I just recently found Nyxt, which aims to be a hackable browser. I like what it has going for it, and it's very flexible even with web-engines, allowing you to use Blink or Webkit. It's also pretty unique and the only other browser I can think comes close is qutebrowser, which even then it's incredibly different from. I'm looking forward to trying it out more and getting used to it.

I've liked my Waterfox, but it's just Firefox. There are also some issues with some sites in some occasions, and some Youtube videos have recently been a pain to load for no reason at all (this could just be Youtube).

Streamslabs has been such a shitshow that this is just a tiny tear in the fabric compared to the rest. This is also the case for a lot of "Chrome-only" or browser restricting sites and features. I have a User Agent switcher setup to certain URLs just because of this, and 9 out of 10 times, it always works fine. I'm sure Google does some bribing or the developers are lazy asses who only use Chrome. Whatever the reason, it's the dumbest thing.

I make sure my site atleast functions in all browsers. I won't ever restrict based on User Agent. If it's broken, you'll know.

Oooooh boy, here comes another "Fuck you" to Chrome!

As many people might already know, I've been setting up and having 24/7 stations up on the new Worlio Radio. One of the neat gimmicks of the page is that there are visualizers available, three as of now, and you can switch through them by clicking on the visualizer.

Two problems had cropped up while working on this, and they both involve Chrome being a fucking dumbass.

Problem #1: Audio would not play in Chrome, but would be perfectly fine in Firefox.
The reason? Chrome is shitheads and don't follow JS spec. The page uses the Audio object and controls that instead of slapping an audio element on the page, and then sources it into an AudioContext so the visualizers could work. Spec states that the creation of an AudioContext is allowed but must only be resumed via a users interaction. To sum it up, this basically means I can create all the AudioContext elements I want but if I want to play from any of them, a user has to click on something or interact with something that directs to it resuming. Firefox follows this spec to the T, while Chrome is very strict considering it's Google. Chrome requires the AudioContext to be created only via a users interaction, which makes no sense because not only is it off-spec, it's also entirely useless in practice. AudioContext can't do anything unless it's playing, which the spec handles the requirement fine. I ended up solving this by adding some checks to see if the variable was initialized.

Problem #2: AudioContext cannot be re-routed after it's already been routed... only in Chrome
The spec does not specify that an Audio can only be routed once through an AudioContext, it just says that it can re-route an Audio through. Firefox has no issue with this and will just consider the previous AudioContext route dead and re-route the player into the context. Chrome will completely stop the media playing, making the context invalid and erroring out in console. Chrome doesn't need to do this, and it benefits nothing to prevent it. This forces visualization switching through Chrome to require re-selecting the channel to play the radio and see visualizers. It's so annoying, it's not even worth trying to fix.

I've had nothing but issues with inconsistencies that have made no sense when it comes to browser engines, 99% of the time it boiling down to Chrome is a fucking piece of shit browser and their Blink engine is only worse. I'm almost at my wits end.

So to sum it up, Chrome adds unneccessary limitations because it can. Blink's widespread usage definitely isn't making Javascript look very good. It sounds to me like Google is trying to make all the rules, ig that's what happens when you own like 80% of the browser industry

p.s. I am writing this on a Steam Deck with dual trackpads only. It takes some getting used to for sure

Let me know how my site looks on it. I must keep Steam Deck compatible.

This is desktop mode with flatpak Firefox and 90% default zoom in handheld mode.
The Steam browser in gaming mode appears to use Blink

Looks like Firefox went off the deep end in it's styling of media elements. Took a page out from Chrome, which seems to happen way too often now.


It even animated up and down too but an option in about:config disabled that, so I can live with this, but I still think it's worse. (userContent.player.animate to enable/disable the animation)

They even made changes to the audio element, but it's just some simple changes, no animations or "fading", and it still looks the same size.

We should just make our own Firefox fork honestly

Not even worth it. Gecko itself is a bloated engine, just happens to be the most usable engine right now.

Latest Firefox stutters at live audio playback. I noticed this when working on Worlio Radio. Older versions of the Gecko engine do not have this problem for me, and any other browser works fine.

I made a simple stylesheet for media too. It mostly reverts back to the original look, although fullscreen video has a very large interface and I'm not sure how to fix that. Slap it in something like Stylus.
audio {
--duration-color: unset;
border-radius: 0px;
box-shadow: none;
}

video {
--media-background: rgb(26, 26, 26);
}

Discord just allowed unsanitized text to appear on their new server discovery pages.

I only know of one other website (gamebanana) that is this unsafe and so blatantly mishandled. The sheer lack of shits given for any kind of security practice is astonishing.

It seems like this was only used to target NFTbros, but I do believe this sort of neglect spells bad news for everyone else as well.

Discord has had so many vulnerability and security issues that were only slightly less dangerous than this, it surprises me none. I expect one day, one of the idiotic brain dead discord developers are going to accidentally leak the entire account database or some stupid shit because they forgot to end a quote in their code.

Javascript is ass and anyone who says otherwise is part of the problem.

Web nerds: We love making the Internet flexible! Check out SVGs!
Me: Okay, can I use them as backgrounds?
Web nerds: Well, yes technica-
Me: Will they stretch?
Web nerds: ... yes.

---

Can web developers do anything besides develop a new button in CSS that looks the same as any other previous button? It's a logical request to use SVGs as a non-stretched background for elements, but doing any research on it shows bullshit that isn't what I asked for. If it's not possible, it should be.

They did say they love making the internet flexible.

In my work to make a generic chat handler backend for Worlio, I discovered a precursor to WebSocket and shitty AJAX that is actually kind of genius.

Meet BOSH (Bidirectional-streams Over Synchronous HTTP), an ingenious way of transmitting data between a client and a server over HTTP. It's mostly used in XMPP which is how I even discovered it's existence. Superior to AJAX, older than WebSockets. It's really crazy how back then, they took advantage of existing technologies. We didn't get WebSockets for years, but I'm sure nobody really used BOSH before then anyway and kept to their crappy AJAX or relied on Flash.

It's shame there is hardly any documentation or information on BOSH. I kind of want to try and make our chat service work with it (in addition to WebSocket). This could mean that it might be possible to use our chat on Navigator and the likes. We'll see.

lets just go back to the geocities era okay?
i want my system to lag from 0 delay gifs, not js ajax calls and tracking

When it was still supported I used Xombrero.

Google is trying to propose something new to the W3 spec that would force the use of agent validators so sites could require you to use a certain browser or prevent addons. It's basically DRM on the web, and it's all in Googles favor to enforce Chrome and their ads.
Spec here: https://rupertbenwiser.github.io/Web-Environment-Integrity/

A user on an issue (there are many) described it best:Everyone knows Google is Evil but this is next level, and they aren't even trying to hide it anymore. This spec is also partially implemented in Chrome browsers already, so I would move the FUCK off of Chrome and Chrome-based browsers as a whole.

EDIT: Louis Rossman vid

Imagine having an open SSH server for your Discord bot without a login password.

I bet you that a lot of Discord bots that are often used have just as bad vulnerabilities. The people behind Discord bots are people who think they know how to set up a server and code but just use a standard run-of-the-mill service and throw JS or Python into it.

If I ever wanted to pay for software and saw they made a Discord bot, I'd look somewhere else.