Microsoft is killing off the Internet Explorer brand - <AUTHOR> http://americasmarkets.usatoday.com/2015/03/17/microsoft-is-killing-off-the-internet-explorer-brand/ <comment><USER2> I'm willing to give Spartan a chance, honestly. The ModernIE initiative taken by Microsoft the past few years feels like Microsoft gave IE to a team of competent engineers and told to run with it. They dropped support for older versions of IE and upgraded the technology behind it.

Firefox is too slow. As a power user I notice millisecond differences in page render times. I may be an outlier but I think most people who spend a lot of time on browsers will notice even small differences in load times. I've long switched from Chrome as my main browser, disliking the direction Google has been going with several of their products.

I might be an outlier, but I'll give Spartan a chance to impress. [As a side note, it's amazing how crippling to your reputation bad technology decisions are. IE 6-9 gutted respect for Microsoft]

<comment><USER3> I think you're being too mild in your side note.

The first half of the IE6-9 era was part of a deliberate scorched-earth strategy to harm the open Internet, and the second half was them furiously backpedalling from that when it failed.

It wasn't a technical decision, it was cynical business strategy, and having their IE brand get trashed is the least of what they deserve. I'm kind of annoyed with how quickly people are willing to forgive them, considering what bad actors they've been up until recently.

<comment><USER4> It certainly wasn't an act of altruism, but the entire modern web can trace it's AJAXy roots back to Microsoft's decision to eschew web standards. Microsoft added XMLHttpRequest to Internet Explorer so that they could develop Outlook Web Access.

IE may have had utterly stank HTML compatibility, but adding XMLHttpRequest and inventing AJAX was probably the single most profound changeset in the history of the web.

<comment><USER5> "Inventing Ajax" does not excuse the behavior though. Plus, I'm sure someone else would have come up with a similar idea not long after.

<comment><USER6> Such as not supporting XHTML until IE9.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> They killed that brand ages ago. Now they're going to stop mentioning its name.

<comment><USER8> Heh, exactly my thought when I saw the headline. As a webdeveloper since 1995, I can only say "phew, finally" \- that browser probably cost me 2-3 years of my life, spent hacking various webprojects to make them work in IE.

<comment><USER9> You forget the fact that IE used to be the best browser out there.Netscape ended up being total shit.

<comment><USER10> MSIE was _never_ the "best" browser. It may have been better than Netscape, but there were numerous alternatives -- Opera, Galeon, Konqueror, and more.

Eventually Mozilla / Phoenix / Firefox picked up the mantel. Then (somewhat) Chrome, though it's getting _really_ effing annoying these days.

<comment><USER11> IE 4 was far and away the best browser in its day. Nothing else was as fast and as reliable. Netscape had devolved into a steaming pile of garbage which had horrible resource usage problems aside from being massively unstable. Other competing browsers weren't much better than netscape either. It wasn't until years later that things changed.

<comment><USER12> But Netscape ran cross-platform, without which the WWW would have devolved into a Windows-only niche product. And that would have meant the only tablets today would be running Windows.

<comment><USER11> I don't think that follows. Also, it's not as though Netscape didn't have it's moments either. There was a time where it was better, a time where IE was better, a time where firefox was better, a time where chrome was better, and so on. Time marches on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> With this new CEO, Microsoft is a different company. Cloud & Mobile all the way. .NET/CLR is open-source. First class support for Linux and OS X. Commitment to standards.

At the risk of sounding like a complete lunatic, here's my prediction for the next 10 years:

* Microsoft abandon traditional Windows development. * They take a FreeBSD/Linux distro and add a "Windows" layer on top, ala Apple. Unix and Unix-like OS's become the only game in town. "Traditional" apps are emulated. New Apps are written in a CLR-compatible language _only_ for the modern runtime. * IIS, IE, Sivelight - all are left to stagnate. * Office becomes HTTP/JS, hosted only.

<comment><USER14> Can you elaborate on what MS would gain by tossing their rather fine kernel and using Linux/BSD? Particularly since that'd lose the massive amount of hardware support from current drivers.

<comment><USER15> One strong reason is to lure back developer love. One reason why most startups use Macs or linux machines is because open source libraries runs on linux and most of the time on OSX without much modifications. Windows is always an afterthought and is lucky if Windows support is available in a few months. MS knows this and knows that if the trend is not reversed soon, Windows market share will decline.

<comment><USER16> Most online SaaS/Internet startups? Yes. Maybe some on Azure too.

Every other type of business startup is going to use Windows because software. Call centers, restaurants, supermarkets, retail stores, real estate, financial, pharmaceutical, etc.

<comment><USER17> We are a SaaS startup using exclusively Azure. Minus the complete lack of a data warehousing/OLAP service, it's great!

<comment><USER14> Have you compared the cost of your compute/VMs to Google Compute Engine? When I did, Azure was literally double the cost. And it has useful SSD options which Azure doesn't yet have.

But Azure is a fairly cool product overall.

<comment><USER17> Also, no, we haven't. They don't provide native .NET, like Microsoft (obviously), access to all of their services. Azure's pretty much the only option for infrastructure-less .NET at the moment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> You know the world is going crazy when Google is evil, Apple is doing tacky devices and Microsoft makes the best browser

<comment><USER19> Honestly, that's true enough to be pretty funny.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> > "We'll continue to have Internet Explorer, but we'll also have a new browser > called Project Spartan"

Oh joy, another browser from Microsoft to test. :\

<comment><USER21> I don't know why you were down voted.

We have to support Ie7,8,9,10,11 and 11 for metro in and out of compatibility mode across three fucking platforms due to control styling differences. Now we have Spartan and whatever shtcrock will ship as legacy.

We'll lose IE7 when vista is dead. We'll be left with enterprise IE11 well into 2028!

Why? In financial services all our clients are cheap, dumb and incompetent. Unpatched win7 from "managed service providers" is the reality. If yore lucky they're not some hideous terminal services shit crock.

This is why we go "oh joy".

Its also why everyone who works at the places goes home to Apple and Android kit.

<comment><USER22> Is that really any different than if enterprise clients were demanding support for Firefox 2, Firefox 3, Firefox 4, etc? I've actually been in that situation, a place I worked in 2011 had a web app that only worked properly in Firefox 2.something.

Blame companies for demanding an app specific to one version. Blame the developers for writing apps that only work on one version. Blame Microsoft for making breaking changes between versions. But only one of those things is Microsoft's fault. They've been pushing people hard to update their browser since IE7 was released.

<comment><USER21> Actually its ensuring that all the show stopping bugs that IE has don't take our app out or make it unusable. Unfortunately clients don't upgrade their browsers if cost is involved.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I wonder if this is a way to get around backwards compatibility issues. If it's a new brand with a new name, maybe there won't be expectations that it will work like previous versions of IE.

</comment><comment><USER24> "We'll continue to have Internet Explorer, but we'll also have a new browser called Project Spartan, which is codenamed Project Spartan. We have to name the thing."

Ummm that's confusing. If you're going to kill it, kill it dead.

<comment><USER25> Well, they can't, because enterprise/legacy sites. They need to keep it kicking around.

But the non-awful modern browser, that won't be called IE.

<comment><USER26> Is there some proof of this outside of this USA Today article?

I came here with the exact same concern as the GP comment.

 _"We'll continue to have Internet Explorer, but we'll also have a new browser called Project Spartan... "_

It just reeks of marketing double-speak that gets engineers excited, only to find out that they're stuck maintaining code for N + 1 browsers now.

Incidentally, Microsoft rebranding exercises infuriate me. Arguably, Spartan is a "new" product, but by that measure any product rewrite should get a completely new, unrelated name rather than a version number. I remember COM + DispInterfaces ==> ActiveX, Outlook Express ==> MSN Messenger, MSN ==> Bing. It's just irritating and confusing to both developers and consumers.

<comment><USER27> AIUI, the version of Trident (i.e., mshtml.dll) shipping in Win10 is that of IE11. There shouldn't be any behavioural changes, and Trident should only be used in IE12 for intranet websites by default.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> > "Not that Internet Explorer branding will vanish entirely. It will still > exist in some versions of Windows 10, but Project Spartan will be the main > way Windows 10 users roam the Internet."

If IE was an issue for users, pretty sure that means they'll continue to use Firefox or Chrome, not Spartan.

<comment><USER29> _If IE was an issue for users, pretty sure that means they 'll continue to use Firefox or Chrome, not Spartan._

If Microsoft wants to "win the browser war", in my opinion the best thing they could do would be to create their own WebKit (or even Chromium) distribution and have it installed in Windows by default.

<comment><USER30> That may work, but it would be bad for the market overall. The more browser engines we have the better, least of all we wind up in another IE6-like situation where one browser/engine rules the world and dictates web-features.

PS - Yes, I know Google broke away from Apple's WebKit branch. But a lot of browsers are still very WebKit-like.

<comment><USER31> And that's also a pretty big reason why Microsoft may not want to be on WebKit. Google forked WebKit because it and Apple couldn't agree on what direction to take things. Why would Microsoft be able to work with either of Apple or Google than they could work together on WebKit? So it's very likely that it wouldn't be a WebKit-based browser, but a browser based on Microsoft's WebKit fork or Microsoft's Blink fork.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Does it really matter? Do they need a browser at all? Browsers are all pretty much interoperable now. What strategic advantage is there in developing and maintaining their own browser? Nobody pays for browsers. They _might_ pay for content or apps delivered in the browsers. That's what Microsoft should worry about. They've lost their browser monopoly, move on.

<comment><USER33> You maintain your own browser so that you can influence the development of the web. For example, Apple used Safari's influence to push touch events, Microsoft tried to use its influence to standardise pointer events, Google's been pushing NaCL, Dart etc.

