Slashdot Mirror


Most of the Web Really Sucks If You Have a Slow Connection (danluu.com)

Dan Luu, hardware/software engineer at Microsoft, writes in a blog post: While it's easy to blame page authors because there's a lot of low-hanging fruit on the page side, there's just as much low-hanging fruit on the browser side. Why does my browser open up 6 TCP connections to try to download six images at once when I'm on a slow satellite connection? That just guarantees that all six images will time out! I can sometimes get some images to load by refreshing the page a few times (and waiting ten minutes each time), but why shouldn't the browser handle retries for me? If you think about it for a few minutes, there are a lot of optimizations that browsers could do for people on slow connections, but because they don't, the best current solution for users appears to be: use w3m when you can, and then switch to a browser with ad-blocking when that doesn't work. But why should users have to use two entirely different programs, one of which has a text-based interface only computer nerds will find palatable?

325 comments

  1. Most of the web really sucks by Opportunist · · Score: 5, Insightful

    No idea how your connection speed adds anything to this.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    1. Re:Most of the web really sucks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Came here for this. If you hadn't said it, i would've.

    2. Re:Most of the web really sucks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, most of the web sucks. And its constantly getting worse. But, after all these years, there are still a lot of basic, common sense things that browsers fail to do. For example:

      Their password managers are shit, I shouldn't need some add-on program, it should be a part of the browser.

      If you go to a page with a lot of images, the common sense approach would be to load them in order, one at a time. Instead, all browsers do the same stupid thing - try to load all 30 images at the same time, leaving you sitting there looking at 30 partial images.

    3. Re:Most of the web really sucks by Big+Hairy+Ian · · Score: 2, Insightful

      If you go to a page with a lot of images, the common sense approach would be to load them in order, one at a time. Instead, all browsers do the same stupid thing - try to load all 30 images at the same time, leaving you sitting there looking at 30 partial images.

      So you'd rather wait 6 times as long to load a page one component at a time?

      --

      Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.

    4. Re:Most of the web really sucks by stooo · · Score: 2

      Most of the web sucks, but with a slow connection you really need a long time to get to that point of understanding.
      An adblocker can help you go to this conclusion faster, tho.

      --
      aaaaaaa
    5. Re:Most of the web really sucks by stooo · · Score: 1

      >> Instead, all browsers do the same stupid thing - try to load all 30 images at the same time, leaving you sitting there looking at 30 partial images.
      You're free to use a browser that doesn't do that.
      For me, I'd rather reduce the 30 components to 5 by using an adblock and a tracker script blocker

      --
      aaaaaaa
    6. Re:Most of the web really sucks by dugancent · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Autoplaying videos are the bane of my existence. Nothing should should autoplay, ever, and it shouldn't require a browser plugin to prevent it.

      --
      SJWs are the new boogeyman. -Me
    7. Re:Most of the web really sucks by Calydor · · Score: 0

      That doesn't even make sense unless you assume that the webserver is limiting how much bandwidth each requested item is allotted, and not how much bandwidth each requesting IP is allotted.

      --
      -=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
    8. Re:Most of the web really sucks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I see you have no clue as to how networking works.

    9. Re:Most of the web really sucks by Opportunist · · Score: 3, Informative

      Well, it does make sense to load the pictures simultaneously because they may come from different source and what if one of them stalls? The whole page would sit there and wait.

      What gets my piss to a boil is that browsers still cannot load text first and ignore pictures until the rest of the page is done. Gimme something to read while your slow ass server eventually, maybe, finally manages to send the picture I don't give a shit about.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    10. Re:Most of the web really sucks by SirSlud · · Score: 1

      And this is why writing the software is left to the experts. Why would you load images in series when a huge amount of the time they're coming from different sources and you can parallelize the work?

      --
      "Old man yells at systemd"
    11. Re:Most of the web really sucks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      True, but honestly, most of the world also sucks; and most of the rest of the universe is even worse.

    12. Re:Most of the web really sucks by Big+Hairy+Ian · · Score: 1

      That doesn't even make sense unless you assume that the webserver is limiting how much bandwidth each requested item is allotted, and not how much bandwidth each requesting IP is allotted.

      because my ISP would never throttle my bandwidth

      --

      Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.

