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Being a Sylvan (sometimes referred to as a Wood Elf) in present day can be maddening. Sylvans live among nature, and are supposed to live simple lives.
But the modern world, and all its technological wizardry, fights against the simplicity! Sometimes, often, it feels like there isn't enough time in the day to get things done.
Whether it is tending the forest from the evil curse of the Shadows, to protecting the wildlife from the constant incursions of goblins, trolls, and the ever annoying humans, we Sylvans need time! And the modern wizardry tries to steal that from us!
Television, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Youtube, Odysee, Peertube,Rumble, et cetera, et cetera!
I am doing my best to move away from video. Moving from the "noisy web" to Gemini definitely helps. And I don't have DRM enabled anywhere on this computer, so that rules out Netflix, Prime, stuff like that.
Still, you could spend forever watching videos on Odysee if you want to. Or Youtube, if you don't mind throwing taffic to the "big tech" site (I equate using Google to revealing yourself to the all-seeing eye of Sauron).
Watching too much video can be tempting at times, but I've found a few ways to create "friction points" between me and the video sites.
I've mentioned the Lynx Browser before. It is a text-based web (and gopher!) browser that isn't only incapable of playing *video*, it is incapable of showing *pictures!* There is no Javascript (see next section), is lightning fast and allows you to concentrate only on *text*. Which is wonderful. I love it.
In a previous post, I talked about the manipulation sites will use with images to manipulate beliefs and behavior, and while a Sylvan may be immune to Sleep spells, she is not immune to type of spell.
I saw this post by ew0k is a Teddybear, talking about how the web breaks when you turn off Javascript:
gemini://warmedal.se/~bjorn/posts/2022-04-02-everything-breaks-experiencing-the-web-without-javascript.gmi
I love Lynx, but I sometimes want a graphical browser. Sometimes you need slighty more functionality than Lynx gives you, wuch as when looking for images for your Dungeons & Dragons or Alternity campaigns.
I often use Tor, turned up to its maximum privacy settings, including disabling Javascript.
When I am not using Tor, I use LibreWolf, and use the Ublock Origin plugin as well (it comes built in). Though until recently, I left Javascript enabled. I've now turned it off, and, yep, half the web breaks in LibreWolf too.
Some search sites work okay. Marginalia works fine, and tends to link to "old web" sites, which also work just fine. Qwant and MetaGer both work as well.
I should write a post just on search engines :) I've found that a lot of search engines link to the exact same sites - wikipedia, youtube, etc - and you aren't finding anything new and exciting. Marginalia and Wiby are especially good for finding something "different" and "new" rather than just providng links to sites you knew existed anyways.
This might be a plus for human society. Definitely a plus for a Sylvan!
I've tested some news sites with Javascript turned off.
CNN comes up, but seems completely lost as to what to show you without Javascript enabled. Maybe CNN can't figure out who you are. Or maybe CNN is a full application, not just documents to view, and without the "engine" for the application it just won't work.
Fox News seems to work pretty well, which surprised me. Videos don't work, and half the images don't seem to load. The images not loading might be other settings I have turned on in UBlock Origin, such as "Block Media Elements Larger than 50 KB" (50 KB was the default, you can change it).
I tried some other news sites. ABC News looks like a wreck. Drudge Report seems just fine. New York Times seems to work. The Wall Street Journal seems like it might work, but it has a paywall. So that means you need to log in to see much content.. and that might not work with Javascript.
Etc.
There are *some* news sites mirrored to Gemini, like the Guardian.
Again, I'm not sure news sites breaking is horrible. I'd rather read posts from individuals... I trust individuals (even humans!) a lot more than news sites. News sites always feel like I am being fed a "party line".
I am not real fond of the internet protocol http(s). Yeah, it can do a lot. But it is a really *heavy* protocol, and inherently insecure. And the web has been "corporatized"... it is owned by Amazon and Microsoft and Meta, etc.
There are a lot of different ways to use the Internet, other than the web. Gemini is a new, minimalist, cool way to use it. I use SSH to access a server regularly too, that has some programs on it that kind of work like a BBS. There are MUDs, all sorts of things. Using a web browser means just accessing part of the Internet.
This has been a rambling post. But it is pointing to Digital Minimalism. The web is pretty addictive. But putting friction points between me and the stuff that attracts my attention really helps. Using a text-based browser, or when I am using a GUI browser blocking Javascript, really seems to help.
The really cool parts of the Internet are the parts that haven't been taken over by the huge corporations anyways :)
Email: lantashi [at] protonmail [dot] com