In order to consistently have weight with changing CSS, HTML rendering etc you basically need your own browser - and most of the changes we've seen in the last few years have come out of Google, Mozilla, Microsoft, Apple.

<comment><USER34> There is also the issue of your army of tech staff doing demos and presentations using your competitors tools, or shipping your operating system with somebody elses browser installed.

Microsoft need a browser and always will.

<comment><USER35> [https://s3.amazonaws.com/images.seroundtable.com/matt- cutts-...](https://s3.amazonaws.com/images.seroundtable.com/matt-cutts-google- seo-future-1368536726.png)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Absurdly, users have to install Windows 10 to use this new browser. Why not write it in .net and have it work on all versions of Windows typically found in the wild?

<comment><USER37> Their goal is to have as many people running the current OS as possible. Every exception like that they make is an exception that keeps people using the old versions and keeps them scrambling to maintain them.

<comment><USER38> Some people are going to stick on the old OS no matter what. Their computer still works, why buy another?

We can stamp our feet or work with that reality. We have 70% of China on Windows XP with no hope of a modern browser from MS ([http://www.computerworld.com/article/2484761/microsoft- windo...](http://www.computerworld.com/article/2484761/microsoft- windows/china-has-a-massive-windows-xp-problem.html)). At least Chrome will work on those old systems. At least web devs can use modern features on those systems.

If the browser is the primary carrot to get someone to upgrade your OS, the OS value prop sucks.

<comment><USER37> First, you don't have to buy a new computer to get a newer version of Windows (especially since 10 seems to run just as well as 7/8 on the same hardware, if not better). Second, since MS is apparently offering free upgrades to 10 for consumers on 7/8 it doesn't seem like cost is really a factor. The China case is interesting, but I'd like to see some more recent figures on usage, since that article is about 2 years old. I did some quick searching, but everything I could find seemed to be from around that timeframe.

I don't know that the browser is a primary carrot, but it's part of the deal. If you can get enough of their new software to run on, say, Windows 7 to duplicate major functionality of 10, what's the point in upgrading at all? It doesn't make sense to have (people who will stick with the old OS no matter what) + (people who might upgrade, but don't because they can keep the old one and still get the cool new features of the new one) using older versions of Windows, thus increasing maintenance on old software.

<comment><USER38> 1/2: I'd posit the people using XP in 2015 are probably not the ones capable of upgrading their existing OS. New OS means new computer for them.

3: Users of every other OS are enticed by features other than the browser. Only Windows ties the OS to the browser.

<comment><USER37> > 1/2: I'd posit the people using XP in 2015 are probably not the ones capable > of upgrading their existing OS. New OS means new computer for them.

Are those people capable of installing a new browser after making the informed decision that it's better than IE 8?

> 3: Users of every other OS are enticed by features other than the browser. > Only Windows ties the OS to the browser.

Every other OS? Let's look at the major players in desktop computing: Windows and OSX. Windows has IE/Spartan, you can as of now only get them on Windows. OSX has Safari, there was an abortive attempt to develop it for Windows but it didn't take off and is now abandoned. I don't think this is too surprising. Here I am on OSX Mavericks making this post from Safari 7.1.3 because Safari 8 is only available for Yosemite. Given that the browser is the main piece of software that many consumers interact with, I think it's fair to say that the browser is still a significant value proposition, even if it's not the only one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I always thought the Internet Explorer branding was the one thing they got right. If you're not a technical person and you've got a new computer and you're trying to get onto the internet for the first time do you use:

      Firefox
      Chrome
      Opera
      Internet Explorer

The last one says exactly what you want to do.

<comment><USER40> I'd think something in the line of "Microsoft Web" or "Windows Web" would be better.

The name "Internet Explorer" was right, but the feeling that web developers have with it, ain't. So that's why they have to change it..

If they use Microsoft Web for a cross platform application, the naming would identify Microsoft and "Web". With Windows Web it's solely targetting the Windows platform (and not crossplatform as their goals are changing)

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> I would be curious to see how well browser brand names have associated/resonated with the average computer users over time. I know my mom uses chrome because I made it her default web browser and hid explorer. However she doesn't refer to it as chrome, just "the web".

<comment><USER42> I've lost count of the number of times I asked someone what browser they used and was told "Yahoo."

<comment><USER43> About 4 years ago (note: not 14 years ago) my boss at the time told me "AOL" when I asked him that question. Immediately I thought he was joking, then I thought he must be mistaken and was telling me what his homepage was by accident. But then, to my horror, he showed it to me, and I realized he was completely correct. He was using some ugly purple "modern" version of an AOL browser that I didn't even know existed.

<comment><USER44> _> He was using some ugly purple "modern" version of an AOL browser that I didn't even know existed._

That was probably Netscape 6 ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netscape_6](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netscape_6)), or Netscape 7 ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netscape_%28version_7%29](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netscape_%28version_7%29)), the two versions of Netscape that AOL managed to squeeze out after acquiring them before giving up on the "Netscape" brand entirely and laying all the developers off.

The thought back then was that there would be a "Mozilla" brand working on the core browser tech as open source code that was strictly for developers, while AOL would take Mozilla tech and use it to periodically release consumer-facing browsers under the brand "Netscape." This turned out not to work in practice, since the main contributions AOL would make in turning Mozilla into Netscape revolved taking a perfectly useful browser and making it _less useful._ (An example: Mozilla included a pop-up blocker, but AOL disabled it in their "Netscape" builds. Yes.)

AOL/Netscape ought to be a business school case study in how to completely demolish the value of a brand after paying out the nose for it.

<comment><USER45> AOL Browser is not Netscape [http://discover.aol.com/aoldesktop97/](http://discover.aol.com/aoldesktop97/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> I fear that the browser itself will live forever. At least in my parent's basement where the PCs are like Mr. Burns' indestructibility: [https://vimeo.com/96581518](https://vimeo.com/96581518)

So IE6 it is.

</comment><comment><USER47>
        It will still exist in some versions of Windows 10, but Project Spartan will be
        the main way Windows 10 users roam the Internet.

No, it will be Chrome or Firefox :D

</comment><comment><USER48> They'll probably just call it "The Internet."

</comment><comment><USER49> Spartan is still Trident, right? So then it's still Microsoft using Microsoft stuff, but eliminating a ton of cruft that builds up over the years due to backwards compatibility.

Historically, Apple (at least under Jobs) were the ones to declare an old standard dead while dragging us kicking and screaming into the future. Microsoft always proudly stood by and told you that your crappy program from 1992 would still be able to run on each version of Windos that came out, no matter how big and bloated the beast became.

Maybe this is a harbinger of things to come? Could the next version of Windows (Not 10, obviously) finally declare the end of backwards compatibility and force obsolete software into a virtualization ghetto?

<comment><USER50> Yes, Spartan is a fork where they cut out old cruft.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> Is their new project architecturally different, or just a rebranding? I've thought for years that they should rename the thing, to get rid of the stigma, but it'd be kind of a shame to completely abandon the browser just as it was catching up.

<comment><USER52> Architecturally stripped down to remove the old compatibility modes. Which is fine by me - IE11 actually isn't bad.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> My take on this while not a horrible decision, it is a weak one for MS. My rationale;

1\. 70% of the world doesn't care about their browser and will use what's is put in front of them. There was that classic video where people didn't even know the difference between the internet and a browser a few years back. For this 70% unless someone swaps then to another browser, which thankfully people love doing, they'll use IEX for the rest of their life. These people have been trained to click the blue 'e'. Why take that away from the masses and open the door for them to look for alternatives?

2\. For the remaining people that do care about a browser, we're going to know if it's a great browser or not. We understand IE6 is not IE11. In the same was FF was awesome a few years back, we know it's fallen back, and would recognise it improving if it (hopefully) does.

3\. Microsoft announcing they will create a new & awesome browser, and actually doing so, are not connected. It wouldn't surprise me if MS invest all this marketing money on spinning a product that is just as frustrating as IE, just for a new set of reasons. And now we have brand confusion + an annoying browser with a bad name. People prefer familiar bad, than unfamiliar bad.

4\. Microsoft is a bloody big and wealthy company. They can afford developing 2 browsers for a while. Why not launch and release this Spartan browser 'for power users'. They can use it as an experimental ground to push boundaries whilst not risking the stability and working of their core product. As this team proves their metal, they can push components of Spartan into IE, or not if the browser fails to deliver. Spartan can be used to buy new street cred for MS. Mum uses IE but young me uses Spartan. And if spartan succeeds by default it will bring credibility to IE, risking much less if it fails to gain favour. As a marketing guy rather than building the conversation; Spartan vs Chrome I'd much prefer to have IE vs Spartan vs Chrome.

And if you bothered to read this far, you probably like browsers. So you might enjoy a video a buddy and I made while on holiday for some really serious (/s) browser speed testing: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaT7thTxyq8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaT7thTxyq8)

<comment><USER35> 4) Because spartan is as much (if not more) about removing features from IE than adding them. Also, IE will ship with win10 for legacy support.

3) and 4) Based on my experience with win10, MS are executing extremely well these days. I can't wait for Spartan and the new office.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> I wonder if they're gonna go with Webkit. There was some speculation that the "new" MSFT would be going that route.

<comment><USER55> It will not use Webkit. They internally forked Trident and tore out all the legacy code. From what I've heard the two code bases don't much resemble each other anymore.

Source: [http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2015/01/26/inside- microsofts...](http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2015/01/26/inside-microsofts- new-rendering-engine-project-spartan/)

<comment><USER56> I forgot where I saw it, but the claim is that the new Trident engine has diverged more from the old than Blink has from Webkit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> I guess it's not just us nerds in our bubble who dislike it.

<comment><USER58> still?

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_layout_engines_%2...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_layout_engines_%28Cascading_Style_Sheets%29)

<comment><USER57> I have verified that this is indeed a Wikipedia page. Thank you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> Man, their new CEO is a breath of fresh air. Im actually starting to respect the MS brand again.