    13. Re:Most of the web really sucks by Big+Hairy+Ian · · Score: 1

      I see you have no clue as to how networking works.

      So you're running this over your own private internet with no contention

      --

      Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.

    14. Re:Most of the web really sucks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because the bottleneck is usually the home connect and not the server connection.

      It doesn't much matter where the images are coming from if you're stuck on a slow connection. All it does is cause everything to slow down. I think restricting to just one download at a time is probably excessive, but assuming that the server is the bottleneck is something out of the '90s. It's just too easy to get servers that can scale on demand using various hosting services. Perhaps if it's a smaller site that doesn't expect as much traffic, it will be on the server side, but when is the last time /. managed to /. a site?

    15. Re:Most of the web really sucks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This. Fuck that autoplay shit.

    16. Re:Most of the web really sucks by hodet · · Score: 2

      Indeed, anyone thinking adding that crap to a page is just a horrible person. A close second is the delayed pop-up. Fuckers. Then they cry about ad-blockers. Been testing Pi-hole with very promising results, seems to even bypass the "Hey you are using an ad-blocker" message.

    17. Re:Most of the web really sucks by tepples · · Score: 1

      I'd rather reduce the 30 components to 5 by using an adblock and a tracker script blocker

      Which doesn't work so well once the majority of commercial news-editorial sites start to make everything past the abstract JavaScript-dependent and use the DMCA, CFAA, or foreign counterparts against developers and users of filter lists that use anti-anti-adblock.

    18. Re:Most of the web really sucks by tepples · · Score: 2

      Parallelism is fine for wired broadband but starts to break when you deal with the conditions described in the featured article. Satellite has 1000 ms pings and up to 10 percent packet loss. And trying to multiplex 36 TCP connections over one 0.05 Mbps dial-up connection might cause each of the connections to time out, particularly if a server is using slowloris mitigation.

    19. Re:Most of the web really sucks by Big+Hairy+Ian · · Score: 1

      It's to get around limitations of http 1.x see here https://hpbn.co/http1x/

      --

      Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.

    20. Re:Most of the web really sucks by Calydor · · Score: 2

      If your ISP throttles your bandwidth it STILL won't make a difference if you download 6 x 500 KB one at a time (3 MB) or simultaneously (3 MB). In fact there are several use cases where downloading them one at a time can reduce the needed bandwidth because you can stop the page after one or two images that you actually need are done. That is the same reason why jpg images load the way they do, giving you a chance to see early on if it's the image you're after or not.

      --
      -=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
    21. Re:Most of the web really sucks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's not about bandwidth, it's about latency. If you request 1 element of the page at a time (image, embedded iframe from stupid fscking adds, etc) then you wait 1 round trip time (RTT) between requests. Lets say you live on one coast of the US, you're connecting to a website hosted on the other coast, and you need to receive all the resource from the site's server (not some CDN). The east and west coasts of the US are around 3000km apart, light travels 300,000 km per second, so that's around 100 ms each direction, or 200 ms round trip, if information travels in a straight line at the speed of light. In practice it's a little slower than that. If your page has 30 images then that's 6 seconds of extra load time. Adding a CDN will help, by reducing the time that latency adds to each step, but the point is that page loads now involve sitting idle for some amount of time proportional to the amount of crap on the page.

      If requests happen in parallel, then it takes 1 RTT (round trip time) to start receiving data from all requests, and the TCP streams balance out to utilize all available bandwidth. On a slow connection, this can prevent any one stream from working. Most browsers limit the number of simultaneous connections per domain, usually either 2 or 6, but when a page pulls in css from one domain, js from another, images form yet another, hits one or more analytics servers, includes like/share/whatever buttons on everything, and then fills in all remaining white space with advertisements... a connection limit per domain does nothing.

    22. Re:Most of the web really sucks by orlanz · · Score: 1

      By doing the work in parallel, your one PC will hit many servers and the ones that are busy will delay sending you data till they are free. The others will send you data quickly. Its basically like queue theory; multiple tellers (servers) one queue (PC).

