6 ms·

The web I want is one that doesn't assume I have an unmetered high-speed internet connection. I'm visiting my parents right now. They have what I would term a

by etendue 10y ago

The web I want is one that doesn't assume I have an unmetered high-speed internet connection. I'm visiting my parents right now. They have what I would term as "rural internet options": satellite, fixed cellular, or dialup. There is no DSL. There is no cable. There is no wifi. Satellite has awful latency and an effective 20GB monthly cap (their advertising is very deceptive because they pool midnight off-peak data in their advertised caps), fixed cellular has a 30GB cap: there is no provision to buy more data on either service short of ruinous overage fees. Browsing around on the modern web filled with autoplay videos, huge JS libraries, giant pictures, etc. has been sufficient for a 2 person household to blow through that 30GB cap in less than a month. It was hard for me to believe, until I instrumented their network and saw for myself. Of course, accidentally updating any software, accidentally syncing their photo libraries, etc. are all expensive mistakes. Most effective changes I have been able to make so far (without frustrating the parents too much) have been to ad block and get them to use Opera with Turbo, which has been sufficient to cut their data use by about half. I also put a timer on the cellular hub power supply to manually shut it off when they're not at home or when they're sleeping, because despite best efforts some software still automatically updates.

vmarsy 10y ago
The "Metered Connection" option in Windows 10 might help here, but as for websites you can't do much except using Ad blocker, "Disconnect.me" or Opera Turbo. (I'm not sure if Disconnect.me exists on opera). Another way to mitigate would be to have the browser identify as a tablet/mobile as some websites assume mobile == metered connection. On top of my head, there is some addon like this in Chrome.
syncopatience 10y ago
I had a similar problem working over a metered cellular data connection recently. One thing that helped a lot was the uBlock Origin extension for Chrome & Firefox, which has a feature that prevents automatically loading media elements over a certain size (say, 50kb). If you want to load a large image or video you can click to load it or turn the feature off on a per-site basis. Can use it in Firefox on an Android phone, too, since it has extensions.
- syngrog66 10y ago
  if I had only two words for anybody desperate to reduce their monthly data download while browsing: uBlock Origin I'm loving the big improvement so far. Plus many sites seem to be loading faster now.
S4M 10y ago
What I find annoying is that most of the websites that have the features consuming the broadband that you are describing ("autoplay videos, huge JS libraries, giant pictures, etc.") are just showing some text and a few pictures and video, and there is no need for them to require things like sophisticated js that make them slower - I am OK with a website that does 3D animation in js being slow, I am less tolerant with, say, quora's scrolling being slow.
- sosborn 10y ago
  I will never forgive websites that break scrolling.
  - JadeNB 10y ago
    But the Google Plus experience would be irrevocably compromised if you were able to scroll by hitting the space bar!
vlunkr 10y ago
This is a two sided problem. The massive page sizes and the sad state of rural internet options. Everyone loves to complain about Comcast and the other big providers (I'm not going to defend them either) but honestly, you don't know how good you have it until you've tried to find a good provider in a rural area.
Santosh83 10y ago
I can sympathise with this, as the average Internet speeds at my place are terrible, especially on the so-called "unlimited" plan, which actually has a ridiculously low Fair Usage Limit set by my ISP so that I apparently blow through it within days of the start of a new month, all from just plain browsing and updating (Linux) software, not even torrenting. Once you're beyond the fair use limit the speed becomes 60 kbps for the rest of the month unless I "top-up", for which the ISP often nags by redirecting plain http connections to their nag-page or sending me emails. But I stick it out and do any heavy downloading by running the program continuously overnight. It takes ~12 hours to get ~1 Gb of data.
- vram22 10y ago
  >so that I apparently blow through it within days of the start of a new month Interesting, had the same experience this month, though on my mobile phone's post-paid data plan. Actually in earlier months too, but those were near the middle or end of the month. This time it happened within 5 days of the start of my billing cycle. You in India? Asking because Fair Use Policy (also has another cynical/realistic expansion given by users) is a term used by Indian ISPs (though could be other places too of course).
  - stan_rogers 10y ago
    That's a pretty exact description of a Canadian service I had until recently as well. It's not just India.
    - vram22 10y ago
      Wow. Sort of thought so (that it could be world wide), but interesting to hear it. And shit.