</comment><comment><USER60> I hope they name Spartan after their magical browser girl mascot, Inori. She's cute.

<comment><USER25> See: [https://www.facebook.com/internetexplorertan](https://www.facebook.com/internetexplorertan)

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> > we'll also have a new browser called Project Spartan, which is codenamed > Project Spartan

Recursively codenamed it, sneaky.

</comment><comment> X-combinator Here's the main source: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9217296](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9217296)

</comment><comment><USER62> Will Spartan be only for Microsoft OS?

</comment><comment><USER63> ...and the congregation said AMEN!</comment>


Will a Nicotine Patch Make You Smarter? (2014) - <AUTHOR> http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/will-a-nicotine-patch-make-you-smarter-excerpt/ <comment><USER2> I'm not sure if it will make you smarter, but I find that nicotine really helps to keep me focused when I'm working on tough problems. Unfortunately I smoke, but am considering getting on the patch.</comment>


U.S. Files Antitrust Lawsuit Against Apple, Hachette - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-04-11/u-s-files-antitrust-lawsuit-against-apple-hachette.html

<comment><USER2> I am happy that they did. More competition, cheaper eBooks are good for everyone in the long run.</comment>


How practical is Clojure? - <AUTHOR> http://johnfn.github.com/johnfn/post3.html

<comment><USER2> If the author is reading, I assume you tried the clojure.stacktrace module?

Error messages can definitely be tricky to figure out. A stacktrace, however, will often give enough information. Simply start looking down the stack for the first function that is part of your code base. The function may or may not have a line number. This depends on if you've loaded the source as a file, or sent an individual function to the repl on its own. In the latter case the line number information is simply not available to the language.

Using the stack traces solves 90% of issues I encounter. If I need line numbers, I restart the REPL and make sure that information is present. It's rare indeed that a stacktrace doesn't help at all, although it happens. I also use print debugging frequently. The REPL makes this technique a lot more reasonable than it is in say, C.

What would you suggest to improve the debugging/error situation?

\--

If I had to choose a single biggest weakness for clojure adoption, I would say the lack of good documentation and also standardized process that is often so important when working in larger teams. The core documentation is good for experience developers, but lacks examples that many others find useful. The books clojure books are good, and clojuredocs.org is a great idea that has yet to get enough traction to become the standard go to place for documentation.

That said, it is still a young language and the community is working hard at addressing these issues.

<comment><USER3> This is something I'm very interested in addressing. What documentation is missing? What is it that you feel is needed for people to get started and stay hooked?

For example, is www.webnoir.org filling this need in the web space? Would a better clojure.org with Noir like examples fill the gap?

<comment><USER4> Here's an example of something that I've run across in my time dabbling with Clojure: How do I define my own collection class that can be used with all the standard functions? It seems like it should he straightforward, but the existing documentation seems to almost deliberately talk around it. Along the same vein, how to I define a type that works like a function, like keywords and sets do?

And then there are simple questions like how to make a concurrent application. The docs go on at length about how Clojure helps concurrent applications, but not a whole lot about what is a reasonable way to make one in Clojure. You're just told how great it is for the task and then kind of thrown in with a list of functions and told to get to it.

<comment><USER5> Your issues touch the Java side of Clojure which admittedly is not documented very well if at all. Currently you need to implement multiple Java interfaces to completely customise behaviour (which is why Clojure tries to give you enough tools so you don't need to do it). I suspect that once some of the Java interfaces get replaced with Clojure protocols, things will get easier.

However, these are issues that rarely come up in idiomatic Clojure. Most of the time you don't need your own collection classes, or new types that work like functions. It is possible, but since it's a rare need, I'm not surprised the documentation on how to do it is indirect at best... deftype is probably the best tool if you need something low-level like that, or defrecord if you just want something that works like a map.

Your 'simple' question isn't exactly simple either. The famous ants simulation is a fair example of a concurrent application, but often the design depends on the sort of concurrency you need, and the simple question suddenly becomes much more difficult. More examples wouldn't hurt, of course.

<comment><USER4> I agree that the things I named aren't tasks of huge importance, and I hope it doesn't seem like nit-picking, but they were examples of the sort of thing I like to do when I'm first looking at a language. I like to play around with the features the language touts, to try to get a good feel for how it "thinks". The other option is just to start out writing unidiomatic nonsense that doesn't use any unique features of the language, and I feel like I'm teaching myself bad habits when I do that.

Anyway, my point is, this is pretty much the state of the Clojure documentation right now:

On Clojure.org:

\- List of features

\- Alphabetical list of functions stretching as far as the eye can see

On ClojureDocs.org:

\- List of functions by namespace

\- Long list of functions by "category"

\- A cheatsheet consisting of the long list of functions by category with descriptions removed

ClojureDocs is much better, but it still isn't enough to even implement a simple facsimile of hash-set or figure out how to start multiple threads in order to take advantage of all those swanky concurrency features. (The concurrency example is actually something practical I wanted to do. I have a slightly quirky bin-packing algorithm that I wanted to parallelize and I felt stumped staring at the list of functions. Finally I found a Stack Overflow post that said to just use Java's Thread.run with a Clojure function.)

<comment><USER5> Yeah, currently Clojure sort of assumes that you know enough to fall back to the Java class library if you can't find something in clojure.core, threading being a good example.

The documentation is mostly terse, but there is <http://java.ociweb.com/mark/clojure/article.html> which is more tutorial- like; though it's probably getting a bit old by now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > Leiningen (the Clojure build tool) is written in the JVM, and on my machine > it always takes 5 seconds just to start.

The lein help command does more than simply print a string, it searches for plugins available on your system. To measure the startup time of lein perhaps you should do:

      % time lein version                                                           ~
      Leiningen 1.6.1 on Java 1.6.0_26 Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM
      lein version  0.75s user 0.05s system 130% cpu 0.612 total

Less than a second, not bad.

> time lein shows about 10 seconds to display all the output, and then it > hangs for about a minute more before the process completes.

So there's a problem on your system. Most people don't have that problem. Check your plugins.

<comment><USER7> I also have that problem time leon lein 8.70s user 0.45s system 159% cpu 5.739 total

Saying "oh fix your whatever" is just passing the buck. This is a frequent enough problem to be a major issue. If there are more than a few of these issues people will simply move elsewhere. Rightfully so too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> ClojureScript won't have the startup time of the JVM and is probably better suited for command line scripting.

<comment><USER9> Why don't they integrate something like nailgun? Run a JVM in the background and redirect command line execution.

<http://www.martiansoftware.com/nailgun/background.html>

<comment><USER6> People have done that with Clojure, see cake and jark. There are tradeoffs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Well, Clojure has hot-swapping code for source Lisp files, but you can't load compiled libraries (Java, Clojure, Scala, whatever) into the running JVM, as there's no way to dynamically add JARs. This is quite a limit, especially in production scenarios.

</comment><comment><USER11> How about evil-mode? I heard it's newer than vimpulse.</comment>


Content Cookbook: Upload Files with Node - <AUTHOR> https://blog.filestack.com/content-cookbook/upload-files-with-node/ <comment><AUTHOR> I've included a one-line docker command example to upload. Working on a place to share that source as a repo, but it is the same JS code as you see in the body of the blog post. Happy to answer any questions, and CC&C welcome!</comment>


John Oliver is wrong about Net Neutrality - <AUTHOR> http://blog.erratasec.com/2017/05/john-oliver-is-wrong-about-net.html <comment><USER2> John Oliver is wrong about a lot of things. His show is too inconsistent for me, sometimes it's really sloppy.

<comment><USER3> Like what?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This a fantastic blog.

</comment><comment><USER5> This article is a perfect example of a lousy reaction on something we used to call _butthurt_.

I really liked that term, but someone pointed out to me it's not really a PC term.

Do you have another suitable term in that English language capable to describe this consequence of Oliver's tremendous achievement of carrying bunch of people around on his dick?

<comment><USER4> I think you should go back to reddit or 4chan or something

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> The article is a giant strawman. Net Neutrality is currently a joke, the push by the insane xenomorph clown-toothed Pai Verizon lawyer head of the FCC is to merely inculcate corporatism as officially-sanctioned. With fewer internet protections, there is a slippery-slope for Western countries to allow increased blocking, throttling and censoring of sites much like closed and authoritarian-ruled countries like China and Turkey.</comment>


The Web Is Getting Old - <AUTHOR> https://brunoamaral.eu/post/the-web-is-getting-old/ <comment><USER2> Having been on the web since the beginning, I really wonder how much of this data really needs to be saved. Humans have survived until now without the need to keep a permanent journal of every little detail of every persons life. We do have historical luminaries whose works we save, but the harsh fact is that most people just aren't special enough where we need to keep everything they generate.

We are now seeing that having old stuff resurface is largely detrimental. Back when it was just some photos in a shoebox, or a paper journal, the worst that could happen to your silly teenage ramblings was some embarrassment that you could quickly move on from. Now you face potentially losing your whole career and family because of some stupid thing you said one time when you were in a bad mood.

One of the most important functions of the brain is forgetting. If you were forced to remember everything, especially all the dumb stuff you did, your mind would be perpetually cluttered and you could never progress and grow. You only remember the significant stuff, and let everything else go.

The slow degradation of old sites is the Internet's form of cleanup and forgetting, and it's a natural part of the lifecycle.

<comment><USER3> From the perspective of a historian or archaeologist, it is a shame that things are forgotten. If the data that is being saved is not tied to your personal name then I would prefer that it is archived forever. Not only for the purposes of analysis when you are long dead and forgotten, but even within our lifetime.

