I'm really focusing on the search feature that's no longer available for a given repository unless you're logged in. Everything else is "Microsoft added extras to git". If all I can do on GitHub is use it to git clone, then what's the purpose of it?
It's clear the "extinguish" phase of Microsoft's open source venture has started. There're plenty of very good alternatives, it's time to move on.
There is actually such a place! The Linux kernel (the original use case for Git) is developed by emailing patches to the appropriate mailing list. The mailing list is compatible with self-hosted mail systems.
You don't need an account to send email. You can send emails using nothing but a CLI tool on a *nix machine. Although most mainstream email services will send those to the spam folder these days.
You can browse code on Github just fine (and search within a file!) - you just can't search through the tree, which is a function of whatever platform the code lives on, be it your box or Github or some other web UI.
Do you mean "git clone"? I thought the idea about git is that you always take the code into your local machine before doing anything. Sure, github gives some bells and whistles to obviate the need from time to time, but that's basically decorations.
