WeAreDevelopers Dev Digest

Issue 207:  Spring cleaning, AI agent manipulation and stopping bad bots

26-28/11/26: WeAreDevelopers Conference India - CFP India

08-10/07/26: WeAreDevelopers World Congress Europe - CFP Europe

23-25/09/2026: WeAreDevelopers World Congress North America - CFP US

Hello fellow developer, the web is stifled by a lot of unnecessary data. We use frameworks, AI generated code and complex tricks we needed when IE was a thing and then wonder why our traffic numbers are high but users don't convert to buyers. This edition of Dev Digest is a spring cleaning edition. You learn how to embed videos without delays, how to replace a ton of JavaScript with HTML, how to batch resize your images and how to clean up your computer. So, let's get scrubbing…

Are you using more JavaScript than you need to in your product? And why is that a problem? We sat down with Aaron T. Grogg, a web performance specialist who put together a repository called NoLoJS which shows CSS/HTML only alternatives to heavy and slow JavaScript solutions. If you haven't had the time to catch up with what is possible with the web's own technologies, check out what he had to say.

What's happening in AI

• 96% Engineers Don’t Fully Trust AI Output, Yet Only 48% Verify It
• Self-Improving Coding Agents
• Claude Code: connect to a local model when your quota runs out
• 10 Charts That Explain the AI Era
• Stopping Bad Bots Without Blocking the Good Ones

Security and Privacy

• ClawSec: Security Skill Suite for AI Agents
• Mobile carriers can get your GPS location
• OpenClaw integrates VirusTotal malware scanning to battle enterprise risks
• 17% of 3rd-Party Add-Ons for OpenClaw Used in Crypto Theft and macOS Malware
• How manipulation-proof is your AI agent?

Software Development

• A broken heart or, getting a 100x speedup with one dumb line of code.
• Claude Code's renderer is more complex than a game engine
• Explicit resource management in JavaScript
• JavaScript's for-of loops are actually fast
• Performance-Optimized Video Embeds with Zero JavaScript

Tips, Tricks and Tools

• 60 Cybersecurity Projects, Certification Roadmaps & Resources
• Interactive & Customizable JavaScript Heat Map
• Batch image processor in the browser
• Mole - deep clean and optimize your Mac.
• vert - The file converter you'll love.

Procrastination corner and Wonderful Weird Web

• Wordlink
• Defeating a 40-year-old copy protection dongle
• ChatGPT Self Portrait

• We mourn our craft
• AI notetakers are creating HR nightmares
• Electricity use of AI coding agents
• The hidden danger of shipping fast
• AI Doesn’t Reduce Work—It Intensifies It

Companies to check:

1. Linux Entwickler at Hubert Burda Media
2. Manual QA Engineer at Eltemate
3. Senior Software Development Security Engineer at VECTOR Informatik
4. Android Engineer (Mid to Senior) at SMG Swiss Marketplace Group
5. Senior Backend Engineer at ING Deutschland

More jobs here: Remote positions - Germany - Austria