Sometimes when I am in a nostalgic mood, I will revisit forums that I once frequented almost 20 years ago (surprisingly, the owner has kept it alive all these years). I love looking at those old posts, reflecting back on how things were at that point in my life. Reflecting back on the community members and my long lost virtual friends, wondering where they are now. They could be dead for all I know. I am glad that it has been archived.

In contrast, I have a side project that I work on occasionally. It is a plugin for a legacy game. The hacking community of this game has long since moved on. All of the golden knowledge of the game, the technical details, have vanished. All the forum posts, all the contributions, are forever gone. The hours upon hours of reverse-engineering efforts are down the drain. Not to mention all the social interactions within the community; the drama, the humour, the conversations. That is sad. I sure wish it was archived.

<comment><USER4> I'm not sure how you can bear looking back at things you said 20 years ago, let alone enjoy it. My past self makes me shutter and cringe

<comment><USER5> Maybe you interpreting your past self is not the greatest value it provides.

P.S. "shudder"

<comment><USER4> Oh god another thing to cringe about in the future! Make it stop!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> We are lucky that we have the Internet Archive to capture and serve content for the public and give us access to some of these old sites that have gone dark. I wish that I had done these things with some of the private forums that I belonged to as a kid. Many important articles and conversations are gone now that I didn't care to think to save them at those times.

It is nice to see that old monikers of mine aren't indexed and easy to find, and yet it's also sad because I realize that much of that content I perceive as reflections of my younger self and thoughts which I know I cannot imagine again today. When I recall those memories I only recall my perception of events: words that were said; actions taken by others; the consequences of my actions. Yet, I can't repeat those exact thoughts because my identity has changed since then.

I identify with the Zillenial[0] term. I also grew up on Linux and Windows due to my dad's interests. That is one of the acts that I am so grateful of my dad for, because it led me to where I am today.

For me, the web has been an important pillar of my life as it's given me so many sources of information that have granted me knowledge, given opportunities to read deep thoughts and niche content, and improved my principles and views on life. I'm sure many people on HN can relate to that statement, young and old alike.

[0]: [https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Zillenial](https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Zillenial)

<comment><USER7> I know exactly the sentiment. I think part of it was that growing up I truly believed the content I put on the internet would stick around. I didn't understand why things needed to be archived for posterity—the sites that were seemed to deserve such a fate anyway. I remember having so many interesting and free thinking discussions with members of various forums (computer repair, graphics editing tutorials, shurtugal to name a few genres). I honestly thought facebook would be the same, but with more familiar faces to names. Oh how I was wrong. Alas, Facebook was _new_ web.

<comment><USER6> > I think part of it was that growing up I truly believed the content I put on > the internet would stick around. I didn't understand why things needed to be > archived for posterity—the sites that were seemed to deserve such a fate > anyway.

Maybe this is where a lot of us fall short. Free and easily available content is easy to take for granted since there is an abundance of it, like the discussions here on HN. So we ignore capturing it with an underlying assumption that it will be available again in the future.

Perhaps it's like the Bystander effect[0]?

[0]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> >And a social network doesn't have to vanish for you to lose access to what's there. The owner of a piece of content may lock their profile for any number of reasons and you or your readers won't be able to see it ever again.

I agree with the overall point of this article and on balance, I think it's a net loss for the web and our shared web culture when content disappears like this. However, I do think there is something to be said for a web that "forgets" my angsty Livejournal posts, my poorly written and frankly obscene fanfiction, and other things of that nature.

<comment><USER9> > However, I do think there is something to be said for a web that "forgets" > my angsty Livejournal posts, my poorly written and frankly obscene > fanfiction, and other things of that nature.

Yup, we can close the accounts, but someone, somewhere, has a copy of my Livejournal Magnum Opus "Why didn't our shared love of Chemical Romance keep us together?" and it keeps me up at night.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> We need to make it easier for people to control a domain name, and host content with HTTPS. You should be able to migrate your backend from provider to provider or open source project without losing control over the URLs. All individual content should be behind a personal domain name.

Here's a product I would love to pay for: A service that sells domain names, but also makes it easy to use them. It should provide a tool like ngrok that I can run on my local machine like this:

      not-ngrok host anderspitman.net 8080

That contacts the service, has you log in, then (on first run) uses Let's Encrypt to get a cert for anderspitman.net, and sets up a WireGuard tunnel so any server I run on localhost:8080 is now accessible via [https://anderspitman.net](https://anderspitman.net).

This lets me host whatever I want from any machine I want, even my phone, without ever having to mess with or think about certs again.

<comment><USER11> There used to be a service exactly for this, but pre-HTTPS. It was free using their TLD and a named subdomain, but you could also use your own domain name, which was probably a charged service. Sadly, I can't remember the name.

<comment><USER10> Part of my motivation in commenting was hoping it already exists. There's not much to it. The key is that it has to be very vertically integrated. I need to be able to buy (or port), manage, and use the domain all from the same simple interface.

CloudFlare does a lot of this, but you need a public server for them to proxy. They seem well positioned to add a CLI tool for the last mile ngrok-like part though.

<comment><USER6> > CloudFlare does a lot of this, but you need a public server for them to > proxy. They seem well positioned to add a CLI tool for the last mile ngrok- > like part though.

It's funny that you mention this, because they actually do have a service for hosting static sites in conjunction with a CLI tool, wrangler, for publishing them: [https://blog.cloudflare.com/extending-the-workers- platform/](https://blog.cloudflare.com/extending-the-workers-platform/)

<comment><USER10> That's obviously a related idea, but I have concerns:

* Complex. What if I don't need a CDN or kv store?

* Why just static sites? Why not just forward to a local port then you can run whatever you want, including a static server. One huge advantage of being able to run on your local machine is you have access to terabytes of storage at very low cost. You can host as much images, videos, music, etc as you want, especially if it's behind a simple login (like a NextCloud server).

* Not open source.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The URL structure of my blog has changed so much over the years and I have subjected my subscribers to so many 404s that it made me put everything in a self-hosted pastebin for peace of mind. All I have to do is keep that pastebin alive and the domain renewed and my content will be preserved well into the future.

I've still yet to find a registrar that promises to keep a domain renewed past the 10-year limit though. The closest service I found is Mark Monitor but that seems to cater for large companies / corporations who need to protect their intellectual property (and it's expensive!). Can't have someone registering apple.com when it expires!

<comment><USER13> I have this: [http://petermolnar.net/404.json](http://petermolnar.net/404.json) It's the data source for a fallback PHP that tries to do magic if the static resource wasn't found.

How to: check your server logs, look for 404s. See if you can set up a redirect, or serve a HTTP 410 Gone.

I agree on the domain problem. It's a big problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I was wondering about an old WordPress just this week, related to the post content. In the past I managed to migrate a very simple WP to static pages with Pelican but I have a pretty complicated WP still running and it is a museum of lots of trips I did many years ago and I decided to keep it up due to the some rare info there (it's a RTW travel kind of site). I wish there was an easy way to keep the style, theme etc so I could get rid of WP for good and still let the site get old but still be there with its essence without damaging the visuals. I can't help but imagine the despair of people who would instead use a commercial product to create or host something like that, given even WP is hard enough when things get old.

...as for the site migrated to static pages, some posts are 15 years old, most of them are 10 and the most recent one is 5 so because the web is getting old I had to add a big disclaimer with a red background in every post stating things change, people change, the content and its form may change too so "please be gentle when interpreting it, the web is getting old" :-)

Right to be forgotten should be the default but I wish we also had the opt-in right to be remembered.

</comment><comment><USER13> Dear author, if you're reading this: please don't write such a superficial entry. It doesn't actually bring any resolution to the "I get things are bad, but what are we doing to fix it?" /Tomorrowland/ problem, and it could.

Link to static generators that can import WordPress. Link to `wget --mirror` tutorials to archive. Link to [https://www.archiveteam.org/](https://www.archiveteam.org/) so people could participate. Mention the Web Archive, point to IPFS, and to DAT.

SHOW SOLUTIONS. Lamenting won't fix it.

Personal story: yes, dynamic sites suck. My 2002 archives are static HTML; no problem getting them. 2004 is a PHP4 CMS, I needed a Debian Sarge to run it. 2007 is FUBAR character encoding mismatch between server, HTML, any DB, plus PHP < 5.3 with MySQL > 5.6. 2010 and up is WordPress, but if you don't save it all - MySQL same version, WordPress same version, all plugins the same version, etc - it's hard work to get it back.

<comment><USER15> If you mean the article's author, that will be me

The site is only marginally aimed at developers, it is mostly for people in communication or marketing fields. Some of the ones I know are not even aware of the problem of content decay (lets call it that for now).

It is also about the mistakes the web community made while building the sites we use daily. Not assigning any blame, the web will always be uncharted territory.

Most of all, I wanted to write down that we saw good things being built. There are a lot of good reasons to keep moving forward.

Regarding tools, and as side note, that blog is running on [https://goHugo.io](https://goHugo.io) , a static site generator, and uses the self hosted version of [https://commento.io](https://commento.io) to manage comments. It's my way of trying to make it future-proof.</comment></comment>


The Problem With Kickstarter And Software - <AUTHOR> http://clayallsopp.com/posts/the-problem-with-kickstarter-and-software/

<comment><USER2> I do wonder what impact a failed Kickstarter has for venture funded projects like Pixate. Does it kill any chance of future funding by proving that customers aren't _that_ willing to pay?

I ran a Kickstarter for OpenPhoto. But it had a few unique properties, mainly being open source. We raised a modest $25k which paid for my time since I already quit my job to do this. So, I needed the funds to complete the work.

I'm considering running a second Kickstarter for a set of large features to the product. Thankfully, I'm not in a position where I need VC funds so shooting myself in the foot there doesn't matter.

Also, I'd be Kickstarting for features that aren't already planned in the main roadmap (which I'm going to rely on for revenue). If the Kickstarter fails then those features don't get added in but the product still remains viable without losing face.

