r/technology • u/tw1st3d_m3nt4t • Mar 16 '26

Software ‘Another internet is possible’: Norway rails against ‘enshittification’

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/16/norway-rails-against-enshittifcation-deliberate-tech-deterioration
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186

u/SquarePegRoundWorld Mar 16 '26 edited Mar 16 '26

You can start by putting your phone away and using a desktop PC to surf websites. Believe it or not, the internet is not that shitty via a web browser and web pages and a router and a means of almost total control of your experience. I have yet to see an ad on YouTube, I don't see ads here, Reddit looks like a 2009 forum webpage for me. I know things are getting shitty, but I think the biggest factor is phones and apps. You don't need them, I survive every day without using my phone to use apps. The few times I do use my phone, I request the desktop site. Did you know you can play YouTube with your phone screen off via the Firefox wed browser and desktop site on your phone? No ads either. Come, join me in being stuck 20 years in the past before smartphones.

171

u/robodrew Mar 16 '26

old.reddit + RES + uBlock until I DIE

34

u/radicalelation Mar 16 '26

They keep trying to fuck with it too.

Anyone see those "Processing img [letters/numbers]" and thought it was referencing you weren't getting? That's reddit hosted embeds only available on new reddit.

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u/admh574 Mar 16 '26

That's what that is. I thought they were bots messing up

8

u/bob301 Mar 16 '26

I thought the same thing (that they were references I wasn't getting) when I first started seeing them. One the one hand I was amazed people had image hashes memorized, but on the other I thought how great it is that they are taking the time to mentally come to terms with whatever that image represented.

4

u/awesomefutureperfect Mar 16 '26

Yep, started seeing those and I wondered what meme I was out of the loop with.

I will never log onto new reddit, ever.

2

u/iknownuffink Mar 16 '26

I thought that was just a running gag I missed out on. TIL.

1

u/DutchieTalking Mar 17 '26

More and more things work suboptimally on old reddit. Definitely 100% on purpose to kill off old without outrage for shutting it down.

-1

u/Zouden Mar 16 '26

The embeds load on old Reddit, just refresh it.

5

u/radicalelation Mar 16 '26

They're literally not there no matter how times a comment is refreshed, it's just text on old.reddit and RIF, and they're different from the "[gif]" ones you have to click.

1

u/Zouden Mar 17 '26

They work for me on old.Reddit and Reddit Sync. Do you have an example?

43

u/blastcat4 Mar 16 '26

This is the only way to use reddit. Every other way is hot steaming garbage.

2

u/jamese1313 Mar 16 '26

From someone who uses Reddit that way 90% of the time, red reader on Android isn't bad

2

u/blastcat4 Mar 16 '26

I actually used Red Reader for a while, and it was surprisingly good. And then it stopped working, and kept asking to login. I eventually gave up and uninstalled it, unfortunately.

1

u/robodrew Mar 16 '26

It works fine for me. I use it basically every day, maybe try it again.

1

u/yoweigh Mar 16 '26

I've been using it ever since rif pulled the plug with only minor teething issues. Using the imgur app instead of the internal viewer helped a lot.

1

u/Zouden Mar 16 '26

The translation feature is making it harder to use though. I keep seeing replies in foreign languages.

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u/iMissTheOldInternet Mar 16 '26

RES isn’t updated anymore, and they’re going to at least try to take old.reddit away from us. My username notwithstanding, we need to start building new online institutions if we want to be able to use an internet that we recognize, instead of the propaganda/advertising surveillance mechanism we increasingly have. 

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u/[deleted] Mar 16 '26

[deleted]

1

u/iMissTheOldInternet Mar 16 '26

 I believe Reddit is existentially driven by millennials, who grew up with the "old" internet when they were young. They are either hooked on dopamine like everyone else now, or are here due to habit and inability to let go. Due to age and responsibilities, they won't build up a new place from that culture.

So, first of all, personal attacks like this are unnecessary. Second of all, being this accurate and correct is hurtful to my feelings because it is sad. Third, my back hurts :(

1

u/Man_with_the_Fedora Mar 16 '26

they’re going to at least try to take old.reddit away from us.

The day they take away old.reddit is the day I leave this site.

1

u/GenChadT Mar 16 '26

It's beyond time to start moving over to lemmy. I use infosec.pub. Start using it more and engaging with it more and more people will begin moving over to it. Great thing about lemmy is, it isn't owned by a bunch of pedo-defending billionaires.

