Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

PC Gamer recommends RSS readers in a 37mb article that just keeps downloading

stuartbreckenridge.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 417 posts

Re: PC Gamer recommends RSS readers in a 37mb article that just keeps downloading

#181

Post by qingcharles »

reaperducer wrote: post #93
Aurornis wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Three days into the month these phones are just ewaste. If someone needs a phone like this for email and job searching and has no other option, 2G speeds will work. It’s not e-waste for the intended purpose. It would be great if they got higher days caps, though, because let’s be realistic in acknowledging that they’re not only going to use it for Google Maps, email, and job search apps.

If someone needs a phone like this for email and job searching and has no other option, 2G speeds will work. It’s not e-waste for the intended purpose. Guess how I know you've never actually tried this. Part of my job is testing the web sites I build in the terrible real-world conditions where our customers are. Places like machine rooms, deep basements, and small towns with only municipal or small-carrier 3G cell se…

Thank you. I often get people responding that 2G speed will work fine for email, chat, Google Maps etc. Maybe if I installed an IMAP client on their phone, maybe.

But I can promise you from sitting with them dozens of times things like Google Maps are unusable once the connection is throttled. It might load some of the map, some of the time. But it never loads all of it and it is just plain unworkable. Even if it loads some of it it takes so long that the busses have gone past by the time they've tried to figure out what direction they need to go.

Re: PC Gamer recommends RSS readers in a 37mb article that just keeps downloading

#182

Post by what »

abustamam wrote: post #68
qingcharles wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've worked with a lot of people at the bottom end of society in the USA. They are given government provided phones they can use so they have access to Google Maps, email, job search apps etc. These phones come with 3GB of regular data per month. After that they drop down to 2G speed, but not in a way that will allow anything to actually load. Three days into the month these phones are just ewaste.

I rarely go over 3gb in a month. But, I also work from home, and I have stable internet connection from home. If their data plan is the only way they are able to access the internet then yes this is definitely a problem especially with random websites downloading literal gigabytes of ads.

They can go to a library. Or go to basically any business (or sit outside) and use their WiFi.

Re: PC Gamer recommends RSS readers in a 37mb article that just keeps downloading

#183

Post by qingcharles »

kuschku wrote: post #110
reaperducer wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone needs a phone like this for email and job searching and has no other option, 2G speeds will work. It’s not e-waste for the intended purpose. Guess how I know you've never actually tried this. Part of my job is testing the web sites I build in the terrible real-world conditions where our customers are. Places like machine rooms, deep basements, and small towns with only municipal or small-carrier 3G cell se…

I used to have an extremely cheap phone plan that had 500MB data, then 64kbps for the rest of the month. You'd be surprised how far you can get with that. IRC works just fine (as long as you use Quassel w/ Quasseldroid), HN works well, so does reddit (via redreader). RSS readers and wikipedia work as well, and for general web browsing you can set up a readability proxy (basically Firefox' Reader Mode, but server-side…

Sure, me and you and everyone here can open a shell connection and do everything with text and it'll work great on 64kbps.

Some of these guys have been locked up for 40 years straight. They're not doing all that extra stuff. They want to go on Indeed or Monster or YouTube. One job site I had to load on my desktop to find out why it wasn't working for them, only to discover the pages had a 250MB payload of random crap downloading, including videos.

Re: PC Gamer recommends RSS readers in a 37mb article that just keeps downloading

#184

Post by CGamesPlay »

y0eswddl wrote: post #172
CGamesPlay wrote: post #165

Disabling cache and then complaining that the bandwidth usage never stops increasing is certainly a take, but I'm not sure you can meaningfully draw any conclusions from it.

right, because most people have already visited most sites and continually visit them frequently enough that cache never goes stale.

Except, this wasn't a "cold start" test. It was a "leave the page open and watch subsequent requests" test. Cache absolutely applies here.

Re: PC Gamer recommends RSS readers in a 37mb article that just keeps downloading

#185

Post by Marsymars »

colesantiago wrote: post #28
goldenarm wrote: post #7

I'm trying to migrate to 100% RSS right now, to avoid the hateful algorithmic editorialization of modern social media. And I'm shocked that almost no paid media provides full articles in RSS anymore, and force me to navigate their 37MB pages with popups all over the place. Has anyone found a solution against that ? Edit : Sorry I'm asking specifically about paywalled stuff

Pay for the web or print edition? Journalists need to eat as well as you do. The more people aren't supporting journalists weather in Substack or Reuters, the more articles that will be behind a paywall. It's such a shame as well since AI is also constantly bypassing and scraping RSS for business and commercial purposes, violating licenses.

I don't think the complaint is that RSS doesn't get around paywalls, it's that even if you pay, many publications don't offer full-text RSS.