[http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jmathai/openphoto-a- phot...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jmathai/openphoto-a-photo- service-for-your-s3-or-dropbox-a)

</comment><comment><USER3> The point of this article is great: have a clear reason of the benefits of using kickstarter, which aren't creating buzz and interest in your product.

</comment><comment><USER4> Yep...there are a lot of questionable kickstarter projects...even ones that have done incredibly well despite having no real product to show. The bigger problem, in my view, is how your actions affect the rest of the Kickstarter community. As soon as people start failing on delivering and running out of money (which has already happened), people will begin to lose faith in Kickstarter, and this hurts people who want to launch legitimate, rational, and honest fund-raising efforts.

<comment><USER5> This is my worry, that the Kickstarter brand will suffer some large blows because of the lack of foresight from its users -- both the listers who use it as their initial means to market a concept and the contributors who don't understand the risks if it meets goal but doesn't meet schedules or ship at all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Kickstarter is for investment, not generating interest. Generate interest by building a good product.

<comment><USER7> Kickstarter has nil to do with investment and a lot to do with generating interest. You definitely need to have a compelling idea/product in the first place but some projects generate a lot of interest through Kickstarter.

In any case, it's better to get the scoop straight from the source: "Kickstarter is a new form of commerce and patronage."

<comment><USER8> Many of the the Kickstarter projects are projects that could not get funding outside Kickstarter. For example the DoubleFine project had repeatedly tried to get funding from publishers but failed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Is "socrates" the actual name of the interviewer or an attempt at a cutsey nod to the ancient philosopher?

<comment><AUTHOR> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socratic_dialogue>

<comment><USER9> I am aware of the socratic method that's why I wrote "an attempt at a cutesy nod". The article does not read like any of Plato's dialogues that I have read, especially the last paragraph.

<comment><USER10> Was thinking the same thing. Way to many periods and not enough question marks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> From the dialogue, it sounds like a promotionally-minded Kickstarter _might_ provide some early incremental awareness and money, or might fizzle.

That's not a strong case against trying it... just against relying too much on it, to the exclusion of other customer-acquisition efforts.</comment>


The Tao of Programming - <AUTHOR> http://osiris.urbanna.net/tao.html <comment><USER2> It's "connection timed out" for me, but if it's this: <http://www.canonical.org/~kragen/tao-of-programming.html> then it's old and damn good. Loved in on my fortunes...</comment>


Comcast vs. the Cord Cutters - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/16/business/media/comcast-vs-the-cord-cutters.html?action=click&contentCollection=Media&region=Footer&module=MoreInSection&pgtype=article <comment><USER3> "Cutting the cord, in Comcast's universe, just doesn't save you very much money."

And this is why (in general) Americans are in debt. They don't understand that ANY savings, is savings. And that "just" saving 20,30,50 dollars a month adds up over 5-10 years.

I went thru this with my daughters a decade or so ago. We kept track of all the "Gee Dad, it's only 10 bucks" conversations. At the end of the year we reviewed what they accumulated, which was almost nothing, their items were either used up, no longer needed/wanted, broken, or tossed away. On the other hand, the $1400+ dollars, all stacked up in a nice pile of $20's looked like (and was to them) real money, a nice weekend trip, a new bike, a new laptop, etc. I'm happy to say my daughters did much better after that living experiment.

Unfortunately for most Americans, they just can't say no to the moment, and banks (and other service providers) are all to willingly to exploit their lack of judgement.

<comment><USER4> Just so you know after introductory prices a few years ago it was cheaper to have the "basic" cable + internet than just internet from comcast. It may have changed since I don't live in their service area anymore.

<comment><USER5> This is the case still, at least it is for me. Comcast recently added two more straws to the camel's back though: a new "broadcast fee" for the "cost" of carrying broadcast channels, and encrypting even basic cable so you need another stupid box.

ATT Uverse is now available in my area, their internet is a little more than half what I'm paying for Comcast Basic + Internet, and since I can't watch the TV anyway because I refuse to use their box, I don't need any TV component of the service. I've heard mixed stories about Uverse but they seem to do better than Comcast in the Netflix rankings so I'll probably give them a try.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> To me as long as you have only a few physical cables, or a few places to put the cables that are difficult to get to, buried in the ground, companies are going to take advantage of that, because you just don't have a lot of options. Its just not an option for most groups who would want to compete to get into that market.

For it to not suck I think the physical circumstances have to change. Maybe there will be some kind of tech breakthrough with wireless technology. Or maybe we will change the laws so that everyone has the right to lay down a cable along any public road or freeway as long as it doesn't pose a significant threat to traffic.

But seems like its hard to make a law that creates a fair and democratic situation when you have limited access to such a critical resource in fairly specific places in under the street.

I mean, if there is already a place for fiber under the street, and you really need another line or whatever they call them, you can't dig another trench or whatever in the street. You have to put it with the other ones, in which case you are at the mercy of whoever controls access to that place where the lines go. If there really isn't a need for a new fiber line, then whoever controls the existing ones has a lot of power.

Just seems like the fact that there is a specific place these lines go, and a big expense and regulation, is what is causing the issues with pricing. If this were someone's brain being wired up like this, by a heavily regulated and monopolized cable industry, that person would be retarded.

I say we invent a glue or something that will attach a fiber strand to the street, a pole, or the side of a building, and declare open season. Just put them all over the place. Like a spider web, but on the street.

LOL. Sounds crazy, but I think it might actually be workable if we keep it in a thin layer on the ground. And pretty much anything would be better than having our balls kept in a vice like this by a handful of giant companies and governments.

<comment><USER7> In Europe, most countries have a reasonable solution: The incumbent telco in most countries have been required to separate out the business unit that owns and operates the cable sufficiently that it can be accounted for separately.

This business is then generally required to provide equal access to anyone on a "cost plus" basis exactly because the cost and complexity of laying new cable is considered a massive barrier to competition, and besides we don't want a ton of companies digging up the street all the time or erecting new poles.

E.g. in the UK, the "last mile" of all landlines installed by BT are now handled by BT OpenReach. Consumers can call their preferred ISP or phone provider and ask them to take over the provision of services on the line, and the ISP deals with BT once you've authenticated the request.

The service is then _either_ provided via backhaul over BT's network - <USER2> is, the ISP provides a few central nodes where they interface with BT, and hands over a raw data stream from each subscriber at those points - _or_ the ISPs pay (on a cost regulated basis) to put equipment in BT's echanges. The latter has the advantage that they can offer services BT can't/won't and that ISPs that depend on backhaul from BT can't - some ISPs beat BT in certain areas this way.

It's not perfect - it's limited by BT's upgrade/buildout schedule, but BT does face competitive pressure from Virgin (cable provider), and also does face the possibility that someone will able to get finance together to lay cable to compete if they don't watch out, though the latter is less likely.

But beyond the last mile, there's fierce competition.

<comment><USER8> We had that at one point, but got rid of it, in exchange for promises from the telcos that they then proceeded to not keep.

<comment><USER9> I remember around the the start of the consumer DSL era this being a thing. At some point the Telcos just started undercutting all the competition and/or deprioritizing installs for non-telco purchasers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I feel like this misses the point of people who no longer buy cable. I don't personally know a lot of people who do it to save money (I'm sure they exist). Everyone I know just prefers the convenience of watching when you want and not having to have a single dedicated device (a TV) where you can watch things.

This isn't really any different than people ditching land lines in the late nineties and early two-thousands. It wasn't a question of cost so much as it was annoying to have multiple lines, numbers, and bills, not to mention one of those phones was only usable in a very specific way and the other could be used anywhere, whenever you felt like it.

<comment><USER11> I also hate commercials. I won't even pay for Hulu+ because it has commercials. Commercials should exist to subsidize a free product, and they have no place in a paid product.

I feel the same way about magazines. It's dumb that they are packed with ads and yet you still have to pay for them.

<comment><USER12> _I feel the same way about magazines. It 's dumb that they are packed with ads and yet you still have to pay for them._

This is basically the same fallacy as a Google user who thinks he is Google's _customer_. Magazine readers are the _product_ for the magazine main business of selling advertising space. The reason they charge money is because paying readers are considered more valuable than non-paying readers. This sort of thing is why you'll often see magazine subscriptions selling for a few bucks on Slickdeals.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> My experience is only anecdotal, of course, but I don't have a television (and I haven't for some seven or eight years). I don't watch cable or local TV, and I don't have furniture or equipment arranged for "ten-foot" watching, so I have no reason to purchase something that's inferior to the not-quite-4K monitors I already have. (If I want to watch or play something on the other side of the room, I pull out a laptop.)

It would take a truly absurd deal (a) to tempt me through the hassle of going out and buying a TV and supporting equipment, and (b) to overcome my instinctual distaste at the thought of rearranging all my stuff to have furniture positioned for actually watching one.

On the other hand, if a cable company were to offer an Aereo-alike with assorted live television available over the web, I would probably pay for it _even if it cost more than a cable bundle_ because it would be fundamentally more useful to me than screwing around with specialized hardware.

<comment><USER14> Personally, I find the ten-foot viewing experience vastly superior to a computer monitor, and totally worth arranging my furniture a particular way.

I can lounge as I watch, I don't have to hold my head a particular way, I can share the couch with someone else, and it also feels more natural to my eyes.

That's not to say that I would never watch a movie on a computer monitor (I have, plenty of times) but I prefer ten-foot.

<comment><USER15> Yeah. I'm the same way. I hate having a whole room arranged as if for worshiping a video altar.

My compromise is a projector on a white wall. Then my room isn't dominated by a giant TV. The A/V gear is all tucked away in a closet, and my speakers are small ones white ones that sit up close to the ceiling. I feed it from a media server.

