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How web bloat impacts users with slow devices

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Re: How web bloat impacts users with slow devices

#111

Post by skydhash »

jiggawatts wrote: post #95
jodrellblank wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Joel Spolsky on Excel bloat, 2001: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2001/03/23/strategy-letter-iv...

The latest version of Excel loads faster on my laptop than most websites do. I’ve timed this. I can load the entire MS Office suite and open a Visual Studio 2022 project in less time then it takes to open a blank Jira web form. What’s your point?

Due to prevalence of native apps in the macOS world, the difference are often stark. I use Things and Bear, and it’s fast, then try to load gmail (dump account, so it’s not in Mail) and it’s so slow. Youtube too. Fastmail, in comparison, loads like it’s on localhost.

You block JavaScript and the amount of sites that is broken is ridiculous, some you would not expect (websites, not fullblown interactive apps).

Re: How web bloat impacts users with slow devices

#112

Post by LM358 »

genewitch wrote: post #99

as a data point youtube is unusable on raspberry pi 3. This happened within the last year, because prior to that you could "watch" videos at about 10-15FPS which is enough, for instance, to get repair videos in a shop setting (ask me how i know). When the raspberry pi model B - the first one released - came out, you could play 1080p video from storage, watch youtube, play games . I'm not sure what youtube is doing (o…

Could it just be due to lack of hardware video decoding? The Pi3 has x264 HW acceleration and youtube started using other codecs a while ago.

Re: How web bloat impacts users with slow devices

#113

Post by Forgeties79 »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #74
hinkley wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what I miss from the removal of serviceable components on MacBooks. Was a time I would buy the fastest processor and just okay memory and disk, then the first time I got a twinge of jealousy about the new machines, buy the most Corsair memory that they would guarantee would work, and a bigger faster drive. Boom, another 18 months of useful lifetime.

Is the total useful lifetime more than MacBooks with non serviceable components? I see people around me easily using Airs for 5+ years.

I’ve been a Mac user since 2003 or so and I can confidently say my machines last 6-7 years as daily drivers then sunset over 2-3 years when I get a new computer. I always go tower, laptop, tower, laptop. They have a nice overlap for a few years that serves me well.

Re: How web bloat impacts users with slow devices

#114

Post by myself248 »

Where "users with slow devices" equals "anyone trying to keep hardware running more than a few years", it seems. It's enforced obsolescence.

I've said for a long time, devs should be forced to take a survey of their users' hardware, and then themselves use the slowest common system, say, the 5th-percentile, one day a week. If they don't care about efficiency now, maybe they will when it's sufficiently painful.

Re: How web bloat impacts users with slow devices

#115

Post by genewitch »

zbrozek wrote: post #100

There's also a huge tendency to design for fast, high quality connectivity. Try using any Google product on airplane wifi. Even just chat loads in minutes-to-never and frequently keels over dead, forcing an outrageously expensive reload. Docs? Good luck. I wish software engineers cared to test in less than ideal conditions. Low speeds, intermittent connectivity, and packet loss are real.

The last decade of my life has been a speedrun in "less than ideal conditions" for computing. CGNAT, 5mbit dsl, spotty "fixed wireless" and my latest debacle: starlink, although that seems to be getting better slowly; used to drop 15/60 seconds, now it drops more like 4/200 seconds. Constant power issues and lightning strikes - i only have 1 computer that has a working NIC, because evidently tiny power fluctuations are enough to send most chipsets into the graveyard. I had to switch to full fiber between all compute sites on my property, and a wifi backup, because copper is too risky.

Re: How web bloat impacts users with slow devices

#116

Post by pixl97 »

ericra wrote: post #8

As someone with recent experience using a relatively slow Android phone, it can be absolutely brutal to load some web pages, even ones that only appear to be serving text and images (and a load of trackers/ads presumably). The network is never the bottleneck here. This problem is compounded by several factors. One is that older/slower phones cannot always use fully-featured browsers such as Firefox for mobile. The ap…

> That means no ublock origin

Talk about a catch-22 situation. The modern web is useless without adblocking. Especially when you get forever scrolling pages with random ads stuffed in there.

Re: How web bloat impacts users with slow devices

#117

Post by stavros »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #74
hinkley wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what I miss from the removal of serviceable components on MacBooks. Was a time I would buy the fastest processor and just okay memory and disk, then the first time I got a twinge of jealousy about the new machines, buy the most Corsair memory that they would guarantee would work, and a bigger faster drive. Boom, another 18 months of useful lifetime.

Is the total useful lifetime more than MacBooks with non serviceable components? I see people around me easily using Airs for 5+ years.

Yes, but that's the slow-boiled frog syndrome. I use my computers for years as well, and whenever I get a new one I think "wow, why didn't I switch sooner, this is so much snappier".

Re: How web bloat impacts users with slow devices

#118

Post by ponector »

nolist_policy wrote: post #94
jhanoncomm wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is one performance metric. What about energy use and loading search results not just the home page. I find DDG faster from a perception point of view. I imagine on sone metrics it is faster.

Sorry, should have been more precise. I was measuring loading search results. E.g.: https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-e&q=test9999 vs. https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ftsa&q=test9999&ia=web

Did you measure time user needs to scroll and click reject google cookies?

Re: How web bloat impacts users with slow devices

#119

Post by Retr0id »

LM358 wrote: post #112
genewitch wrote: post #99

as a data point youtube is unusable on raspberry pi 3. This happened within the last year, because prior to that you could "watch" videos at about 10-15FPS which is enough, for instance, to get repair videos in a shop setting (ask me how i know). When the raspberry pi model B - the first one released - came out, you could play 1080p video from storage, watch youtube, play games . I'm not sure what youtube is doing (o…

Could it just be due to lack of hardware video decoding? The Pi3 has x264 HW acceleration and youtube started using other codecs a while ago.

I have no idea if it still works, but the "h264ify" browser extension used to be great for working around this issue (by forcing youtube to serve h264) https://github.com/erkserkserks/h264ify

Re: How web bloat impacts users with slow devices

#120

Post by skydhash »

jwells89 wrote: post #54
mik1998 wrote: post #37

I often use a Thinkpad X220 (which still works for a lot of my usage and I'm not too concerned about it being stolen or damaged) and the JS web is terrible to use on it. Mostly resulted in my preference of using native software (non-electron), which generally works perfectly fine and about as well as on my "more modern" computer.

Whenever I pull out old machines I’m a little shocked at how responsive they are running a modern OS (Win10 or Linux), so long as the modern web is avoided. Anything with a Core 2 Duo or better is adequate for a wide range of tasks if you can find non-bloated software to do them with. Even going back so far that modern OS support is absent, snappiness can be found. My circa 2000 500Mhz PowerBook G3 running Mac OS 9.1…

I have a mac mini 2011 and it works great with Linux Mint. But load youtube and you’re in a world of pain.
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