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I think I kind of hate lazy loading

shkspr.mobi

101–110 of 182 posts

Re: I think I kind of hate lazy loading

#101
post #54
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a web dev… I honestly have never thought of it that way in terms of cost. I would rather a user see the whole page, consume all the content, it’s not a big cost.

Then you’ve probably just not worked on pages of that scale so far. Some very large sites maintain alternate versions of images in chance the browser supports something more efficient than JPEG; that can save about 30% – at the expense of a lot of complexity and extra server side storage. Yet they still do it: It’s still worth it for them. But nothing beats not loading the image at all! As a web user, I personally al…

We do this too and believe me, it’s not to reduce the server workload.

It’s just progressive enhancement: The browsers that support a format get the lighter version, the ones that don’t, get a heavier fallback.

Re: I think I kind of hate lazy loading

#102
post #51

Hardly any app is designed for subway riders. If they were, we'd have widespread preloading (like half an hour of tweets pre-loaded), seamless delayed posting (sending a new post when the internet comes back online), and visibility into what's downloading and uploading so users can make informed choices. As with all accessibility affordances, this will help people beyond the targeted group - like air travelers, folks…

The game metro is unsurprisingly good. Turn based games work well.

Re: I think I kind of hate lazy loading

#103
post #82

Subway riders are a corner case. The amount of energy, bandwidth, resources saved with lazy loading must be staggering. Travellers may someday (and some do now) look back on losing signal with fondness. A time to reflect, meditate, plan, create, stop consuming for a little while, a welcome break.

Several million people ride the London Underground every day. https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/media/press-releases/2022/februa...

You're welcome to meditate if you want while crammed into a stranger's armpit. The rest of us would just like to read the news or catch up with our friends.

Re: I think I kind of hate lazy loading

#104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're thinking of your own costs; the developer is more likely thinking of their own than yours.

As a developer adding lazy loading... nah. The motivation is more about prioritising resources. I want some images to load after everything else to free up the bandwidth for now critical resources. If I had the option of "when the connection is idle for 2s", instead of the current implementation of "lazy", I'd use that. I'm sure there are some other services which are more image heavy and will save some money this wa…

Ok, so "monetary cost" and/or "performance cost" -- either way, it's for the benefit of the site (whether fiscal or reputational benefit). Although a desire for the latter is fairly well shared by all parties.

Re: I think I kind of hate lazy loading

#105
If the images are important to you, just scroll to the bottom of the article before reading to force the loading.

Also: it's a pity that the lowsrc attribute was deprecated. I know there are alternative using JS, but it was useful.

Re: I think I kind of hate lazy loading

#106

Seems fixable at the standards level. The spec could define `loading="lazy"` as a (strong) hint for the client, but not a rule. Meanwhile, clients should allow disabling lazy loading. (The same way a valid client can disable Javascript, for instance.) This is only a partial solution as no more than a tiny minority would think to actually disable lazy loading. But at least there would be an option for the author and o…

It is a hint, inasmuch as the behaviour depends on the lazy load root margin which is implementation-defined, with a handful of suggested factors to take into account in choosing the defaults. Disabling lazy loading is done by setting the lazy load root margin infinitely large. Relevant spec: https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/urls-and-fetching.htm.... In Firefox, you can control this by setting the dom.image-lazy-loading.root-margin.{top,left,right,bottom} prefs in about:config.

Re: I think I kind of hate lazy loading

#107
post #100
post #89

> There's no way to disable Lazy Loading on […] Android Firefox. about:config dom.image-lazy-loading.enabled

That doesn't work on the Android version of Firefox. It goes to a blank page with no settings. See https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/ideas/firefox-for-android-abo...

Huh. Excluded from stable? That’s a bit silly. I only used Nightly and it worked there last time I tried (maybe a year ago).

Re: I think I kind of hate lazy loading

#108
post #51

Hardly any app is designed for subway riders. If they were, we'd have widespread preloading (like half an hour of tweets pre-loaded), seamless delayed posting (sending a new post when the internet comes back online), and visibility into what's downloading and uploading so users can make informed choices. As with all accessibility affordances, this will help people beyond the targeted group - like air travelers, folks…

It's the subway where you are that's not designed for apps. On Korean subways I stream video at max res throughout the ride.

Same in taiwan. I think they must have cellphone antennas underground

Re: I think I kind of hate lazy loading

#109
Images are often junk though. What's better: to have the text of the article to read through the tunnel? Or some bullshit stock images that bear no relation to the story.

In the now olden days of the internet, people on low-bandwidth connections used proxies that stripped away images.

Re: I think I kind of hate lazy loading

#110
post #92
post #51

Hardly any app is designed for subway riders. If they were, we'd have widespread preloading (like half an hour of tweets pre-loaded), seamless delayed posting (sending a new post when the internet comes back online), and visibility into what's downloading and uploading so users can make informed choices. As with all accessibility affordances, this will help people beyond the targeted group - like air travelers, folks…

If you have Youtube's paid version, you can have the app automatically preload content it thinks you'd like. This has saved my ass plenty of times when my ADHD brain needed content in places where I didn't have internet.

That sounds like paying a subscription for a crack dealer in a rehab centre :p
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