I like this better. When I'm in a hotel room, I feel like the TV almost demands watching. It's almost menacing to me these days compared with an unobtrusive setup.

<comment><USER14> I understand your sentiment; what I have done is set up a separate media room. Of course this requires an extra room, but the TV cannot demand I watch it. I am only in that room, when I am meaning to watch some TV.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> One of the things that I'm surprised about is how WiMax didn't take off. I used it for quite a while and was really happy with it, but when I moved to a more rural area it didn't work. Still know people who use it happily.

I am one of those who watches no cable TV but still pays for and deals with Comcast. It's a necessary evil in my opinion, and something I just live with.

But WiMax providers could get their act together and smash them, I'm just not sure why they haven't.

<comment><USER17> WiMAX is dead because LTE won the standards war. LTE data is currently crazy- expensive in the US, but that's not really a technical problem.

<comment><USER18> you may be nitpicking, there's no reason a wimax like service (wireless internet) couldn't be provided with LTE

wimax/lte is not the problen

<comment><USER17> Yes, that was my point; I'm not concerned by the death of WiMAX as a protocol, because LTE is functionally equivalent. The problem is that LTE is not currently a viable competitor to wired Internet services, because the providers have set the prices too high and the caps too low.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> > Instead, the more we imbibe of all the glories available on streaming > services, the more we'll need to shell out for high-speed broadband service.

You'd think that, normally, an ISP would try to upgrade the bandwidth for their users to stay ahead of the higher bandwidth requirements. In Europe, I've just upgraded to 100 Mbps about 3 years ago, and now I could upgrade to 1 Gbps for a little more. The only reason I'm not doing it yet is because my _laptop_ (HDD) and _router_ (802.11n) haven't quite caught up with this speed yet, and a lot of it would be wasted if I got it now.

<comment><USER20> Why would an ISP do that, when any self-respecting business operator can simply instruct his or her call center reps to say the following:

"Thank you for calling us, Higher Purpose. Your Internet is slow, Mr. Purpose? We can certainly fix that. I see that you are currently paying us $39.95/month for 10mbps service. How about we make that $89.95/month for 20mbps service? Besides, who will you switch to if you don't like the price?"

<comment><USER21> "Who would I switch too? Maybe any of your 12 competitors in this district." This isn't a US based anecdote, they do it because if they dont, their competitors will.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I cut the cord 9 years ago; i didn't get rid of my ISP, i simply stopped paying for their TV programming.

I prefer to spend my money on a faster internet connection and stream the shows or sports I want to watch thanks to options like Netflix and NHL Gamecenter. I no longer need Cable TV to buy the NHL package for example; nor do I need Cable TV to watch Breaking Bad or Game of Thrones.

The author of this article is confused; it's not literally about cutting your cord with your ISP, it's about saying no to expensive programming we simply don't want anymore.

</comment><comment><USER23> Smug, presumptuous article. I cut my cord over a decade ago and have no desire to watch TV or Netflix (especially not to watch MPAA films) on the Internet. I have no interest in paying a "Comcast tax," and if that means no movies or Internet television, fine. TV is verboten here. A time sink with an infinite opportunity cost.

<comment><USER24> [http://www.theonion.com/articles/area-man-constantly- mention...](http://www.theonion.com/articles/area-man-constantly-mentioning- he-doesnt-own-a-tel,429/)

<comment><USER23> Only my comment here was apt.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I tried to cancel the cable part of my package after the promo expired. After a few minutes, the then offered me $10 off my monthly bill and to extend the promo another year.

The cable box will remain off and unplugged as we never used it but they're obviously just trying to keep their numbers up for some reason I can't comprehend.

<comment><USER26> I want to add something a lot of people don't know. When you have cable+internet, you end up paying about 20% taxes+fees on the final price. Some of that is government taxes, some are misc fees, but it's a lot more than your state sales tax.

With just internet, there are usually NO taxes+fees, not even state sales tax. So even if cable+internet cost the same as just internet, you will still end up shelling out $10 more. The $50 cable+internet option will cost $60, whereas the $40 internet option costs just that.

<comment><USER25> The internet package alone is $20 more a month regardless of taxes and fees.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I've had problems with un-bundling all ready. I've had Comcast for almost two years now - the top internet service for 19.99/mo. Of course they tried to raise the price on me once but I was able to call and get it back down. The next time they raised the price, there was no 19.99 internet only option. The customer service agent checked and checked and checked, but "couldn't find it available in the system". There was, of course, a 19.99 deal for the same speed internet AND basic cable + HBO/HBOGo. So I'm riding this promotion out for as long as I can. Although they were required to send the set-top box, I asked them not to send out a tech to hook it up. I honestly couldn't care less about basic cable. The HBO Go on the other hand, I enjoy thoroughly. I was finally able to get around to watching Sopranos =].

Eventually they'll learn that story-telling isn't meant to be interrupted by advertisements. The content is gravely diminished when this happens. I find myself not caring about plot after so many commercial breaks. Made worse by the terrible, "coming up next on blah blah blah" hook.

I can see some sports fanatics enjoying the 'luxuries' of basic cable, as I don't believe there are any fool proof options online yet - I also don't care.

</comment><comment><USER28> The hypothesis here seems to be that Comcast will be charging internet users more than warranted to subsidize TV. Did the author consider that at one point Comcast might realize theres no point in artificially extending the life of technology that has been lapped in the past century?

Of course we all have our fingers crossed that this eureka moment comes before the bumbling kids that make up their leadership team have lobbied or filtered and "traffic shaped" the internet to death.

<comment><USER29> The specifics don't matter. Comcast has a goose that lays golden eggs and they will extract as much money from it as possible. There is nothing to "realize".

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> To me, even if it's the same price or costs more, cutting the cord is worth it because a) you aren't giving all of the money to the cable company - some goes directly to the content providers and b) you get the same content _without ads_!

So yeah, I'll save the $10/mo on basic cable and pay Netflix $8/mo just because it's that much less for the cable company, plus no ads!

<comment><USER31> Exactly my thought. I cut the cord 2 years ago and it's amazing how much more enjoyable the content I do watch is without ads.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I don't even own a TV, I don't want any TV in any form and Comcast only offered me a deal with TV and Internet and sent me a huge settop box that I now have to store in my closet. And Comcast is the only broadband provider available to me currently (well, ATT may have become available after I started but they are their very own horror show).

<comment><USER33> _And Comcast is the only broadband provider available to me currently_

In Tucson that was my experience, and it was frustrating. So frustrating that I sent letters to the president of Qwest Arizona. To Qwest's credit, his assistant did respond to my queries, and we kept trading e-mails about whether Qwest would roll out real services to my area. In the time I lived there, however, Qwest never did, and Comcast had a de-facto monopoly.

Now I'm living in New York and have a couple potential providers, including Time Warner and RCN. I use the latter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Good luck with that, Comcast. Where I live there are two cable-basted internet providers, a wireless provider, and at least two based on the old phone system. Nobody I know pays more than $35/month to his ISP.

And that doesn't include the cell providers, which are just about out of ways other than price to differentiate themselves.

<comment><USER35> Yeah, I couldn't shake the feeling that the framing narrative of coord-cutters was worse than useless (except as linkbait). We already know that monopolies can increase their prices until customers are getting nearly 0 utility out of doing business with them. That's why Comcast and TWC merged (how the hell did that get through the FTC?). That's why prices are going up while quality of internet service is going down. The only reason to blame rising internet costs on coord-cutters is to divert attention away from a reality that could land Comcast in legal trouble.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> In my experience, I didn't cut my cable tv, but instead cut my home phone and ported the number to google voice to use with an ObiTalk device to have home phone for free. The retention department gave me their best "double play" package they had and I saved a whole $20 a month. Well guess what, the next month they raised rates on the DVR rental fees and upped a few other things effectively canceling out any savings I had. A few months later when the promo period ended, I had them switch me to a triple play (tv, phone, and internet) just adding a dummy phone number that is not even hooked up and it's cheaper than just having internet and tv. It's just completely ridiculous.

And on top of this, of course my ObiTalk will cease to function in a few weeks when Google pulls the plug on the interface it used to make the free calling possible.

<comment><USER37> I signed up for a new number with Obivoice (unrelated to ObiHai), reconfigured my Obi to use Obivoice, then setup Google Voice to forward to the new number. Obivoice had a special if you signed up for two years of service for $60.

Obi also just announced Anveo as their preferred provider to replace Google Voice.

I really don't understand what Google's plan for GV is. I wish they'd just charge for it already.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> I'm one of the cord cutters. I have Comcast internet and nothing else. I have an apple tv, Netflix, and an antenna with a tivo that gets me network television for free. I'll admit that the antenna is a hassle mostly because the NBC signal is terrible in the Bay Area, but when I don't need to watch NBC this setup is awesome. I'm hoping Aereo comes soon so I can ditch the antenna + tivo for a more stable broadcast to even further streamline my setup. I've had no urge to use torrents as this setup gives me much more content than I can consume.

My main reason for cutting the cord is to save money, and it has saved me quite a deal of money over 3 years.

</comment><comment><USER39> I am a recent cord cutter. I was paying $46/month for satellite that included only local channels and 2 or 3 Disney channels. I also had HD service.

I now have a Roku 3 and am fortunate to live in a location where Aereo provides service. Unfortunately, the stream quality of Aereo is no where as good as Netflix. I can only hope this changes in the future. Also, my kids are now at the age where they are outgrowing Disney.

I now pay about $16/month for TV. I feel like this is a major paradigm shift: Instead of paying for TV in dollars per day, I am now paying for TV in days per dollar.

</comment><comment><USER40> The prices that were quoted in the article are promotional prices for the first year of service to a new subscriber. It increases greatly (sometimes even doubles based on the package) after that first year.

