4 ms·

Amazing project, really! But please, for the sake of users (like me) who live in countries where ISPs set a "quota" on DSL connections: ask the users whether th

Amazing project, really! But please, for the sake of users (like me) who live in countries where ISPs set a "quota" on DSL connections: ask the users whether they want to start downloading Sintel before doing so :) Now I'm afraid of opening the website again.

cenal 11y ago
Not to mention those of us with cell phone plans that have bandwidth restrictions. This could be very bad for our phone bills.
nfoz 11y ago
You shouldn't have to "beg" website authors to "play nice" for you, as a user. Web Standards and browsers have failed you by putting that much control into the authors' hands. It is reasonable to consider that "web" maybe should not have this capability, and web browsers should provide intuitive UI controls for users to enable/disable the ability for sites to do this to you.
- lazaroclapp 11y ago
  To be fair, if the problem is the amount of data that will travel through your connection, there is not much difference between this and a 120MB text-only html file. So maybe browsers should offer a setting to cap the data retrieved from each individual domain on metered connections, unless instructed otherwise on a domain-by-domain basis?
  - rplnt 11y ago
    This is only problem on fast and capped connections which I would guess are rare. On slow connection (and proper browser) you see that it's downloading data, how much, how fast and you can stop it.
    - AlphaSite 11y ago
      4g is fairly fast and generally capped. That is hardly rare.
      - rplnt 11y ago
        Oh, you are right. I was under the impression that 4G is something like 2-3 Mbps, which would make the caps somewhat proportional and hard to pass by accident. But I just tried speedtest.net (app) and download speed was almost 40 Mbps. I really had no idea.
- z3t4 11y ago
  ISP offering 100/1000 Mbit connections with a data limit of 2 GB /month is absurd. I think that is the problem here, and not heavy content. Then there are bandwidth monitors ... I noticed though that the video continued downloading even though I had hit pause.
feross 11y ago
Author of WebTorrent here. Sorry for surprising you with a large download. To be fair, YouTube autoplays videos too, and the video size is comparable. Good news, though! Looks like we can use detect users on a metered connection with `navigator.connection`, or worst case look for a mobile user agent. Thanks for the feedback!
- notalaser 11y ago
  Or, you know, you could ask users if they want to download it :-). It seems to be done as a demo right now. Why not just add a big red "click here for a demo" thing? There are very few things that you can reliably find out over the web. Whether or not a connection is metered isn't one of them.
  - rmc 11y ago
    Or a "The download will begin in 10 seconds. Press the pause button to stop it"
- h43k3r 11y ago
  Even in big cities in India people only have 1 or 2 GB per monthly limit on their broadband connection for their PCs. It would be better to use a manual approval rather than a automated detection. When I visit youtube, I know that the video is going to start immediately but that wasn't the case with this.
- Sephr 11y ago
  > or worst case look for a mobile user agent Please don't. There's nothing special about mobile devices that inherently makes them metered, so please do not assume this.
- ComodoHacker 11y ago
  Could you explain please, how can it work in Firefox with media.peerconnection.enabled=false? What exact features of WebRTC are you using?
- CyberDildonics 11y ago
dexterdog 11y ago
Even worse, if you are using a firewall it will block and potentially throw warnings about all of the connections that the site is trying to setup. I had a deluge of Little Snitch dialogs that showed up again when I backed up to the home page. The whole thing should really be behind a "try it now" button.
- zymhan 11y ago
  Yeah, took me a second to realize why one of the tabs I opened from HN was trying to do NAT STUN traversal
pinum 11y ago
I appreciate that it sucks for you personally (I used to have a capped connection myself), but frankly the web should not be held back by such arbitrary limits. A demo that starts working immediately with no input required is a LOT more impressive and impactful than something behind a "try" button. 129.24 MiB is actually really small for a 15min video.

cenal 11y ago

Not to mention those of us with cell phone plans that have bandwidth restrictions. This could be very bad for our phone bills.

nfoz 11y ago

You shouldn't have to "beg" website authors to "play nice" for you, as a user. Web Standards and browsers have failed you by putting that much control into the authors' hands. It is reasonable to consider that "web" maybe should not have this capability, and web browsers should provide intuitive UI controls for users to enable/disable the ability for sites to do this to you.

lazaroclapp 11y ago
To be fair, if the problem is the amount of data that will travel through your connection, there is not much difference between this and a 120MB text-only html file. So maybe browsers should offer a setting to cap the data retrieved from each individual domain on metered connections, unless instructed otherwise on a domain-by-domain basis?
- rplnt 11y ago
  This is only problem on fast and capped connections which I would guess are rare. On slow connection (and proper browser) you see that it's downloading data, how much, how fast and you can stop it.
  - AlphaSite 11y ago
    4g is fairly fast and generally capped. That is hardly rare.
    - rplnt 11y ago
      Oh, you are right. I was under the impression that 4G is something like 2-3 Mbps, which would make the caps somewhat proportional and hard to pass by accident. But I just tried speedtest.net (app) and download speed was almost 40 Mbps. I really had no idea.
z3t4 11y ago
ISP offering 100/1000 Mbit connections with a data limit of 2 GB /month is absurd. I think that is the problem here, and not heavy content. Then there are bandwidth monitors ... I noticed though that the video continued downloading even though I had hit pause.

feross 11y ago

Author of WebTorrent here. Sorry for surprising you with a large download. To be fair, YouTube autoplays videos too, and the video size is comparable. Good news, though! Looks like we can use detect users on a metered connection with `navigator.connection`, or worst case look for a mobile user agent. Thanks for the feedback!

notalaser 11y ago
Or, you know, you could ask users if they want to download it :-). It seems to be done as a demo right now. Why not just add a big red "click here for a demo" thing? There are very few things that you can reliably find out over the web. Whether or not a connection is metered isn't one of them.
- rmc 11y ago
  Or a "The download will begin in 10 seconds. Press the pause button to stop it"
h43k3r 11y ago
Even in big cities in India people only have 1 or 2 GB per monthly limit on their broadband connection for their PCs. It would be better to use a manual approval rather than a automated detection. When I visit youtube, I know that the video is going to start immediately but that wasn't the case with this.
Sephr 11y ago
> or worst case look for a mobile user agent Please don't. There's nothing special about mobile devices that inherently makes them metered, so please do not assume this.
ComodoHacker 11y ago
Could you explain please, how can it work in Firefox with media.peerconnection.enabled=false? What exact features of WebRTC are you using?
CyberDildonics 11y ago

dexterdog 11y ago

Even worse, if you are using a firewall it will block and potentially throw warnings about all of the connections that the site is trying to setup. I had a deluge of Little Snitch dialogs that showed up again when I backed up to the home page. The whole thing should really be behind a "try it now" button.

zymhan 11y ago
Yeah, took me a second to realize why one of the tabs I opened from HN was trying to do NAT STUN traversal

pinum 11y ago

I appreciate that it sucks for you personally (I used to have a capped connection myself), but frankly the web should not be held back by such arbitrary limits. A demo that starts working immediately with no input required is a LOT more impressive and impactful than something behind a "try" button. 129.24 MiB is actually really small for a 15min video.