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Web Bugs Make Gopher Better

The more time I spend on Gopher alongside the "modern" web, the more reasons I find to like Gopher's simplicity.

I'm not sure if this is a bug in PaleMoon or crappy JavaScript code that shouldn't have been allowed to run (so in that sense, a bug in PaleMoon and possibly other browsers), but I lost the scrollbar and mouse scrolling on a webpage I had been reading. Can still scroll with keyboard arrows, just not with the mouse.

With Gopher's simplicity, you'd have to really make an effort to create a client that was buggy enough to randomly break scrolling. For text clients, it's really just implementing an internal version of less (or even more). GUIs have had this capability pretty well sorted out since the first Apple Mac, if not before (Xerox Star anyone?).

Sure, it's a minor annoyance that reminded me I *can* use the keyboard for more than I do. But those annoyances add up to make the web an often uncomfortable place (apart from the few who make an effort toward simplicity and compatibility), which makes Gopher feel that much better by comparison.

;Date: 2023-09-18 21:23
;Desc: Where'd my scrollbar go?