4 ms·

Nice, this is what I loved about the Web 1.0 before always-on broadband. You would download something and then 'consume' it offline. You could only download so

by Fnoord 5y ago

Nice, this is what I loved about the Web 1.0 before always-on broadband. You would download something and then 'consume' it offline. You could only download so much as you had to find it, and then get offline (every minute cost money). The adrenaline rush whilst online was sweet. Then offline, you would read/watch/listen/use. You can do the same nowadays. Mirror Wikipedia, download maps for your navigation app, grab a copy of the Bitcoin blockchain (ugh), use Git to clone a plethora of repos, and so on. Great for if you have an airgapped environment. You can even set it up so you never have profiling. The beauty of this specific example is its mostly text, so you can very quickly grab a lot of data, and nobody's gonna figure out which specific you (in this case) read.

londons_explore 5y ago
> nobody's gonna figure out which specific you (in this case) read. It also has the downside that you can be accused of reading it all... For example, if there was some illegal content in there (child porn, nuclear bomb plans, extremist material, etc.), then you have now got that content on your computer for when the police are looking for a reason to imprison you. I say this from a country which has put people in prison for possessing text which could easily be accidentally be downloaded by this 'subscribe-for-offline-reading' feature. [1]. [1]: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-northamptonshire-58926030 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-northamptonshire-58926...
- rbetts 5y ago
  I was curious about this case and googled a bit - seems to be this person? https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10037721/Terror-suspect-accused-tweeting-Poles-gassed-appears-court.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10037721/Terror-sus...
Scoundreller 5y ago
> Mirror Wikipedia The Kiwix app on iOS is good for that. It handles .sim files which consist of offline versions of some major resources. Then there’s the RACHEL project that creates mini offline internets of edu resources, but I don’t think it’s a free download: https://worldpossible.org/ https://worldpossible.org/
- ploum 5y ago
  I plan of adding .zim support to Offpunk if people are interested. I don’t like Kiwix UI and already had a basic zim browser hacked thanks to libzim-python.
  - 0des 5y ago
    Interested, thank you
  - koziserek 5y ago
    +1
- Fnoord 5y ago
  I'm using Kiwix on Android, very much appreciated this application. I've been using it with Wikipedia for many years. However, it also has other databases, such as Arch Wiki (and I don't even use Arch, the wiki is just a fantastic resource of information).
kall 5y ago
This reminds me of the good times I had using opera to download all my RSS feeds while in class to read at home where I had no internet. Then I would queue all the links from that as tabs so I could fetch them all via "refresh all" the next day, and on and on with the links from those pages...
bityard 5y ago
I don't remember the terminology anymore but when dial-up BBSes were a thing, some popular ones limited your connection to 5 minutes. You were supposed to connect just long enough to download a file containing all of the forum threads and replies posted since you last connected (and upload a file with your own posts, if so inclined) and then hang up so someone else could use the line to do the same thing.

by Fnoord 5y ago

londons_explore 5y ago

> nobody's gonna figure out which specific you (in this case) read. It also has the downside that you can be accused of reading it all... For example, if there was some illegal content in there (child porn, nuclear bomb plans, extremist material, etc.), then you have now got that content on your computer for when the police are looking for a reason to imprison you. I say this from a country which has put people in prison for possessing text which could easily be accidentally be downloaded by this 'subscribe-for-offline-reading' feature. [1]. [1]: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-northamptonshire-58926030 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-northamptonshire-58926...

rbetts 5y ago
I was curious about this case and googled a bit - seems to be this person? https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10037721/Terror-suspect-accused-tweeting-Poles-gassed-appears-court.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10037721/Terror-sus...

Scoundreller 5y ago

> Mirror Wikipedia The Kiwix app on iOS is good for that. It handles .sim files which consist of offline versions of some major resources. Then there’s the RACHEL project that creates mini offline internets of edu resources, but I don’t think it’s a free download: https://worldpossible.org/ https://worldpossible.org/

ploum 5y ago
I plan of adding .zim support to Offpunk if people are interested. I don’t like Kiwix UI and already had a basic zim browser hacked thanks to libzim-python.
- 0des 5y ago
  Interested, thank you
- koziserek 5y ago
  +1
Fnoord 5y ago
I'm using Kiwix on Android, very much appreciated this application. I've been using it with Wikipedia for many years. However, it also has other databases, such as Arch Wiki (and I don't even use Arch, the wiki is just a fantastic resource of information).

kall 5y ago

This reminds me of the good times I had using opera to download all my RSS feeds while in class to read at home where I had no internet. Then I would queue all the links from that as tabs so I could fetch them all via "refresh all" the next day, and on and on with the links from those pages...

bityard 5y ago

I don't remember the terminology anymore but when dial-up BBSes were a thing, some popular ones limited your connection to 5 minutes. You were supposed to connect just long enough to download a file containing all of the forum threads and replies posted since you last connected (and upload a file with your own posts, if so inclined) and then hang up so someone else could use the line to do the same thing.