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

stuartbreckenridge.net

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

#341

Post by cxplay »

cxplay wrote: post #321

You don't need RSS; you need AdBlock.

Try next filters:

  www.pcgamer.com##aside#affiliate-disclaimer
  www.pcgamer.com##aside[data-component-name="Recirculation:ArticleRiver"]
  www.pcgamer.com##aside[data-mrf-recirculation="article-river-stacked"]
  www.pcgamer.com##div.slice-container-newsletterForm
  www.pcgamer.com##div[data-widget-type="deal"]
  www.pcgamer.com##span.article-continues-below
  www.pcgamer.com#$#div.widget-area-group {display: block;}
  www.pcgamer.com#$#div.widget-area.basis-full {width: 100%;}
  www.pcgamer.com$$div[id="slice-container-popularBox"]
  www.pcgamer.com$$script[type="text/javascript"][data-id]
  ||pcgamer.com$to=~viafoura.co,script

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

#342

Post by thatguy0900 »

mapt wrote: post #329
mr_toad wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it’s blatant negligence of frugality where it’s providing overall economical benefits. Recently tried to alter a phone plan on EE’s website, something that should have involved a few clicks. It was slow (literal seconds to open a page) and clunky. The Javascript console was bleeding error messages, and it looked like they’d used every Javascript framework under the sun. And after all that it just gave me an error m…

I think a basic principle with limited plans that offer the ability to buy extra data is "You should be able to actually load the account platform at the 2G hobbled speeds in order to pay". The heavyweight website/app for the mobile network, combined with the use of a phone number-tied Android login as primary login credential rather than a user account, it meant that the only way to actually get 4G back online was t…

I know at least on att prepaid they don't meter their own websites, if you have completely used your data up you can still access the website at normal speeds to change plans and stuff

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

#344

Post by throw10920 »

psychoslave wrote: post #306
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.

Talking about (electronic-)waste, what’s choking is how much resources are required to do the same or less than what used to be possible with far more humble hardware and bandwidth, all that in living memory. Sure part of "software fills space like a gas" can be explained by "got to go fast to stay ahead on the market", but at some point it’s blatant negligence of frugality where it’s providing overall economical ben…

[flagged]

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

#345

Post by sigio »

With adblock loaded, the page loaded a whopping 10MB, after scrolling all the way to the bottom.

So yeah. It might be bad, but I can only recommend everyone on low-data-rates/plans to always use an adblock/contentblocker.

(169 requests, 10.59MB / 3.28 MB transferred), total time 1.10 min)

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

#346

Post by wing-_-nuts »

This reminds me of the bug I experienced on gcp console with dark reader. Somehow this caused a memory leak, and one could watch the page slowly consume GBs of memory. I once came back from lunch to see it had eaten all ram on my MBP and had consumed a massive amount of swap.

I would not have expected a 'dark mode' extension to cause that.

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

#347

Post by cbm-vic-20 »

wing-_-nuts wrote: post #346

This reminds me of the bug I experienced on gcp console with dark reader. Somehow this caused a memory leak, and one could watch the page slowly consume GBs of memory. I once came back from lunch to see it had eaten all ram on my MBP and had consumed a massive amount of swap. I would not have expected a 'dark mode' extension to cause that.

Reminds me of https://xkcd.com/1172/

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

#348

Post by sef6i2dhhj »

neya wrote: post #209
__natty__ wrote: post #147

It's not just "PC Gamer" but people making decisions behind as always. Three first people from their "Meet the Team" page [0]: Tim Clark — Brand Director (@timothydclark), Evan Lahti - Strategic Director (@elahti), Phil Savage — Global Editor-in-Chief (@Octaeder). Hopefully they can see this HN thread and people complains and do "something" about that. [0] https://www.pcgamer.com/meet-the-team/

I have professionally dealt with these types of people in my career (not these exact 3) in similar settings and I can tell you - they don't care. They care only about revenue numbers. You can walk up to them, show them this article and even this HN thread and their first question will be "how does it affect our revenue?" They don't see it as money made through ripping off users without their consent - they think they…

I have worked professionally with those 3 and I can tell you they do care, but they don't make the decisions at Future.

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

#349

Post by wing-_-nuts »

throw10920 wrote: post #344
psychoslave wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Talking about (electronic-)waste, what’s choking is how much resources are required to do the same or less than what used to be possible with far more humble hardware and bandwidth, all that in living memory. Sure part of "software fills space like a gas" can be explained by "got to go fast to stay ahead on the market", but at some point it’s blatant negligence of frugality where it’s providing overall economical ben…

[flagged]

>The actual reason why companies (and even personal and open-source software projects) make these "wasteful" design decisions is because normal users have clearly indicated their priorities.

You really think it's the users asking for bloated webpages? Reddit has been pushing their reddit redesign forever now. No users ever asked for it. There is a large community of users that insist on using the old.reddit interface, and reddit has been chipping away by slowly breaking more and more things (most recently, the mod page).

Compare that with hacker news or craig's list. They're still super light weight, fit for purpose, and I am forever thankful the webdevs (dang,etc) responsible for them did not succumb to the temptation to 'web 2.0/SPA' it.

It's not users clamoring for more bloated websites, it's marketing folks. See also, how nobody builds 'starter' homes anymore. There's a huge unmet market for it, but homebuilders find building mcMansions to be more profitable, so that's what gets built.

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

#350

Post by afavour »

throw10920 wrote: post #344
psychoslave wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Talking about (electronic-)waste, what’s choking is how much resources are required to do the same or less than what used to be possible with far more humble hardware and bandwidth, all that in living memory. Sure part of "software fills space like a gas" can be explained by "got to go fast to stay ahead on the market", but at some point it’s blatant negligence of frugality where it’s providing overall economical ben…

[flagged]

How are users choosing this stuff? Do you have an example of two competing services offering the same features, one bloated and one not, and users locked to the bloated one?

To my mind users are simply using what’s put in front of them. They lack the technical knowledge to know better things are possible and even if they did they don’t have any way to advocate for it. Over half of US users use an ad blocker:

https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/27/america_ad_blocker/

That alone suggests to me that when given a choice users actually do care.

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