8 ms·

Ask HN: Is it just me or is mobile web browsing awful?

• markx2 3y ago
  I use nextdns.io on my iphone for adblocking and it works well. Give it a go?
• brucethemoose2 3y ago
  The web is nigh unusable without an ad/element blocking browser. And its a security risk too.
• pacifika 3y ago
  Firefox Focus comes with a good allround zero config content blocker that works in mobile Safari. The issue also is that often when using the back button the page reloads ( I suspect due to memory issues on my iPhone 11) and I lose track of my reading position.
  • jmondi 3y ago
    As far as I can tell, Firefox Focus has no tab support, which means it is a non-starter. How can you use it as a browser if it has no tabbing?
    • ChrisLTD 3y ago
      The original poster is saying you should enable the Firefox Focus content blockers in Mobile Safari in Settings > Safari > Extensions.
      • jmondi 3y ago
        TIL thanks for explaining
    • 3836293648 3y ago
      Lacking tabs is Focus's entire value proposition
  • toddmorey 3y ago
    Half the time I lose my reading position as the page reflows as more and more ads and widgets load. I've trained myself to hit the reader view button as quickly as possible.
• fodkodrasz 3y ago
  It is terrible indeed. I'm just starting to not browse the net anymore, if possible. I start to not care for the news, someone I know will tell me the stuff I need anyway. I started buying paper books, and reading those.
• ChrisLTD 3y ago
  It is indeed terrible. Between GDPR banners, modals asking you to subscribe or pay before you've read a single word of a site, and ads every other paragraph, the "content" web on mobile is in a bad state. It's as bad on desktop, but ads, modals, and banners take up less of the available screen real estate, so perceptually it seems less annoying.
• great_cormorant 3y ago
  This is something that Android would ostensibly do better at. You're able to get browsers with full ad-blocking capabilities there. I've had luck with Orion (notably on YouTube videos) on iOS, though. DNS and other browsers might help, too.
  • oktoberpaard 3y ago
    AdGuard fits the bill for me in Safari. It includes blocking lists that you can enable and the paid version includes an optional extension that can execute more complex blocking rules where needed. YouTube ads are non-existent for me. The blocking lists also work in the standard in-app browser that most apps use.
• greybox 3y ago
  Yes. I tackle this by doing most of my browsing on a desktop or laptop, where I have proper ad-blockers installed.
• gdedhitchhiker 3y ago
  This raises a good point that you have to use these apps for a good exp. Their apps usually do good caching, preloading and good display. Now in a browser you have some more controls over cookies and things. The apps can get around that more.
• oktoberpaard 3y ago
  Note that Safari has native support for content blockers (or what most people call adblockers). I use AdGuard on my iPhone and it works great. The blocking is done by Safari, the app just tells Safari what rules to use. The paid version of AdGuard includes an optional extension that can execute more complex blocking rules, but the free version works very well in almost all cases. There are other apps available as well.
  • eru 3y ago
    Firefox on Android also has ad blockers, eg ublock origin.
    • otterlysrs 3y ago
      What does that have to do with an iPhone X?
      • villis 3y ago
        Presumably it's to point out that iPhone users chose their device unwisely, compared to the broader range of choice available on Android. I personally use Firefox with uBlock on Android for many hours per day, and would never choose Apple because of their 'my way or the highway' attitude to app usage. On Android I can even build and install an APK if need be, with no extra hassle. Those held captive by Apple just have to take what they're given.
        • eru 3y ago
          No, I was merely giving some context. If people want to use an Apple device, I won't judge them. Especially if they can enable adblockers there now, too.
      • eru 3y ago
        They are both mobile devices, and readers of these comments might have devices of either kind. (Or both or neither, or something else.)
      • 3y ago
• d3w4s9 3y ago
  I use adguard on my phone, so ads and tracking practically don't exist. I turn on the reading mode if I want to focus on the content instead of being consistently blocked by ads (or in my case, the space previously occupied by ads). I have adblock in my mobile browser as an additional step. And often I send longer pages to pocket and read them later on kindle. So it is awful, but if you are willing to spend some time you can still make it usable. (Hope Google's outrageous "DRM for web" idea never gets traction.)
