On Tuesday 7. January 2020 15.17.12 Carmen Bianca Bakker wrote:
On a grander scale, I think a better solution would be that relying on a server is not necessary. Imagine instead that a distribution might include a `spyware-dns-hosts` package that modifies `/etc/hosts` with the same kind of blacklist that pi-hole uses.
I didn't address the alternatives to just delegating responsibility to services in my response, but it is certainly the case that localised solutions should also be in a position to be considered viable and usable. If they aren't then effort should be directed towards making them so.
I may have mentioned that I use a rather clumsy approach on a single-board computer than I also use as a "workstation", extracting host details from "excessive" Web sites and adding them to /etc/hosts. This could be improved substantially, and maybe I could learn from what the pi-hole project does, but it probably makes various Web sites usable for me on this fairly constained hardware already.
Having a curated blacklist does involve a certain amount of effort and collaboration, and it also brings certain responsibilities. Here, the FSFE would probably act as some kind of guarantor that various providers do things in acceptable ways, having clear policies and not just blocking stuff arbitrarily, for instance.
Or maybe browsers could ship with much stronger privacy protection. I believe that Firefox is flirting with the idea of blocking more ads by default, but I'm not extremely well-read on that topic.
The problem with the Web and its de-facto custodians is that various business models rely on pervasive advertising, with some of that advert money being ploughed back into Web platform development. Consequently, the attitude that "amazing" things can now be done using Web technologies facilitates people using those technologies to provide overcomplicated and surveillance-heavy Web "experiences".
Of course, the people developing Web technology are always able to persuade themselves that they are merely "enriching" the platform or "empowering" the users. Never mind that what should be relatively simple online transactions turn out to involve tens or hundreds of megabytes of traffic, multiple data centres, and maximum CPU, for which the power has to come from somewhere.
Returning to the specific topic, there have been initiatives like FreedomBox that seek to make systems - Debian, in that particular case - more appliance- like and requiring less end-user maintenance. However, FreedomBox seems to have taken a path where people do need to care about what it is doing, arguably following the same path as some other router-like distributions. Maybe pi-hole is more appliance-like, less prone to failure, and less susceptible to burdening the user with maintenance by dressing it up as customisation.
But as I noted in my previous message, having a broad and coherent strategy means providing "actionable" solutions, and if a solution such as pi-hole isn't practical then organisations like the FSFE should be looking to facilitate improvements in order to strengthen and deliver that strategy. Saying "Free Software is great" and then "you're on your own" is not a credible strategy.
Paul