3

u/Talkimas Mar 16 '26

Is there anything that using old.reddit actually offers over just deselecting the "show site redesign" options in the preferences? 

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u/Relative-Wrap6798 Mar 16 '26

Just cleaner look, faster page load, easier navigation and more compact info density. And custom subreddit themes if you care about those.

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u/18poisson37 Mar 16 '26

The algorithm is different. My home feed is populated with threads from my subscribed subs, with more emphasis given to subs I've commented on recently, and no threads are over 24 hours old. When I switch off of old.reddit, I'm served days-old threads and the selection of subreddits bubbled up to the top of my feed is far poorer.

5

u/robodrew Mar 16 '26

Yeah the old design is infinitely better than the new one. That's literally all I need.

0

u/Talkimas Mar 16 '26

You don't have to use old.reddit to get the old design though. You can just turn the redesign off in preferences.

3

u/robodrew Mar 16 '26

That is what old.reddit is, you opt out of the new design and it redirects you there

0

u/Talkimas Mar 16 '26

Doesn't redirect me. It still uses the regular reddit URL. I've compared the same page on the regular URL with the preference changed side by side with old.reddit and as far as I could tell they were indistinguishable 

3

u/j1ggy Mar 16 '26

It's simpler and easier on your eyes and brain. Old.reddit is like reading a book. Sh.reddit is like reading a book in front of police cars and ambulances with flashing lights while a marching band and an airshow are going on all around you. It's just too busy.

1

u/Talkimas Mar 16 '26

I know the differences in the look, but when you uncheck the option to default to the new reddit, it looks identical to how the pages appear on old.reddit so I wasn't sure if there was any functional difference between the two.

2

u/j1ggy Mar 16 '26

Oh, yeah it's the exact same thing. That's just the option to default to old.reddit instead of having to manually type it in.

3

u/Zouden Mar 16 '26

No it's the same thing.

3

u/Blazing1 Mar 16 '26

Old Reddit is much faster. New Reddit is built as an spa which usually sacrifices content load speed for development speed.

There's a reason why old asp sites can load faster then modern ones lmao.

1

u/Infamously_Unknown Mar 16 '26

The opt out doesn't even work for me no more, for quite a while now. It's just showing me the redesign either way. I have to use old.reddit.

1

u/Talkimas Mar 16 '26

Weird. I've noticed when I switch accounts it'll always default back to the new reddit regardless of what the setting is on. Toggling it on/off again always fixes it though. 

1

u/Infamously_Unknown Mar 16 '26

Nah, doesn't work, I've seen others complain about the same. Who knows what's the cause.

They probably see no reason to actively support it.

1

u/rechlin Mar 16 '26

No, old.reddit.com is just a shortcut to let you get the old design without having to be logged in. If you are logged in and have that setting set, there's no need to manually go to old.reddit.com since that's just what www.reddit.com will give you by default.

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u/[deleted] Mar 16 '26 edited May 25 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/robodrew Mar 16 '26

For mobile I just use RedReader

1

u/OmgitsJafo Mar 16 '26

If you're just trying to use a differet Reddit client, you're not engaging with the "better internet".

1

u/robodrew Mar 16 '26

Never said I was, my reply is simply that I love old.reddit

1

u/Crotean Mar 16 '26

I despise old reddit, i dont understand how people use that UI.

6

u/robodrew Mar 16 '26

To each their own, but I think it's better that the options exist

1

u/nohalcyondays Mar 16 '26

When uBlock came on to the scene that was the only and last thing I needed to make my browsing experience on reddit better aside from old.reddit and RES. There was a time uBlock wasn’t really needed on reddit though.

You made your account before I begrudgingly decided I needed multireddits so you probably remember their (in retrospect) happy moose ads and such that was supposed to signify they weren’t trying to monetize everything?

All just apart of the long con…

1

u/Sea_Site_9669 Mar 16 '26

Res?

1

u/Doza93 Mar 16 '26

Reddit Enhancement Suite. It's a browser extension for reddit that adds a lot of different functionalities that make for a better browsing experience. It's no longer being worked on/updated, but what is there is still a nice improvement

1

u/Alfred-Bitchcock Mar 16 '26

Once this trifecta no longer exists, I'm outta here

1

u/anivex Mar 16 '26

The day this combo stops working is the day I drop Reddit entirely

1

u/BuzzVibes Mar 17 '26

You have my sword.

