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Warning: this page loads 120MB of animated GIFs. Do not use GIFs like this. Use a proper video codec. (I’ve actually flagged this submission, because 120MB is

Warning: this page loads 120MB of animated GIFs. Do not use GIFs like this. Use a proper video codec. (I’ve actually flagged this submission, because 120MB is far, far more than anyone reasonable would expect to be downloaded automatically by visiting a page, and expensive for some people—there have been multiple occasions for me in the past few years when it would have literally cost me around $10 to load the page.)

hdjjhhvvhga 4y ago
We had the same problem in Europe before 2016, it was awful - you needed to watch every step and being careful what sites you visit, what apps you open (and many used mobile data without you even knowing it) - people were being charget tens and in extreme cases even thousands of euros. It was even worse with a laptop. Abolishing roaming changes was a huge gamechanger. Of course for intensive internet usage you'd still probably want to buy a local SIM card, but apart from that you can forget mobile charges and just use your regular €5/month mobile plan for everything. The only exception is when you get very close to the borders of the EU and there is a chance of connecting to a non-EU tower.
- danuker 4y ago
  I always used a prepaid SIM. For me, the knowledge of not getting into debt accidentally is worth the hassle of charging it myself every 3 months or so.
- moritonal 4y ago
  Cries in sorrow from the UK All our carriers said they wouldn't introduce roaming fee's pre-Brexit, then did to the surprise of no-one but the Brexiteers.
- V__ 4y ago
  This was especially frustrating when living near a border (which in Europe is not unlikely). Depending on the weather (or the maintenance schedule), sometimes the foreign tower was strong enough for the phone to connect. I don't (want to) remember how much money I lost that way.
blensor 4y ago
I just landed in Zurich and forgot that it is not part of the EU with respect to roaming charges. Just opening twitter and answering a whatsapp shot through my automatic roaming charge cutoff limit of 60€ (1MB is roughly $16 here). So that page would have cost me roughly $2k to load if there were no automatic limit :)
- PeterBarrett 4y ago
  On the off chance that you're staying for more than a few days I'd recommend dropping into a Salt or Sunrise store and buying a pre-pay e-sim. They're reasonably priced and should give you 5g everywhere you go.
lucideer 4y ago
> Do not use GIFs like this. Use a proper video codec. Not a defense, but worth noting in the interest of full advice here that Github's README preview (what's showing here) does not support embedded videos, which is why GIFs are a popular choice. That said, a good workaround for this is simply putting something like: [![Watch the video](path/to/still/thumbnail.jpeg)](path/to/video/file/or/youtube/link) This has the double advantage of not hitting your gpu/cpu on load (especially good for mobile) since there's no autoplay.
- andrewingram 4y ago
  I believe this is no longer the case: https://twitter.com/natfriedman/status/1383169112948449286 https://twitter.com/natfriedman/status/1383169112948449286
  - lucideer 4y ago
    oh wow they should advertise that more obviously via the ui, but I guess that kind of feature discoverability has never been github's style
  - cturtle 4y ago
    Yep! And it also works for images too! So you no longer need to host images externally, in an issue, or in an assets directory in the repo. I wish this were more well known.
est 4y ago
Chrome supports "many" animation formats than gif - mjpeg - apng - WebP Animation
- chrismorgan 4y ago
  And you shouldn’t use any of them for things like this. They’re semantically clearly videos, and benefit from things like a pause/play button and scrub bar. (Incidentally: why are you mentioning Chrome? All mainstream browsers support these.)

hdjjhhvvhga 4y ago

We had the same problem in Europe before 2016, it was awful - you needed to watch every step and being careful what sites you visit, what apps you open (and many used mobile data without you even knowing it) - people were being charget tens and in extreme cases even thousands of euros. It was even worse with a laptop. Abolishing roaming changes was a huge gamechanger. Of course for intensive internet usage you'd still probably want to buy a local SIM card, but apart from that you can forget mobile charges and just use your regular €5/month mobile plan for everything. The only exception is when you get very close to the borders of the EU and there is a chance of connecting to a non-EU tower.

danuker 4y ago
I always used a prepaid SIM. For me, the knowledge of not getting into debt accidentally is worth the hassle of charging it myself every 3 months or so.
moritonal 4y ago
Cries in sorrow from the UK All our carriers said they wouldn't introduce roaming fee's pre-Brexit, then did to the surprise of no-one but the Brexiteers.
V__ 4y ago
This was especially frustrating when living near a border (which in Europe is not unlikely). Depending on the weather (or the maintenance schedule), sometimes the foreign tower was strong enough for the phone to connect. I don't (want to) remember how much money I lost that way.

blensor 4y ago

I just landed in Zurich and forgot that it is not part of the EU with respect to roaming charges. Just opening twitter and answering a whatsapp shot through my automatic roaming charge cutoff limit of 60€ (1MB is roughly $16 here). So that page would have cost me roughly $2k to load if there were no automatic limit :)

PeterBarrett 4y ago
On the off chance that you're staying for more than a few days I'd recommend dropping into a Salt or Sunrise store and buying a pre-pay e-sim. They're reasonably priced and should give you 5g everywhere you go.

lucideer 4y ago

> Do not use GIFs like this. Use a proper video codec. Not a defense, but worth noting in the interest of full advice here that Github's README preview (what's showing here) does not support embedded videos, which is why GIFs are a popular choice. That said, a good workaround for this is simply putting something like: [![Watch the video](path/to/still/thumbnail.jpeg)](path/to/video/file/or/youtube/link) This has the double advantage of not hitting your gpu/cpu on load (especially good for mobile) since there's no autoplay.

andrewingram 4y ago
I believe this is no longer the case: https://twitter.com/natfriedman/status/1383169112948449286 https://twitter.com/natfriedman/status/1383169112948449286
- lucideer 4y ago
  oh wow they should advertise that more obviously via the ui, but I guess that kind of feature discoverability has never been github's style
- cturtle 4y ago
  Yep! And it also works for images too! So you no longer need to host images externally, in an issue, or in an assets directory in the repo. I wish this were more well known.

est 4y ago

Chrome supports "many" animation formats than gif - mjpeg - apng - WebP Animation

chrismorgan 4y ago
And you shouldn’t use any of them for things like this. They’re semantically clearly videos, and benefit from things like a pause/play button and scrub bar. (Incidentally: why are you mentioning Chrome? All mainstream browsers support these.)