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posted by martyb on Wednesday September 05 2018, @04:57PM   Printer-friendly
from the less-is-more dept.

Programmer Drew DeVault writes a blog post about conservative web development after poking at a few popular sites and finding that only 8% of the data downloaded among the megabytes of advertisements, scripts, and third-party scripts is actually related to content. This represents several usability problems. After walking through some of the more problematic symptoms he proposes several steps which can remediate the state of the web.

Today I turned off my ad blocker, enabled JavaScript, opened my network monitor, and clicked the first link on Hacker News - a New York Times article. It started by downloading a megabyte of data as it rendered the page over the course of eight full seconds. The page opens with an advertisement 281 pixels tall, placed before even the title of the article. As I scrolled down, more and more requests were made, downloading a total of 2.8 MB of data with 748 HTTP requests. An article was weaved between a grand total of 1419 vertical pixels of ad space, greater than the vertical resolution of my display. Another 153-pixel ad is shown at the bottom, after the article. Four of the ads were identical.

Aside: Opponents to javascript are often wrongfully framed as Luddites. However, I invite readers to connect the dots; see:
Exploiting Speculative Execution (Meltdown/Spectre) via JavaScript
Web cache poisoning just got real: How to fling evil code at victims
Rowhammer.js Is the Most Ingenious Hack I've Ever Seen and
Oh, great, now there's a SECOND remote Rowhammer exploit

[Ed note: SoylentNews is designed to use no Javascript for normal user interactions. (There are a few staff-accessible pages requiring it, such as the Story Editing page.) I don't know of anyone on staff who would seriously consider changing that. When this site was initially rolling out, we actually tested to make sure it would work on a text-only browser (Lynx) and even Mosaic! So, please enjoy your light-weight, performant web pages here!]

[TMB note: Except the "collapse/expand this whole damned thread" button.]


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  • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday September 05 2018, @06:15PM (4 children)

    by bob_super (1357) on Wednesday September 05 2018, @06:15PM (#730871)

    It's optimized to show junk, which the junk senders believe is interesting information, yet the recipients tend to consider annoying or gross.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by ikanreed on Wednesday September 05 2018, @06:19PM (3 children)

    by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday September 05 2018, @06:19PM (#730875) Journal

    To take you too seriously: it's optimized to send data.

    Data that is useless garbage is much easier to create than data that resembles useful information. Data that resembles useful information and is true is even harder to create. Data that is useful information, factually correct, fully contextualized and suited to purpose is basically impossible.

    The number of webpages that even approach that third case is vanishingly small. Wikipedia, maybe.

    • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Aiwendil on Wednesday September 05 2018, @07:52PM

      by Aiwendil (531) on Wednesday September 05 2018, @07:52PM (#730920) Journal

      Another third case webpage is (most of - do avoid their "intended for the public") IAEA's pages. I frequent three of their database ARIS (reactor technology overview), PRIS (data on operation of currently operating power reactors) and INIS (60+ years of nuclear articles from various publications for the field).

      The trick seems to be to get it to the point where the density of data is high enough that an encyclopedia seems fluffy. (Lots of technology companies (not IT, but proper tech; think Siemens, Samsung, Mitshubishi, IBM, and similar) actually tend to have proper fluff-free pages once you get past the public-facing crap. Also the engineering sections of most companies tend to have pretty nice pages)

    • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 05 2018, @11:04PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 05 2018, @11:04PM (#731007)

      Remembering grandpa's days, JavaScript is the re-incarnation of the Door-to-Door salesman.

      Their one goal was to get their foot in the door. Once that foot was wedged in, you could not close the door, and they knew that.

      One had to develop a knack of kicking their foot back out then very quickly closing the door before they could reinsert.

      The original "script blocker".

      I am quite sure doing this was in clear violation of their business model, but back then Congress would have doubled over in laughter had some business lobbyist brought such a thing up.

      I guess it was about two or three years ago I adopted NoScript, being I had just been slipped a dose of malware on a web site. I brought up my woe on this very site and you guys knew exactly what to do. I ended up doing a lot of research only to discover that JavaScript is way too powerful to hand to a business website programmer, way too many ways it can be used to deceive a customer.

      I came to the conclusion that JavaScript, like fine print in contracts, is a prime candidate shady businesses use to pull fast ones on an ignorant and trusting customers. I see that and the hair stands up on me like someone approaching me with a gun and ski mask on.

      • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday September 06 2018, @11:50PM

        by Freeman (732) on Thursday September 06 2018, @11:50PM (#731567) Journal

        The sneakiest malware deliverer I ever saw was when I was going to see what these Facebook Games were all about. I didn't even get to the first game, before the ad server tried serving me up a dish of malware. I've had 0% interest in even looking at a Facebook game since. Makes some sense that one of the largest websites is one of the juiciest targets, but wow that was crazy. Not sure, if I had adblock at that time or some other alternative. I generally used Flashblock + Adblock Plus. Now, I typically just stick with uBlock Origin. I've been quite interested in setting up Pi Hole on one of my Raspberry Pis, I just haven't taken the time to mess with it.

        --
        Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"