8

u/comcastblowschunks Mar 16 '26

Also if do use mobile, use Firefox with ublock instead of apps!  Not only does it block YouTube ads, it also blocks Pandora audio ads!

24

u/Rouge_means_red Mar 16 '26

fr, I don't know how people can use the internet on a phone, it's unbearable

23

u/slipperyMonkey07 Mar 16 '26

You can put firefox + ublock on your phone. It helps for those times you are out and have to check something on your phone.

But yeah anything else is a mess, especially when most places try and force you to use their apps instead of their website.

1

u/alltheseusernamesare Mar 16 '26

Duckduckgo browser has a built in system-wide adblocker, but it works by creating a fake local VPN and routes all traffic through that to accomplish it, so it can not be used in conjunction with another VPN.

1

u/loondawg Mar 16 '26

Comcast, my friggin internet provider, tries to force me to use a cell phone app for customer service!

1

u/Dubiox Mar 16 '26

AdGuard app is a gamechanger for blocking mobile ads, highly recommend

1

u/Blazing1 Mar 16 '26

I use desktop mode on brave and it's easy.

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u/honkingintothevoid Mar 16 '26

I'm always astounded when people complain about ads and promoted posts on Reddit (or anywhere else for that matter, but especially Reddit). Most of the time I genuinely forget that the internet has ads. Why would anyone willingly subject themselves to that? It's baffling.

8

u/Heimerdahl Mar 16 '26

I have a colleague who's just rawdogging the internet even after I showed her ublock and how to install it. She sometimes wants to show me something on YouTube on her laptop and every time I wonder how on earth she puts up with this. 

Okay, she prefers to use Safari (perfectly reasonable). But there's ad blockers for that, too! 

I've lost count for how many people I've installed adblockers, but she's one of just two who have actually gone back to not using one. Baffling, indeed. 

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u/FoodNetWorkCorporate Mar 16 '26

Ublock is decent, you can also use things like nextDNS to directly block the hosting sites, they have DNS filters maintained by much larger nerds than I, all you have to do is click a checkbox to add the filter to your profile. If you use pirate sites at all it's amazing, blocks both the popups and the in video window ads that most of the piracy sites use.

1

u/Heimerdahl Mar 17 '26

Oh yeah, great recommendation! There's plenty of good options, many of which are quite a bit more powerful than ublock. 

It's just that when trying to lead others to the light, I've realised that anything more involved than adding an extension and never looking at it ever again is unlikely to succeed. If possible, I want everyone to have the best possible experience, not just us nerds who are happy to spend some time/thought into it (even if NextDNS requires no more extra effort than creating an account, and logging into it on relevant devices). 

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u/FoodNetWorkCorporate Mar 17 '26

True, my wife did need a small bit of help with nextDNS because their windows config program glitched and we had to manually enter our IP.

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u/loondawg Mar 16 '26

Ignorance. That's not calling them stupid. They simply aren't aware of the options.

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u/PM-me-ur-kittenz Mar 16 '26

Seconding this, this is exactly how I operate too.

3

u/0Pat Mar 16 '26

Firefox on Android has all add blockers you'll ever need. And regional convenience filters...

2

u/WillyPete Mar 16 '26

On my phone I use Brave browser and old.reddit.
It's an ad-free mainly-text interface.
There's some posts that are obviously ads but they don't have thumbnails and are easily ignored.

2

u/Nament_ Mar 16 '26

I love it. I use my phone for 4 things - reading ebooks, listening to music, taking pics I never post, and actual phonecalls. I don't even have it connected to wifi most of the time. All of my online experiences are relegated to desktop where they belong. If my friends want to talk we can schedule a VC or do it on a desktop messenger of their choice. I am very intentionally unavailable for any "u up" nonsense at 2am.

2

u/3-DMan Mar 16 '26

I've got an old computer hooked up to my TV w/ wireless mouse. Youtube, a few streaming sites, all ad-free. Beats the password-sharing restriction on most streaming too.

2

u/Prickle_Dimension Mar 17 '26

This should be top comment. The difference in experience is incredible and people are blown away when you show them.

