Dear audience, i’m so very, very disappointed of you.

Sunday, April 25, 2021 | Other shit

Yes, this is an intervention a.k.a. another one of these obligatory reader bashing posts. Because most of you still suck so bad at this. I shouldn't have to be telling you this anymore and you're making me so very sad. And no, i won't stop nagging about it anytime soon.

So here goes... Please, please, pretty please, for fucking fuck's sake please stop using these things:

• Facebook
• Twitter

Join the fediverse instead. As a starting point for my fellow music lovers: How about getting an account at linernotes.club? And when you've done that, tell me about it.

If you're using twitter or facebook to publish and/or curate stuff in a regular manner, how about starting your own blog instead? When you've done that, tell me about it.

If you totally can't lay off your bad internet habits for now, at least make yourself familiar with the alternatives and start using them.

• Google Chrome

You have no fucking excuse. There are several equally good alternatives out there doing exactly the same thing. Some of them are basically just Chrome with all the evil parts removed. Firefox is way more sexy though.

• Google Analytics

Aaarght! Bloggers and webmasters, cut that shit out for crying out loud. If you need statistics, you might wanna take a look at Matomo. It's free and easy to set up. Also looking at you, Bandcamp!!! I like you, but you're helping Google track your users. And you're doing it with your embedded player, on every fucking music blog in the world!!!

• Share- and like-buttons provided by Facebook or Twitter

These are just another means of tracking users. If you can't live without that sweet little dopamine boost every share or like provides... take a look at Shariff. WordPress users: There's a plugin for that.

Everybody, please start doing this:

• Use a decent ad-blocker plugin in your web browser.

This protects you from the bulk of trackers, all of the ad-industry brainfuck and it helps starve out said industry. If your browser doesn't allow it: Use a different browser! How hard can it be?

Bloggers and Webmasters take notice: Google wants to roll out its FLoC programme in the near future to enable tracking of Chrome users even in a world where cookie-based tracking becomes less and less effective. Please do this:

• Learn how to prevent the FLoC functionality from being enabled on your website (for now at least).
• If your site uses WordPress, it's as easy as installing a plugin like this one here.
• Chrome users: Here's another reason for you to look for a different browser.

Please, folks, please start taking these things seriously. Please stop sucking so hard at every fucking thing involving computers and the internet. Please stop feeding the machine creating all these problems. Instead do the little things that help make the web more open, democratic and less reliant on major evil corporations. How many more crappy stunts and dirty tricks do Facebook, Google, etc. have to pull on you before you even consider pulling the plug? Are you a punk? Do a punk thing. Participate in some punk web shit. Thanx a lot in advance.

Homework:
Number of days since last Facebook Scandal (while i'm writing this: Four days.)
Google’s FLoC Is a Terrible Idea.
Clean Up The Web