A website using Anubis will respond to a request for a webpage with a free JavaScript program and not the page that was requested.
This is a legitimate critique though. Anubis requires the use of capital W Web Browsers (chromium, Firefox) in order to access the site. This effectively blocks users who A: dont want to run the computations of the JS program (which can’t be circumvented due to the server side computing done) and B: users using web browsers without or with limited JS functionality that wouldn’t meet the reqs of Anubis.
Anubis was created as an emergency stop valve on LLM scrapers, but I think having a solution which doesn’t require Anubis is also valuable as well.
Malware is a terrible choice of words. Anubis isnt malware. It may provoke questions about the state of the Web but there’s nothing malicious about protecting your digital infra when the vast majority of users browse with JS enabled and not doing so would take down your site or leave you with thousands of dollars in upkeep costs.
The FSF do give off the trot vibe and thank you for making that connection that I will never unsee. I think if they just posted what I wrote above they would get far less backlash.
The FSF do give off the trot vibe and thank you for making that connection that I will never unsee. I think if they just posted what I wrote above they would get far less backlash.
And probably less nonsense from me, I tend to get angry and irrational easily (partly because I’m passionate and care) and that leads to me overlooking some important parts.
This is a legitimate critique though. Anubis requires the use of capital W Web Browsers (chromium, Firefox) in order to access the site. This effectively blocks users who A: dont want to run the computations of the JS program (which can’t be circumvented due to the server side computing done) and B: users using web browsers without or with limited JS functionality that wouldn’t meet the reqs of Anubis.
And well yes, I do agree that Anubis basically only help to entrench the big browsers while cutting off people using for example Lynx. Now, I’m writing this after checking their changelog, and they have introduced a challenge that works without client side JS, so I guess we can disregard the concern of entrenching.
Anubis was created as an emergency stop valve on LLM scrapers, but I think having a solution which doesn’t require Anubis is also valuable as well.
And that’s what I understand it’s purpose to be, I don’t want it to be the end all be all. But it’s “good enough” as the dev themself put.
Malware is a terrible choice of words. Anubis isnt malware. It may provoke questions about the state of the Web but there’s nothing malicious about protecting your digital infra when the vast majority of users browse with JS enabled and not doing so would take down your site or leave you with thousands of dollars in upkeep costs.
That’s the biggest issue I have with the FSF, it’s all posturing with no substance. They should absolutely spearhead a project that would be an alternative for what Anubis is currently doing, or I don’t fucking know try and find one to support and endorse?? Their inability to compromise for a limited time is way too annoying.
That’s the biggest issue I have with the FSF, it’s all posturing with no substance. They should absolutely spearhead a project that would be an alternative for what Anubis is currently doing, or I don’t fucking know try and find one to support and endorse?? Their inability to compromise for a limited time is way too annoying.
This sums up my opinion of the organization as well. The whole thing gives me the feeling of learned helplessness. The state of the World Wide Web is a fucking disaster. The browser duopoly is a disaster. Mozilla’s position as the only ‘competition’ to Google, while being completely dependent on funding from Google is completely farcical and untenable. We are all Wile E. Coyote, standing 10 feet past the edge of the cliff waiting to look down.
I wouldn’t describe the FSF as Trots though. They are 100% dyed in the wool market liberals. The archetypal flaw of the Free Software movement under their guidance has been the messianic belief that the market will sort everything out, and the only work which needs to be done is to produce (tautologically) superior products and services. While this has had some positive aspects (the software and services generally are superior in many regards due to this fixation), it has left us in a situation where Free Software is still out of reach, and essentially invisible to the vast majority of end users 40 YEARS after the publication of the GNU Manifesto.
The movement has completely failed to engage with the process of production whatsoever, and the results are dire. Across the board, consumer electronics are manufactured exclusively by monopoly capital and shipping with proprietary software which is more invasive and abusive than ever before. Only one or two percent of end users appear to have the means, know-how, or desire to help themselves. We succeeded only in building a commune in the middle of the woods, surrounded by an entire continent of surveillance capitalist decadence which pays us no mind. Free Software itself has proliferated, but it hasn’t freed the users. It runs on billions of consumer devices around the world. But it comes in the form of an operating system kernel for Google’s cursed ad-tech mobile operating system, or some audio codecs and shell utilities buried like fossils under several layers of proprietary SDKs on an Apple iPhone.
The situation is a total crisis, like most other aspects of advanced Capitalist society. The situation calls for bold action. A reassessment and change of tactics, at least. But the FSF seems content to remain in this meek holding pattern indefinitely.