• thrownaway561 3y ago
  Install brave that has adblocking built into it. quit using safari.
• jl6 3y ago
  This is why I always come to the HN comments first before clicking on any link to a domain I don’t recognize. I want an indication that the content is worth running the mobile usability gauntlet.
• hffcvh 3y ago
  I have vision problems so I have just stopped using my phone browser, cause I can see better and type better while using the laptop browser.
• Enginerrrd 3y ago
  Yeah, in general, I find anything"mobile optimized" is TERRIBLE. I much prefer the desktop site where I can parse the page fully and zoom to where I want to go. Speaking of. There is almost nothing that infuriates me more than some web developer overriding the behavior of zoom. Not cool.
• jauntywundrkind 3y ago
  Kiwi Browser supports WebExtensions. The 100% boring normal expected life-improving extensions like uBlock Origin for ads, Consent-o-matic for GDPR cookie setting, Dark Reader for dark-mode, and Form Vault for forms auto saving them make the web a much nicer place. User agency rocks. Malleability ought to be the web's killer feature, is the open possibilities that apps will never have anything to offer or compete on. Cross-cutting software that improves every site or app we visit, in a consistent way: it's divine. And mobile seems like the most constrained common form factor, which in my view amplifies the need to be able to adjust. But perversely the best & most important ability, the ability to adapt, is not available on common browsers like Chrome Mobile. And Firefox only semi-recently started re-allowing arbitrary extensions on mobile.
  • Fire-Dragon-DoL 3y ago
    Kiwi browser doesn't guarantee to be updated in time when cves are released (or at all), which sounds really scary
• bhawks 3y ago
  The web works better on Android. At Google some PMs used to lament that Android users spend more time in the browser than in apps versus iPhone. In my experience using browsers on Android are much better than on iPhone and not everything really wants to be an app. Id point the finger at Google actually allowing different web browser apps (Safari drives every browser on iPhone and lags in many areas) and just natural competition. (If ads really bothers you an ad blocker is an install away). My only complaint really being cookie banners but they suck the fun out of desktop web too.
  • appplication 3y ago
    I would actually suggest there may be a flip side of this. Android apps tend to feel more clunky than their iPhone counterparts, and the web is universally familiar. But it is possible both can be true at once.
    • bko 3y ago
      I think iOS apps are more heavily monetized because of the high fees. So maybe those are higher quality as that's where the money and paying users are. I wrote a few free iOS apps and I had to pull them because I just don't want to pay $100 a year for something I don't make any money off. Discoverability is terrible for both platforms, but I had better luck finding good free apps on android
      • danudey 3y ago
        Free, or free but ad-supported?
        • a1o 3y ago
          There are better FOSS apps on Android thanks to F-Droid and other efforts. Plus it's not that hard to roll something in a pipeline of an open source project that builds an Android app and have maintainers for it. iPhone Apps require specific hardware and tools to make and maintain, and can't easily be built on an automatic pipeline. So all the work has to be by dedicated people using manual process.
• ceejayoz 3y ago
  Every time I leave the house I realize how much my Pihole blocks. At some point I should put it online so I can use it for DNS everywhere.
• frou_dh 3y ago
  > How do you tackle this? By installing this: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/wipr/id1030595027 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/wipr/id1030595027 It's not the ultimate triple-A ad blocker but it hides the vast majority of crap. --- For subjective site customisation (as opposed to typical ad/tracker blocking) it's also quite straightforward to use the following to inject your own JS/CSS into pages: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/userscripts/id1463298887 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/userscripts/id1463298887
• bragr 3y ago
  At least on Android, Brave handles the ads, pop ups, cookie notices, etc very well for me.
• wilkystyle 3y ago
  I personally have had great success with the following for Safari: - 1Blocker as a general content blocker (as of this comment, it still blocks ads on YouTube videos as well!) - Hush to remove cookie notices. I never see them anymore. - For select sites that still insist on annoying pop-ups or aggressively hostile content layout, I tell safari to use reader mode by default. I do this for any substack sites I visit, for example, because of the ugly fonts, poor contrast, and obnoxious gradual fading of a pop-over asking you to subscribe every time you go to a page.
