Mozilla Jetpack and the Battle For the Web

snydeq writes "Mozilla Jetpack makes it so easy to filter, modify, and mash up pages that it might end up pitting developers and users against content producers in a battle for the Web, writes Fatal Exception's Neil McAllister. By allowing users to modify the behavior, presentation, and output of Web apps and pages to their liking, Jetpack gives users the ability to 'patch the server, in a sense,' McAllister writes, bringing us one step closer to a more democratic Web. Good news for developers and users; not so good for SaaS providers and media companies that have a vested interest in controlling the function, presentation, and distribution of Web-based content and apps. In other words, as Jetpack produces fruit, expect more producers to call for 'guardrails for the Internet.'"

Comments

Re:Already available

[eldavojohn]

Or am I mistaken. I use greasemonkey to already accomplish this.

Yeah, if you read the article, they go on extensively about this:

If you're familiar with the Greasemonkey extension for Firefox, you already have a good idea of how Jetpack works. Like Greasemonkey User Scripts, Jetpack-based add-ins are written primarily in JavaScript, and they manipulate browser windows and their contents using familiar AJAX techniques. You install them directly from the Web, and they don't even require a browser restart to take effect. While developing Greasemonkey User Scripts can be somewhat cumbersome, writing add-ins with Jetpack couldn't be simpler.

Jetpack integrates the popular jQuery JavaScript library, the Firebug debugger, and Mozilla's Bespin browser-based code editor to create a complete, interactive development environment. Although it's still in a raw and experimental stage, the combination is both easy to use and incredibly powerful. For example, one of the Jetpack demos is an ad-blocking script that uses a list of regular expressions to selectively filter unwanted graphics, scripts, and iframes from Web pages. The whole script comprises only about 80 lines of code.

It's a little surprising that Mozilla Labs would choose ad blocking as one of its first demos, however, when that's precisely the sort of application that flies directly in the faces of content providers and other Web-based businesses. While the Web is inarguably a mature computing platform, as a platform for business it's still in its infancy. Media companies are struggling to create viable revenue streams, and so far advertising is one of the few that has shown promise. And yet, with just 80 lines of code, Jetpack promises to take it all away.

Of course, ad-blocking plug-ins for browsers have been around a long time, and many users wouldn't fire up a browser without one. But by announcing Jetpack with a demonstration of how easy it is to build an ad-blocking script, Mozilla Labs is in effect saying that this is only the tip of the iceberg. Mashups, filters, formatters, and tools -- when Jetpack is done, anything will be possible, and it will be easy. That's bound to send a chill up any would-be Web mogul's spine.

The big news everyone seems to be missing is that everyone and their mom will be able to block ads with very little knowledge. That's dangerous to content providers and I've highlighted the part in the above text where the author talks about this. Is Mozilla entering a maelstrom that was normally between adblock/noscript and content providers?

Re:that explains it! - Why Slashdot is so slow

[radtea]

I just had a Slashdot page load wait 9 seconds for "bs.serving-sys.com".

NoScript (FireFox extension: http://noscript.net/)

I don't run AdBlock, just NoScript, and the only reason I know that /. has ads now is that people not running NoScript talk about it.