6 ms·

Ask HN: What are some of the best text-only websites?

35 points by anoncoward111 8y ago

Hi, I've spent most of 2018 either in very rural areas, foreign countries, or in "throttled-mode" on my US-based prepaid mobile plan. My phone's processing power is really excellent, but of course the bottleneck with modern websites is the tons of pings back and forth over the network and the huge image sizes. Please, take pity on me and send me some links for great websites that offer a text-only service or some other form of lightweight browsing. Of course, Wikipedia, lite.cnn.io, and outline.com are life-savers :)

lun4r 8y ago
Hackernews! \o/
dammitfoo 8y ago
NPR : https://text.npr.org/ https://text.npr.org/ Harvard Law Review : https://harvardlawreview.org/ https://harvardlawreview.org/ I'm also interested in more lite sites. Btw, your CNN link is not working. Correct link is https://lite.cnn.io https://lite.cnn.io
- anoncoward111 8y ago
  Thanks!! I confused NPR's format with CNN's :) There's always Drudge Report for anyone who prefers the "opinion" section... :)
davewasthere 8y ago
This is where some sort of Lynx-browser-powered-proxy would be ideal. I know it'd probably break several sites... but your average news reading would be hugely improved. I will say that https://forums.whirlpool.net.au/ https://forums.whirlpool.net.au/ is one of the best community sites I know of. It's very lightweight, looks good, works incredibly fast. As a dev, I'm really impressed.
- ssh_lynx 8y ago
  > This is where some sort of Lynx-browser-powered-proxy would be ideal. No need to go into any of that trouble. Just install ssh on your phone and connect to any box with lynx/elinks/etc. Works like a charm and is real snappy over any wireless connection. If you are short of a box to ssh into, sign up for any of the providers of free shell accounts. There are of course also a lot of native text only browsers like Instabrowser if you prefer an app. Then there are browsers using compression and proxies like Opera Mini.
  - vram22 8y ago
    >Just install ssh on your phone Which ssh app would you recommend?
    - crasch4 8y ago
      https://termux.com/ https://termux.com/
      - vram22 8y ago
        Thanks.
  - vram22 8y ago
    >sign up for any of the providers of free shell accounts Recommendation?
gumboshoes 8y ago
Metafilter.
- uptime 8y ago
  Great site, ask.metafilter.com as well
achow 8y ago
Reuters has a toggle button to switch of photos: https://www.reuters.com/commentary https://www.reuters.com/commentary And nowadays I find Reuters having very interesting informative writeups which rivals NYT, Guardian, etc.
danmg 8y ago
https://damng.github.io/hackernews-rss-with-inlined-content/output.rss https://damng.github.io/hackernews-rss-with-inlined-content/... HN RSS feed with inlined/distilled linked contents. The 300 or so entries on the feed becomes about 5MB (or about 1/5 the size of a single medium.com blog post). The inlined contents from the article are just simple html with no javascript or style sheets. https://codezen.org/canto-ng/ https://codezen.org/canto-ng/ is a good curses, console rss reader.
Digory 8y ago
Someone asked a similar question on ProductHunt a few weeks ago (definitely not lightweight)[0]. It introduced me to skimfeed.com, and wttr.in. [0] https://www.producthunt.com/ask/9071-what-are-some-good-lightweight-text-only-websites-you-use-regularly https://www.producthunt.com/ask/9071-what-are-some-good-ligh...
refur_augu 8y ago
slatestarcodex.com is endlessly interesting and thought provoking.
sjmulder 8y ago
I’m keeping a list here: https://sjmulder.nl/en/textielhandel.html https://sjmulder.nl/en/textielhandel.html There’s not that much out there, unfortunately.
- lazyjones 8y ago
  https://sjmulder.nl/en/textonly.html https://sjmulder.nl/en/textonly.html
  - sjmulder 8y ago
    Thanks, I posted that on mobile and didn’t notice.
combatentropy 8y ago
Have you tried just turning off JavaScript? A website often is a hundredth the size without it. This is because many use JavaScript to add iframes, images, videos, and more JavaScript.
IvyMike 8y ago
I've spent many hours reading https://yarchive.net/ https://yarchive.net/
hieloz 8y ago
CNN lite: https://lite.cnn.io/en https://lite.cnn.io/en Text Edition of The Christian Science Monitor: https://www.csmonitor.com/layout/set/text/textedition https://www.csmonitor.com/layout/set/text/textedition News aggregator website:Readspike https://readspike.com/ https://readspike.com/
- 5555624 8y ago
  My problem with CNN Lite is that there is no apparent way to sort the links. Right now, as I write this -- 0815, 20 August -- the top story is from 1100, 17 August. In fact, the top five stories are all form midday last Friday. The 10th story is from 17 July. Maybe sorting the links by date won't help much; but, it's a start.
panda888888 8y ago
Not the answer you're looking for, but Reddit. Sure there are images and gifs, but the majority of the content is text. I'm not sure if there's a good way to see a text-only version (aside from turning off js) but if there is, it's a site I recommend.
- anoncoward111 8y ago
  I would have been endlessly happy if Reddit worked, but on my current data plan, it hangs instantly :(
- cupar 8y ago
  I think that i.reddit.com is the closest thing to a text-only version.
dokem 8y ago
The catcher and the rye.
dammitfoo 8y ago
Kinda off-topic but if you use Firefox on your mobile, you can install 'uBlock origin'[0] extension which will block pesky, annoying ads and trackers. Not that helpful with text-only sites but very useful with normal browsing. [0] https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock
- phakding 8y ago
  To add to this, if you root your phone and install adaway you would be free from ads even in an app.
cm2012 8y ago
You won't regret reading the online only book Worm, by Wildbow. Very light site and an amazing story. It has a huge online fan base for a reason. Warning: it gets dark. https://parahumans.wordpress.com https://parahumans.wordpress.com
jsahdeva 8y ago
http://goosh.org/ http://goosh.org/ - Google command line.
kotrunga 8y ago
A good news site that I've been telling people about is Legible News- only text and links. No images, ads, etc. https://legiblenews.com/ https://legiblenews.com/ There is also Wiby, the search engine for 'classic websites'. You can only submit a website if it is simple and meets the criteria (not a lot js / css). Whatever you find, add it to Wiby! https://wiby.me/ https://wiby.me/
oftenwrong 8y ago
You can disable images in some mobile browsers (e.g. firefox for android) [0]. That significantly knocks down the size of pages. I have mine set to only load images when on a wifi connection. If you can use a desktop browser tethered through your mobile data connection, you can use the extension uMatrix [1] to selectively block scripts, css, images, outbound requests, and more. This would allow you to turn most pages into lightweight, text-only pages. [0] https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/block-or-load-images-over-wifi-firefox-android https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/block-or-load-images-ov... [1] https://github.com/gorhill/uMatrix https://github.com/gorhill/uMatrix