I suspect they mean the level of effort to get a working web browser, on an older OS, that supports current websites. Of course, it's not just security (TLS, etc) that makes it hard. Browsers are very complicated these days.
Re:The final official release of Classilla
by PeterisP on Monday March 29, 2021 @06:17PM
(#26628980)
Well, that's the choice of these current websites, which wouldn't also want to support an alternative protocol if one (like the parent post suggests) would get made.
If you need a protocol for document discovery and retrieval like the old internet and have the cooperation of the sites, then you can simply use basic https without javascript, all the things that Lynx browser can support, all the infrastructure is still there. But you can't force the websites to support that if their operators don't share these goals and values.
"Well, that's the choice of these current websites"
Sometimes. For example, there was a pretty organized effort to make plain http websites seem insecure, even if they were just informational sites.
Re:The final official release of Classilla
by thesuitonym on Monday March 29, 2021 @04:07PM
(#26627510)
Perhaps they're talking about how you can't just grab any old computer and expect it to (at least partially) function?
What are you talking about?
Implementing secure online applications is easier today than it's ever been before. Free signed certificates are readily available to hobbyists through Let's Encrypt and other projects, and there are a number of lightweight TLS libraries available if you don't want to use OpenSSL, such as mbedTLS and wolfSSL.