      Even if you have ONE server to multiple PCs, doing parallel requests will make more efficient use of all the caches between the parties. The middleware or even server will know that PC5 wants the same resource that PC2 is currently requesting so it can choose to keep it in memory rather than re-read the file again. Or if PC1,2,3,4 send all their requests at once to one server, the server knows to keep in memory and serve File1,2 to all followed by File4,5 to all, etc. That is better for the server than to server Files 1-5 to PC1 at once followed by 1-5 again to PC2 at once, etc. The cache still applies when we have multiple servers.

      Additionally, requests one at a time, are not an efficient use of bandwidth. In a single teller situation, your bandwidth usage will fall and rise as you switch between requests* and the load the sender is currently facing. With multiple tellers, they can maximize the bandwidth utilization, if one falls off, the others pick up the slack; if a new request comes in, the others back off... Keeping your bandwidth mostly utilized.

      As for your point on the browser adapting to a specific type of network connection; this is not a browser or programmer concern. Software is several layers outside of hardware. The complaint should be addressed to the networking driver or TCP/IP stack setup. Networking is highly segregated with multiple layers. The raw communication is at one of the lowest levels and the type of connection you have should be addressed at that point. Unfortunately, use cases such as your are such niches that Microsoft are most retail network card providers just don't care.

      * = There are overheads in opening & closing a request; finding & queuing a resource; switching contexts; authentication; authorization; session management etc.

    23. Re:Most of the web really sucks by Bite+The+Pillow · · Score: 1

      On a slow connection, yes. And especially if the images never load.

      But more importantly, the data transfer should be about the same either way. So it won't be noticeably longer. But you will get more information, or faster, since you will see a complete image sooner.

      If the browser adjusts to a bottleneck with different behavior, that's the best of both worlds.

    24. Re: Most of the web really sucks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I would rather have the text content load quickly. I will probably have read what I wanted to on the page and closed it before the images have all loaded.

      Particularly infuratung are the mobile browsers that blur the text to be illegible until the full page is loaded. WTF is that?!?

    25. Re: Most of the web really sucks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Many of the places in the world with poor net connectivity are far superior in other regards.

      It's nice to drive past small pastures with horses in them on your commute. I have had to slow down for sheep and chickens.

    26. Re:Most of the web really sucks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And this is why writing the software is left to the experts. Why would you load images in series when a huge amount of the time they're coming from different sources and you can parallelize the work?

      And this is why developers should spend a few years as sysadmins or network admins before being referred to as experts. This entire article is about having a slow internet connection on the client machine the browser is running on. The GP points out that parallel image loading maxes out the local bandwidth. "Expert" response is "you should try parallelizing that!"

      If you really want to parallelize it, cascade, so that most of the first image is downloaded, then half of the second image, some of the third, etc. So that way, the natural way people (beginning to end) isn't interfered with by forcing loading of the content all at once.

    27. Re:Most of the web really sucks by Pentium100 · · Score: 1

      Instead, all browsers do the same stupid thing - try to load all 30 images at the same time, leaving you sitting there looking at 30 partial images.

      On a higher bandwidth connection this would be faster. Loading small (say, 100KB) images on a connection where there is high ping to the server (say, I have a fiber optic connection, but the server is on the other side of the planet)in series is slower than loading them in parallel, because of the time spent waiting for the replies (setting up the tcp connection etc).

      I also remember download accelerators that would split up a file in multiple parts and download them in parallel, this would usually make the download faster even if all pieces came from the same server. Also, iperf -P10 is usually faster than iperf -P1...

      Of course, on a very slow connection, loading multiple images in parallel is worse because each session is competing with the others for bandwidth and the downloads may time out.

    28. Re: Most of the web really sucks by dougdonovan · · Score: 1

      Dan, you have too much time on your hands. Tell us something we dont already know.

    29. Re:Most of the web really sucks by religionofpeas · · Score: 2

      You assume that the images you actually need will be the first to be downloaded.

    30. Re:Most of the web really sucks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Take a moment to get off that gigabit metro ethernet connection your office has, and actually use a slow high latency internet connection.

      You too will be begging to have the browser sequentially download the content from top to bottom so you can start reading the text while the read loads, rather than trying to gulp the whole thing down in one blob before it renders much. I too also enjoy this experience on my train commutes where the LTE signal gets weak or falls back to 4G, the internet truly sucks. At least render the text first, then get all other bandwidth consuming garbage.

