It's strange, in projects like these I always see curated lists of non-free software being used for nefarious purposes, and free software that benefits their users.
But surely there's free software javascript that can collect keystrokes and fingerprint you, and other generally bad things as equally well as closed software.
Is the FSF be ok with people (companies, really) using free software spying technologies instead of closed source ones? Are the examples picked specifically to sway more people into the project?
The focus on "proprietary" vs. "open" JavaScript code is pointless given any amount of JavaScript can be un-obfuscated and analyzed, with enough work.
Is it "enough work" where a site gives me what I need in exchange for the work my computer did to show it to me without using my time for trying to figure out what I'm doing or who I am? That the site may want more of my computer time to run their obfuscated code is really not as important to me as understanding how much of my processing time they are using. If they use very little, chance are they don't know much about me. The more they use, the more they probably know.
Given most sites can render just fine without JavaScript, the easiest thing to do, if you care about these things, is install a plugin that disables JavaScript on all sites or just the ones you find abuse this right.
If there was a plugin that did this based on some type of community consensus (don't run on this site vs. have to run on this site to see anything at all), I would surely use it.
That'd probably make the problem worse, by encouraging developers to force JavaScript to see the page.
Nevertheless, it probably can't get worse than it is now.
You'd be surprised how many times I've seen websites which have some sort of hidden-before-load-class attached to the HTML element. When you're not using JavaScript, you can remove this class and it all works fine.
Same thing for loading spinners. If your loading time warrants a loading spinner, you're probably doing something wrong.
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 18.4 ms ] threadBut surely there's free software javascript that can collect keystrokes and fingerprint you, and other generally bad things as equally well as closed software.
Is the FSF be ok with people (companies, really) using free software spying technologies instead of closed source ones? Are the examples picked specifically to sway more people into the project?
Is it "enough work" where a site gives me what I need in exchange for the work my computer did to show it to me without using my time for trying to figure out what I'm doing or who I am? That the site may want more of my computer time to run their obfuscated code is really not as important to me as understanding how much of my processing time they are using. If they use very little, chance are they don't know much about me. The more they use, the more they probably know.
Given most sites can render just fine without JavaScript, the easiest thing to do, if you care about these things, is install a plugin that disables JavaScript on all sites or just the ones you find abuse this right.
If there was a plugin that did this based on some type of community consensus (don't run on this site vs. have to run on this site to see anything at all), I would surely use it.
Nevertheless, it probably can't get worse than it is now.
You'd be surprised how many times I've seen websites which have some sort of hidden-before-load-class attached to the HTML element. When you're not using JavaScript, you can remove this class and it all works fine.
Same thing for loading spinners. If your loading time warrants a loading spinner, you're probably doing something wrong.