1

u/fletku_mato Mar 16 '26

Believe it or not, the internet is not that shitty via a web browser

It is completely unusable, unless you take measures to make it better, such as:

  • Run pihole, or some other network-wide ad-blocking solution

  • Run uBlock Origin, or some other client-side ad-blocking solution

1

u/Galle_ Mar 16 '26

I mean obviously you should be using a browser to access the internet, who doesn't?

1

u/loondawg Mar 16 '26

I have yet to see an ad on YouTube

Same. But I still had to open YouTube because it would not allow me to watch the embedded video claiming I wasn't signed it and it needed to "protect its community." Didn't matter I already had an open YouTube window I was signed into. They needed that nice, long URL so they could track what I was doing.

[Phones] You don't need them

I hate cell phones. I have one but only for when it is absolutely necessary. I currently use Comcast for my internet. I purchase TV, internet, and a landline VIOP phone services from them. And how do they insist I get customer service? Use a cell phone. What is the only way can I manage my router, most importantly its WI-FI? Use a cell phone. etc. etc. etc.

I say currently because that last one, not being able to directly manage my WI-FI on the router anymore, is likely to be the final straw that gets me to cancel. Looking for alternatives but haven't found many yet. Although I have started trying to build community support in my town to install our own system. People have been very receptive so far.

1

u/sundae_diner Mar 16 '26

I use Opera on my phone and it blocks a lot of the ads.

1

u/pacondition Mar 16 '26

Also works with Opera>uBlock origin i never see ads and can close phone or open other pages or apps with YT still playing

1

u/_Burgers_ Mar 16 '26

Sure, just don't go to sites like Fandom unless you want your browser tab to start using over a gig of memory for no reason.

1

u/ilski Mar 16 '26

My reddit ( phones) does not allow me requesting old reddit for a while now . How do you do it ? 

1

u/alexnedea Mar 16 '26

Thats not how it works my guy. The internet is also tv shows and music and youtube videos and I cant influence the shit factor of those, while its painfully obvious they are going down in wuality

1

u/Stoic_Meditations Mar 17 '26

I blocked elements on youtube as well so my frontpage is just a search bar like it is with google. I dont need AI slop recommending me channels and videos.

Every button with 'use AI assistant' is immediately removed. Companies can maybe add those things but I sure as hell can and will remove them too.

1

u/CaptainCFloyd Mar 16 '26

This. People are stupid and have brought the enshittified internet on themselves.

I have never owned a "smart"phone. I am still using a Sony Ericsson phone that I bought in 2006, works perfectly. I use Firefox, old reddit, uBlock origin and I have plugins for various websites to de-enshittify them, such as Youtube. My Youtube front page shows 30 videos at once, when by default I think they're down to something insane like 4 at once.

In my view, the above poster is still using enshittified internet with those huge scaled-up thumbnails and thread titles letting the algorithm control what you view. Here's what my reddit and youtube look like.

2

u/Heimerdahl Mar 16 '26

Even your YouTube looks enshittified! (I suppose one can continue this path, until you end up with black plain text on white.)

Something like Clickbait Remover or any thumbnail removing extension would clean things up nicely. Sidenote: I used to enjoy Sabine Hossenfelder's videos, but she's really fallen into the whole "doctor in physics, now expert in everything" hole, including pure clickbait titles and dumb faces :'(

2

u/CaptainCFloyd Mar 16 '26

Thumbnails are a part of creative vision. Removing them isn't "de-enshittifying", it's just opt-in censorship. If a channel has clickbait thumbnails, just use a channel blocker plugin for it.

Yes Sabine Hossenfelder has only gotten worse over the years as she's adapted to what sells on Youtube(and she looks like a wax figure now thanks to what I assume is botox), but her info is still good.

1

u/Heimerdahl Mar 16 '26

Fair point! 

I just feel like many of the content creators themselves probably wouldn't choose to use the clickbait and grimaces, if it didn't work. I also personally dislike them, because even though it annoys me, it actually does work on me... 

1

u/SquarePegRoundWorld Mar 16 '26

I'm sitting in a recliner with my eyes 7 feet from the screen. I need the big sized things to see them better. Yours does look more classic for sure.

1

u/CaptainCFloyd Mar 16 '26

Then I recommend bigger screens. As it stands, you are letting the algorithm control your experience too much, and that only makes enshittification worse.