    31. Re:Most of the web really sucks by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      The universe doesn't suck. The gravity of black holes just make it look like it does.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    32. Re: Most of the web really sucks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This. I stilll have dialup at home since I live in a Seattle, and until I installed click to flash many web pages were painful to load. Now with the move to HTML5 for ads, things are getting worse again.

    33. Re:Most of the web really sucks by tepples · · Score: 1

      Even downloading from top to bottom and prioritizing text don't help when several resources change the appearance of text above the fold, such as style sheets and fonts.

    34. Re:Most of the web really sucks by Calydor · · Score: 1

      No, I assume there is a chance that they will be.

      --
      -=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
    35. Re:Most of the web really sucks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The universe doesn't suck. The gravity of black holes just make it look like it does.

      You say that, but the lag on Venus is awful and talk about high pressure work environment, sheez.

    36. Re:Most of the web really sucks by sims+2 · · Score: 1

      If the alternative the page never loading fully no matter how many time you refresh it yes?

      I remember several years ago (2005?) with EA games trying to download game packs from the in game store I couldn't download anything over 7MB or so because the download would timeout.

      Apparently the developers never expected someone with dialup would want to use their stuff.
      So while the download would have eventually finished without problem because the brilliant minds at EA decided a 10 MB download shouldn't take more than 10 minutes it wasn't possible.

      --
      Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
    37. Re:Most of the web really sucks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well the quality of my life improved instantly after I switched off Firefox autoplay setting. Might get even better by stopping using Firefox, shutting down computer, switching off electricity...

    38. Re:Most of the web really sucks by Doke · · Score: 1

      Um, I think you lost a zero. The speed of light in a vacuum is 299792458 meters per second, so your 300,000 km/s figure is more than close enough. However, in a single mode glass fiber, it's about 2/3 of that, around 200,000 km/s. 3000 km / 200,000 is 15 ms, and the round trip would be a minimum of 30 ms.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

      http://physics.stackexchange.c...

    39. Re:Most of the web really sucks by ilsaloving · · Score: 1

      The problem isn't the raw bandwidth, it's the time involved. How many web servers are configured to kill off a connection that's lasted longer than, say, 30 seconds? Additionally, slow connections also tend to be a lot more unreliable.

      Remember dial-up modems? You were one phone pickup away from having your data connection scrambled. Obviously that's not an issue anymore, but dropouts or whatever are still entirely possible.

      So what happens if your connections gets hosed? Using your example, You can choose between having 1 or 2 out of 6 images completely loaded, and 0 images completely loaded. It's better to have completely chunks of *some* data than no chunks of all your data.

    40. Re:Most of the web really sucks by Doke · · Score: 4, Informative

      If you use firefox, or a derivative, put this in your user.js file (or set it through about:config).

      user_pref("media.autoplay.enabled", false);
      user_pref("image.animation_mode", "once");

    41. Re:Most of the web really sucks by lgw · · Score: 1

      Handy rule of thumb:

      * 3 ns/m - light in a vacuum
      * 4 ns/m - signal on a copper wire
      * 5 ns/m - light in fiber-optics

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    42. Re:Most of the web really sucks by lgw · · Score: 1

      Which doesn't work so well once the majority of commercial news-editorial sites

      The majority of commercial news-editorial sites are poorly-written fiction and highly repetitive and uninspired op-ed. Nothing of value will be lost.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    43. Re:Most of the web really sucks by lgw · · Score: 1

      Autoplaying videos are the bane of my existence. Nothing should should autoplay, ever, and it shouldn't require a browser plugin to prevent it.

      I hate to say it, but autoplaying (content) videos are often serving the needs of the target audience for a sit - people with an attention span shorter than a goldfish.

      Much as I hate that shit, I can defeat it and the target audience (e.g., of tabloid news sites) needs to help to know where the content is - it's not like they're going to read words.

      It bothers me a lot less than advertising, which serves no-one.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    44. Re: Most of the web really sucks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Many of the places in the world with poor net connectivity are far superior in other regards.

