Mozilla Jetpack and the Battle For the Web 280
snydeq writes "Mozilla Jetpack makes it so easy to filter, modify, and mash up pages that it might end up pitting developers and users against content producers in a battle for the Web, writes Fatal Exception's Neil McAllister. By allowing users to modify the behavior, presentation, and output of Web apps and pages to their liking, Jetpack gives users the ability to 'patch the server, in a sense,' McAllister writes, bringing us one step closer to a more democratic Web. Good news for developers and users; not so good for SaaS providers and media companies that have a vested interest in controlling the function, presentation, and distribution of Web-based content and apps. In other words, as Jetpack produces fruit, expect more producers to call for 'guardrails for the Internet.'"
I Don't Think It's a Dupe (Score:3, Informative)
CmdrTaco, you posted this dupe to early as the last one [slashdot.org] was only posted 8 days ago. You are supposed to wait at least a month before duping. Thank you.
Today's article is more centered on the battle that the author believes is about to transpire between content providers and users. If you're having trouble finding these parts:
Content producers, on the other hand, might not be so thrilled.
He goes on to cite the New York Times effort to provide an open API to their stories [nytimes.com] as well as Michael Lynton, Sony CEO Troll [slashdot.org] and wraps up with Obama's often referenced cybersecurity czar [slashdot.org] (god, I hate typing that):
So far, calls for action such as Lynton's have mostly fallen on deaf ears. But with President Obama due to announce a "cybersecurity czar" this week, there is every indication that the U.S. government is ready to become more directly involved in the workings of the Internet and the Web. According to the White House, the new position will have "broad authority" over the nation's computer networks, both public and private. If that authority includes protecting the economic interests of American Web-based businesses, we could be heading for a helluva scuffle.
I wouldn't call it a dupe as this gives us something new to talk about from a blog.
Re:Already available (Score:5, Informative)
Or am I mistaken. I use greasemonkey to already accomplish this.
Yeah, if you read the article, they go on extensively about this:
If you're familiar with the Greasemonkey extension for Firefox, you already have a good idea of how Jetpack works. Like Greasemonkey User Scripts, Jetpack-based add-ins are written primarily in JavaScript, and they manipulate browser windows and their contents using familiar AJAX techniques. You install them directly from the Web, and they don't even require a browser restart to take effect. While developing Greasemonkey User Scripts can be somewhat cumbersome, writing add-ins with Jetpack couldn't be simpler.
Jetpack integrates the popular jQuery JavaScript library, the Firebug debugger, and Mozilla's Bespin browser-based code editor to create a complete, interactive development environment. Although it's still in a raw and experimental stage, the combination is both easy to use and incredibly powerful. For example, one of the Jetpack demos is an ad-blocking script that uses a list of regular expressions to selectively filter unwanted graphics, scripts, and iframes from Web pages. The whole script comprises only about 80 lines of code.
It's a little surprising that Mozilla Labs would choose ad blocking as one of its first demos, however, when that's precisely the sort of application that flies directly in the faces of content providers and other Web-based businesses. While the Web is inarguably a mature computing platform, as a platform for business it's still in its infancy. Media companies are struggling to create viable revenue streams, and so far advertising is one of the few that has shown promise. And yet, with just 80 lines of code, Jetpack promises to take it all away.
Of course, ad-blocking plug-ins for browsers have been around a long time, and many users wouldn't fire up a browser without one. But by announcing Jetpack with a demonstration of how easy it is to build an ad-blocking script, Mozilla Labs is in effect saying that this is only the tip of the iceberg. Mashups, filters, formatters, and tools -- when Jetpack is done, anything will be possible, and it will be easy. That's bound to send a chill up any would-be Web mogul's spine.
The big news everyone seems to be missing is that everyone and their mom will be able to block ads with very little knowledge. That's dangerous to content providers and I've highlighted the part in the above text where the author talks about this. Is Mozilla entering a maelstrom that was normally between adblock/noscript and content providers?
Re:power to the people (Score:4, Informative)
We will still, of course, strip out the adverts, because adverts suck.
2 not-necessarily mutually exclusive perspectives (Score:3, Informative)
As a web user, things like this make me glad. I will be glad if I am given more control of the presentation of poorly-designed websites, because I really don't have any sympathy for someone who designs a site that hinders me from obtaining the information that the site is supposed to be giving me.
Tools like this are not inherently good or bad. People may use them to the detriment of their experience on the web (if they somehow degrade a site's visual appeal or function [not that the two things go hand-in-hand]), or people may use them to make their experiences on the web more efficient, productive, and enjoyable. I say more power to tools like this, because people should be able to have a say about how content is presented on their computers. And perhaps once poor web design dies (as if this will ever happen), the web developer/designer views the web in a different way, or the browser changes the way it presents websites, tools like this will either go out of fashion or become more integral to our idea of what the web is.
Re:that explains it! - Why Slashdot is so slow (Score:5, Informative)
I just had a Slashdot page load wait 9 seconds for "bs.serving-sys.com".
NoScript (FireFox extension: http://noscript.net/ [noscript.net])
I don't run AdBlock, just NoScript, and the only reason I know that /. has ads now is that people not running NoScript talk about it.
Re:Already available (Score:4, Informative)
That's a bit dramatic. Removing advertisements and altering how Web pages are displayed is more like the concept of being able to ignore or only selectively listen to someone who says things you don't like. It's more like "yes, you have the right to say whatever you want within certain limits, but you do not have the right to force me to listen to any or all of what you say or to make me interpret it any particular way."
I think the real question is, whose Internet is it? Does it belong to the corporations, the marketers, the governments, and other monied interests? Or does it belong to the people who use and enjoy it?
If it belongs to the monied interests, then they should do as they please and we should have to adapt to what they want, by force of law if necessary. If that means that state police power needs to be used to jeopardize people who are doing something that should not be a crime, just refer to it as "collateral damage" or use some kind of specious "greater good" argument.
Here I refer to the local display of information. I am not referring to redistributing someone else's work, which is another matter entirely. If the Internet belongs to the people, then we should do whatever we want with the content that others have chosen to place on the public network. If commercial interests don't like that, they should be told that their choice is to adapt to it and find a way to profit from it or to go bankrupt.
To put that another way, if you don't like the freedoms associated with a particular medium, such as an end-user's ability to control how information is displayed, your option is to choose not to publish your content on that medium. If you do choose to publish your content on a medium that allows many options for how that content is displayed, it's rather underhanded to cry "foul" when those options are exercised. It's downright despicable to use political clout and the legal system to remove some of the freedoms from a medium that never forced you to publish your content on it. At the risk of being accused of hyperbole, the mentality is exactly the same as those psychopaths who murder a woman screaming "if I can't have her, no one can!" Of course one of those expressions is far, far more extreme and ghastly than another, but the underlying mentality is exactly the same.
Re:Yeah, Sorry Guys. (Score:4, Informative)
God I hate advertising. I hate the American attitude that advertising is acceptable (indeed inevitable) in all areas of life. Billboards everywhere, sportscasters interrupting their coverage to promote products, ads read by the presenters on NPR, advertising of prescription medication...
These things don't happen anywhere else. It's only in America that you've been persuaded by the advertisers that their hold on your psyche and paycheck is normal.
The figures I have are from 2000, when the total amount spent on advertising worked out to about $5000 per inhabitant of the US per year.
What a stupid tax for us all to be paying! It doesn't go to anything we particularly want. It lines the pocketbooks of advertising agencies and irritates us when we're trying to browse the web or watch television or listen to the radio or see the countryside from our cars.
As a way of funding anything, it's hugely inefficient. I bet it's even more inefficient than taxes.