[geeks] Web Browsers that Don't Suck

[jodys at helluin.org]

On Fri, Apr 12, 2002 at 02:54:01PM -0500, Jonathan C. Patschke wrote:
> On Fri, 12 Apr 2002, Joshua D Boyd wrote:
> > tried it myself.  Also, have you tried galleon on irix?
> 
> That requires GNOME, which requires approximately half of the source code
> available on the world-wide-web.  Galleon is nice, but GNOME is quite
> evil.

You don't actually need gnome, just gtk. Not to say that galeon is really
that much more responsive than mozilla, it just sucks a little bit less.

The browser I use is w3m (http://w3m.sourceforge.net) which is a text
browser that uses the mouse and can display images (with a horribly ugly
hack). But after years of trying to find a browser that doesn't suck, this
one sucks the least. links may be worth a shot too.

<rant>
Why is it that the best work I do is one a frikkin text terminal?
Last time I did some hefty programming (huge PHP app (don't ask me why)),
I said fuck you to GUIs, fuck you to shitty inconsitent design, fuck you to
wasted memory, fuck you to wasted CPU. And got me a wyse terminal and
screen. Oh my god, no distractions, no blinking things, no color. It 
was peaceful. Put the CPU in another room, turn the lights down, quiet,
almost like meditating with my code. Oh I kept a X-terminal around just
so I could see my results in bright flashing color, but oh how I loved
that terminal (it's 2:00AM, the orange glow of the outdoor halogen lights
glimmering off of your amber text terminal, playing nethack in all of its
acsii goodness, the way it should be done).

So why the hell can't all the millions of programmers out there reproduce
the simplicity of a frikking terminal. Do apps *really* need all that.
Do you really need <blink>, do you even really need color? NO. Apps should
help you, the computer should help you, is this not the revolution of PC's,
to have a helpful computer around. Help you solve problems, look at
things a different way. And yet all of this modern software doesn't really
help you more that a 386 with DOS and wordstar and a spreadsheet. And 
those were easier to learn. 

And don't get me started about window managers, some people should just
be shot. And email clients, how hard is it really? Or web browsers, I mean
*come on* does a web browser really need to eat up 40M of core? And for
what to display some shitty web site designed by a monkey hyped up on 
speed? Is this all really necessary? When will it stop?

Maybe I'm a curmudgeon (a hypocritical one at that (typing this from X)),
but *JESUS* modern software sucks! Why oh why are we saddled with this 
shit, it's horrible, it's a travesty. So much computing power going
to waste, and for what, I ask? To help the user? To make the world a
better place? Ah... I know... to make money. I'm depressed. 
</rant>
Sorry this stuff pisses me off a lot. Really a lot.