Firefox, the web browser for(my) life

 

Well, What is on my raspberry pi 4

The first thing I install is my client for the cloud based notes application. I use simplenote. It has the advantage that it is available on all the major platforms. There is a terminal client called sncli. This is my go to client.
The next thing is to install terminology for the terminal. After trying out many, I observed that terminology is the fastest on the pi.
i3 window manager. I cannot live without it. None of my Gnu/Linux installations is complete without this. It is lightweight, easily configurable and simple.
For the browser, since I have started using computers I have sided with Firefox. I am at home with this browser. I install noscript, ublock, privacy badger and dark reader plugins. I like it. It has always met my expectations.
For the application launcher i go with rofi. The run menu is shown in a small window in the bottom left corner of my monitor.
For searching on the command line I use ddgr(DuckDuckgo client for the terminal) and surfraw. After installing surfraw I install a small script called menu-sufraw available on github. This integrates beautifully with rofi. Must try.
For the office suite, My choice was OpenOffice before it went to the butcher's table with the Apache foundation. Now it is libreoffice. I like it. It gets the job done.
For my text editor, wait, wait, I use both Neovim and Doom emacs as demanded by the situation. I use emacs with the client/server model. It is quick and very snappy to start and to work.
Feh for my wallpaper needs.
There is one more plugin which I install on firefox, it is called play-with. This I combine with mpv. We now have an awesome combination for playing streaming content on the pi. For this configuration to work there is one more piece of software required and that is youtube-dl. A beautiful example of the unix philosophy working for the modern age of the internet.
Not to forget that all the apps are in dark mode, if available. I like the dark mode. It has been excellent for my eyes. Even now when firefox flashes before loading a tab, I close my eyes for a while. Thank you, Apple, only for bringing the dark mode into vogue.
My hardware setup is already discussed in one of my previous posts.
font-awesome for that "graphics" in the terminal.
d2code for the font, wherever possible. I like its legibility.
I use i3status showing the date, time, empty space, processor speed and the temperature.

Thanks to all the devs/users of all the freedom software. My respect to one and all without which this post wouldn't exist.

The modern web is f*&*d

            It required the mozilla firefox's debacle to understand how complicated and shitty the  www has become. It is no more interlinking of html files. It is a treasure trove of executables. Executables are supposed to be run on your own personal computer/laptop. Every web page you open runs executable code. I just want to view the page. If i want to execute something, i will do it. But, the "I" for one is totally absent. It is "we". They decide what is to be show and executed. You, poor chap want to read the text in a html page. You point the browser to that exact html link. What do you get. Nothing. Yes, you get nothing out of everything. The world wide web to start with was such a joy. I remember seeing one of my richer friends using the www and I thought it was so serene. It was like God, if there was one has come down. It was like Krishna with all his knowledge is only waiting for you to ask the right questions. The answers are all there but tied to the right questions. It was like an interlinked answer sheet for "everything".

              What has the web come to now. The chromium browser i use, is the, ungoogled chromium build with all the plugins required for removing ads, privacy guarding, javascript disabling stuff. The link i wanted to open did not open until i disabled the script blocking plugin. Now, what is this page i was looking at. I was looking at a page from mozilla's website which was periodically being updated during this addons debacle. You know what, the page was not displayed until i enabled scripts to run. Why are scripts running here. Yes, I dont know how the modern www works. I just know how to make it look better from a client point of view. youtube doesnt display on the chromium browser with scripts disabled. I was just reading about the way youtube was started by its hipster devs. I felt very sorry for them. A big organization taking control of your pet project starts by giving you that processing power you need to start with. Then starts the acquisition of everything. You lose your identity. All acquisitions start with giving the acquired the promise of independence. Now, independence, is an intoxicating word. It is like you are suddenly on one of the private beaches and you are being told you are the owner and here is the money to run it.

                  From here the buyer will start scheming. How is he gonna integrate this independent entity into his largesse. Everything will happen bit by bit. The buyer will tell I am going to install security guards for "your" teams safety. Now, you are cornered and in the coming days you will screw your team or will exit it altogether for the team to fend themselves. The remaining team have to just go with the buyer. You and your efforts are still not recognized in the vc market. So you continue for a few days become goody goody with the buyer and incorporate whatever you are asked. There ends the independent product.

                    When I started using the public network. It was so neat. You want to download a big file do it from my ftp server. Dont clog my http server, other users will feel the latency. Your http server will "only" serve http pages and links, nothing else. You wanted to write a blog go ahead and register to organizations specialized in doing so. The tool will only concentrate on making blogging experience better. All of a sudden the blogging landscape became zero. All the blogs were searchable. What an utopian condition. Now, you write your blogs. It does not come up in any searches though it will be the only matching web page based on your searches. But the first 100/10000/N results will yield results what the "algorithms" tell. Now, algorithms is a good word for the big corporations to escape from responsibility. The algorithms are so complicated that i believe it is out of human intervention considering the complex rules which includes government rules, paid content, the ISP and what not. The user and the creator are totally lost in this maze.

                  Everybody wants to build a bigger walled garden. A stronger walled garden. Is everything in the walled garden accessible to everybody in that particular walled garden. No. The products are same as the industry. A person working beside somebody will not know about the salary of the next. But, all work in the same walled garden. The products are also the same. There is no openness left in this industry. There has to be a revolution. This revolution has to happen from the bourgeoisie, the content creators. The content creators have to wage the war. It is not that difficult. The internet allows the freedom  and tools to do it.

              I had a book named internet with me, purchased when i started to understand how the internet works. I remembered that book and gave it a visit. It might seem idiotic now, but, there was one word which caught my eye, "gopher" Sadly the number of articles on this protocol is at the minimal on the public network. But, this was until I went down one of the gopher hole. From here it was rabbit hole.

             I request all the content creators to host a gopher server and advertise it along the http pages. I loved the simplicity of the protocol(Come on, the http was just to have linkable web pages and travel down the rabbit hole). If you want your content to be searchable and help other people put it on plain html websites or put it in a gopher hole. Start using it, you will fall in love immediately, with its simplicity, with its methodology of serving content. Its adaptability to deliver content in terms of text file and to download other content like music/movies/pdf etc.

The servers available

af          A simple gopher server written in Lua, with a blogging module
geomidae    A simple gopher client written in C
Attua       A gopher server writting in Retro, A forth dialect


The clients available

sacc    A simple console gopher client
cgo     A simple console gopher client
vf1     Majority of the hackers on gopher tend to use it.

For more info enter the
gopher://bitreich.org:70    with your gopher client

The above is a very small list. I have come across much more. At this moment of writing I have used the above and remember them well.

           I spend all my time on GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD. Therefore all the collections are projects running on these platforms. What an awesome community/developers are out there. It has been an honor to use your hard work and your passion.

Indian fonts on Arch GNU/Linux

Go here. for a small discussion. The summary would be

1. You already have yaourt installed or any other front end for the AUR repository.
2. Run 'yaourt -S lohit-fonts' as a normal user in the terminal.
3. Follow the instructions and at the end give the root password.
4. Restart firefox or any other browser/app where you want Indian fonts to be displayed properly.
5. Thank the devs and testers here.