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The web sucks if you have a slow connection

danluu.com

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Re: The web sucks if you have a slow connection

#331

Post by nhaehnle »

a1k0n wrote: post #250
bluGill wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm surprised they need anything. I get my home internet from a satellite in geosynchronous orbit and it works fine other than the latency. No human has got that far from Earth since Apollo in the 1970s, so my home internet has to be worse than anyone NASA cares give internet. (though I have no idea what bandwidth NASA has)

If they wanted to use a geosynchronous satellite from the ISS, it would be occluded by the earth half of the time and the other half of the time they'd have to track it with a satellite dish over the course of the 45 minutes (out of every 1.5 hours) they have access to it. of course the same is true of ground stations... I'm not actually sure how they do it but they probably don't need as high-gain of an antenna to r…

The ISS gets connectivity via a small number of ground stations and mostly satellites. Their connectivity is not uninterrupted; there are small regular time intervals at which none of their uplinks is in line of sight.

Re: The web sucks if you have a slow connection

#333

Post by brokentone »

chalupa-man wrote: post #293
Jakob wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disable JavaScript. You’ll be surprised at how most of the web still works and is much faster. Longer battery life on mobile, too.

Note though that disabling JavaScript can also slow down many sites. One good use of JavaScript is to detect the speed of the user's connection and then load in smaller and lower-quality assets. Disabling JavaScript can result in the default assets being loaded, which rapidly offsets the benefit of not loading that JS. Other sites will load in portions of the content first and use JS to load in extra chunks as reques…

I can't think of a single website I know that uses JS to intelligently load thing via connection-speed sniffing. It's a nice thought, but it doesn't happen. There used to be JS fills for responsive imagery -- it was never connection-speed based, but viewport based -- but this is all browser-native these days. Some things might provide simpler assets via CDN-based UA sniffing.

Re: The web sucks if you have a slow connection

#334

Post by pilom »

gabemart wrote: post #158

Something I have had at the back of my mind for a long time: in 2017, what's the correct way to present optional resources that will improve the experience of users on fast/uncapped connections, but that user agents on slow/capped connections can safely ignore? Like hi-res hero images, or video backgrounds, etc. Every time a similar question is posed on HN, someone says "If the assets aren't needed, don't serve them…

We outsource this to CloudFlare and their Mirage service: https://support.cloudflare.com/hc/en-us/articles/200403554-W...

Re: The web sucks if you have a slow connection

#335

Post by ClassyJacket »

Someone1234 wrote: post #21

I found out this the hard way. T-Mobile used to offer 2G internet speeds internationally in 100+ countries included in Simple Choice subscriptions. 2G is limited to 50 kbit/s, that's slower than a 56K modem. While this absolutely fine for background processes (e.g. notifications) and even checking your email, most websites never loaded at these speeds. Resources would time out, and the adverts alone could easily exce…

My 35Mbit cable got shaped down to 0.25 Mbit/s yesterday because we went over our download limit. It was like having no connection. I just gave up using it.

I hate the all-or-nothing approach to shaping. At least give me 5Mbit or something!

Re: The web sucks if you have a slow connection

#336

Post by ClassyJacket »

stuckagain wrote: post #76
Someone1234 wrote: post #21

I found out this the hard way. T-Mobile used to offer 2G internet speeds internationally in 100+ countries included in Simple Choice subscriptions. 2G is limited to 50 kbit/s, that's slower than a 56K modem. While this absolutely fine for background processes (e.g. notifications) and even checking your email, most websites never loaded at these speeds. Resources would time out, and the adverts alone could easily exce…

Having used both, I'll take the 2G mobile over the 56k modem every time.

I just looked up EDGE. It's crazy to think that the first iPhone topped out at double the speed of a 56k modem. And that I actually used my iPhone on that network sometimes, when 3G wasn't available.

Re: The web sucks if you have a slow connection

#337

Post by enobrev »

sonar_un wrote: post #313
nommm-nommm wrote: post #259

What really has baffled me lately is Chase's new website. They did a redesign around, maybe 6 months ago, to make it "more modern" or something, I guess. Now the thing just loads and loads and loads and loads. And all I want to do is either view my statement/transactions or pay my bill! Or sometimes update my address or use rewards points. That's not complicated stuff. I open it up in a background tab and do other st…

Chase's website is just awful for just about anything. It's particularly terrible if you are ever trying to use award points. The site is painfully slow, even on the fastest of connections.

To be fair, the Chase website was awful before. It was just awful and slightly faster.

Re: The web sucks if you have a slow connection

#338

Post by ClassyJacket »

EvilTerran wrote: post #131
SwellJoe wrote: post #40

I travel fulltime and my primary internet is 4G LTE. But, even though I spend $250 per month on data, I still run out, and end up throttled to 128kbps for the last couple days of the data cycle. The internet is pretty much unusable at that rate. I can leave my email downloading in Thunderbird for a couple of hours and that's usable (gmail, however is not very usable), and I can read Hacker News (but not the articles…

Incidentally, you may find GMail's "basic HTML view" works better when your connection's throttled: https://support.google.com/mail/answer/15049 And as for reddit, their old mobile view is still available at the "i." subdomain - it's so much lighter-weight than the dreadful JS-laden one they introduced a while back, it's the only way to use reddit on mobile IMO: https://i.reddit.com

Reddit appears to be actively trying to hurt the mobile experience. They bought the best iPhone reddit app, and removed it from the store entirely. They are also currently trialling a version of the mobile site that does not work at all if you aren't logged in.

Personally I'd prefer they just show ads on mobile than make the experience suck on purpose.

Re: The web sucks if you have a slow connection

#339

Post by ClassyJacket »

MrRadar wrote: post #235
dublinben wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a shame that their oldest mobile version, the original m.reddit.com is no longer available. It was truly the most compact way to experience the site. Barely more than a list of links.

Add .compact to the end of add reddit link (before the query) and you can still access it. A few minor things are broken but it still works well enough that I prefer it over the modern mobile site.

I think they mean the version before that. That version was REALLY barebones.

Re: The web sucks if you have a slow connection

#340

Post by brilliantcode »

0xCMP wrote: post #185
brilliantcode wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes lot of these web pages are the size of mp3 files. it's just fucked up. we decided static html webpages are sooo 1999. Yet it remains the most secure and user friendly medium to deliver value. bring back the 1999 frame side bar. what was wrong with that?

There is making the web more janky and hard to use and making it a simpler page. I think there is a balance here we can find.

I think AMP is that "bring back the 90s movement". No Javascript. Just super light and fast loading webpages like in the good ol' days.

God I miss the late 90s and the internet. Even looking through neocities gives me a pang of nostalgia.

Now everything has to be "Material Design" or "Flat".

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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