</comment><comment><USER41> _data cap of 250 gigabytes a month_

That is truly miniscule for a 25Mbps connection.

I'm on a 5Mbps connection and our household averages 300GB downloaded per month. Mostly to feed my GF's TV addiction, but still.

<comment><USER42> What do you pay for the 5 mbps?

I'm at $75 / month for 15 mbps, with a cable company called Shentel (50mbps is $140 with them).

I see other people complain about paying $70x for 25 or 50 mbps. I'd love to have that value proposition.

<comment><USER41> About 30 GBP per month (50 USD?), but it also buys me a static IP.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> I got a deal from Comcast for 50mpbs down (their blast package) and the lowest cable with HBO. If I were to get just the internet, it would be the same price. In fact the deal I got lasts a year while just the internet lasts only 6 months and then goes to full price. It made more sense to just get the TV as well since getting local channels is kind of useful for news and weather.

</comment><comment><USER44> In the scenario outlined, there are three people watching streams for $40 Internet only Comcast service. While $50 will add TV, what the article mentions but forgets to delve into is that if those three TVs are hooked up to a cable box at $10 a piece, the bill now becomes $80 (all pretax). That's double and it certainly warrants cutting out TV service.

</comment><comment><USER45> I see an opportunity for a consolidated billing service. Right now, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, and all the others send separate bills. What if there were a central service so people only get one bill, _and_ have an opportunity to create their own bundle of streaming services?

<comment><USER14> How on earth will you monetize that? Because I'm sure as shit not going to pay extra just to consolidate my bills.

<comment><USER35> The local banks have spent enough money over the years advertising their "automatic bill pay" schemes that somebody must see value in them. Good luck beating them at that game, though. They've been at it for at least a decade.

<comment><USER14> "Automatic bill pay" with my bank _does_ have some value! But they give it to me for free, as a perk to attract my business. Much like free checking, which banks also advertise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> My ISP charges me a $10/month fee for having non-bundled service (only paying for internet). Still better than the +$30 I'd be paying for the bundle...So I'm only getting fucked a little.

They'll try and manage to fuck customers no matter what as long as they maintain the power.

</comment><comment><USER47> Why would you expect it to save you much money not getting the cable TV service? Most of the basic cable programming is paid for via advertising. The cost of the pipe is the same whether you get television or just internet.</comment>


Level Design and Shaping a Roguelike Experience - <AUTHOR> https://www.gridsagegames.com/blog/2019/02/level-design-shaping-cogmind-experience/ <comment><AUTHOR> The original title of this post is "Level Design and Shaping a Cogmind Experience," but I felt that the HN audience would be more familiar with the name of the genre than the game itself.

If you're one of the lucky 10,000, Roguelikes are a type of video game that has remained virtually unchanged since Rogue, which was released in 1980 for Unix mainframes. Most games are based around procedural generation and dungeon crawling.

Cogmind is a modern, sci-fi take on the genre and possibly the most user- friendly roguelike out there.</comment>


The Phony Islam of ISIS - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/02/what-muslims-really-want-isis-atlantic/386156/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> I wonder what the reaction would be if we call the Christianity of any christian group phony. Especially if their views are extreme.

My feeling is, that spinning a no true scottsman piece on a lot of topics, will be high growth industry in the next couple of years.

We live in times in which there are many crazy people, willing to do crazy stuff in the name of the crazy voices in their heads. Deal with it. Some of them will claim identity close to someone else's. Also inevitable.

"How many fingers Winston?" \- if Daesh is showing 4 fingers, but saying they are five, and there are people that are willing to see there five, they are indeed showing five.</comment>


Angular-formly - <AUTHOR> http://docs.angular-formly.com

<comment><AUTHOR> If you have suggestions on improvements to the docs then that's awesome. It's really easy to make suggestions :-)</comment>


Google bans niche browsers from Gmail? - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/kde/comments/e7136e/google_bans_falkon_and_konqueror_browsers/ <comment><USER2> Google is also going forward with deprecating the blocking portion of the webRequest API, it is already in Chrome Canary. The change will break extensions, and will make several use cases impossible which are not related to ad blocking, but center around privacy and security, or just a need to modify requests for various reasons.

Their reasoning is so baffling, and technically incorrect about browser performance and security, that there is one conclusion to be made: Google and the Chrome team is dishonest about why they're partially deprecating the webRequest API.

Extensions are free to observe requests and page content, and exfiltrate data at will, but you no longer have full control over the requests Chrome is making. It is about control, not your privacy and security.

<comment><USER3> _It is about control, not your privacy and security._

The big organisations behind browsers have been spinning it this way for _years_ , and unfortunately the majority still haven't realised the truth. It's the same strategy that makes "think of the children" and "war on terrorism" arguments so pernicious --- taking away freedom by reasoning that it's for a cause so "ostensibly good" that no one would be seen arguing against.

<comment><AUTHOR> If you ask me, the same is true of the current culture of "a device must receive (automatic!) OTA updates from the manufacturer or it is insecure, and local administrative control is dangerous." And the the underlying logic is the same, a kind of nannying philosophy that holds that people are too witless and irresponsible to be trusted with freedom, and for their own good must be shepherded and coddled by a friendly Big Brother.

Between my laptop running Linux, on which I am root and no changes in software are made unless I specifically authorize it, and an Android tablet which is constantly downloading "updates" from Google (and uploading god-knows-what), I know which one makes _me_ feel more private and secure.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> Const-me I prefer my e-mails in a standalone IMAP client.

E-mail clients don't serve ads.

For security reasons, they block linked content by default, meaning google can't track what I do with my e-mails.

Google can terminate an account any time without any reason, if they do that, I won't lose access the e-mails I've received or sent.

My screen refresh rate is 60Hz, ping from here to gmail.com 36ms, this means web interface has at least 3x latency compared to a locally running app.

I don't care about their web interface re-designs, or browser compatibility issues like the one discussed.

Gmail can't turn off IMAP as it would break e-mail on smartphones. Large share of these smartphones run old versions of Google Android which will never be updated, this also helps to ensure their IMAP access is here to stay.

<comment><USER4> > Google can terminate an account any time without any reason, if they do > that, I won't lose access the e-mails I've received or sent.

A) Assuming you keep copies of all folders/emails locally B) Assuming Google isn't evil and won't delete all your mail first before shutting down your account, thus causing your IMAP client to sync their deletion

<comment> Const-me A) Yes I do

B) I'm not sure Google ain't evil. Even if they're good, if I fail security on my side, some other evil person, unrelated to google, may be able to delete all my e-mails before shutting down my gmail account. That's why e-mail client alone is good but not enough, also need backups of that local DB.

<comment><USER4> Agreed. Just pointing out the fact that IMAP alone isn't enough. Nothing replaces backups (whether from your IMAP client or from Google's own backup service.)

<comment><USER5> Google doesn't go out of their way to screw people. The problem is their automated spammer systems pick up people and kill their accounts and all their google accounts and you are stuck. That's the problem. There's no human to talk to. It's been a problem for more than a decade.

<comment><USER6> > Google doesn't go out of their way to screw people

We can't know that. There is no recourse when they do screw people and it would look the same from the outside whether it was an automated system or a manual one (or more likely, a mix of both).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Screenshot: [https://imgur.com/a/wfi3hFR](https://imgur.com/a/wfi3hFR)

I have reproduced this on OpenSUSE Tumbleweed, with stock Falkon browser (QT+Webkit) and javascript enabled. I have confirmed that this is accomplished through UA sniffing. I reproduce the message in plaintext below:

Sign in with a supported browser To help protect your account, Google doesn't let you sign in from some browsers. Google might stop sign-ins from browsers that:

Don't support JavaScript or have Javascript turned off. Have unsecure or unsupported extensions added. Use automation testing frameworks. Are embedded in a different application.

<comment><USER7> Opera went through this fight between e.g. 2004-2013.

It wasn't really fully resolved until the browser engine was switched to Blink/Chromium.

Now, of course Opera is ~indirectly managed by the chinese government, so no- one should be using it. Please just trust me on this one. The desktop browser is now built in Poland (not Norway/Sweden). The remaining technical management is very weak when it comes to things like principles.

<comment><USER8> Do you have a source on China (indirectly) managing Opera?

<comment><USER9> According to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opera_(web_browser)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opera_\(web_browser\))

"Opera is a freeware web browser ..., developed by Opera Software, a Norwegian software company, ... with the majority of ownership and control belonging to Chinese businessman Zhou Yahui, founder of Beijing Kunlun Tech and Chinese cybersecurity company Qihoo 360."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Javascript is obviously not required for Google Mail to work. Browsers that do not support Javascript work just fine. If we adjust the user-agent string to match a "supported browser" there is no need to change any Google settings. See [https://support.google.com/mail/answer/15049](https://support.google.com/mail/answer/15049)

What is happening here is Google is only requiring Javascript to be turned on when the user signs in so Google (or its partners) can uniquely track users, even when users have indicated _they do not want to be tracked_ , such as using session-only cookies, clearing stored cookies after signing out, enabling the DNT header, etc.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Device_fingerprint](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Device_fingerprint)

<comment><USER11> This is not necessarily about uniquely tracking users. This is likely about telling automation from manual traffic to login.

Credential stuffing is a large enough problem for account takeover and the cost to a user of losing their gmail account so high that at some point a team has to make tradeoffs about what can and cannot be used to log in.

edit: am Googler, not working on this area. Have background in account takeover/browser fingerprinting.

<comment><USER12> You say that, but my friend's google drive account is basically locked because of "spam/take over detection" and there's no response from google's customer support. Does google really care about end user here?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Stop using gmail, it seems daunting but it really only took me a few solid hours to switch all my important accounts to a paid provider like fastmail.

Think about how many important accounts you link through email and then think about how, if you don't pay for gmail, Google doesn't owe you access to your email or any service at all.