This rant doesn’t have very much to do with their statement about Anubis, but in this statement specifically there is another thing that rubs me wrong. You can make a technical argument that mandatory JavaScript puts considerable limitations on system accessibility (not specifically in a disability sense). They should stick to that argument. It is ideologically sound, if pedantic (pedantry is one of the FSF’s redeeming traits, though). This comparison to malware goes beyond the pale for me. The FSF has guidelines on the development of free, non-obfuscated JavaScript. It is news to me that the use JavaScript in and of itself is disqualifying for Free Software infrastructure. Additionally, the comparison to malicious crypto-mining malware just because it implements a basic proof of work algorithm is absurd and disingenuous. Again, a rational objection could be made about the distributed energy costs, battery drain, etc. of requiring clients to perform a proof of work computation, but that’s not what they’re doing.
This is a legitimate critique though. Anubis requires the use of capital W Web Browsers (chromium, Firefox) in order to access the site. This effectively blocks users who A: dont want to run the computations of the JS program (which can’t be circumvented due to the server side computing done) and B: users using web browsers without or with limited JS functionality that wouldn’t meet the reqs of Anubis.
Anubis was created as an emergency stop valve on LLM scrapers, but I think having a solution which doesn’t require Anubis is also valuable as well.
Malware is a terrible choice of words. Anubis isnt malware. It may provoke questions about the state of the Web but there’s nothing malicious about protecting your digital infra when the vast majority of users browse with JS enabled and not doing so would take down your site or leave you with thousands of dollars in upkeep costs.
The FSF do give off the trot vibe and thank you for making that connection that I will never unsee. I think if they just posted what I wrote above they would get far less backlash.
And probably less nonsense from me, I tend to get angry and irrational easily (partly because I’m passionate and care) and that leads to me overlooking some important parts.
And well yes, I do agree that Anubis basically only help to entrench the big browsers while cutting off people using for example Lynx. Now, I’m writing this after checking their changelog, and they have introduced a challenge that works without client side JS, so I guess we can disregard the concern of entrenching.
And that’s what I understand it’s purpose to be, I don’t want it to be the end all be all. But it’s “good enough” as the dev themself put.
That’s the biggest issue I have with the FSF, it’s all posturing with no substance. They should absolutely spearhead a project that would be an alternative for what Anubis is currently doing, or I don’t fucking know try and find one to support and endorse?? Their inability to compromise for a limited time is way too annoying.
This sums up my opinion of the organization as well. The whole thing gives me the feeling of learned helplessness. The state of the World Wide Web is a fucking disaster. The browser duopoly is a disaster. Mozilla’s position as the only ‘competition’ to Google, while being completely dependent on funding from Google is completely farcical and untenable. We are all Wile E. Coyote, standing 10 feet past the edge of the cliff waiting to look down.
I wouldn’t describe the FSF as Trots though. They are 100% dyed in the wool market liberals. The archetypal flaw of the Free Software movement under their guidance has been the messianic belief that the market will sort everything out, and the only work which needs to be done is to produce (tautologically) superior products and services. While this has had some positive aspects (the software and services generally are superior in many regards due to this fixation), it has left us in a situation where Free Software is still out of reach, and essentially invisible to the vast majority of end users 40 YEARS after the publication of the GNU Manifesto.
The movement has completely failed to engage with the process of production whatsoever, and the results are dire. Across the board, consumer electronics are manufactured exclusively by monopoly capital and shipping with proprietary software which is more invasive and abusive than ever before. Only one or two percent of end users appear to have the means, know-how, or desire to help themselves. We succeeded only in building a commune in the middle of the woods, surrounded by an entire continent of surveillance capitalist decadence which pays us no mind. Free Software itself has proliferated, but it hasn’t freed the users. It runs on billions of consumer devices around the world. But it comes in the form of an operating system kernel for Google’s cursed ad-tech mobile operating system, or some audio codecs and shell utilities buried like fossils under several layers of proprietary SDKs on an Apple iPhone.
The situation is a total crisis, like most other aspects of advanced Capitalist society. The situation calls for bold action. A reassessment and change of tactics, at least. But the FSF seems content to remain in this meek holding pattern indefinitely.
This rant doesn’t have very much to do with their statement about Anubis, but in this statement specifically there is another thing that rubs me wrong. You can make a technical argument that mandatory JavaScript puts considerable limitations on system accessibility (not specifically in a disability sense). They should stick to that argument. It is ideologically sound, if pedantic (pedantry is one of the FSF’s redeeming traits, though). This comparison to malware goes beyond the pale for me. The FSF has guidelines on the development of free, non-obfuscated JavaScript. It is news to me that the use JavaScript in and of itself is disqualifying for Free Software infrastructure. Additionally, the comparison to malicious crypto-mining malware just because it implements a basic proof of work algorithm is absurd and disingenuous. Again, a rational objection could be made about the distributed energy costs, battery drain, etc. of requiring clients to perform a proof of work computation, but that’s not what they’re doing.
Christ am I so happy that people like you exist on this website and can actually put into words exactly what my stupid feelings are. GOOD POST