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<title>The WWWorst App Store
- GNU Project - Free Software Foundation</title>
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<h2>The WWWorst App Store</h2>

<address class="byline">by Alexandre Oliva</address>

<p>Picture the most abusive app store.</p>

<p>Programs in it are meant to run on your own computer.</p>

<p>However, you have to be online to run them.</p>

<p>Every time you start them, they contact the app store.</p>

<p>If there is an updated version, it's installed automatically, no
questions asked.  You'd rather run the earlier version?  Tough.</p>

<p>If the app store decides you're no longer welcome, the program won't 
start any more.</p>

<p>If the app store servers are offline, or if you are, it won't start
either.</p>

<div class="important">
<p>Programs in this app store must also hold your data in the app store's
servers.</p>

<p>If the program won't start, you can't get to the data on the servers
any more.</p>

<p>You may have downloaded backups of your data, but you'd have to figure
out how to decode them without the program.</p>
</div>

<p>Sounds like a nightmare?  It is.  But it's also very real.</p>

<p>Well-known app stores are approaching this level of nastiness.</p>

<p>But they are just catching up with the real thing.</p>

<p>The most abusive app store is the business-driven perversion of the
old user-empowering distributed hypertext system called &ldquo;the Web.&rdquo;</p>

<p>Users have been encouraged to adopt &ldquo;web apps&rdquo; for much of their
computing, paving the way for other app stores to follow suit.</p>

<div class="important">
<p>&ldquo;Web apps&rdquo; are most often distributed as JavaScript (though Java and
Flash have served similar purposes), automatically installed and
executed on your browser.</p>

<p>But the problem is not that they're in JavaScript, or that it's your
browser that runs them.  It's that:</p>

<ul>
<li>you don't have control over what the program does;</li>
<li>you don't have control over when you can run it;</li>
<li>you don't have control over your own data.</li>
</ul>

<p>The app store owner takes all that control away from you, thereby
gaining control over you.</p>

<p>You lose when the JavaScript code is nonfree software.<br />
<a href="/philosophy/javascript-trap.html">
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/javascript-trap.html</a></p>

<p>But you also lose when it is (nominally) free software!</p>
</div>

<p>When the app / web site has so much control over what runs on
your computer, the effect &ldquo;is equivalent to using a nonfree program
with surveillance features and a universal back door.&rdquo; <br />
<a href="/philosophy/network-services-arent-free-or-nonfree.html">
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/network-services-arent-free-or-nonfree.html</a> <br />

<a href="/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-serve.html">
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-serve.html</a> </p>

<p>The owner gets all the freedom, and you, the user, get none.</p>

<p>That's not a self-respectful way to do your computing.</p>

<p>It invades your privacy, it keeps you and your data hostage, it takes
away your agency and your freedom when it comes to your digital life.</p>

<hr class="column-limit" />

<p>The web used to be a wonderful way to share information.</p>

<p>Web apps and mandatory JavaScript have turned it into the worst app
store.</p>

<p>It is time to separate the WWWonderful from the WWWorst practices.</p>

<p>Here are some ways to help:</p>

<ul>
<li>request web sites that require JavaScript execution to offer either:
  <ul>
  <li>alternate means of access to information they publish, or</li>
  <li>alternate means of delivery for their apps;</li>
  </ul>
</li>

<li>promote free browser extensions that control JavaScript execution;<br />
<a href="/software/librejs/">https://www.gnu.org/software/librejs/</a></li>

<li>beware of apps that are mere front ends for SaaSS;<br />
<a href="/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-serve.html">
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-serve.html</a></li>

<li>demand software you use to be delivered in freedom-respecting ways;</li>

<li>promote hypertext systems that do not grant servers control over users.<br />
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemini_(protocol)">
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemini_(protocol)</a><br />
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gopher_(protocol)">
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gopher_(protocol)</a></li>
</ul>

<p>More generally:</p>

<ul>
<li>as a self-respecting user, reject the abusive practices whenever you can;<br />
<a href="/philosophy/saying-no-even-once.html">
https://gnu.org/philosophy/saying-no-even-once.html</a></li>

<li>discourage automatic execution of downloaded code;<br />
<a href="https://www.fsfla.org/blogs/lxo/pub/who-is-afraid-of-spectre-and-meltdown.en.html">
https://www.fsfla.org/blogs/lxo/pub/who-is-afraid-of-spectre-and-meltdown.en.html</a></li>

<li>as a network service operator, set a user-respecting example;<br />
<a href="/philosophy/network-services-arent-free-or-nonfree.html">
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/network-services-arent-free-or-nonfree.html</a></li>

<li>spread awareness of the problem, and advice on solving and avoiding it.<br />
<a href="/help/help-javascript.html">
https://www.gnu.org/help/help-javascript.html</a></li>
</ul>

<p>Now, if you wish your site to give its users a taste of how the
WWWorst app store feels to us, add to web pages you control the
following JavaScriptlet:</p>

<p class="emph-box">
document.body.textContent = 'Please disable JavaScript to view this site.'</p>

<p>If you wish, make &ldquo;disable JavaScript&rdquo; a link to this article.</p>

<hr class="column-limit" />

<p>Thanks to Richard Stallman for the inspiration to write about this
issue, and for the encouragement to publish it.</p>

<p><em>2021-04-01 update:</em>&nbsp; thanks to KE0VVT for letting me know that
textContent can't have links; you need innerHTML for that.</p>
</div>

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<p>Copyright &copy; 2021 Alexandre Oliva</p>

<p>This page is licensed under the <a rel="license"
href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">Creative
Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License</a>.</p>

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<p class="unprintable">Updated:
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$Date: 2021/09/10 11:28:41 $
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</p>
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