      It's nice to drive past small pastures with horses in them on your commute. I have had to slow down for sheep and chickens.

      I love the smell of manure in the morning--not.

    45. Re:Most of the web really sucks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Exactly. Moreover, my browser (a Firefox derivative) has the nasty habit of progressively displaying images as they come on (sounds nice) but then hiding all those pixels again if the link aborts.So if you're loading a page on a background tab, and check progress after some time, you see absolutely nothing, even it it managed to download and display 80% of each image.If it would just leave those bits displayed, I'd be able to judge whether I want to reload or don't care anymore. If it would not try to load everything at once, at least most of the time it would be able to get at least something downloaded completely.

    46. Re:Most of the web really sucks by arth1 · · Score: 3, Informative

      Also, in about config, enter network.http.max
      Reduce these to sane numbers.

    47. Re:Most of the web really sucks by stooo · · Score: 1

      DCMA, yeah. The world does not care about DCMA, only the US.
      Javascript, yeah. Just put more layers of shit over the currently bloated websites. That will for sure stop the bleed of of audience......

      --
      aaaaaaa
    48. Re:Most of the web really sucks by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      You want to start multiple downloads a lot more on satellite, because of the time it takes to get each response back. But on something like dialup, you definitely want to cut pipelining down to something like 2 (or "off") because trying to open more connections will actually significantly impede the ongoing ones.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    49. Re: Most of the web really sucks by Anne+Thwacks · · Score: 1
      I have had to slow down for sheep and chickens.

      I think my data must be doing that too!

      Disclaimer: I am on BT Broadband - its not much faster than a chicken anyway.

      --
      Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
    50. Re:Most of the web really sucks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wow, that's just so intuitive and discoverable - however did I miss it?

      (Sarcasm aside: thanks for the tip. I just get slightly annoyed by Firefox's attempts to reinvent regedit on occasion)

    51. Re:Most of the web really sucks by Altrag · · Score: 1

      In some cases, yes. If I'm reading a page like say, Slashdot, I'd much rather have the CSS and text come through first and the logos and ad images and crap are welcome to take forever if they so desire.

      But on the other hand, if you're looking at say imgur then things are a bit more dicey. The user wants the main picture to show up first, but the browser automatically determining which image is the "main" picture and which are the "see also's", without a-priori knowledge of the imgur website layout becomes quite a bit more of a challenge, and the text is nearly irrelevant in most cases on imgur.

      Overall, its a very hard problem and no matter what you do, someone somewhere will develop a website that breaks the heuristics. Which is why browser developers just say "ehh screw it not worth our time."

      I'd like to suggest that adding a tag that page developers could use to indicate which images/other loads are priority would be good.. but I can almost guarantee that the ads would immediately all be given top priority and we'd end up with the exact opposite of what users want.

    52. Re:Most of the web really sucks by thinkwaitfast · · Score: 1

      Honestly, the web was more interesting when I had dial up. It used to be so much more than videos and advertisement. At least as far as techies go. Now it's biased heavily towards the LCD.

    53. Re:Most of the web really sucks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, it does make sense to load the pictures simultaneously because they may come from different source and what if one of them stalls? The whole page would sit there and wait.

      What gets my piss to a boil is that browsers still cannot load text first and ignore pictures until the rest of the page is done. Gimme something to read while your slow ass server eventually, maybe, finally manages to send the picture I don't give a shit about.

      I've been using (old) Opera since probably 1998 for exactly this reason. I still use it mostly. I've suggested Opera for years on this supposedly tech enthusiast website. I just hope I understand people someday. Sorry for the rant, but it make my piss boil that phenomenal tech exists and few techies use it. Opera lets me turn images OFF, and then I can right-click on the placeholders and choose to load the ones I want to see. I rarely use that these days- it was so wonderful to have back in the bad old modem days.

      It also lets me turn javascript OFF globally, then enable it on a per-site basis. Admittedly some sites don't work well or at all without javascript, so either I just don't go to them (sorry advertisers- tell web page programmers to take a vacation from all the unnecessary crap) or I've taken to using Vivaldi (as now) and with some good content management plugins / blockers it's OK.

