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?"

Comments

No Script

[Coldeagle]

If you're a FireFox user I would recommend the No Script and adblock add on. That way you're not actually loading anything unless you specify.

Re:No Script

[NoobixCube]

I find No Script to be a bit of a pain, usually, because I seem to spend half of my time allowing things that I need. Adblock, however, is the only thing that keeps the internet usable for me when I exceed my download limit. I get shaped down to 56k instead of my usual 10 Mb/s - a very painful fall. Adblock lets me load pages in far less than half the time it would take without it. It's shocking how much crap is foisted on us at our own expense, really.

Re:No Script

[93 Escort Wagon]

I suggest FlashBlock instead of NoScript if he only wants to stop flash from being auto-downloaded and leave the JS alone.

Agreed. I don't argue that NoScript isn't useful for some people; but for the average person it's too extreme of a solution. FlashBlock stops the vast majority of current web annoyances without requiring user intervention just to get the average site's navigation working.

Some may argue that for a site to require JavaScript for navigation is ridiculous; but we've got to deal with the real world here. Disabling all client-side scripting by default just breaks too many sites.

Re:No Script

[houghi]

And if you are not a Firefox user. Become one.

Some extra things you can do on top of most other things
1) http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm will block out many things without even trying to fetch them.
2) Use privoxy or junkbuster
3) https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1672 ImgLikeOpera This extension is very useful for non broadband users
4) If you have more then 1 PC, install a proxy server. Or perhaps using your providers proxy server won't count for as much (a long shot, but worth ti check out)
5) Use a webinterface for your mail without too many adds, like Gmail.
6) Read /. with the "Low Bandwith", simple design and such set
7) Use Lynx, links or w3m to browse most sites and only use firefox for those that actually need it.

Do use all of the things, not just one or two. Only when they conflict yiu need to choose.

Here you go

[dgun]

http://lynx.isc.org/

To quote Adam Savage:

[Weaselmancer]

At home, my internet connection is limited to 1GB / month before I have to pay extra.

"Well there's your problem."

Re:To quote Adam Savage:

[Anonymous Coward]

There are two kinds of problems in this world:
Those you can do something about, and those you can not.

Soulskill did not say so, but I am willing to bet he is from South Africa (as I am). I will therefore answer in this context, if the context is wrong, apologies.

The 1Gb limit is fairly typical as is the charging per bandwidth by your university. Even if you go to the library, you still have to log in and you are charged.

The reasons for this are numerous (and I am not going to claim that I can give a fair analysis in such a short space) but it includes the facts that
* South Africa get's its international connectivity from the States and Europe. So there are seriously long cables that run to serve RELATIVELY small population of internet users.
* There is an effective monopoly (or by now duopoly) on bandwidth provision (and yes, this is being fought)
* South Africa (and most other third world countries) needs to pay for it connectivity to other countries (but why not the other way around?)

This landscape is changing, extra cables are being laid under sea, SLOWLY the market is being deregulated so we can look forward to some cheaper bandwidth in future. In the meantime, these are the cards we are being dealt.

So before giving an answer as simplistic as this (and being marked insightful 5!!!!) consider that the world is larger.

I hope this does add insight.

Flame away.

Squid.

[bmo]

Install a cache server. Like Squid.

http://www.squid-cache.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squid_cache /thread.

--
BMO

Re:Squid.

[unlametheweak]

Something like "Downloadhelper is good for Youtube. It's a Firefox extension. You don't need Javascript or flash enabled to use it. Just download the video and watch it as many times as you want. I know there are other programs like this, but this one is actually up-todate and simple to use.

Disable prefetching

[mj01nir]

Disable prefetching.
about:config
network.prefetch-next false

Use Opera

[A Friendly Troll]

Nobody suggested this yet, so I will:

Use Opera.

One of its really great features is the ability to browse the web with image loading turned off, either completely, or just by allowing already-cached images to be displayed. Ever ended up on a random forum while googling something and had half a dozen megabytes of flashy avatars and signatures loaded, plus someone embedding giant images into the thread? I have. Image loading toggle is a keypress or a mouse click away.

If you globally turn JavaScript and plugins off, you won't be surprised by a site loading a megabyte of JS from somewhere (damn those huge libraries), or by any kind of Flash content or embedded videos. Helps security, too. You can always whitelist sites you regularly use.

