Allowlist is arguably fitting for a list of things which are allowed.
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It's weird that people will claim that "politics" have no place in software while insisting that there is one and only one term "normal" people should use because the politics of the people who object to it are bad and wrong.
The problem with changing whitelist to "allowlist" is that it implies that people who use whitelist are racists. You're not just virtue signaling (and confusing my spellchecker) but causing discord.
It would be perfectly fine if people switched to "allowlist" because they think it's a better term, but that's not the reason. They do it because they want to virtue signal or they're afraid of their peers (because they'll be called racists).
Using "allowlist" is actually bad because it gives agitators power and they keep changing more words to get more power.
/shrug. FoxReplace [1] is a simple way to remove compelled speech from the internet for the client. People do not even realize when they say "Fart", I see "Fart". No idea if Chrome has an addon like this.
[1] - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/foxreplace/
Whitelist means that anything explicitly listed (in the "whitelist" or "allow list") is allowed (or included, etc) and other stuff is disallowed (or excluded) by default (although in some cases, a program (or something else) might ask instead of forcibly blocking access). It is a compound word; you should not use a space or hyphen. (Using two words "white list" may be appropriate when you are refering to colours, e.g. the white list includes the list of whatever documents are to be copied on white paper, or "white list" might mean the list that is printed on white paper.)
Allow list (I do not like the compound word; I think they should be separated and it looks better that way) is the list of what is allowed. (So, normally, this would mean that other stuff is not allowed, so it is still whitelisting.)
In situations where colours would be involved and using words such as "whitelist" would be confusing, such words should be avoided, in order to avoid confusion.
The reasons that they usually actually have are not very good though, like you say, but nevertheless sometimes it can result in something better and sometimes not. But, banning words is not the solution, though.
Good is debatable, but normal?? No, obviously not. One is a word that has been around for over a hundred years and is understood by everyone that speaks English; the other is like 4 years old and only used by some software nerds. 90% of normal people would not know what it means.
And "enshittification" is even newer than "allowlist" and it's practically mainstream.
I personally don’t assume people who use whitelist are racist, or those who allowlist are virtue signaling.
However, I certainly do assume that people who chastise others for using “whitelist” are virtue signaling, and those who deride people for using “allowlist” are racist.
Both are easily understood and I generally assume good intention from people. Just live and let live.
That is not true IMO. Blacklist is a standard English word that any native speaker would know; whitelist (while not as standard) is easy to extrapolate from that.
You can sleep peacefully today but you should try to don't over stress from how other people write on the internet