      Old Opera lets me configure cookies, style sheets, many rendering options, javascript, etc., per site.

      BTW, try loading almost any web page first with javascript on, then turn it off, clear the cache, and load the page again. I can always tell when I've forgotten to turn off javascript by how terribly sluggish the web feels. Then I look at page source and I see much of the javascript is trackers and tracker traffic.

    54. Re:Most of the web really sucks by Waccoon · · Score: 1

      Think that's bad? I've seen a new phenomenon regarding web fonts that reminds me of the days of "Flash of Unstyled Content". The page text will load and display in a flash, but then instantly disappear until the web fonts have loaded, and then they'll be re-rendered. The result is that the text blinks in front of you briefly, as if to tease you, and then will flicker like mad for a few seconds as each different font is loaded (because headers and subscripts all need to be in different fonts).

      Well, that is unless the web site hasn't fucked their UA detection, and all I ever get in PaleMoon is a totally blank page!

    55. Re:Most of the web really sucks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > DCMA, yeah. The world does not care about DCMA, only the US.

      Disagree. Dual-Channel Memory Architecture is equally useful around the world.

    56. Re:Most of the web really sucks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That is the same reason why jpg images load the way they do, giving you a chance to see early on if it's the image you're after or not.

      I assume you're referring to progressive JPEG images here. GIF and PNG support progressive, too, but very few sites actually use it because progressive encoding actually increases the image file sizes. Sites that actually care enough to do previews usually reference fast loading, low resolution images in the img srcs and then replace them with higher resolution images from Javascript.

      Then there's then class of sites are completely brain-dead, though, and put 5MP+ images in their img srcs and use img height and width to adjust the display size - and they're often sites referenced from /. stories. Anandtech and techcrunch, I'm looking at you!

      The smartest sites use Image Sprites, i.e.: instead of having all of their common icons and rollovers in separate files they put all of them into a single tile atlas image and reference the needed parts via CSS image offsets. One download, hundreds of images.

    57. Re:Most of the web really sucks by Samizdata · · Score: 1

      Stupid multimedia ads and code optimized poorly, so I have to sit there and watch a throbber, well, throb while the site goes off to load something for somewhere else, instead of loading the main page and loading the other goodies as they come. I am on a 5Mbit connection (all I can get), and even /. takes several seconds before I actually see anything.

      --
      It's not the years, honey, it's the mileage. - Colonel Henry Walton Jones, Jr., Ph.D.
    58. Re:Most of the web really sucks by Samizdata · · Score: 1

      Love my Pi-hole to death, but both a friend and I are seeing anti-adblocker scripts hollering at us again.

      --
      It's not the years, honey, it's the mileage. - Colonel Henry Walton Jones, Jr., Ph.D.
    59. Re:Most of the web really sucks by hodet · · Score: 1

      Interesting, cat and mouse game continues. My issue is that twice now Pihole just stops responding. Port 53 and 80 are still listening, everything looks fine but I cannot access the web interface and DNS won't response. Restart lighttpd and dnsmasq does nothing. Rebooting the pi itself does nothing. It's like everything seems fine but you just cannot connect to it. Fairly easy to uninstall and reinstall but not good.

    60. Re:Most of the web really sucks by Samizdata · · Score: 1

      I really have nothing on that. Mine works a treat and never gives me a hassle. Have you checked to make sure DNSMasq is running well?

      --
      It's not the years, honey, it's the mileage. - Colonel Henry Walton Jones, Jr., Ph.D.
  2. Almost correct by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Most of the web sucks.

  3. no worries, i thought you Gnu! by nimbius · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Why does my browser open up 6 TCP connections to try to download six images at once when I'm on a slow satellite connection?

    i used to have this problem until i switched to Lynx. Now pesky things like popups and adware are a thing of the past! six streams indeed.

    --
    Good people go to bed earlier.
    1. Re:no worries, i thought you Gnu! by KiloByte · · Score: 1

      Lynx? You really should upgrade to eLinks. Lynx is superior for piping to a speech converter, on a real terminal eLinks formats the page a lot better.