• hansc 3y ago
  I use nextDNS to block all ads on my iPhone X, works like a charm
• DamnInteresting 3y ago
  It would be nice if iOS Safari added support for the same browser extensions that are available on desktop browsers. Why have they not? Probably something about CPU usage and battery life, but boy-howdy the web is a shitshow without ad blockers, privacy enhancers, etc.
  • tiltowait 3y ago
    Safari's solution is content blockers. Part of the value proposition is they have less opportunity to spy on you than traditional extensions, because they can't actually read any page content. The best one I've found is Wipr. It's almost as good as uBlock Origin. It seems there's a trade-off in approaches.
• albert_e 3y ago
  Agreed. the relentless nagging by some sites to install the mobile apps needs to die. Just like the other popular post today lamenting the terrible state of scrollbars and other UI elements that has degraded the desktop UX in recent years.... Even the attention to mobile web experience seems to have degraded. There was huge focus on optimizing the very limited bandwidth and resources on mobiles... there was WAP and XML ...people atleast tried. Now a 2 year old phone that is effectively a supercomputer struggles to load simple list pages and blogs.
  • _ahxg 3y ago
    > the relentless nagging by some sites to install the mobile apps needs to die. It seems all about the hope that you can keep the user engaged long terms. I don't blame them, competition for user attention is brutal in the age of the SEO content farms, oligopoly of social networks and the "Tyranny of the Marginal User" as posted here a few days ago. But probably way less effective now that most users seem overwhelmed by so many push notifications and instinctively learned to mass ignore or dismiss them (myself included, just randomly noticed that background habit a while ago). And then we end-up with piles of installed unused apps just like lost websites in the browser history.
    • albert_e 3y ago
      And just to add -- even desktop websites these days nag people to install desktop apps instead of using the browser (Zoom, Slack)
• artimaeis 3y ago
  Everyone's talking about content blocking software, which is probably how most of us tackle this to be fair. But in response to your title question, yes! Not just mobile, IMO, but it's usually worse there. Web site experiences are generally terrible these days. I wish we hadn't come to the point where we _need_ content blocking to browse the web sanely. I constantly feel like I'm using sites where the people deciding the user experience are not themselves users of the site. Or if they are, they just don't care about usability over bottom line and A/B metric testing results.
• gustavus 3y ago
  I too find the web unusuable on mobile without FF mobile with ublock origin. Hey maybe Mozilla could focus on that rather than "reclaiming our online digital creative spaces"
• blueridge 3y ago
  Yeah, it's awful. I use the Content Restrictions feature on iOS to hide Safari so that it's not accessible at all. I just don't have a reason or need to browse the web on my phone.
• haunter 3y ago
  >How do you tackle this? Adguard Pro
• avrionov 3y ago
  As iPhone X owner I can confirm that this is one of the worst combination for mobile browsing: small screen, safari and internet full of adds. The best option for browsing internet is large screen Android Phone.
• JohnFen 3y ago
  I think it's pretty awful (at least on Android), so I rarely browse the web from mobile devices at all. If I need to interact with some service, rather than apps or mobile browsing, I wait until I'm at a desktop machine (unless it's an emergency or something).
• account-5 3y ago
  My experience is excellent: android, Firefox, uBlock origin with advanced user enabled. If I can avoid having to use an app I do using the website instead. I think your experience is a result of apples restrictive appstore policies.
• tiltowait 3y ago
  People are focusing on ads and other annoyances. Don't get me wrong—those are far and away the most egregious. Get rid of them, though, and mobile web browsing still sucks. Many sites offer only a stripped-down version compared to the desktop or simply render strangely. And iOS at least is so aggressive about saving memory, even on my 14 Pro, that tabs will be unloaded despite my not doing much, forcing a refresh.