It feels great being free and you can setup forwarding so you can pick up the stragglers.

You also get the added spam freedom and security benefit of changing both your email and password which is great since we have no idea what leaked email/password lists are floating around out there... it's like the ultimate unsubscribe!

<comment><USER14> I've switched to fastmail, and am staying with it. However, almost every aspect of it is objectively worse than Gmail; browser UX more awkward, Android email clients besides Google mail are awful and Google mail itself has very broken behaviors with it, spam filtering is poor, i had to give up things like nice calendar and address book integrations, etc.

However, as i pay Google for many other services, that means I am vulnerable to total and permanent account lock out if someone steals my credit card and gets it flagged by Google as fraudulent, as has been reported by more than one blog post. As long as Google does not address the issue of customer service being within their top 25 list of priorities, it is insane for anyone to use Gmail for important mail identities.

<comment><USER15> >Android email clients besides Google mail are awful

I still use K-9 Mail to handle my non-gmail accounts. I find it very usable with how it threads my work emails.

Although from what I understand its not actively developed anymore and the last post I see on the playstore says Sept 2018. I'm open to suggestions if anyone has them, especially if they are available via F-Droid.

<comment><USER16> Looks alive to me [https://github.com/k9mail/k-9/releases](https://github.com/k9mail/k-9/releases) , F-Droid has the most recent pre-release from last week.

<comment><USER17> Releases were stalled for a long while, and then, past week, released a really big update, both technical and cosmetic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I only use gmail in chrome. And I only use chrome for google services (and development). It's like a quarantine. All my other browsing happens in firefox...

<comment><USER19> Exactly how I work also.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> It's really becoming a pet peeve of mine when people randomly add question marks at the end of titles on HN (the linked article doesn't). Especially when it doesn't make sense grammatically.

<comment><AUTHOR> I did not add the question mark. Take it up with the site admins.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I've been super happy with Fastmail, I suggest you give it a shot if you've become as frustrated as I have with Google's products. When they killed Inbox it was the final straw for me.

</comment><comment><USER22> I experienced something similar with Electron applications too. If you're an Electron dev, do NOT handle authentication within Electron. Handle it in their default browser.

</comment><comment><USER23> I just encountered this with an Election app (Polarized Bookshelf) trying to do an OAuth flow. I can no longer log in to my account on the app!

I'm not actually upset, though. Such is life when you rely on entirely free services provided by another company. It's almost like the role Google plays in my life is that of some natural phenomena, perhaps as seen by an ancient civilisation: omnipresent, inscrutable, unthinkingly capricious. Such is the way is the world, my son.

<comment><USER24> Google isn't a natural phenomena though- it's a group of people making decisions that have a huge ripple effect throughout our society. Google using it's monopoly powers to restrict how the internet can grow is something we should all take seriously.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> This is why I fake my user agent. I use Qutebrowser ([https://www.qutebrowser.org/](https://www.qutebrowser.org/)) but pretend to use the most common user agent on this list. [https://techblog.willshouse.com/2012/01/03/most-common- user-...](https://techblog.willshouse.com/2012/01/03/most-common-user-agents/)

<comment> The-Compiler From what I've heard, setting a Chrome UA doesn't help with the Google Mail sign-in.

<comment><USER25> Ouch, you're right. I can't log in anymore.

EDIT: Chrome's user agent doesn't work, but Firefox's does. I suppose it works because if Google's sign-in form sees a Chrome user agent, it expects a certain different browser fingerprint, so it rejects it. But maybe it's more lenient on the fingerprint match if it sees a Firefox user agent. This one worked for me, from [https://techblog.willshouse.com/2012/01/03/most-common- user-...](https://techblog.willshouse.com/2012/01/03/most-common-user-agents/)

        Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:70.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/70.0

<comment> The-Compiler Note that setting that UA globally is a bad idea - it'll break stuff on various other websites. You might want to try setting it with a `[https://accounts.google.com/*`](https://accounts.google.com/*`) URL pattern - or ideally, even only `[https://accounts.google.com/signin`](https://accounts.google.com/signin`) or so, if that works. Please let me know what works and what doesn't, as I still can't reproduce this with my own Google account.

<comment><USER6> > setting that UA globally is a bad idea

What exactly will it break?

<comment> The-Compiler I often talk to people reporting a broken website in qutebrowser where it turns out to be due to a Firefox user agent.

Some examples (there are lots more via IRC/Reddit/...):

[https://github.com/qutebrowser/qutebrowser/issues/4302](https://github.com/qutebrowser/qutebrowser/issues/4302) [https://github.com/qutebrowser/qutebrowser/issues/3822](https://github.com/qutebrowser/qutebrowser/issues/3822) [https://github.com/qutebrowser/qutebrowser/issues/1187](https://github.com/qutebrowser/qutebrowser/issues/1187)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Reason number n+1 why Google is bad for the open web

<comment><USER27> Just use AMP it'll be fiiine...

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Fastmail. Happy customer for many years.

</comment><comment><USER29> Google decides what is good for you. You will will be safe!

</comment><comment><USER30> Is this more robust than just User Agent sniffing? I'm pretty sure Google basically assigns browsers a credit rating. i.e. UA string CoolBrowser v1.8.8 is good but CoolBrowser v1.7.0 is downgraded or blocked.

This goes against Google's own web accessibility guidelines circa 2008 that they seemingly ignore now, but was the reason I left internet explorer to begin with.

</comment><comment><USER31> I really really liked squirrelmail when my host used it. It wasn't perfect but had lots of plugins and was light and fast, and was open source. It was ugly though, and had a few bugs.

Then my host pushed, despite objections from the community, atmail, a proprietary gmail-alike webmail interface. It is even more buggy, and slow as hell, but hey, at least it looks "cool".

</comment><comment><USER32> In related news Vivaldi (spiritual successor to old, pre Chrome Opera) just dropped its labelling/branding from User Agent string to counter this type of shenanigans [https://vivaldi.com/blog/user-agent- changes/](https://vivaldi.com/blog/user-agent-changes/)

</comment><comment><USER33> I see lots of people mentioning email clients. What email client do people use? Is it fast and robust? Every one I know of seems to have severe lags and/or have a lot of mess to clean up when it inevitably crashes.

<comment><USER34> Kmail is not bad.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Just use email client like you do (most likely) on your phone.

</comment><comment><USER36> This makes me very glad that I don't use GMail regularly, and the only access I have to it is via IMAP in Interlink.

<comment><USER37> I access my GMail with Chrome and have no problems.

<comment><USER36> That makes you part of the problem of Google's takeover, not part of the solution of a free Web.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> ProtonMail with Brave works really well.

<comment><USER39> Not if you use ProtonMail for an anonymous Instagram account. Instagram will lock almost all features like following/unfollowing, comments, descriptions, etc.

<comment><USER38> Don't use Instagram?

<comment><USER6> Just as "don't use anything but Chrome" isn't a good answer for Google login problems, this isn't a good answer to their problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Anyone have any idea how they're doing this? Switching user agents doesn't seem to help.

</comment><comment><USER41> is this why i'm getting "basic HTML view" in my iphone ? i can't even find a link to switch to normal HTML. And if i log out, "take me to the latest gmail" doesn't work

<comment><USER42> I wish this were the only problem I had with gmail on the iphone (because I'm not downloading the app) where switching accounts is essentially a roll of the dice whether or not gmail feels like _actually_ taking me from one account to another.

Fixed it in the end by just bookmarking the two account pages separately.

<comment><USER43> Google's the only of the big tech companies where my every interaction with their products leaves me thinking they must let the interns do everything while the presumably-brilliant FTEs eat free snacks and play Smash Brothers all day, or something. Been that way for years. Even their libraries and SDKs and such give that impression. It's so weird. I don't know what's wrong there but it must be some deep-rooted cultural problem, is all I can figure.

<comment><USER44> What do you mean, doesn't Google only hire the best of the best?

<comment><USER6> Is this sarcasm? I genuinely cannot tell.

<comment><USER44> Yes sorry, it was sarcasm.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> How long before Firefox is considered a niche browser by Google and banned? I'll start holding my breath. It won't be long especially if we, as tech users, continue to promote Chrome to the rest of the world like it isn't the cancer it has grown into.

<comment><USER46> Google funds Mozilla by paying to be their default search engine.

I think we'd see that deal cancelled before Google dropped support for Firefox.

<comment><USER45> Yup and it'd be easy for them to do so. They could also just keep FF funded with a low market share to pretend like they don't want to get rid of it in the same way that large companies donate to different causes to pretend like they are not the ones causing the essential problems that they are donating to fix in the first place.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> In a world where half the population uses "password" as their password for their identity provider and bank, I am not sure why we're upset that fingerprinting is going on. It's that or a lot of hacked accounts.

Sure, _you_ have a nine million character password with eight hardware factors to turn on your light bulb... but you have to realize that's rather uncommon.

<comment><USER48> I don't understand how this comment is related to the submission in any way.

<comment><USER49> The ban is because those browsers are "hard to fingeprint as safe".

<comment><USER50> Surely more obscure UAs are much easier to fingerprint?

<comment><USER49> That's why the quotation marks, I don't believe it either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> I don't get why this matters.

I mean, why would anyone who goes out of their way to use a "niche browser" even have a Gmail account?

Edit: My point here is that Google is so invasive and fundamentally hostile to privacy that using it with anything more secure than Firefox seems futile. And if you love some niche browser so much, go for it. But use Firefox for Gmail. Or even better, use Thunderbird.

<comment><USER52> I use DDG app as my primary browser on mobile and I have a Gmail account. I like both for their ability to limit the amount of interruptive advertising I have to deal with.

<comment><USER51> I don't see any advertising anywhere.

Except using Tor browser, which doesn't block ads.</comment></comment></comment>