Re: PC Gamer recommends RSS readers in a 37mb article that just keeps downloading

#186

Post by Marsymars »

goldenarm wrote: post #7

I'm trying to migrate to 100% RSS right now, to avoid the hateful algorithmic editorialization of modern social media. And I'm shocked that almost no paid media provides full articles in RSS anymore, and force me to navigate their 37MB pages with popups all over the place. Has anyone found a solution against that ? Edit : Sorry I'm asking specifically about paywalled stuff

I just don't pay for sites that don't offer full-text RSS (or email newsletters, for some sites) for subscribers.

Re: PC Gamer recommends RSS readers in a 37mb article that just keeps downloading

#187

Post by qingcharles »

tw04 wrote: post #119
qingcharles wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've worked with a lot of people at the bottom end of society in the USA. They are given government provided phones they can use so they have access to Google Maps, email, job search apps etc. These phones come with 3GB of regular data per month. After that they drop down to 2G speed, but not in a way that will allow anything to actually load. Three days into the month these phones are just ewaste.

Calling them ewaste is a little dramatic. While sites like this are a cancer, there is free WiFi in basically every town in America. You can get data for free, even if it’s slightly inconvenient.

It was a bit dramatic, but I've seen these guys just leave these phones behind once the data is gone. They're not likely to carry it around for the next 27 days until the data is refreshed. They'll generally just hustle for $10 to bribe the phone agent to bypass the SSN check and give them another fresh phone.

The issue is that the wifi isn't available where they need it. If I send them to the SSA building to get some federal docs, it's in a dead zone. It might be in the middle of Chicago but there isn't any free wifi for a mile in any direction from there. How do they pull up Google Maps to get home? And it's not always obvious how to get the free wifi as it doesn't just let you connect, you had to go through a multi-step process of signing in and accepting T&Cs these days. Which the phone doesn't always want to do.

Re: PC Gamer recommends RSS readers in a 37mb article that just keeps downloading

#188

Post by lutusp »

Wait a sec -- the reason RSS readers don’t have ads is because no one uses them. If we all used RSS, the advertisers would follow us there.

The linked article doesn’t offer any real remedies, so I will:

* Step one: dump Microsoft Edge, install Brave, which stops most ads including those on YouTube.

* Step two: dump Windows, install Linux. Windows 11 is an advertising delivery organ masquerading as an operating system.

* Step three: put a list of advertiser IP addresses in the Linux lookup table /etc/hosts, stopping the problem at its source. This idea works in Windows too, but most Windows users aren’t techies.

* Step four: never open an account to gain access to a Website’s content. Websites require you to sign up only so they can legally mail you advertising without breaking the law.

* Want to hear the FBI’s advice on this topic? To avoid many online dangers, they warn you to install an ad blocker (https://www.ic3.gov/PSA/2022/PSA221221).

But most ad blockers now let some ads through ... only “good ones,” meaning those who pay enough to circumvent the filter.

Most advertising is BS anyway. Prove me wrong -- tell me the last time you saw an ad for potatoes. Or a walk in the park.

Most advertising is actually a meta-ad for consumerism -- you need to buy stuff. What you have isn't good enough. But hey -- don't get me started.

Re: PC Gamer recommends RSS readers in a 37mb article that just keeps downloading

#189

Post by TheDong »

what wrote: post #177
TheDong wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope you're joking. The obvious easy fix is to give them unlimited data. If the intent is to give them internet, they should give them internet that functions for the modern web.

They’re already given unlimited data? It just gets throttled the 2G speeds. They can also just go to the local library or Starbucks for the WiFi if they need more.

2G speeds isn't really full access to "the internet" for some parts of the internet.

My experience with 2G speeds is:

1. Open job application site

2. Upload resume pdf

3. Upload required picture of ID

4. Server's nginx config has a hard-coded timeout after 1 minute. Connection error

5. Try to upload again

6. Connection error

A huge number of pieces of the web have hardcoded timeouts and limits designed to stop slowloris style attacks, and if your connection is slow enough, those will prevent you from ever being able to complete some tasks.

Re: PC Gamer recommends RSS readers in a 37mb article that just keeps downloading

#190

Post by qingcharles »

thevinter wrote: post #79
qingcharles wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've worked with a lot of people at the bottom end of society in the USA. They are given government provided phones they can use so they have access to Google Maps, email, job search apps etc. These phones come with 3GB of regular data per month. After that they drop down to 2G speed, but not in a way that will allow anything to actually load. Three days into the month these phones are just ewaste.

I lived for months with a 4GB roaming plan. Given, I was not using it at home since I had a wifi connection, but I rarely came close to using all my data unless I was watching YT videos when traveling or something. I share your sentiment and I agree we should be more mindful of people with metered/slow connections, but the last statement feels blown out of proportion.

I've had a 1GB/mo $5/mo plan from good2go for the last 2 years. I've never gone over it. But that's because I go from wifi to wifi all the time and I'm very careful when I'm on cell. That definitely doesn't work for most people!
Post reply on HN