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How web bloat impacts users with slow devices

danluu.com

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Re: How web bloat impacts users with slow devices

#271

Post by gitaarik »

ordu wrote: post #243
lelanthran wrote: post #126

This article is basically unreadable for me 48 y/o on desktop). In the dev tools I added the following to the body to make it readable: font-size: 18px; line-height: 1.5em; max-width: 38rem; Now look how readable (and beautiful) it is. I read a lot of Dan Luu's posts, and each time I have to do this sort of thing to make it readable. Seriously, techies, it's an extra 64 Bytes to make your page more readable.

> In the dev tools I added the following to the body to make it readable For cases when you don't agree with styles there is Reader Mode. Your way works also, but Reader Mode just simplier, it is just one click away.

In reader mode the colors in the table disappear. Ironical the author does style that.

Re: How web bloat impacts users with slow devices

#272

Post by nicbou »

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…

I had to upgrade my 12" Macbook because Youtube Music brought it to a crawl. I could play music or work, but not both.

Re: How web bloat impacts users with slow devices

#273

Post by sokz »

Aerroon wrote: post #247
mastazi wrote: post #178

> While reviews note that you can run PUBG and other 3D games with decent performance on a Tecno Spark 8C, this doesn't mean that the device is fast enough to read posts on modern text-centric social media platforms or modern text-centric web forums. While 40fps is achievable in PUBG, we can easily see less than 0.4fps when scrolling on these sites. Remember this the next time marketing asks the frontend team to impl…

I imagine it has more to do with the monstrous website design than the tracking scripts. New reddit vs old reddit or desktop reddit vs mobile Reddit shouldn't be that different in terms of tracking. But the newer ones run like ass.

Reddit doesn't even run satisfactorily in my gaming laptop. I can run AAA games but a website is noticeably slow.

Re: How web bloat impacts users with slow devices

#274

Post by anon373839 »

mardifoufs wrote: post #204
gnicholas wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first time I saw this blog posted on HN I wondered how it could possibly be popular with such horrendous layout. The conclusion I came to is that the audience is very tech-savvy and is used to activating Reader Mode when they encounter pages like this.

It's more of a hipster thing imo. For some people since it's minimalist and looks "old" , it must be good. Like I get keeping it simple but man it's CSS..

Yep, exactly. It's fashion. FOUC-chic.

Re: How web bloat impacts users with slow devices

#275

Post by yawaramin »

LoganDark wrote: post #229
golergka wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that 'worse is better' philosophy?

I think it's rather a "performance is more important than functionality" philosophy.

In the case of the devices we're talking about, performance is effectively functionality.

Re: How web bloat impacts users with slow devices

#276

Post by nicbou »

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…

My 12" Macbook was my main computer for 2022 and part of 2023. It ran smoothly for my workflow, even with a 4k monitor.

However YouTube and Gmail brought it to a crawl. I had to sell it because Youtube Music slowed down my work.

Re: How web bloat impacts users with slow devices

#277

Post by LoganDark »

yawaramin wrote: post #275
LoganDark wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's rather a "performance is more important than functionality" philosophy.

In the case of the devices we're talking about, performance is effectively functionality.

My point exactly. By making your website fast and light, you make it easier and more pleasant to use. HTMX has a limited set of actions that it supports, so it can't do everything that people typically want. It can do more than enough though. (remember websites that actually used the `` element?)

Re: How web bloat impacts users with slow devices

#278

Post by anon373839 »

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…

I've got an old MacBook Pro from 2013 that I still keep around because the keyboard is the best Apple ever made. It's not fast by any means, but I haven't encountered any difficulty with websites whatsoever. They're not as snappy as I'd expect on new hardware, but perfectly usable. I do use uBlock Origin, however.

Are these Androids actually less powerful than an 11 year-old, base-spec MacBook?

Re: How web bloat impacts users with slow devices

#279

Post by joeblubaugh »

anon373839 wrote: post #274
mardifoufs wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more of a hipster thing imo. For some people since it's minimalist and looks "old" , it must be good. Like I get keeping it simple but man it's CSS..

Yep, exactly. It's fashion. FOUC-chic.

Dan’s site has been like this for over a decade. If it’s a fashion, then he’s one of the creators of it.

Re: How web bloat impacts users with slow devices

#280

Post by SkyArrow »

mattl wrote: post #262
ericra wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certainly an option for me. But not a scalable solution for the large number of non-tech people with older devices.

I’d love something like it for all my older devices where I can set it and forget it.

NextDNS is pretty good for this - just change the DNS in your network settings.
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