4 ms·

If you want a really fast web experience, try disabling images and javascript too! (on rereading this I sounded sarcastic, but I really wasn’t trying to be)

_a1_ 6y ago
I'm using uMatrix and by default all javascripts are blacklisted until I explicitly enable it for the site. The downside of this is that lots of websites are broken, payment sites are non-functional, but after a week of building the whitelist, the web is somehow usable again.
- sekh60 6y ago
  I do the same. What a sad state the web is such that it is completely worth it to spend a week or two building a whitelist just to make it palatable.
- ce4 6y ago
  I'm in the same boat (mobile + desktop), and agree. One needs to overcome the initial setup of the 80% most used sites. When that is done you get way less tweaking uMatrix. Improves speed, responsiveness, privacy, data usage and battery drain for me on my mobile. For quick one off article reads i load the page in Firefox Focus.
- sneak 6y ago
  The worst is when the site is totally blank without it, then you enable it, and there's no interactivity: just images and a few words of text. It was totally unnecessary after all.
  - forgotmypw17 6y ago
    That's why I stopped enabling it. Because I've noticed a strong correlation with lack of accessibility and poor quality content I ended up regretting wasting my time reading.
- Proven 6y ago
  remember to backup your customizations!
- dmm 6y ago
  uMatrix hasn't been updated in a year and the repo has been archived: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24532973 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24532973 You'll probably have to let it go someday :(
  - smichel17 6y ago
    I'm well aware. But that day will be when it stops working, and right now it still works fine. (Actually, it will be some time after that, since the day it stops working I will spend some time investigating how much work it would be to un-break it myself. The web can pry uMatrix from my cold, dead fingers. And I suspect I am not alone in feeling that way.)
    - helmholtz 6y ago
      You're not. uMatrix makes the web sane and I'm never lettign it go. What I did (on Firefox) is disable uMatrix in Private windows and I just go there for payment sites. All the rest of the wading through internet-crap is done from within the safe cocoon of uMatrix.
    - colejohnson66 6y ago
      Is there a reason to not use uBlock Origin? I’ll admit, I never used uMatrix, so I don’t know what it does; only adblockers.
      - ivanche 6y ago
        I use both, they work even better together! uMatrix for enabling JavaScript and cookies only on sites I care about, and uBlock Origin for some cosmetic filtering.
      - _underfl0w_ 6y ago
        Not OP but it may have to do with how granular the control is - that's my reason anyway. uMatrix breaks down different types of elements into a literal matrix/grid by party, site, and element type (i.e. 1st or 3rd party, current site or e.g. js.stripe.com, cookies vs images vs scripts vs frames etc.) so you can, say, only allow cookies from the current site but block them from gstatic.com, block the javascript from analytics.cloudflare.com, and choose to allow embedded frames from hcaptcha.com, all by clicking cells in the grid.
- hobs 6y ago
  I do the same for noscript - it doesnt take much - just whitelist the site I am on if it doesnt work the way I want, and if I am worried about a payment on some site I can temporarily allow everything on that tab. That plus adblock makes the web almost... enjoyable.
scaladev 6y ago
uBlock Origin has a setting to prevent loading elements above certain size. I personally find it to be a nice middle ground. https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Per-site-switches#no-large-media-elements https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Per-site-switches#no-...
- afaik69 6y ago
  thx. didn't know about this option. uBlock Origin is just great!
- cratermoon 6y ago
  It would be awesome if uBlock Origin was able to dynamically determine a size limit based on how long assets take to load. Perhaps this is a task for the browser itself, though. Monitor throughput and latency and adjust page load behavior to limit or delay large elements. I wonder, though, how the client determines the size? Doesn't that require at least a HEAD request, introducing another round trip?
acdha 6y ago
That’s the feature I really like in Brave, which stores that setting persistently per site in a convenient side panel. For things like unoptimized news sites it’s the difference between 10-30 and <0.5 second load times on the subway.
draw_down 6y ago
Wanna go even faster, just delete your browser and curl everything.
forgotmypw17 6y ago
I do this. Works great, and it,s easy to skip sites who dgiaf.
SoSoRoCoCo 6y ago
I've been trying this every few years since browsers started supporting JavaScript and allowing users to disable it (back in the days before extensions and config options), and every time more and more of the web breaks w/o JSscript. 100% of the websites I need for work use JScript.
- kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
  Most sites are still usable if you cherry pick a subset of the JS they invoke. Blocked trackers like Google analytics or tag manager rarely break things.
  - SoSoRoCoCo 6y ago
    Except for sites that I use (internal websites for several vendors), and that is just to manipulate widgets, editors, and forms, and in one case, operate remote machinery. What methods for cherry picking do you like? I've only done all or nothing.
    - kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
      I use NoScript to whitelist a minimal set of what needs to be there. I won't ever allow analytics or doubleclick scripts. When I pop into a media site with 20+ third party scripts I just say nope and spend my time somewhere else. For basket case sites needed for work or e-commerce that are too fubared to work with script blocking I have a clean Chrome browser. None of those sites get to have tracking cookies from my main browser instance.

