Hmm i guess I just haven't spent enough time trying to parse unminified js.
I still would think though, if the code is simple enough to understand when you unminify the js, equivalent code should be similarly simple to understand if it's wasm passed through IDA.
I'd argue that having a sandbox that can run binaries with a limited and customizable feature set is actually a good thing for the web. I think there are more technically competent solutions, but the fact that WASM is available on virtually every machine and os, makes it pretty powerful.
If implemented right WASM might speed up our web apps, keep the browser sandbox that is actually quite nice, and run on pretty much any machine. If they open sourced the code, that'd be even better.
Between minified js and WASM, I think I'd take WASM (I can't understand minified js anyway). Between a pure html site and WASM, I think I'd take the pure html site (but I don't think we will be living in that world anytime soon).
I think this is the most real answer. It kinda is all about tradeoffs.
If creating connections is more valuable to you than using some unsavory social media, then you have your answer.
I also think it is pretty hard to actually reduce identifying informatiom from these apps. Just based on your social network, the piece can be fitted. In addition, your college gives up a ton of your identifying info (gmail, contracted apps...). I'm not sure there are perfect answers.
Printing always messes with me a bit. The fact that they are network connected and have so many security vulnerabilites makes me wonder what I don't know.
I'm probably from a younger generation, because as long as I have been around google has never felt like a choice for me. Instead, it was always the default or mandated by the organization I am a part of (university, other web services...). It's kinda a fight to get out of the google grasp.
Hearing you (and I guess the article towards the end) talk about google as not a monstrosity gives me hope that maybe other companies can push through and usurp google's "defaultness". It'd also be great if it was not another giant like microsoft giving competition.
I'd love to be able to a make a non-google choice and not feel like an outsider.
First off, I think you're completely right in that laptop batteries are definitely a non-ideal solution. And, I'm really not an expert in this, so take my words with a grain of salt.
You could mitigate a bit of the dangers by doing some of the following (I only did the first):
Reducing the max charge level to 50% of the capacity.
Monitor your batteries health to alert for any discrepancies.
Switch out your batteries every couple of years (which is super easy without downtime on the aformentioned old thinkpads).
If you are an under $100 budget, there seems to be an argument that maybe you are willing to risk a little bit for that extra power reliability.
To give a different opinion than all the thin-clients, old laptops can be a good choice too. I am a bit preferrential to really nice old thinkpads.
If you buy them used you can get insane prices (~$40) and also you get all the laptop conveniences of a keyboard, screen, battery (for power failure). Also I think the power/performance ratio is pretty much the same to the thin clients.
In the spirit of selfhosting, you can also host headscale. Its an open source implementation of the proprietary tailscale control plane.
It allows you to get over the 5 device limit (different depending on tiers), as well as keep your traffic on your devices. And, imo, it is pretty stable.
The only issue is that the control plane (by nature) has to be publically accessible. But imo it's way less of a security target than a massive app like nextcloud.
I really like hugo. Everything is written in Markdown and its pretty light. Definitely not as heavy as a full CMS. I also think the themes are pretty nice.
To deploy it you can use github pages or some cloud services (the hugo site lists some).
Its also pretty flexible, so its pretty easy to change how you want to deploy it, or change the look.
Banking apps seem to be slightly special according to the docs, but BoFa worked for me. Uber and Google Maps were also fine. I'm yet to come across an app that doesn't automatically work.
Hmm i guess I just haven't spent enough time trying to parse unminified js.
I still would think though, if the code is simple enough to understand when you unminify the js, equivalent code should be similarly simple to understand if it's wasm passed through IDA.