  • hellotheretoday 3y ago
    That last point is my main gripe. I’ve had many experiences where I’ve had a tab open on my phone editing text, change to another tab to refer to something for the text I’m editing, and change back to find the original tab had to be reloaded. Even changing between safari and apps. If the page/app isn’t set up to auto save drafts and the spot I’m working at its functionally useless to me on mobile now. Or I have to set up an awkward workflow where I regularly juggle between the two to ensure they both stay in memory which doesn’t always work. My phone is older, XS, so maybe that’s part of it
  • seec 3y ago
    Yes because Apple is skimping on RAM in 1K$ phones. It's unreal that you can get much cheaper Android phones that have more memory than their entry level laptop. For a while there was marketing/excitement about the ability of iOS to compress RAM ; expect it cannot replace actually having the RAM to be used at any moment. Apple has been incredibly greedy and their user experience suffer tremendously. There really is no justification for shipping phones so expensive with so little RAM for so long besides ultra-greed. It makes the phones obsolete much earlier than they should be because while you can wait the work of a slower CPU if you can't fit your workload into RAM you are basically out of luck. If you had spent as much money on a flagship Android back then you would have gotten 4GB minimum with a Galaxy S9 but more likely 6-8GB with a S9+ or Note 9 that were the real price competitors of an iPhone X (still cheaper). So yeah iOS is aggressive in saving memory because it doesn't have much choice. Your iPhone 14 Pro has 6GB of RAM. This is 2GB less than a Galaxy S23 that cost almost half as much ; the Ultra version with 12GB of RAM still cost about as much. Even going with a 14 Pro Max would still only get you 6GB which is even worse of a joke considering the price. It's infuriating because considering how cheap RAM chips have become they only save a very small amount per phone but their faithfull users who paid the high price to get "the best" are thanked with these kind of real-world use case annoyances... To be honest I think it's kinda masochist to keep buying Apple products at the moment. I'm a first time iPhone user and I like iOS overall but the value proposition of even their cheapest product doesn't make sense anymore...
• jacknews 3y ago
  It's not you, mobile everything is awful. But firefox on android, though still not great, seems closer to a desktop experience.
• jihadjihad 3y ago
  It's still bad but more bearable with PiHole. I don't know how anyone without adblock can open a recipe website on mobile and not lose their mind. One reason it's still bad is that now I see popups that say "Disable Your Adblocker"!
• kasperset 3y ago
  Sometimes I wish we only had one version of the web. I know I may be luddite when it comes to web browsing but I love web browsing on the desktop. Progressive web app have made more optimization of ads than content. By trying to optimize it for the mobile web they have made it into "baby internet" (I heard it first when Steve Jobs introduced iPhone). I miss how he was able to zoom on the New York Times website without optimized website for mobile.
• cainxinth 3y ago
  I'm on an iphone X also. I have no issues consuming information on mobile devices. They are great for that, in fact. Ad blockers, reader mode, and instapaper solve most issues related to intrusive ads and bad formatting. My problems arise when I need to actually do something (copy, paste, create, edit, move, etc.), then they are terrible and I very much prefer a desktop.
• carlosjobim 3y ago
  I've said it many times, but you hackers still can't see, You should use Reader View like me I navigate the web, I'm searchin' for the truth, But these websites got me feelin' like I'm in a booth, Ads poppin' up, distractions all around, But Reader View's my savior, it's the holy ground. I shed those tattoo tears, for a web so clear, Reader View's the answer, no more fear, Cluttered pages fade away, like the past years, 2Pac knew the struggle, in a different way, But we're still fightin', we're makin' our own way, Tattoo tears may be gone, but the pain remains, With Reader View, we're breakin' all these chains.
• wwarshaw 3y ago
  No it's not just you. I usually get to the point where I have to wait until I have computer access to view the site properly. Sad.
• Roark66 3y ago
  I haven't used an iPhone since iPhone 3g so I can't comment on apple devices, but on android it sucks so horribly I simply don't browse "general Internet" on my mobile. It is 100% unusable. I cannot understand why no one can release a clone of Firefox on android compatible with desktop extensions or make an extension that blocks these cookie popups that works.
  • jitl 3y ago
    I thought Firefox on Android could run uBlock Origin
  • cpeterso 3y ago
    Firefox Android 120 (release date November 21) will remove the limited list of extensions, allowing extension developers to mark any of their extensions on addons.mozilla.org as Android compatible. Then someone can test whether Firefox desktop's cookie banner extension work on Firefox Android. https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2023/08/10/prepare-your-firefox-desktop-extension-for-the-upcoming-android-release/ https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2023/08/10/prepare-your-fire...