_a1_ 6y ago

I'm using uMatrix and by default all javascripts are blacklisted until I explicitly enable it for the site. The downside of this is that lots of websites are broken, payment sites are non-functional, but after a week of building the whitelist, the web is somehow usable again.

sekh60 6y ago
I do the same. What a sad state the web is such that it is completely worth it to spend a week or two building a whitelist just to make it palatable.
ce4 6y ago
I'm in the same boat (mobile + desktop), and agree. One needs to overcome the initial setup of the 80% most used sites. When that is done you get way less tweaking uMatrix. Improves speed, responsiveness, privacy, data usage and battery drain for me on my mobile. For quick one off article reads i load the page in Firefox Focus.
sneak 6y ago
The worst is when the site is totally blank without it, then you enable it, and there's no interactivity: just images and a few words of text. It was totally unnecessary after all.
- forgotmypw17 6y ago
  That's why I stopped enabling it. Because I've noticed a strong correlation with lack of accessibility and poor quality content I ended up regretting wasting my time reading.
Proven 6y ago
remember to backup your customizations!
dmm 6y ago
uMatrix hasn't been updated in a year and the repo has been archived: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24532973 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24532973 You'll probably have to let it go someday :(
- smichel17 6y ago
  I'm well aware. But that day will be when it stops working, and right now it still works fine. (Actually, it will be some time after that, since the day it stops working I will spend some time investigating how much work it would be to un-break it myself. The web can pry uMatrix from my cold, dead fingers. And I suspect I am not alone in feeling that way.)
  - helmholtz 6y ago
    You're not. uMatrix makes the web sane and I'm never lettign it go. What I did (on Firefox) is disable uMatrix in Private windows and I just go there for payment sites. All the rest of the wading through internet-crap is done from within the safe cocoon of uMatrix.
  - colejohnson66 6y ago
    Is there a reason to not use uBlock Origin? I’ll admit, I never used uMatrix, so I don’t know what it does; only adblockers.
    - ivanche 6y ago
      I use both, they work even better together! uMatrix for enabling JavaScript and cookies only on sites I care about, and uBlock Origin for some cosmetic filtering.
    - _underfl0w_ 6y ago
      Not OP but it may have to do with how granular the control is - that's my reason anyway. uMatrix breaks down different types of elements into a literal matrix/grid by party, site, and element type (i.e. 1st or 3rd party, current site or e.g. js.stripe.com, cookies vs images vs scripts vs frames etc.) so you can, say, only allow cookies from the current site but block them from gstatic.com, block the javascript from analytics.cloudflare.com, and choose to allow embedded frames from hcaptcha.com, all by clicking cells in the grid.
hobs 6y ago
I do the same for noscript - it doesnt take much - just whitelist the site I am on if it doesnt work the way I want, and if I am worried about a payment on some site I can temporarily allow everything on that tab. That plus adblock makes the web almost... enjoyable.

scaladev 6y ago

uBlock Origin has a setting to prevent loading elements above certain size. I personally find it to be a nice middle ground. https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Per-site-switches#no-large-media-elements https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Per-site-switches#no-...

afaik69 6y ago
thx. didn't know about this option. uBlock Origin is just great!
cratermoon 6y ago
It would be awesome if uBlock Origin was able to dynamically determine a size limit based on how long assets take to load. Perhaps this is a task for the browser itself, though. Monitor throughput and latency and adjust page load behavior to limit or delay large elements. I wonder, though, how the client determines the size? Doesn't that require at least a HEAD request, introducing another round trip?

acdha 6y ago

That’s the feature I really like in Brave, which stores that setting persistently per site in a convenient side panel. For things like unoptimized news sites it’s the difference between 10-30 and <0.5 second load times on the subway.

draw_down 6y ago

Wanna go even faster, just delete your browser and curl everything.

forgotmypw17 6y ago

I do this. Works great, and it,s easy to skip sites who dgiaf.

SoSoRoCoCo 6y ago

I've been trying this every few years since browsers started supporting JavaScript and allowing users to disable it (back in the days before extensions and config options), and every time more and more of the web breaks w/o JSscript. 100% of the websites I need for work use JScript.

kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
Most sites are still usable if you cherry pick a subset of the JS they invoke. Blocked trackers like Google analytics or tag manager rarely break things.
- SoSoRoCoCo 6y ago
  Except for sites that I use (internal websites for several vendors), and that is just to manipulate widgets, editors, and forms, and in one case, operate remote machinery. What methods for cherry picking do you like? I've only done all or nothing.
  - kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
    I use NoScript to whitelist a minimal set of what needs to be there. I won't ever allow analytics or doubleclick scripts. When I pop into a media site with 20+ third party scripts I just say nope and spend my time somewhere else. For basket case sites needed for work or e-commerce that are too fubared to work with script blocking I have a clean Chrome browser. None of those sites get to have tracking cookies from my main browser instance.