  - Santosh83 10y ago
    Yes. And my so-called "broadband" ISP is BSNL to be exact. But since their "full-speed" (~200 kbps) connection lasts only a few days each billing cycle before their fair-use policy kicks in, throttling me to ~60 kbps, you can hardly call it 'broadband' in any sense of the term. Nevertheless I stick with it since its sufficient for my needs (albeit you need to cultivate patience) and cheap enough. But their recent increasingly aggressive attempts to redirect my connections to their nag-pages asking me to "top-up" or register for their email are testing my forbearance.
enraged_camel 10y ago
I just got back from a 2-week Asia trip where the only Internet I had was on my phone, on high-latency 3G. I completely agree with you. My online experience was simply atrocious. Most sites I visit on a daily basis were simply unusable.
vram22 10y ago
Hear, hear. Coincidentally, and on the same topic, I posted this question on superuser.com. Was surprised that there were not more responses [1]: http://superuser.com/questions/1085654/how-to-minimize-unwanted-net-usage-by-processes-to-a-trickle http://superuser.com/questions/1085654/how-to-minimize-unwan... [1] The NetBalancer software seems to be helping with the issue. I'm pretty sure that a lot of these ISP issues of excessive bandwidth usage are intentional. Where in the world did you have the issues you describe, if not private?
CaptSpify 10y ago
I used to work at a place that tested their software on a >5 year old POS computer, with a <1mbps Internet connection. If their software ran on that computer, it would run on their user's computers. I wish more people would test like this. Your webapp runs great on a laptop in the middle of SF, but not on my crappy phone in the middle of Nowheres-ville.
fierycatnet 10y ago
Yes, so much this! I went to Wisconsin recently to visit relatives, they had a really nice house but in the rural location. They were always going over the data limit (30GB cap through satellite) and it was an awful experience overall. With all the same problems, trying to install ad-block and figure out how to minimize data drainage from auto updates. At that point I just never realized that there are places in US that might have these problems still. Everything is geared towards unlimited high speed cable connection.
- semi-extrinsic 10y ago
  Broadband in the US is an excellent example of how a free market doesn't really provide any benefits for consumers. Case in point: Wisconsin has about as many people as Norway, but Wisconsin is around three times smaller in area and has a much simpler topology and topography. Still, Norway has a lower number of households where broadband is unavailable.
  - etendue 10y ago
    Can US broadband be considered free market? Cellular (and satellite?) is limited by frequency allocations and wired is limited by franchise agreements.
mpnordland 10y ago
I wish I could get a fixed cellular install with 30GB. I pay $60 for 10GB cellular, and I only survive by watching like 5 videos a month, using my church's wifi and putting anything that doesn't require low latency on my dad's 10GB per month satellite, which with 5 people in the house the high speed data is gone in a week.
- etendue 10y ago
  Have you looked into Amazon Prime? You can download stuff to your phone/tablet when you have unmetered internet and then listen or watch it later. I haven't tried it yet, but I think that the Apple Lightning to HDMI adaptor will work to get Amazon Video on the TV. I would think that HDMI would be even cheaper/easier on an Android device.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
jrapdx3 10y ago
Regarding unanticipated software updates, this may be slightly off topic, but updates are particularly troublesome with Windows 10. Unfortunately Win10 doesn't permit reviewing updates before downloading them, an option that was available in prior versions. Even though Win10 Pro version users can delay update installation, automatic downloads can't be turned off and occur without prior notification. While some tools are available to reduce tracking and other MS privacy-invading practices, auto-updating remains a curse that's hard to counter. Obviously this is not a fault of the web itself, but an example of the ways vendors use the internet in opposition to interests of users. It's unclear how these abusive practices can be curbed, but I'm all for Mozilla and other organizations trying to do something about it.
- JadeNB 10y ago
  > updates are particularly troublesome with Windows 10. A happy discovery: marking a particular wi-fi network as 'metered' (the obvious thing to do, right?) will prevent automatic downloads of updates over that network.
  - jrapdx3 10y ago
    Thanks for your observation! I'll have to try it. I'm assuming having to check manually for updates but that's not a big burden. Hopefully no inadvertent "side-effects" from running as a metered connection.
tangue 10y ago
I didn't know about Opera with turbo and I'll try. But it's a real problem. Since it's been redesigned I'm unable to access Coursera at home. I had to download videos at work and bring them back home. There is nothing in the UI that justify this.

