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Browsing Frugally Without Wasting Bandwidth?
forrestm writes "At home, my internet connection is limited to 1GB / month before I have to pay extra. At my university, I'm charged around 2.5c per megabyte. I rarely download anything big, but I often go through a large amount of bandwidth by simply browsing around. For example, when I play a YouTube video, click a link, and then return to the video, the whole video reloads. When I read some websites, such as BoingBoing.net or Cnet.com, my status bar shows a whole lot of data being transferred through other domains. Some pages seem to send/receive data at certain intervals for the duration of my visit. When I begin to enter a search in Firefox's search bar, a list of suggestions is automatically downloaded. In addition to this, Firefox often requests internet access of its own accord, even though I have automatic updating turned off. All this is costing me! How do I stop unsolicited use of my internet connection? How do I go about not wasting bandwidth like this?"
Nearly all sites use JS in some form. Many use it as a crucial part of their setup.
I've found most sites are operable without forcing a person to use JavaScript. The ones that aren't probably violate accessibility laws (kudos to the people who already brought that point up). Most sites that enforce Web 2.0 type restrictions I have found to be low in quality (like youtube).
Maybe I don't go to the sites that you (and many others) go to. I certainly don't have a MySpace or Facebook account -:) For me, I avoid Web 2.0 type sites, though they do seem to be gaining in popularity (probably the reason I get down-modded every time I say anything against them). For me, if a Web designer can't figure out how to design a site without having to use Web 2.0 technology then the content is probably as lame as the style (and yes, I've found that to be the case). If a person want's videos then a better place to search for them is on Usenet or bittorent (the videos will be higher quality, there will be no ads, and no Web 2.0 annoyances), and a lot of P2P clients have instant messages built right in. Just like DRM lead to the downfall of traditional music revenue, so I believe that Web 2.0 will eventually lead to the Downfall of Web browsing as users like myself choose technologies which they have control over (like IRC as opposed to AIM), or Freenet as opposed to traditional Web sites. THIS I can see happening if Web designers and their companies continue on the path that they are on. Regular AOL users will continue to get their Web 2.0 experiences while the rest of us retreat to technologies that WE have control of instead of the multinationals and business type marketing people.