Re: An Old Market in which Ada May Play

[Jeffrey Carter <jrcarter@acm.org>]

Dr Adrian Wrigley wrote:
> 
> Jeffrey Carter wrote:
> ...
> > Wouldn't it be nice to have a browser that lets you tell it not to
> > contact sites from foreign domains? That lets you tell it to display
> > text before downloading graphics? That asks before opening extra
> > windows? That offers cookie, cache, and web-bug management? That's
> > robust and reliable? That doesn't do whatever you don't like about your
> > browser, and does do what you wish your browser did?
> ...
> Don't you just use WWWShield? http://www.bitrot.de/wwwshield.html
> 
> This allows you to do almost everything you ask for.  Easily.
> And it didn't involve writing a web browser.  It acts like a proxy
> server, if I remember correctly, but rewrites the HTML to remove
> the just that noone wants to see, according to a configuration file.

That's an interesting link, but why should I need to obtain this product
and a C++ compiler and beta test WWWShield on a new platform to do what
my browser should already do? And how can a separate C++ program make my
browser more robust and reliable?

I know that there are plenty of programs to make browsers behave more in
the user's interest, but it takes effort to track them down, install
them, and learn how they work. They often don't integrate with the
browser as well as something internal could. And there's always the
reliability problem; my browser crashed twice today.

-- 
Jeff Carter
"You tiny-brained wipers of other people's bottoms!"
Monty Python & the Holy Grail