Firefox and the useless box
Sun, 21 Dec 2025 20:05:35 +0100
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The useless box has a switch that when activated opens the box lid,
whereupon a finger pops out which  turns the switch  off and closes
the box lid.

Adele's recent comment on moving  from Librewolf to Chromium  after 
yet another  new Firefox CEO  declared yet another get  rich  quick 
scheme, this  time intending to  fully integrate AI  services  into 
Firefox,  makes me  think of  Firefox as the  perfect useless  box, 
repeatedly switching itself off with every greedy move.                                   

If Adele's move is generalized,  we'll be eventually left with just
one major web engine.  So I'm asking myself why do  I need a "major
web engine"? Nowdays the things  I need like bank, taxes, mastodon,
etc. are  apps on my  smartphone. I have no  need to waste  my time
ogling  displays of  the latest  browser css  additions or  useless
graphic  creations. After  30 years  of browsing  it has  become as
attractive to me  as the US presidents gilt  smothered oval office.
The current web exists to make money, full stop.

ALl  I want  is to  share documents  and files,  and browse  other 
sources of documents and files. Gopher does this very well, but it 
is  hobbled by  30 year  old requirements  that make  little sense 
today.                                                             

I love the idea of the smolweb,  although in some sense I feel that
it's like the first horseless carriages, hanging on to old ideas in
a new paradigm. Not  being a C developer I've made a  mock up of an
even smoller web at  https://spike.nagatha.fr. I'm still working on
it, and  I don't know  if it's possible to  have a server  with the
ubiquity of  http and the naked  simplicity of gopher. But  if file
sharing and information for the common man is to survive, something
on this line will be necessary sooner than later.














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