"The Internet should benefit you, not benefit from you."
In short, Aava is a content network that aims to give the user a browsing experience without the problems of the modern Internet, such as behavioral data collection and marketing cookies. If this sounds foreign to you, remind yourself of how you have to click on "accept cookies" or "reject cookies" every time you visit a website. On Aava, you will never have to do that again.
The Internet was a mistake. It can be statistically and deductively proven that the Internet (mainly the world wide web) has been a net negative on humanity. People are more alone, mentally ill, and stressed out than ever before. It's mainly just capitalist companies that are thriving due to behavioral data generated by people's Internet use. The end user (you) is just a behavioral data slave who is tricked into consuming services and funny videos to alleviate the stress that the digitalized system created in the first place. What you get out of the Internet isn't much, it's almost always a negative drain on your life. Even if it wasn't true in your case, collectively speaking the Internet is a net negative on our well-being.
So if the Internet was a mistake and we should stop using it, why does Aava exist? We can't put the genie back in the bottle and un-invent the Internet. What we can do, however, is steer the Internet in a direction that benefits humanity instead of hindering it. Aava aims to offer you all the basic services you'd normally use but without the toxic components like behavioral data collection, profiling, surveillance, purposely distractive web design... This is a groundbreaking attempt to create a sustainable and responsible competitor for Big Tech social media, which is not sustainable or responsible at all. Aava attempts to create not just healthier human life but also create a smaller carbon footprint than the Big Tech services you are using right now.
1. No ads, no behavioral data collection either!
2. Aava is safe for children
3. Emphasis on quality of content, not quantity
4. You should have rights on the Internet
5. Aava is a collective ideology that you have a say in
6. How is Aava different from other projects?
7. Aava is ecological and practical
8. AI
1. Aava does not host services or pages that collect and analyze your behavioral data
"Big Tech", a handful of large companies, owns most of the world wide web. Big Tech makes trillions by giving people services, such as social media sites, and then harvesting the behavioral data that is generated as a result. Your search engine searches, the videos you watched, the links you clicked.. everything is logged and processed, and your personality gets profiled. Many people ignore this fact, because their friends use these services as well, or simply because the content on them is too addictive.It's almost impossible to avoid becoming a victim to this corporate spying and profiling these days, which is why we at Aava want to make sure you have at least one safe haven where you can rest assured knowing your privacy is safe. Every site on Aava is free to access anonymously, with no marketing cookies. The only cookies on Aava are ones that store your session between different pages and tabs, and you don't even need to use them. Creating a profile on Aava is not necessary by any means, and the functionality only exists to facilitate certain tasks like uploading and managing your content on the network. Aava Browser is an open source Python web browser and the idea is to develop it together as a community.
2. Aava is safe for children. No need for ID checks or gatekeeping!
A growing issue with the Internet is that children start to use it at a young age, but are not protected from content or people that might harm them. So far no decent result has been found to fix this problem. Since Aava is all about informative and educational content, Aava is safe to view by children and there is no R-rated content.It's entirely possible that some day in the future there might be age restrictions on the world wide web, imposed by governments or other parties. We're already seeing popular social media sites asking us to send them our ID's. Aava will never ask you to show your ID to access content. Free access to information should be granted to everyone without gatekeeping. We keep Aava's content safe for children by default so that no legislation will ever have to impose restrictions on it.
People are often under the impression that the current Internet is "free", because it's decentralized. In reality, social media is becoming heavily regulated against hate speech and abusive content, with methods you most likely don't like. We already have AI's that analyze your social media behavior to detect and predict unwanted content. These AI's categorize you into different personality types based on your writing style, meaning you might be labeled a problem client even before you do anything.
3. Aava focuses on useful information, not addictive entertainment
Websites today are purposely designed to target your reward system and get you hooked, keeping you online checking for notifications for several hours per day. By now, this phenomenon has become harmful to us on a collective level. One of the main principles of Aava is to give people an alternative network where companies aren't constantly targeting their reward system, giving you brainfog. The world wide web has always existed for information, so that's what Aava should be about. In this regard, Aava goes back to the roots of why the www was invented in the first place. The Internet doesn't need to turn generations of people into smartphone addicts and behavioral data slaves.People seem to require more "me time" after a hard day at work. This "me time" is usually mindless entertainment in the form of videos, meme pictures, and gossip. The problem is that this entertainment that's consumed to alleviate stress doesn't really remove the stress. In many cases, extended Internet use makes you even more prone to stress. Technology seemingly makes life easier by making certain tasks faster to perform, but we're not seeing an increase in human happiness. You might have a dozen communications platforms that you're logged in to, and you're subconsciously always on high alert, waiting for one of your apps to beep and notify you of a new message. This creates stress that you might not even be aware of. Ever find yourself just scrolling on a page or clicking through dozens of browser tabs mindlessly, without actually focusing on anything? Imagine if you could use that brainfog time on something useful. This collectively deteriorative nature of the www is one of the reasons why the current world wide web is not socially or culturally sustainable.
4. Introducing the concept of "Internet rights"
On Aava, you have more rights than just the right to have your own website and the right to free information without being tracked or profiled. You also have the right to have all discussion and information about you removed from the entire Aava Network if you so choose. In short, you have the right to be forgotten.Many facets of the Internet came to people as a complete surprise. The "eternal" nature of the Internet is one of them: when something goes online, it's often there forever. Humans didn't evolve to deal with eternal consequences that are just a button click away.
Slanderous discussion, doxxing, and character assassinations have become a big issue on the Internet and these are the unfortunate side effects of social media, as well as people's growing need for entertainment and drama. Sometimes search engines refuse to delete their results about you even if you invoke GDPR. This is because search engines thrive on information, and it's not their business to go deleting it. And even if one search engine will respect your rights, another one might not. The decentralized nature of the Internet makes it impossible to have any meaningful control over your online identity. But Aava makes it happen. We believe you should have the final say in what is posted about you online.
5. Democratic guidelines that you have a say in
The centralized nature of Aava is one of its many strong suits. But to make sure Aava is truly a "people's Internet", all of Aava's policies are up for discussion, and most development work is done as a collective. The (humble) source code of Aava Browser is open source and you can start improving it today.Aava doesn't try to become just another content platform, but a friendly think tank of people who are interested in answering the question "what should the Internet be like?"