• mindslight 3y ago
  Mobile usability inherently sucks due to the constrained form factor, and web usability has been steadily declining because every site wants to monopolize your attention. Put the two together and yeah, you're going to have a bad time. The most important thing is setting your own expectations appropriately. When not actually mobile, do the work of getting over the activation energy of using a larger device. I don't delude myself into thinking I can sit on the couch at the end of the day while accomplishing anything useful on a phone/tablet - I have a laptop there instead. Even then if there's some stuff I want to spec/buy I often just get up and use a desktop to better mitigate website nags/popups/borders and get it done. When actually mobile - limit my usage since I'm connected plenty when not-mobile, use libre apps where possible, mitigate exposure to propriety apps through multiple devices and user-representing operating systems (where possible/critical), and actively resist infrequent interactions trying to herd me into installing new crapps. (and obviously ad blocking is just table stakes)
• local_crmdgeon 3y ago
  People are suggesting mechanical fixes, but ignoring the real issue: The people who write those cookie popups, serve the ads, prompt you to download the app on every page load? Those people are in these comments section, and should feel like shit. If the contribution of your life is shitting up our greatest creation via cookie banners, popups, autoplaying videos etc? You should feel like shit. Go do something useful.
  • jitl 3y ago
    Cookie banners are required by law unfortunately.
    • carlosjobim 3y ago
      A 100% no. Cookie banners are only required if you do unnecessary tracking of and spying on your visitors. A cookie banner is a sure sign of the incompetence of the organization behind any website.
      • jitl 3y ago
        > A cookie banner is a sure sign of the incompetence I disagree. Per-device staged feature rollout & performance monitoring requires a "functional" cookie, which still needs a consent banner. Using staged rollouts lets us catch issues we couldn't anticipate during internal testing, like browser bugs for specific Android versions on specific vendors, without exposing every device to that kind of bug at once. If you consider that invasive, then you can use the cookie banner to opt out (as required by law), but it's not a sign of organization incompetence.
        • Fire-Dragon-DoL 3y ago
          You just described legitimate interest. You can put that in a document, not in the banner. IANAL
          • jitl 3y ago
• heroprotagonist 3y ago
  Get Firefox, install ublock for their mobile. Too bad you can't use most other firefox extensions. Firefox with limited extensions on mobile is way better than Chrome without any extensions, though. Turn on all the 'Annoyances' filters in uBlock Origin that are off by default, like Cookie notices, mobile app banners, pop-up overlays, etc. I don't know about iPhone, but on Android you can make Firefox the default system browser, meaning anytime an app pops up a mobile browser inlay, it'll be a Firefox view that includes your extensions. Other mobile browsers might be similar or better. Can't be worse than the built-in, though. There's a reason the default browser doesn't let you use extensions, and it's not to provide you with a better experience.
  • ahoka 3y ago
    No real FF on IOS.
    • andelink 3y ago
      Orion browser on iOS works quite well in my experience. It blocks ads natively but also supports both Firefox and Chrome extensions
• nicbou 3y ago
  Firefox with uBlock Origin. I can't use any operating system that doesn't have it.
• elforce002 3y ago
  The thing is that other than e-commerce, grocery, or social apps, I don't spend too much time browsing anymore. Heck, I downloaded e-commerce and grocery apps just to check out prices, discounts, fees, etc., because their web solution is c@#p, to say the least. If it's something quick, some info regarding a specific subject, or a link someone sent me, I use brave and avoid all nonsense. I don't even bother with webviews, I go straight to the browser.
• fold3 3y ago
  On iPhone you can use Orion browser, it has ublock origin and it's free. It's amazing. On Android there is mull or kiwi.
• eternityforest 3y ago
  It's fine on Android. Or at least, it's about as good as desktop. Cookie prompts are on everything. They're timewasters, and essentially train people to click accept without thinking, but it's the same on any platform. My biggest complaint is the gestures. I hate pull to refresh and swipe to change tabs so much. But then again, on desktop we have the same crap, middle click to close tab.
