easy to watch any movie I want, or listen to any song that I want, or play any game I want. The tools to have fun online are way better than ever. * It's possible to learn about anything I am curious about. You can do everything, from getting a highschool level lecture to read the latest research from the top researchers. I often find experts willing to answer my questions, even though I am coming in as a complete stranger. * I absolutely love the move towards more independent publishing. The number of interesting people I follow on twitter, or youtube, or watch on twitch is insane. Before the internet media felt like a monoculture with everyone watching the same 40 channels on TV every night. I'm subscribed to indie newsletters instead of magazines. I'm watching Starcraft 2 tournaments instead of the superbowl. Some of this was around before the internet, but it's much more now and the long term trend is looking great. * I can get involved in so many interesting conversations, and I rarely have problems finding interesting conversations to listen in on or join in on. People from all walks of life, with all kinds of perspectives.
- squigz 2y ago
  While I agree with you that the Internet is not in such a dark place as some people think, I will play devil's advocate and make a couple points in regard to what you said: - If the industry gets its way, adblockers will become illegal or practically unusable. - I get the impression you don't shy away from pirating. For those that don't engage in it, for one reason or another, it's a lot harder to e.g., watch any movie they want. What service is it? How much? Is it available in your country? Is something you saw was on there last week still there? Etc. This also generally applies to most other forms of media (games, music, etc) - Screensharing for movie nights and such is slowly becoming more difficult, as more services implement DRM which disables capturing video (or even screenshots?!) from a stream Again, I don't agree that the Internet is dying, or it's become a "monoculture," or anything like that - but we do have to be wary of the direction some groups would love to take it.

tester756 2y ago

Consider using Firefox + some kind of adblock

spartanatreyu 2y ago
Firefox and uBlock Origin on Android are amazing. Sometimes I'll randomly open something with Chrome by mistake and just seeing 70% of the article filled with pop-up ads makes my brain just shuts down thinking about regular people.
- lupire 2y ago
  Except that Firefox + uBlock renders many, many websites and apps poorly.
  - bsjaux628 2y ago
    And still a better experience than chrome with ads, plus I almost never encounter a website with problems
    - hedora 2y ago
      I haven't hit any real problems with Firefox. Maybe it's the sites I visit. Mostly news, shopping, and tech stuff. The only real exception I can think of is that Google Meet's audio quality has recently been worse under Firefox than under Safari's. My guess is that the issue is on Google's end (since Firefox used to be fine), or that maybe Safari has access to some special microphone APIs.
      - gordonfish 2y ago
        Since you mentioned Safari, I assume that you're on MacOS where Firefox and other alternative browsers are effectively hindered at the framework/API level there, as such browsers have problems there that don't occur Linux or Windows. For example, the audio in FF outside of Apple sounds real clear and overall great in my experience.
  - tarxvf 2y ago
    I can't think of a single one where Firefox and uBO cause issues.
  - MathMonkeyMan 2y ago
    It renders them correctly, just not always exactly the same as Chrome. It's hard to blame devs for not testing on a browser with so little market share. Some Javascript or maybe Canvas heavy pages run much more slowly on Firefox and are almost unusable on Firefox for Android. I find that this is rare, though. I'll keep using Firefox + uBlock + Personal Blocklist + Dark Reader + Disable Javascript + Disable CSS + Tampermonkey + Old Reddit Redirect + CORS Everywhere + Consent-O-Matic + Hide YouTube Shorts + Load Reddit Images Directly + ...
  - asadotzler 2y ago
    I find that 99%+ of sites render far better in Firefox with uBlock Origin than with Chrome. Pages render prettier, faster, and more readable. The 1% of pages that render worse are still faster and generally more readable if not quite as pretty. That's a trade I'll make any day.
  - gordonfish 2y ago
    I have yet to encounter a site, that wasn't broken server side in some way, that didn't render usefully. Please cite some actual examples.
  - spartanatreyu 2y ago
    Have you got any examples, because this has not been my experience at all. Not even in the slightest.
- xinayder 2y ago
  Unfortunately, Firefox on Android still has a long way to go. I have to resort to using Chromite (Bromite fork) with NextDNS for adblocking, otherwise the browsing experience on mobile is not really good.

screamingninja 2y ago

Try NextDNS: https://nextdns.io/ https://nextdns.io/

gamepsys 2y ago

We must be on different internets. The one I'm on is having a golden era. * My current ISP offers greater than 1000/1000 fiber for a smaller monthly payment than my first home broadband connection in 2003. Adjust for inflation it's probably 1/2 the cost while being over 50 times better. It's incomparable to the dial up before then. * I don't see a lot of ads on the internet. If I see an ad on a website I either upgrade my adblock or I stop going to that website. * I don't have a ton of subscription services. If you were to tally my subscription services and weigh them against what I previously used for competing services I am saving a ton of money. Cable TV, DVDs, and CDs were expensive. * It's so casual and fun to jump on a voice call with a group of friends to play a game, or someone shares a screen of an anime and we have a little movie night. It's so easy to see what games my friends are playing. It's so easy to watch any movie I want, or listen to any song that I want, or play any game I want. The tools to have fun online are way better than ever. * It's possible to learn about anything I am curious about. You can do everything, from getting a highschool level lecture to read the latest research from the top researchers. I often find experts willing to answer my questions, even though I am coming in as a complete stranger. * I absolutely love the move towards more independent publishing. The number of interesting people I follow on twitter, or youtube, or watch on twitch is insane. Before the internet media felt like a monoculture with everyone watching the same 40 channels on TV every night. I'm subscribed to indie newsletters instead of magazines. I'm watching Starcraft 2 tournaments instead of the superbowl. Some of this was around before the internet, but it's much more now and the long term trend is looking great. * I can get involved in so many interesting conversations, and I rarely have problems finding interesting conversations to listen in on or join in on. People from all walks of life, with all kinds of perspectives.

squigz 2y ago
While I agree with you that the Internet is not in such a dark place as some people think, I will play devil's advocate and make a couple points in regard to what you said: - If the industry gets its way, adblockers will become illegal or practically unusable. - I get the impression you don't shy away from pirating. For those that don't engage in it, for one reason or another, it's a lot harder to e.g., watch any movie they want. What service is it? How much? Is it available in your country? Is something you saw was on there last week still there? Etc. This also generally applies to most other forms of media (games, music, etc) - Screensharing for movie nights and such is slowly becoming more difficult, as more services implement DRM which disables capturing video (or even screenshots?!) from a stream Again, I don't agree that the Internet is dying, or it's become a "monoculture," or anything like that - but we do have to be wary of the direction some groups would love to take it.