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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.]
(Score: 2) by KritonK on Thursday September 06 2018, @08:54AM (1 child)
Such pages are equally useless on smartphones. You have to scroll down at the bottom of the page, where the links to the actual information are. Worse, still, if you are on a smartphone, those links are in a normal size font, so you'll have a hard time clicking on them.
I'm talking about pages that look something like:
[Image of pretty girl smiiling]
Solve all your problems!
[Image of suited young man, apparently happy with his unspecified job]
New! Improved!
[Image of happy, multiracial group of people]
Increase your productivity!
...
etc. etc.
...
About us Downloads
Products Support
You want to learn about the company? You have to click on the link at the bottom.
You want information about their products? The same.
You want to download their software? Ditto.
You want support? You get the picture.
You want to see pretty pictures? My guess is that you are not going to visit this site for that!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 06 2018, @01:56PM
I guess the point was that people who carry these "smart"phones are mental midgets who ... wait for it ... LIKE TO SCROLL!
The get to fondle their slabs, their new favorite passtime. And oh boy, it's so quite tactile that even a toddler would love it!
Kinda like what happened at the other place that was abandoned because of their abuses for the greener pastures of SN.