[IshKebab]

Well software has gradually improved and VNC hasn't so of course it's "software ageism". In any case if you were seriously not aware of VNC's shortcomings compared to modern alternatives:

1. Hilarious security. Passwords silently truncated to 8 characters, etc.

2. Inefficient graphics. Very laggy on all but the best connections. Just sending an H.264 video stream is better these days.

3. No seamless window mode.

4. I've never needed it tbh but I doubt it supports remote sharing of USB, printing, audio, GPU etc

[any1]

As the author of wayvnc, I would say that I'm pretty well aware of what VNC can and cannot do. The RFB protocol (VNC) has improved over time like other protocols.

1. Wrong. There are many extensions that improve upon authentication and encryption.

2. This mostly depends on the implementation, and not necessarily the protocol and/or its extensions.

3. This would require deep integration with the window system on both sides, so I doubt that this is even a thing with RFB on Linux. There certainly aren't any wayland protocols to do this.

4. No one has ever asked me to implement any of that with the exception of audio, but there is also an extension for that.

[IshKebab]

Extensions extensions extensions...

> There certainly aren't any wayland protocols to do [seamless windows]

I think wprs can do this (it calls it "rootless") but I haven't actually got around to trying it yet.

[compsciphd]

re #2 see metavnc (old at this point)

https://metavnc.sourceforge.net/

TLDR: it leveraged a specific client that could

a) connect to multiple vnc instances b) display them in a single window c) act as the "window manager" / "desktop environment" - doing this by enumerating menu entries from each instance and creating a composed whole. Enumerating the active applications from each instance and composing them into a single "task bar"/"window switcher" interface.

this is probably close to 20 years old now.