• rudasn 3y ago
  > How do you tackle this? Or am I just making a big deal over nothing? I have limited my "pleasure browsing" to very few sites. I don't download apps unless I need to (eg chat). Most importantly, I have Chrome with javascript disabled on all sites and whitelist the ones I need to access and require javascript (eg. Github, jira). To do that, just click on the lock icon on the address bar and click allow javascript. Simple. Often, there's an article or something I'd like to read that requires javascript. Sometimes I just close the tab and move on with my life. Other times, I click on Chrome's share button and open the page in Firefox. On Firefox, I have an adblocker that just makes things a bit better, just enough to get what I need.
• sysadm1n 3y ago
  > How do you tackle this? Disabling JS in Safari gets rid of a lot of annoyances whilst surfing. You could also try the Brave browser or the DuckDuckGo browser on iOS which block ADs by default. But this is just a bandaid for the problem. What I would like to see is DNT (DoNotTrack) being honored and taken as a sign that you've opted out of tracking, instead of tracking happening even though the DNT flag is set to true. I'd also like if all browsers including Safari on iOS shipped with a Consent-o-matic / 'I dont care about cookies' type of functionality which globally & automatically opts you out without having to press buttons or close a modal window / popover.
• prirai 3y ago
  Additionally try Orion browser if it's supported.
• pointlessone 3y ago
  Instal some ad blockers and see if it makes any difference. Then install all of them and have an OK web experience.
• squarefoot 3y ago
  Adblockers and better written mobile pages would solve most problems when browsing from a phone, the rest will remain unsolved; people should realize that mobile phones (and most tablets) aren't computers - for a non trivial definition of computers - and can't be used as such without a hell of compromises.
• rrrx3 3y ago
  It is terrible. Nearly unusable without an ad blocking solution. I've happily been using AdBlock (generic name, great app) on iOS for years as a local VPN and feeding it with the same filter lists I use on desktop like EasyList, Peter Lowe's List, etc. It works reasonably well, and I rarely need to disable it (but still have to sometimes). Trying not to sound like an advert for it, I'm just a guy who uses it, likes it, and thinks the back and forth about "how much better android is" doesn't really help you solve the problem.
• replete 3y ago
  The only way I can cope with mobile internet is using Mull (android Firefox fork) with these extensions: - uBlock origin with custom lists - I still don't care about cookies - Dark Reader
• hiyer 3y ago
  Use Firefox with ublock origin. Enable "cookie banner reduction" and block "notifications" and "location" in "Site permissions". These have got rid of maybe 99% of the annoyances for me, though the occasional cookie banner does still creep through.
• quickthrower2 3y ago
  You can install adblockers on the IPhone. iOS integrates well with then. I use Adblock Plus. I also got a SE 2022 which is good performance per buck, sacrifices screen size and camera.
• snapplebobapple 3y ago
  How to tackle: step 1: Throw out iphone. step 2: get a pixel and install grapheneos on it step 3: use vanadium or brave to browse the web.
• Saris 3y ago
  It sounds you haven't installed an adblocker yet. The web is basically unusable without one regardless of what device you use.
• kylehotchkiss 3y ago
  1Blocker for iOS solves a lot of that for me. With it, mobile browsing is better than ever. I wish there was a movement towards more subtle ads that I didn’t have to block. The ads on daring fireball for example.
• mikewarot 3y ago
  I'm amazed it works as well as it does, but yes... it's horrible. I successfully avoided smart phones until last year. It's amazing what can be done with such a horrible user interface, no keyboard, and only an overly sensitive touch screen. I bought a $200 unlocked Motorola phone, and I'm fairly pleased with my purchase. This magic black glass slab packs a lot of computing power, and runs all day on a single charge. (I chose the lowest resolution screen, which means the least power to keep it refreshed, as I can't see the difference) The software does the best it can, but nothing comes even a bit close to the amount of functionality you get with a real buckling key keyboard, wireless mouse, and 32" monitor on a desk. Yet, I managed to emulate a VAX 11/780 running OpenVMS 7.2 on it, that I can telnet into, despite the interface limitations. The camera is better than my first real digital camera (Kodak DC210), but nowhere close to my DSLR. The fact that it's in my pocket at all times does make it the "best" camera, of course. Backing out a layer, any interface that's soda-strawed through a web browser and cellular internet, is going to be far less productive than an a native GUI optimized for the desktop. I really hate the fact that there's essentially a gatekeeper deciding what software can be natively written for the phone. We're really close to losing the war for general purpose computing.
