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The 49MB web page

thatshubham.com

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Re: The 49MB web page

#131

Post by jaredklewis »

I just loaded the nytimes.com page as an experiment. The volume of tracking pixels and other ad non-sense is truly horrifying.

But at least in terms of the headline metric of bandwidth, it's somewhat less horrifying. With my ad-blocker off, Firefox showed 44.47mb transferred. Of that 36.30mb was mp4 videos. These videos were journalistic in nature (they were not ads).

So, yes in general, this is like the Hindenburg of web pages. But I still think it's worth noting that 80% of that headline bandwidth is videos, which is just part of the site's content. One could argue that it is too video heavy, but that's an editorial issue, not an engineering issue.

Re: The 49MB web page

#132

Post by FridgeSeal »

coin wrote: post #111
snickerer wrote: post #107

Allowing scripting on websites (in the mid-90s) was a completely wrong decision. And an outrage. Programs are downloaded to my computer and executed without me being able to review them first—or rely on audits by people I trust. That’s completely unacceptable; it’s fundamentally flawed. Of course, you disable scripts on websites. But there are sites that are so broken that they no longer work properly, since the deve…

Stepping back, it's pretty ridiculous that I need to download executable code, often bloated, solely to view read-only content. Just render the thing on the backend and send it to the client.

But the web-dev-hype people told me that JS-heavy SPA’s (and associated designs) were faster and better for the user!

I didn’t bother validating this, but I’m sure they wouldn’t lie or misinterpret!!

Re: The 49MB web page

#133

Post by binaryturtle »

It would be less hypocritical if that critique of the situation wasn't posted on a website that itself loads unnecessary 3rd party resources (e.g. cloudflare insights).

Luckily I use a proper content blocker (uBlock Origin in hard mode).

Re: The 49MB web page

#134

Post by WhitneyLand »

The sad thing is, this is already a paywalled site.

I’m afraid someone who wants to support professional journalism and agrees to pay ~$300/yr for an NYT subscription still gets most (all?) of this nonsense?

Re: The 49MB web page

#135

Post by renehsz »

nicbou wrote: post #119
vunderba wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PSA for those who aren’t aware: Chromium/Firefox-based browsers have a Network tab in the developer tools where you can dial down your bandwidth to simulate a slower 3G or 4G connection. Combined with CPU throttling, it's a decent sanity check to see how well your site will perform on more modest setups.

I still test mine on GPRS, because my website should work fine in the Berlin U-Bahn. I also spent a lot of time working from hotels and busses with bad internet, so I care about that stuff. Developers really ought to test such things better.

Thank you for doing this! I really mean it. We need more developers who care about keeping websites lean and fast. There's no good reason a regular site shouldn't work on GPRS, except maybe if the main content is video.

Re: The 49MB web page

#137

Post by vesselapi »

scared_together wrote: post #25
Bratmon wrote: post #2

Maybe I'm just getting old, but I've gotten tired of these "Journalists shouldn't try to make their living by finding profitable ads, they should just put in ads that look pretty but pay almost nothing and supplement their income by working at McDonalds" takes.

In the case of the New York Times, they have subscriptions and many are willing to pay for their work - but their subscriptions are not ad-free.

This is what killed my willingness to subscribe to most outlets. If I'm paying, I expect the page to load in under a second with zero tracking. Instead you get the same bloated experience minus a banner ad or two.

Re: The 49MB web page

#138

Post by xrd »

I was really surprised when I went to book a flight on Frontier (don't judge me!) and a request from analytics.tiktok.com loaded. I have a lot of discomfort about that. Bloat and surveillance go hand in hand.

Re: The 49MB web page

#139

Post by goodmythical »

tomcatfish wrote: post #121
TheMode wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://lite.cnn.com seems to load 200KB of CSS

Cannot reproduce on my machine

similar for me. homepage: 47.25 kB transferred with articles averaging ~70kB with ublock origin having refreshingly zero impact.

Re: The 49MB web page

#140

Post by nativeit »

decimalenough wrote: post #3

This is why people continue to lament Google Reader (and RSS in general): it was a way to read content on your own terms, without getting hijacked by ads.

Got to this article/comments section via FreshRSS. Still the greatest way to consume media on the web.
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