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i have often thought at what point do you start rendering web pages remotely and simply send back the (ie 'png') image to the client. A single png image of a en

i have often thought at what point do you start rendering web pages remotely and simply send back the (ie 'png') image to the client. A single png image of a entire web page is definitely under 5.2MB. Personally, I can't wait for a shift in business practices. Ads have ruined my confidence in privacy. Most sites share your data with over a dozen different ad tracking vendors. I've seen twice that for a specific class of site, ie thechive.com.

wlll 8y ago
Back in 2000 people used to do this sometimes (but with jpegs). Exports from MS Publisher seemed to the worst culprit. They used image maps for navigation (https://www.w3schools.com/tags/tag_map.asp https://www.w3schools.com/tags/tag_map.asp). edit Clearly this is a terrible idea, just to clear up any misattribution of intent.
hashkb 8y ago
Do you enjoy clicking links? Selecting text? Any interaction at all?
- baseethrowaway 8y ago
  Let alone scrolling.
hk__2 8y ago
> I have often thought at what point do you start rendering web pages remotely and simply send back the (ie 'png') image to the client. Please never do that, unless you want your visitors to have the worst accessibility experience.
- jpetso 8y ago
  Yeah, but aren't startups and other profit-driven entities more interested in catering to the mainstream than to a small set of users with specific needs? If companies will gleefully ignore Linux (and BSDs), browsers other than the ones that ship with a major OS, privacy concerns, free speech principles or shipping to remote areas, I can't really expect them to care much for marginalized groups such as people with accessibility issues.
  - hk__2 8y ago
    > Yeah, but aren't startups and other profit-driven entities more interested in catering to the mainstream than to a small set of users with specific needs? How are "people on a smartphone" or "people with bad vision" small sets of users? Also, rendering the whole page in a PNG file takes more work than merely serving the page as is, which is the second reason nobody does it (the first one being "why would someone want such a shitty browsing experience?").
- earenndil 8y ago
  What about something like a PDF?
  - hk__2 8y ago
    We already have HTML/CSS; we don’t need a non-responsive format like the PDF.
bschwindHN 8y ago
> at what point do you start rendering web pages remotely and simply send back the (ie 'png') image to the client That point is never. Never do that.
bo1024 8y ago
What is wrong with sending plain HTML?
andrewmackrodt 8y ago
Opera mini used to work this way more than a decade ago, it was pretty nifty as it let moderately powerful feature phones access the 'full' (non client JavaScript) web efficiently. Such a thing is no longer needed though; I'd hope a large amount of that 5.2mb is for reusable assets making subsequent requests a few/hundred kilobytes.
- lima 8y ago
  Opera Mini is still a thing, mostly in developing countries.

wlll 8y ago

Back in 2000 people used to do this sometimes (but with jpegs). Exports from MS Publisher seemed to the worst culprit. They used image maps for navigation (https://www.w3schools.com/tags/tag_map.asp https://www.w3schools.com/tags/tag_map.asp). edit Clearly this is a terrible idea, just to clear up any misattribution of intent.

hashkb 8y ago

Do you enjoy clicking links? Selecting text? Any interaction at all?

baseethrowaway 8y ago
Let alone scrolling.

hk__2 8y ago

> I have often thought at what point do you start rendering web pages remotely and simply send back the (ie 'png') image to the client. Please never do that, unless you want your visitors to have the worst accessibility experience.

jpetso 8y ago
Yeah, but aren't startups and other profit-driven entities more interested in catering to the mainstream than to a small set of users with specific needs? If companies will gleefully ignore Linux (and BSDs), browsers other than the ones that ship with a major OS, privacy concerns, free speech principles or shipping to remote areas, I can't really expect them to care much for marginalized groups such as people with accessibility issues.
- hk__2 8y ago
  > Yeah, but aren't startups and other profit-driven entities more interested in catering to the mainstream than to a small set of users with specific needs? How are "people on a smartphone" or "people with bad vision" small sets of users? Also, rendering the whole page in a PNG file takes more work than merely serving the page as is, which is the second reason nobody does it (the first one being "why would someone want such a shitty browsing experience?").
earenndil 8y ago
What about something like a PDF?
- hk__2 8y ago
  We already have HTML/CSS; we don’t need a non-responsive format like the PDF.

bschwindHN 8y ago

> at what point do you start rendering web pages remotely and simply send back the (ie 'png') image to the client That point is never. Never do that.

bo1024 8y ago

What is wrong with sending plain HTML?

andrewmackrodt 8y ago

Opera mini used to work this way more than a decade ago, it was pretty nifty as it let moderately powerful feature phones access the 'full' (non client JavaScript) web efficiently. Such a thing is no longer needed though; I'd hope a large amount of that 5.2mb is for reusable assets making subsequent requests a few/hundred kilobytes.

lima 8y ago
Opera Mini is still a thing, mostly in developing countries.