• mapmap 3y ago
  Tap the aA in the address bar. Tap Show Reader.
• Guy_w_Keyboard 3y ago
  How is it that anyone still endures ads on the internet in the year 2023? Isn't this a forum full of tech geeks? You guys do know you can download Brave browser for free, and that automatically blocks all ads on mobile. Or your choice of any other adblocker. The problem with the web today isn't ads and cookies--even most cookie banners nowadays make it easier with a button up front to "reject all" rather than individually de-selecting them. And if you really hate the banners, you can tell your browser to automatically accept them to hide them from popping up. The problem is that every single website is super zoomed in with massive pictures, fonts, headers, footers, etc. that make the page a gigantic vertical scroll where you can't scan the page to read anything. It doesn't matter how simplistic and barebones the site is, they'll still make you scroll for miles jut to read 2 lines of text with 3 hyperlinks. It used to be before that you could avoid the disaster of a mobile website by requesting the desktop site, but now there are no desktop sites anymore. The desktop site is the mobile site. They are one and the same, thanks to the monster of "responsive design." These asshole developers think they're being clever by making the page different based on different screen widths, but it's actually way worse. Say I wanted to read a page on my phone, but it's annoying as fuck since, like I said, it's all zoomed in and requires so much scrolling my thumb would fall off. So, naturally, I change orientation to horizontal to fit more stuff on screen and reduce the amount of necessary scrolling. WRONG!! You see, now you've just changed the screen size, so the site automatically resizes everything to be way bigger, so you can rest assured the site will still be just as much of an awful pain to scroll through even in horizontal mode. Does anybody remember how much easier it used to be to read websites when you had to pinch to zoom in/out? It was so easy to see the whole page at a glance, pinch in on what you want to read or click on, and then there you go. Not to mention, actual computers--laptop, desktop, even tablet--were actually fucking usable, since those are the main devices anybody would ever actually want to surf the web on. I wouldn't want to read anything on a small phone screen for more than a few minutes, unless that's all I am able to use. Phones are meant to be used on the go. They were never the primary device, but always a compromise. You compromise the experience in order to gain mobility. Hence the name, "mobile phone." But at some point people decided, let's just pretend mobile phones are the only devices that exist, because now they're commonplace, apparently that means the huge market of everybody else doesn't matter anymore, oh and also let's make our mobile websites broken on mobile phones. I can't tell you how many times major, mainstream websites such as reddit and others have been downright broken on my iPhone. Buttons don't work, or entire layouts appear incorrectly. But even when they do work correctly, they still don't work well, because the "mobile-friendly" site was always the same as what was the "desktop site." The myth that there is a separate kind of site optimized for mobile users is bullshit. The desktop/laptop/tablet-optimized site IS the mobile-optimized site. If something is super zoomed in and super vertical, that is a paint to navigate on desktops just as much as it is a pain on smartphones. And it's not just my iPhone which is outdated. I've tried the brand new smartphones (really more like mini-tablets with cellular than a phone) and they're just as terrible to experience. (In fact, they're a lot worse! You can't hold the phone in one hand and reach from the top to the bottom of the screen. The large screens make usability harder.) What's the point of massive screen sizes (hardware) when the websites (software) are so big, they nullify that extra screen space and in fact make the area of usable screen feel smaller? That would be like having a book so large, the pages are the size of a door. But then you only print a single word on every page. It makes no sense! Why can't web designers just make their sites zoomed out by default, and then let us choose to zoom in if we need to? Why can't web designers have unfixed widths? The kind that automatically adapt text to fill whatever screen size you have. Not a fraction of the screen, but the full screen. Instead of always being skinny and narrow with tons of wasted whitespace on every device.