[kwlug-disc] DuckDuckGo.com -- an alternate search engine

[Ralph Janke]

On July 27, 2010 05:21:09 pm unsolicited wrote:
> Ralph Janke wrote, On 07/27/2010 4:51 PM:
> > On 07/27/2010 04:38 PM, unsolicited wrote:
> >> Ralph Janke wrote, On 07/27/2010 12:32 PM:
> >>> I am not sure what the resistance against javascript in general is.
> >> 
> >> Because it is a hidden black box that history has demonstrated can
> >> have nefarious elements. 'Nefarious' meaning different things to
> >> different people. (See Khalid's note.)
> > 
> > Well.. Javascript is exactly not a black box. You can read all the
> > Javascript that is loaded. Furthermore, Javascript was designed from the
> > beginning to sandbox your browser (in clear distinction to ActiveX) from
> > the rest of the computer.
> 
> Think MUCH bigger.
> 
> In essence, your comment says that you think every user of every page
> should pre-review the code before actually displaying the page, to vet
> that it doesn't do anything nefarious, according to their own definition.
> 

Sorry, but where do I say that? There is a big difference between something not 
being a black box and every user looking into openly available source code.

> Not gonna happen.
> 
> Practically: This would be like knowing what temperature you like your
> toast toasted at, and measure the temperature the toaster puts out,
> adjusting the darkness dial until you get what you want - if you can.
> Instead, people choose a setting, toast a piece or two, adjust the
> setting, and eat the toast. Repeat until satisfied. Upon getting
> REALLY black toast, they toss it and try again (destructive testing) -
> on a web page, the act of going to a page also means it's too late.
> 

Sorry, you lost me here. I do not see the relation between one and the other.

> There would seem to be two camps: I'll trust the world - (javascript
> globally enabled, including not even knowing what javascript is and
> that they can disable it) and they get bitten, and everyone looks at
> them like they're just stupid; I trust nobody - javascript disabled,
> for reasons Khalid has well laid out, and functionality decreases,
> perhaps even to the point wherein the purpose for going to that page
> can no longer be achieved. [Since I much prefer text only e-mail, no
> html, I guess I'm well in this latter camp.] And everyone thinks
> they're just paranoid (even if they're not wrong), and they're just
> stupid.
>

I never talked about unlimited trust. And by the way, you can block javascript 
dependent of the host it is delivered. Hence, you can make decisions that are 
far more nuanced that the noscript/all scripts alternatives.
 

> But with search, we just want the text. Perhaps a picture or two. No
> ads, no refreshes, no anything else ... just GIVE ME THE ANSWER! If we
> knew they didn't have the answer, we wouldn't have gone there in the
> first place. And, somehow, not having the answer almost becomes the
> fault of the page creator. <sigh>
> 

No. I don't only want text. I want additional functionality like auto-
completion of web-forms, realtime updates, etc. Only because you do not want 
to have that, it does not mean that nobody else wants to have that.

Ralph