by etendue 10y ago

vmarsy 10y ago

The "Metered Connection" option in Windows 10 might help here, but as for websites you can't do much except using Ad blocker, "Disconnect.me" or Opera Turbo. (I'm not sure if Disconnect.me exists on opera). Another way to mitigate would be to have the browser identify as a tablet/mobile as some websites assume mobile == metered connection. On top of my head, there is some addon like this in Chrome.

syncopatience 10y ago

I had a similar problem working over a metered cellular data connection recently. One thing that helped a lot was the uBlock Origin extension for Chrome & Firefox, which has a feature that prevents automatically loading media elements over a certain size (say, 50kb). If you want to load a large image or video you can click to load it or turn the feature off on a per-site basis. Can use it in Firefox on an Android phone, too, since it has extensions.

syngrog66 10y ago
if I had only two words for anybody desperate to reduce their monthly data download while browsing: uBlock Origin I'm loving the big improvement so far. Plus many sites seem to be loading faster now.

S4M 10y ago

What I find annoying is that most of the websites that have the features consuming the broadband that you are describing ("autoplay videos, huge JS libraries, giant pictures, etc.") are just showing some text and a few pictures and video, and there is no need for them to require things like sophisticated js that make them slower - I am OK with a website that does 3D animation in js being slow, I am less tolerant with, say, quora's scrolling being slow.

sosborn 10y ago
I will never forgive websites that break scrolling.
- JadeNB 10y ago
  But the Google Plus experience would be irrevocably compromised if you were able to scroll by hitting the space bar!

vlunkr 10y ago

This is a two sided problem. The massive page sizes and the sad state of rural internet options. Everyone loves to complain about Comcast and the other big providers (I'm not going to defend them either) but honestly, you don't know how good you have it until you've tried to find a good provider in a rural area.

Santosh83 10y ago

I can sympathise with this, as the average Internet speeds at my place are terrible, especially on the so-called "unlimited" plan, which actually has a ridiculously low Fair Usage Limit set by my ISP so that I apparently blow through it within days of the start of a new month, all from just plain browsing and updating (Linux) software, not even torrenting. Once you're beyond the fair use limit the speed becomes 60 kbps for the rest of the month unless I "top-up", for which the ISP often nags by redirecting plain http connections to their nag-page or sending me emails. But I stick it out and do any heavy downloading by running the program continuously overnight. It takes ~12 hours to get ~1 Gb of data.

vram22 10y ago
>so that I apparently blow through it within days of the start of a new month Interesting, had the same experience this month, though on my mobile phone's post-paid data plan. Actually in earlier months too, but those were near the middle or end of the month. This time it happened within 5 days of the start of my billing cycle. You in India? Asking because Fair Use Policy (also has another cynical/realistic expansion given by users) is a term used by Indian ISPs (though could be other places too of course).
- stan_rogers 10y ago
  That's a pretty exact description of a Canadian service I had until recently as well. It's not just India.
  - vram22 10y ago
    Wow. Sort of thought so (that it could be world wide), but interesting to hear it. And shit.
- Santosh83 10y ago
  Yes. And my so-called "broadband" ISP is BSNL to be exact. But since their "full-speed" (~200 kbps) connection lasts only a few days each billing cycle before their fair-use policy kicks in, throttling me to ~60 kbps, you can hardly call it 'broadband' in any sense of the term. Nevertheless I stick with it since its sufficient for my needs (albeit you need to cultivate patience) and cheap enough. But their recent increasingly aggressive attempts to redirect my connections to their nag-pages asking me to "top-up" or register for their email are testing my forbearance.

