AE Currie
Michael VealeThe seasonal news that #WhatsApp will stop working on #iPhone 5 and below #Android 4.3 highlights how the lack of Web apps is a significant environmental problem. Phones become obsolete in part because they don’t get OS updates, and they become incompatible with compiled apps. A lightweight OS for old phones would be more feasible if it mainly had to have a solid Web browser that facilitated a proper selection of #ProgressiveWebApps (& if manufacturers made open drivers/docs). #PWA #PWAs
It’s an environmental problem as the replacement of phones is a much, much bigger issue than their energy usage. The extent of it surprises modellers who look into it. See https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2017.12.239
jon crowcroft@mikarv funny statement that there's a dearth of publications on ICT energy costs - one project we did alone had this lot :- https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~jac22/internet-publications.pdf
@tforcworc very few include the lifecycle assessement of the hardware costs, which Belkhir et al indicate is the biggest issue. (contracted) report from me hopefully coming out soon on this and on how it links to online advertising, though not sure how much of it will be published, will try and publish the rest https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2017.12.239
@mikarv there was a lot on that too actually...some detailed models...part of Andy Hoppers computing for the planet iniative.
Also quite a few data center and ISP pop cost estimates..I think Cisco did a bunch of stuff too...
@tforcworc I saw plenty on datacentres from that group but can't recall any papers on LCA including hardware — would be interested if good earlier models existed. Today is hard to get reliable LCA data unless someone forces eg NVIDIA to release it (they should).
Frederik Borgesius@mikarv @tforcworc That report sounds very interesting! By the way, Bernard van Gastel, a colleague at @Radboud_uni, is specializing in environmental impact of ICT now. I hope I can introduce you two soon at a conference or something.
@tforcworc Thanks! Would love to hear the title!
@tforcworc Thank you Jon!
Nemo_bis 🌈@mikarv Freitag et al. (2021) is OA at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8441580/ and agrees: «With a large share of their footprint coming from their manufacture, extending smartphones' lifetime is the best way to reduce their footprint. Most studies reviewed here assume an average lifetime of 2 years».
Supporting phones for 10 years would be great but 5 would already be a significant improvement.
The real climate and transformative impact of ICT: A critique of estimates, trends, and regulations
In this paper, we critique ICT's current and projected climate impacts. Peer-reviewed studies estimate ICT's current share of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions at 1.8%–2.8% of global GHG emissions; adjusting for truncation of supply chain ...
Dragon 🐉@mikarv Except it wouldn't as the old devices probably don't have current root CA trust stores or possibly support current encryption standards.
@dragon WhatsApp even works on KaiOS, I suspect porting encryption standards is often (not always) possible. CA trust stores a different but important issue.
Martijn Olislaegers@mikarv Android 4.3 is 10 years old and hasn't got Security updates for years..
Developers who care about the security of their users shouldnt support this version anymore. PWA or native app..
FuncRandm@Molislaegers @mikarv either you’d need to get OS devs to support security updates for ancient OSes or it doesn’t matter if you have a chromium style sandbox for new web apps. You’re lulling people into a false sense of security when the very device they hold is insecure.
There is also the counter-point that native apps generally use less energy than web apps, so long term energy usage is slightly lower overall.
There is also the counter-point that native apps generally use less energy than web apps, so long term energy usage is slightly lower overall.
@FuncRandm @Molislaegers I'm not arguing for Android to support old devices. I'm arguing for an entire environment that allows old devices to remain minimally functional: open hardware enabling an open OS that only needs to securely (insofar as the fundamental hardware allows) support a Web browser. A foundation could be endowed to develop and maintain it.
@mikarv @Molislaegers every single piece of hardware would need to be produced to some template and within tolerances, and every single driver for the myriad hardware combinations would need to be replaceable and testable. You start to get combinatorial problems for support which explode rapidly.
We see this with existing hardware/driver support already.
Probably a better push would be to fix the hardware issues if the major cost is hardware production.
We see this with existing hardware/driver support already.
Probably a better push would be to fix the hardware issues if the major cost is hardware production.
