you know what would be nice? if web browsers had two modes, essentially - a "Document Mode" and an "App Mode." in doc mode you'd have access to CSS, HTML, all the layout stuff, but absolutely no javascript ot anything turing complete. the web browser would offer extra doc-specific chrome, like entering a Reader Mode, changing fonts, or selecting between alternate stylesheets offered by the site.

in application mode, all of that would go away, javascript and all the rest would be turned on. when you'd load an App Mode page you'd get a window warning you, displaying the name of the app, a description, a list of requested capabilities (with toggles to selectively deactivate them or, say, enable location spoofing, whatever), the developer's credentials, and require the user to explicitly click a button to say "yes, run app, please." and every single goddamn bit of everything would require code-signing. foreign javascript gets inserted somehow? too bad, it's not signed by the app's declared certificate, and the app is terminated or the user is just warned, depending on user preference.

but we'll never get anything like this, because browsers are too in thrall to Big App and Big Data and the throngs of javascript freaks who are congenitally unable to display a single line of text without dragging in 36 levels of dependencies and turning your processor's fan up to max

@velartrill I think Firefox has something like this, no?

@xmanmonk @velartrill no browsers do

@velartrill I know that firefox has a document mode, or reading mode, but I don't know if that disables javascript for that page or not. Oh, it's called "Reader View." Ctrl-Alt-R. Anyway, it certainly simplifies the page.

@xmanmonk i am not talking about "reader view." please read my tweet instead of just skimming it before you reply

@velartrill Sorry, I didn't skim your message, but I read it again and still come away with the same concept. I know that browsers definitely need to address our concerns, and I hope something will eventually address what you're looking for.

@xmanmonk how?? like i specifically stated Reader Mode was a *subset* of what i was describing. it has nothing to do with code signing or javascript restrictions, nothing to do with partitioning the web between apps and documents, keeping code that the user does not explicitly trust from running, keeping e.g. news sites from doing shit like mining bitcoin or tracking people or serving up malware, getting javascript out of the design business and forcing web developers to actually use tools correctly. *all* reader mode does is pull out a subsection of the text using heuristics - whether it's even enabled is also determined by heuristics - and present it differently. that's it. i don't know where you got the impression that it's anything more than that, that there's anything fundamentally different about web pages that Reader Mode works on. there's not.
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@velartrill @xmanmonk there already is this two mode for the web, but evil devs just use "app mode" for everything. What people need to do is stop visiting shitty websites, use something like tor browser as default so the shittyness of a website is apparent.

@aa @velartrill @xmanmonk oh. my god, no there isn't. read the fucking post