enraged_camel 10y ago

I just got back from a 2-week Asia trip where the only Internet I had was on my phone, on high-latency 3G. I completely agree with you. My online experience was simply atrocious. Most sites I visit on a daily basis were simply unusable.

vram22 10y ago

Hear, hear. Coincidentally, and on the same topic, I posted this question on superuser.com. Was surprised that there were not more responses [1]: http://superuser.com/questions/1085654/how-to-minimize-unwanted-net-usage-by-processes-to-a-trickle http://superuser.com/questions/1085654/how-to-minimize-unwan... [1] The NetBalancer software seems to be helping with the issue. I'm pretty sure that a lot of these ISP issues of excessive bandwidth usage are intentional. Where in the world did you have the issues you describe, if not private?

CaptSpify 10y ago

I used to work at a place that tested their software on a >5 year old POS computer, with a <1mbps Internet connection. If their software ran on that computer, it would run on their user's computers. I wish more people would test like this. Your webapp runs great on a laptop in the middle of SF, but not on my crappy phone in the middle of Nowheres-ville.

fierycatnet 10y ago

Yes, so much this! I went to Wisconsin recently to visit relatives, they had a really nice house but in the rural location. They were always going over the data limit (30GB cap through satellite) and it was an awful experience overall. With all the same problems, trying to install ad-block and figure out how to minimize data drainage from auto updates. At that point I just never realized that there are places in US that might have these problems still. Everything is geared towards unlimited high speed cable connection.

semi-extrinsic 10y ago
Broadband in the US is an excellent example of how a free market doesn't really provide any benefits for consumers. Case in point: Wisconsin has about as many people as Norway, but Wisconsin is around three times smaller in area and has a much simpler topology and topography. Still, Norway has a lower number of households where broadband is unavailable.
- etendue 10y ago
  Can US broadband be considered free market? Cellular (and satellite?) is limited by frequency allocations and wired is limited by franchise agreements.

mpnordland 10y ago

I wish I could get a fixed cellular install with 30GB. I pay $60 for 10GB cellular, and I only survive by watching like 5 videos a month, using my church's wifi and putting anything that doesn't require low latency on my dad's 10GB per month satellite, which with 5 people in the house the high speed data is gone in a week.

etendue 10y ago
Have you looked into Amazon Prime? You can download stuff to your phone/tablet when you have unmetered internet and then listen or watch it later. I haven't tried it yet, but I think that the Apple Lightning to HDMI adaptor will work to get Amazon Video on the TV. I would think that HDMI would be even cheaper/easier on an Android device.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

jrapdx3 10y ago

Regarding unanticipated software updates, this may be slightly off topic, but updates are particularly troublesome with Windows 10. Unfortunately Win10 doesn't permit reviewing updates before downloading them, an option that was available in prior versions. Even though Win10 Pro version users can delay update installation, automatic downloads can't be turned off and occur without prior notification. While some tools are available to reduce tracking and other MS privacy-invading practices, auto-updating remains a curse that's hard to counter. Obviously this is not a fault of the web itself, but an example of the ways vendors use the internet in opposition to interests of users. It's unclear how these abusive practices can be curbed, but I'm all for Mozilla and other organizations trying to do something about it.

JadeNB 10y ago
> updates are particularly troublesome with Windows 10. A happy discovery: marking a particular wi-fi network as 'metered' (the obvious thing to do, right?) will prevent automatic downloads of updates over that network.
- jrapdx3 10y ago
  Thanks for your observation! I'll have to try it. I'm assuming having to check manually for updates but that's not a big burden. Hopefully no inadvertent "side-effects" from running as a metered connection.

tangue 10y ago

I didn't know about Opera with turbo and I'll try. But it's a real problem. Since it's been redesigned I'm unable to access Coursera at home. I had to download videos at work and bring them back home. There is nothing in the UI that justify this.