4 ms·

Great to see a post about lightweight websites having over 100 upvotes. To me, the "heaviness" of the web is making it much less enjoyable then it could be. A

by mg 8y ago

Great to see a post about lightweight websites having over 100 upvotes. To me, the "heaviness" of the web is making it much less enjoyable then it could be. As a user, I regularly read the HN discussion of an article rather then the article itself. Simply because HN is so lean and other websites are usually bloated. So bloated, that I prefer to infer the content from the HN discussion just so I can avoid visiting the website. I run multiple very lightweight websites myself: http://www.gnod.com http://www.gnod.com I categorically refuse to add heavy assets or frontend libraries. Many of my developer friends insist that "Normal users don't care!". I am not so sure. I wonder how big the target audience for "Lightweight websites" really is. Would love to see a poll that asks people "How much do you like the typical website? What are the most common reasons that make you dislike a website?".

cmroanirgo 8y ago
You're not alone: for HN and website lightness.
pdimitar 8y ago
> Many of my developer friends insist that "Normal users don't care!". I am not so sure. I am with you. I've spoken to a lot of non-technical users in my life. Their very typical and often response on the matter is "it is how it is, I cannot change it, of course it's annoying but I have no alternative" -- this is about ads, heavyweight sites and possible tracking/spying. So IMO most non-technical people accept it as a fact of life but would rejoice if the Web became lightweight again.
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  > So IMO most non-technical people accept it as a fact of life but would rejoice if the Web became lightweight again. Yup. There's also a subset of non-tech people who don't have a basic mental model for how things work; from those, I hear "my computer is slow, probably has viruses, could you help?". I come, and the computer is often fine - it's popular websites that just went through another bloat-up cycle, and the computer struggles with them. Installing uBlock can make such computer live for another year, but ultimately people end up discarding perfectly good hardware just because the web keeps accruing bloat.
  - krapp 8y ago
    >So IMO most non-technical people accept it as a fact of life but would rejoice if the Web became lightweight again. What most non-technical people want is for the web they're using now to work faster. The problem is, the people who want to make the web lightweight again seem to want to do so by eliminating the modern web entirely. No one seems to be asking how we could make the web that exists, and that billions of people actually use, better.
    - pdimitar 8y ago
      I am asking. What would you propose?
    - TeMPOraL 8y ago
      > The problem is, the people who want to make the web lightweight again seem to want to do so by eliminating the modern web entirely. Not entirely, though it may seem that because many proponents of lightweight web - like myself - are just tired of the modern one, and have comparative experience of how to make a site many times more functional and use the fraction of resources at the same time. > No one seems to be asking how we could make the web that exists, and that billions of people actually use, better Circling back to 'pdimitar point upthread: people use what they're given. They have no love for it, they just don't have any other choice. This way people adjust to the growing bloat of the web, and the same way they could adjust back to the leaner web. And yes, many are asking how to make the web that exists better. Not many want to hear the answers, because they begin with "stop doing the crap you're doing right now". The answers are, stop doing SPAs for pages that fit the document model (which is 90%+ of them). Stop putting useless gimmicks on the frontend - like that Cleave.js thing from yesterday, for example[0]. Stop pulling in all the trackers and ad network scripts. Design your page function-first, form-second. It's a hard sell, because it goes against several strong social phenomena, like CV-oriented and fashion-driven development, very lucrative surveillance capitalism business models, vendor lock-in and SaaS-ification of everything. That's why at least part of the solution will have to be technological - just asking people to behave isn't going to cut it. -- [0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19233637 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19233637
yesenadam 8y ago
I found this stat - not sure how old it is: Forrester Research did some research in why people return to web sites. There were 4 main reasons: good content (thank goodness this was number one!): 75%, usability: 66%, download speed: 58%, frequency of updating: 54%. All other reasons were noise compared with these 4. https://homepages.cwi.nl/~steven/ https://homepages.cwi.nl/~steven/
mdibaiee 8y ago
Hey! I just added Gnod tools to the list. I saw your pull-request for Gnoosic, but the other tools also fall in the same bucket.
- basch 8y ago
  how about https://www.aldaily.com/ https://www.aldaily.com/ https://techmeme.com/river https://techmeme.com/river http://www.mediagazer.com/river http://www.mediagazer.com/river https://www.memeorandum.com/river https://www.memeorandum.com/river

by mg 8y ago

cmroanirgo 8y ago

You're not alone: for HN and website lightness.