@mikarv @Molislaegers hardware that is more likely to last one cycle+ if you drop it/sit on it/yeet it… hardware that is entirely recyclable for a significantly lower energy cost… hardware that is possibly upgradeable within a cycle (which introduces more testing issues)… ephemeralised hardware which costs less resources and energy to create in the first place etc.
Ronny Lam@mikarv I agree, however certificates also need to be updated once in a while. The same for the webbrowser. Modern webpages may rely on features nota available in old browsers.
Damien@mikarv Meanwhile, #Firefox doesn't even support #ProgressiveWebApps on desktop. I have wanted to switch but can't because I use #PWA for quite a few things.
zero
@zerohora Hmm, was not aware of this - but Firefox should really have this functionality built-in. I'll have to give it a try though.
@damcoole What's missing? https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Progressive_web_apps
Are you talking about the so-called "installation"?
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Progressive_web_apps/Installable_PWAs
@nemobis I'm talking about being able to install pretty much ANYTHING as a web app from the browser. See this screenshot from Edge for example. Unless I am missing something, Firefox does not have a similar function, not at least as far as I can find.
@damcoole Thanks for the examples.
Sorry for being dense, but what's the benefit in that? Every single time a website attempted to do that on my Chromium browser, it was something actively hurtful.
If I understand correctly, it's all about the ability for the website to install code that constantly runs in the background and phones home and cannot be shut down. Why is that beneficial to anyone apart from the website owner?
@nemobis It creates separate instances of just the app with notification support and it essentially feels like a native app as opposed to a browser window. For example, this is what my taskbar looks like, I have separate windows for all the apps which are easily alt-tab switchable and aren't tied to my current browser instance. Also, for example here is a shot of my Mastodon instance running as an app as well.
@damcoole Do they use system notifications in Windows?
Personally I just keep such websites in their own tabs, on their own browser window if needed. I close them when I don't want to be bothered.
Also, I disable most notifications and I don't want anything except perhaps Thunderbird and irssi to take space in the system notifications.
@nemobis Yes, they use the Windows system notifications, but you can disable them per 'app' as well. I prefer them to be there so I have them enabled.
I heavily rely on alt-tab and alt-tab doesn't work to switch between browser tabs. While I know there is ctrl-tab for browser switching, I don't want to have to switch between the two.
Regardless, Edge shows that it is possible and works great - I would just love it if Mozilla would implement it as well.
@damcoole I see. Personally I like ctrl-tab, ctrl-page up and ctrl-page down, so for me that's not a big factor.
flutterby 🦋@mikarv i'd love to see a mobile device that was simply a dumb terminal to your device in the cloud that could be secured and updated across lifecycles. why are we stuck in a distributed model with the level of connectivity we have?
Tanquist@mikarv I maintain a small Windows program at work. I received a lot of requests for a mobile version so a few years ago I spent a lot of my own time making Android and iOS versions. That was difficult and I don't want to spend time updating them. Now I'm trying to learn Angular.
author_is_ShrikeTron🔠💉x5@mikarv Manufacturers have existential incentives for forced-obsolescence in their products. There's no profit in updates unless it drives revenue into something else.
At least Apple is better at not putting an obscene limit of ~3 years / OS updates.
It's why I only buy Microsoft if I want extremely long-term support.
Big J@mikarv You are very right✔️
@mikarv browsers use very little of the OS ant more frankily 4.2BSDunux would do fine (that's a 1981 OS with syscall mostly the same as OSX as far as anyone should really care)
@tforcworc but PWAs rely on interfacing with the device through the many web APIs, calling sensors etc…
@mikarv maybe ask brad Karp or hamed about how sandboxing inside browsers works...
tomknappe@mikarv why not on every device? flutter: https://flutter.dev/
@mikarv pwas‘ / spas’ are (right now) complicated stuff. (service workers, react, angular, javascript). for larger companies no problem but smaller ones often don’t have the capabillities. with the flutter-approach it would be plattform-independent. one to rule them all. one codebasis and it does the complicated things or you.
Capyloon@mikarv Come help us build a mobile web OS!
Michiel Klaver (RCX)@mikarv that already exists? https://LineageOS.org