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I find it astonishing how much of my laptops resources are occupied by a web browser. But I came to believe that it was not necessarily a problem with the web b

I find it astonishing how much of my laptops resources are occupied by a web browser. But I came to believe that it was not necessarily a problem with the web browsers per se but that each website would have a variety of javascript constantly running, and most of that code is not providing any information that I want. So I have turned off javascript in the browser. It breaks many sites, but, especially for news sites, it makes for a quieter experience. I also like to archive many of the articles that I read, but I don't like keeping bookmarks. So I wrote a small utility to convert html to text by combining 'readability' (python) and lynx (text-base web browser), which does a nice job of formatting the content and storing the hyperlinks as footnotes. This archive is also nice and easy to index if you are so inclined.

grx 9y ago
Sounds good, would you share your source code?
- jdowner 9y ago
  Sure. https://gist.github.com/25facbfd1aa3816457ba9c5d2040cd3c https://gist.github.com/25facbfd1aa3816457ba9c5d2040cd3c
gkya 9y ago
I have this project of moving most of my browsing to EWW (the native web browser in Emacs) and using a full-fledged web browser only when I need to use some web app. But many content-only websites are going with completely dynamically rendered pages with React or what not, so all you have is void at worst if you disable JS or view with a text-only browser, and garbled up unreadable stuff if you're lucky. Also e.g. the comment hierarchy of HN does not render nicely with text browsers.
- jdowner 9y ago
  Agreed. I am using opera at the moment with javascript turned off by default. But there are some sites I want to use that are simply non-functional without javascript enabled. I add those sites to a list of exceptions. However, as a result of having javascript off by default, I will sometimes find a site that I cannot view and it makes me ask the question -- do I really want to see this content? is this a site that I want to add to my list of exceptions? I find it useful to ask those questions and step back from browsing to reflecting on whether that is the best use of my time right then. ymmv.
  - gkya 9y ago
    That's what I used to do with xombrero actually. Xombrero was my browser of love... If I was any good at C programming, I'd port it to WebKit 2 (I actually started the project, thinking of hacking my way to really learning C and the relevant APIs, but I was daunted and gave up). With FF, which is what I use nowadays, it's way too bothersome to work with that. UBlock kind-of helps, but I do miss block-by-default days...
david_ar 9y ago
I have a similar system, but using pandoc to output markdown https://github.com/davidar/peruse https://github.com/davidar/peruse
mmsimanga 9y ago
I have a 2006 fully functional laptop with 1GB of RAM. I installed Lubuntu on it. All the modern browsers I have tried bring the laptop to its knees. I cannot do anything else but wait for pages to load. My dad's Windows 7 2011 laptop with 2GB of RAM also struggles when browsing the modern web. On my Linux laptop I have no choice but to use a text browser. I currently prefer links2[1]. The speed along with the lack of distractions is something I enjoy when using a text browser. Text only sites like HN are great (except comments not indented). [1]http://pupnik.de/links2.html http://pupnik.de/links2.html

grx 9y ago

Sounds good, would you share your source code?

jdowner 9y ago
Sure. https://gist.github.com/25facbfd1aa3816457ba9c5d2040cd3c https://gist.github.com/25facbfd1aa3816457ba9c5d2040cd3c

gkya 9y ago

I have this project of moving most of my browsing to EWW (the native web browser in Emacs) and using a full-fledged web browser only when I need to use some web app. But many content-only websites are going with completely dynamically rendered pages with React or what not, so all you have is void at worst if you disable JS or view with a text-only browser, and garbled up unreadable stuff if you're lucky. Also e.g. the comment hierarchy of HN does not render nicely with text browsers.

jdowner 9y ago
Agreed. I am using opera at the moment with javascript turned off by default. But there are some sites I want to use that are simply non-functional without javascript enabled. I add those sites to a list of exceptions. However, as a result of having javascript off by default, I will sometimes find a site that I cannot view and it makes me ask the question -- do I really want to see this content? is this a site that I want to add to my list of exceptions? I find it useful to ask those questions and step back from browsing to reflecting on whether that is the best use of my time right then. ymmv.
- gkya 9y ago
  That's what I used to do with xombrero actually. Xombrero was my browser of love... If I was any good at C programming, I'd port it to WebKit 2 (I actually started the project, thinking of hacking my way to really learning C and the relevant APIs, but I was daunted and gave up). With FF, which is what I use nowadays, it's way too bothersome to work with that. UBlock kind-of helps, but I do miss block-by-default days...

david_ar 9y ago

I have a similar system, but using pandoc to output markdown https://github.com/davidar/peruse https://github.com/davidar/peruse

mmsimanga 9y ago

I have a 2006 fully functional laptop with 1GB of RAM. I installed Lubuntu on it. All the modern browsers I have tried bring the laptop to its knees. I cannot do anything else but wait for pages to load. My dad's Windows 7 2011 laptop with 2GB of RAM also struggles when browsing the modern web. On my Linux laptop I have no choice but to use a text browser. I currently prefer links2[1]. The speed along with the lack of distractions is something I enjoy when using a text browser. Text only sites like HN are great (except comments not indented). [1]http://pupnik.de/links2.html http://pupnik.de/links2.html