alt.hn

1/1/2026 at 11:33:09 PM

Why Prefer Textfiles? (2010)

 http://textfiles.com/uploads/textfiles.txt

by kmstout

1/2/2026 at 1:54:05 AM

It's always interesting to me that these plaintext sites are flagged as "insecure" and "risky" by modern browsers. I don't have a good solution, but it reminds me of [1]

[1](https://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2018/08/07/securing-sites...)

by kehvyn

1/2/2026 at 3:58:49 AM

They are insecure, because your ISP can change website responses and text format doesn't protect from that. So basically browser can't guarantee that you're looking at original web server response.

by vbezhenar

1/2/2026 at 4:11:27 AM

Insecure only if HTTP instead of HTTPS.

The format being text, html, video, or an executable program has nothing to do with it.

by BobbyTables2

1/2/2026 at 4:39:07 AM

With checksum & sign nothing can be guaranteed, right ?

by yinyang_in

1/2/2026 at 5:38:46 AM

Why?

by NuclearPM

1/2/2026 at 5:40:08 AM

Turns out text files are a binary format also, with any number of encodings, ever more binary as UTF8 grows, requiring constant updates, hidden by the OS. Text files are just the name for a renderer built in into every OS.

So what exactly distinguishes them? The OS knows how to render them? It's just a linear list of characters? The reliance on a fixed font to allow some form of layout or positioning? Good basis for embedded DSL's, like Markdown?

Don't forget they are a binary format also. Oh, I just said that. I anticipate the day UTF8 will be a fond memory of a big mistake we made in our youth, that held us back for decades.

Don't forget that all of IT is a shit show sprinkled over with dollar paint, much like alchemy was. We don't yet know what the formation in Information is.

by childintime

1/2/2026 at 6:11:40 AM

> the day UTF8 will be a fond memory of a big mistake we made

Alternative that would be better?

by andsoitis

1/2/2026 at 7:02:22 AM

I actually agree, and kinda wished there was some sort of "binary" alternative to json that every text editor would open and let me edit as easily as json, because at the end of the day, it is no more binary than utf8 encodings with their number of bits, endians and confused line endings.

by wodenokoto

1/2/2026 at 3:10:34 AM

The poor readability of the site itself is the best case against its core point

by eviks

1/2/2026 at 3:21:14 AM

It rather supports the site's core point, because that point is about plain text files, not HTML and CSS. Plain text is as readable as it is possible to be.

Besides, this is exactly the kind of site HN constantly laments the loss of - unique, quirky, basic and rough around the edges.

by krapp

1/2/2026 at 3:34:42 AM

> Plain text is as readable as it is possible to be.

Which is nonsense, of course, just like this site illustrates. Trivial formatting and layout changes make it more readable.

> Besides, this is exactly the kind of site HN constantly laments

And this is exactly the beside-the-point response you sometimes encounter on HN. I'm not a representative of the collective HN, so why does it matter that some other people did some lamenting some time ago?

by eviks

1/2/2026 at 4:17:26 AM

text files don't have "formatting" or "layout." They're just streams of ASCII characters. HTML is not plaintext.

by krapp

1/2/2026 at 4:33:54 AM

They do, and it's even misapplied in this example - there are weird hard line breaks (an ASCII character) in the wrong places, breaking the supposed "accessibility" of the format.

But also, you continue to miss the point - this lacking/bad layout/formatting is precisely the reason not to use plain text

by eviks

1/2/2026 at 3:14:18 AM

Why not: this looks terrible in my browser.

by HeavyStorm

1/2/2026 at 3:19:17 AM

Just cURL it! j/k

not j/k.

I'd rather read in my beautiful gpu-powered terminal emulator than a website with bad taste and/or bloated nightmare under the covers.

by keyle

1/2/2026 at 12:43:13 AM

Unlike Word files, there is no chance of a Macro Virus in them. I sent our family lawyer some documents converted to Text by request.

by orionblastar

1/2/2026 at 2:36:41 AM

Comically the use of curl | bash managed to shoehorn them in there, and there were the occasional terminal escape characters that could do funny and sometimes mischievous things.

There used to be something of a game of making specific files that would change screen colors or play songs off terminal bells, etc, tailored for specific terminals or command prompt windows. I remember a few short animated sequences using various backspaces and colors that only really worked if you could expect the text to be loaded at specific baud rates or in specific BBS software.

by reincarnate0x14

1/2/2026 at 1:30:09 AM

Weeeell... Ya say that, but:

Many years ago someone "infected" my computer with a "manual virus": A printed-out sheet of paper placed on top of the computer, telling me to delete all my hard drive's files myself, then photocopy the sheet and put both copies on nearby computers.

It was obviously a joke. But in the "modern" agentic era, the same thing in a text file is slightly more realistic as a threat...

by akoboldfrying

1/2/2026 at 3:04:05 AM

You can block macros in Word, so you're only left with unformatted downsides?

by eviks

1/2/2026 at 1:18:09 AM

No macro viruses but if your family lawyer uses some LLM-powered thingy in his workflow it might add a new dimension: prompt manipulation/injection attacks. A good spot to hide these would be at about ⅔ distance inside some wall of legalese at the beginning or end of a document since hardly anyone ever reads those.

by hagbard_c

1/2/2026 at 1:42:26 AM

I've known people one-shot by pure text, like Atlas Shrugged, The Communist Manifesto, The Bible, The Qur'an, The Selfish Gene, Godel Escher and Bach, etc. Don't underestimate text.

by delichon

1/2/2026 at 2:02:50 AM

A clever quip, but I have to point out that most adherents for a given ideology have never actually read the canonical text of their ideology. The Bible particularly was generally inaccessible to laypeople for a ~1000 year period, who would typically learn everything they knew about it filtered through the preachers of the Church. Even today with easy access, a majority of Christians have not read it.

by anonymous908213

1/2/2026 at 3:08:17 AM

The real version of the information hazard in Snow Crash.

by HPsquared

1/2/2026 at 1:48:33 AM

What exactly does “one shot” mean here?

by ada0000

1/2/2026 at 1:59:05 AM

Famous American detective TV show True Detective had the hero annoy his colleague by referring to religion as "language virus that rewrites pathways in the brain" and thereby "dulls critical thinking". In other words, a lot people read shit and it fries their mixers. Obviously, it can also work the other way. Et cetera.

by spankibalt

1/2/2026 at 1:52:59 AM

Infected by a packet of ideas that profoundly alters your outlook on life, for good or ill like a mind virus. I've been shot several times, it's thrilling. For me it's always text that does it.

by delichon

1/2/2026 at 4:29:31 AM

[dead]

by edelkas