The third great thing about Opera is instant Back/Forward navigation. Nothing is reloaded. Extra bandwidth savings. Extra time savings, too, with mouse gestures.

WTF!?!?!

[rts008]

Dude, all you have to do when visiting a site to be white-listed is is :
1. visit the site.
2. navigate your curser to the 'S' with the red circle and slash (in the bottom right corner of FF), and choose "allow this page". If you have not set NoScript to refresh the page withe new settings (Windows= 'tools'> Add-ons> highlight (left-click/hover on NoScript in the 'add-ons' dialog box) NoScript, click on the 'Options' button> select 'General' tab> checkmark the box labeled 'Automatically reload affected pages when permissions change.'

3. ???

4. PROFIT!!!

For extra credit,try the "appearance' tab (Tools>Add-ons>NoScript>Options.

Personally, mine is set at:

(long story, short version) "Show..."
"Status bar labeled" == unchecked
"Full Domain" == unchecked
"Full Address" == unchecked

It provides a nice experience online for me, along with control over which parts of a web page can load.

When in doubt, you can always try "temporarily allow XYZ.org/com/net/edu".

P.S. I am currently having to settle for a Windows machine against my choice, but the above info is the same under Linux and Firefox, except it is accessed from "Edit">"Preferences">....

Re:easy

[WK2]

Use adblockplus rather than adblock. Adblock is obsolete, and does not work with current Firefox versions.

Here are some bandwidth saving keys to add to your user.js file:
---- // Don't submit every character I type in the search box to google
user_pref("browser.search.suggest.enabled", false);
user_pref("browser.search.update", false); // Update extensions and Adblock filters every 15 days.
user_pref("extensions.update.interval", 1296000);
user_pref("extensions.adblockplus.synchronizationinterval", 360); // Note that the first is measured in seconds, and the second is measured in hours. // Block pages from autorefreshing
user_pref("accessibility.blockautorefresh", true);

---

Leave youtube videos loaded in the tab until you are sure you won't want to watch it again. I typically turn the sound off and allow a youtube video to load while I am surfing in another tab. When the video is done loading, I turn the sound back on and watch it from the beginning.

Re:That's lousy

[teh moges]

For many uni students, $40/month isn't the sort of amount you want to be spending on non-necessary things like internet access.

Add that, the high cost of internet access at uni is a problem, even if the poster has good internet access at home. I'm in that situation: my home connection is great, but my uni has really low limits and high costs. This is fine when I can download something at home and bring it into uni, but if I go over my cap at uni, I can not browse anything at uni. This means I can't look up some papers or follow some links.

To the poster, I say, as first step, use No Script (as was said underneath). For you, the cost of whitelisting everything is less than the cost of the net. Also, don't "Always allow" if you can get away with it. If you always allow YouTube, you are back to the start again.

Re:That's lousy

[forrestm]

I should mention I'm in New Zealand, which unfortunately is behind most of the world in terms of internet

Re:That's lousy

[MoonBuggy]

I'm still amazed to hear that your university is charging you such a high rate for access (well, actually I'm surprised they're charging you at all for on-campus access); obviously connections differ depending on where you are, and the number of cables from New Zealand to the rest of the world has an impact on that, but having had a quick look around it seems that even a fairly pessimistic bit of number crunching at NZ prices has your university paying less than 1/10 of the cost they're passing on to you. Has anyone complained about this? Do they provide a reason for the inflated costs?

Re:That's lousy

[billcopc]

$40/month isn't the sort of amount you want to be spending on non-necessary things like internet access.

OUT! Leave your geek card at the security desk.

How can you honestly call the internet "non-necessary" ? Yes, there's a lot of garbage on here, but how could any tech-savvy individual dismiss the evolutionary leap of the global information network ? Computers and the internet are the more significant achievements of our century, because they unlock a million other uses and are the first step toward unifying humankind.

What, you think all this man-vs-man, you-don't-know-what-I-know hate-breeding business is the path to enlightenment ? *cough* Wehell... thanks for nothing!

Re:That's lousy

[vanDee28]

Actually, computers and the internet are the more significant achievements of the PREVIOUS century ;)

Re:That's lousy

[Lord Ender]

For university students today, internet access falls between beer and food on the scale of necessities. If you have $100/month to spend, you would use the first $40 for Natural Light, the next $40 for access to Facebook, and the remaining $20 for Ramen Noodles.