pdimitar 8y ago

> Many of my developer friends insist that "Normal users don't care!". I am not so sure. I am with you. I've spoken to a lot of non-technical users in my life. Their very typical and often response on the matter is "it is how it is, I cannot change it, of course it's annoying but I have no alternative" -- this is about ads, heavyweight sites and possible tracking/spying. So IMO most non-technical people accept it as a fact of life but would rejoice if the Web became lightweight again.

TeMPOraL 8y ago
> So IMO most non-technical people accept it as a fact of life but would rejoice if the Web became lightweight again. Yup. There's also a subset of non-tech people who don't have a basic mental model for how things work; from those, I hear "my computer is slow, probably has viruses, could you help?". I come, and the computer is often fine - it's popular websites that just went through another bloat-up cycle, and the computer struggles with them. Installing uBlock can make such computer live for another year, but ultimately people end up discarding perfectly good hardware just because the web keeps accruing bloat.
- krapp 8y ago
  >So IMO most non-technical people accept it as a fact of life but would rejoice if the Web became lightweight again. What most non-technical people want is for the web they're using now to work faster. The problem is, the people who want to make the web lightweight again seem to want to do so by eliminating the modern web entirely. No one seems to be asking how we could make the web that exists, and that billions of people actually use, better.
  - pdimitar 8y ago
    I am asking. What would you propose?
  - TeMPOraL 8y ago
    > The problem is, the people who want to make the web lightweight again seem to want to do so by eliminating the modern web entirely. Not entirely, though it may seem that because many proponents of lightweight web - like myself - are just tired of the modern one, and have comparative experience of how to make a site many times more functional and use the fraction of resources at the same time. > No one seems to be asking how we could make the web that exists, and that billions of people actually use, better Circling back to 'pdimitar point upthread: people use what they're given. They have no love for it, they just don't have any other choice. This way people adjust to the growing bloat of the web, and the same way they could adjust back to the leaner web. And yes, many are asking how to make the web that exists better. Not many want to hear the answers, because they begin with "stop doing the crap you're doing right now". The answers are, stop doing SPAs for pages that fit the document model (which is 90%+ of them). Stop putting useless gimmicks on the frontend - like that Cleave.js thing from yesterday, for example[0]. Stop pulling in all the trackers and ad network scripts. Design your page function-first, form-second. It's a hard sell, because it goes against several strong social phenomena, like CV-oriented and fashion-driven development, very lucrative surveillance capitalism business models, vendor lock-in and SaaS-ification of everything. That's why at least part of the solution will have to be technological - just asking people to behave isn't going to cut it. -- [0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19233637 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19233637

yesenadam 8y ago

I found this stat - not sure how old it is: Forrester Research did some research in why people return to web sites. There were 4 main reasons: good content (thank goodness this was number one!): 75%, usability: 66%, download speed: 58%, frequency of updating: 54%. All other reasons were noise compared with these 4. https://homepages.cwi.nl/~steven/ https://homepages.cwi.nl/~steven/

mdibaiee 8y ago

Hey! I just added Gnod tools to the list. I saw your pull-request for Gnoosic, but the other tools also fall in the same bucket.

basch 8y ago
how about https://www.aldaily.com/ https://www.aldaily.com/ https://techmeme.com/river https://techmeme.com/river http://www.mediagazer.com/river http://www.mediagazer.com/river https://www.memeorandum.com/river https://www.memeorandum.com/river