      --
      The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
    2. Re:no worries, i thought you Gnu! by dbIII · · Score: 1

      I still use lynx from time to time and used to use it to get nvidia driver downloads. I can't use it for that purpose and a lot of other pages now because there are things you just can't get to beyond the first page if all you have is text.
      I don't know how blind people would cope because they have text mode web browsers as well. There must be a lot of the web they can't get to despite web design 101 from the early days of the net insisting that you must have some way for blind people to navigate your site.

    3. Re:no worries, i thought you Gnu! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The American Disabilities Act doesn't do anything for internet users.
      It is more concerned with parking spaces and access ramps.
      Why would any disabled person need to use the internet?
      Besides, they don't spend enough online shopping to count as real people.

    4. Re:no worries, i thought you Gnu! by buchner.johannes · · Score: 1

      Also, you can use your mouse with elinks. Even right-clicking works, open in a new tab, background downloads ...

      --
      NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
    5. Re:no worries, i thought you Gnu! by ilsaloving · · Score: 1

      That's pretty cool actually...

      That would almost tempt me to try to use it as my main browser, but my minimum prerequisite is that xmarks can be used to sync my bookmarks. I just have too much crap that is too much of a PITA to move over manually.

    6. Re:no worries, i thought you Gnu! by lgw · · Score: 1

      Oh, wow, that kicks ass. No joke, lack of mouse support was my main problem with Lynx. I'll have to check out eLinks.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    7. Re:no worries, i thought you Gnu! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Another good one is links. In text mode elinks is a lot better, but links can be compiled with graphic mode support (the "links2" package in Debian provides this), which lets you run it with the -g switch to get a quasi-graphical version of a text-mode browser.

      It's essentially the same as using elinks/links/lynx but with inline images. No stylesheets, limited/no javascript, no bullshit; just HTML and images. That also means you get good keyboard browsing control, which is something often lacking in the "modern" browsers.

      I use them both along with "proper" browsers because no single browser has managed to conveniently cover every use case for me.

    8. Re:no worries, i thought you Gnu! by Samizdata · · Score: 1

      It is pretty useful. I like to use it for testing purposes as it gives much better errors than the handicapped error messages most GUI browsers use.

      --
      It's not the years, honey, it's the mileage. - Colonel Henry Walton Jones, Jr., Ph.D.
  4. Slashdot is down to stating the obvious by jfdavis668 · · Score: 1

    This is one of the most obvious statements I have ever read on /., or anywhere on the Internet. As long as I have a fast enough connection, of course.

  5. FTFY by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 2

    Everything Internet-related really sucks if you have a slow connection.

    --
    #DeleteFacebook
    1. Re:FTFY by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Everything Internet-related really sucks if you have a slow connection.

      For me, interestingly, almost the opposite. Due to a slow-ish connection, I'm forced to do things like use Old Opera for plugin / content / site blocking, javascript turned off, cookie control, and even the ability to turn all images OFF and load them individually. It makes the web really nice! Admittedly more and more sites don't work well or at all with it so I either just don't bother with them, or more and more (as now) been using Vivaldi with several good plugins for blocking / content management.

  6. Timeout by religionofpeas · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Why does my browser open up 6 TCP connections to try to download six images at once when I'm on a slow satellite connection? That just guarantees that all six images will time out!

    The problem is not opening 6 connections, or failure to retry, but a timeout that's too short.

    1. Re:Timeout by Octorian · · Score: 1

      And its interesting to see how different browsers handle this.

      I have a cable modem with a web admin interface that's *extremely* slow to respond to any requests. It works fine via Firefox, if I'm very patient. Its totally unusable via Chrome.
      (Its Comcast's high-end "wireless business gateway" device, and something I'm basically stuck with if I want my current service package)

    2. Re:Timeout by damnbunni · · Score: 1

      Which one? I'm on Comcast Business and while the modem's UI isn't particularly zippy, it's not terribly slow either. I don't use its wifi though; I have my own router and gateway.

    3. Re:Timeout by RatherBeAnonymous · · Score: 1

      The problem is that HTTP is a shitty protocol. It uses an unique TCP connection for every request. For each page of text and every image, HTTP requests a new TCP connection and tears it down after transfer. This causes a lot of latency, partly because TCP is designed to start slow and ramp up to the available bandwidth and partly because of the extra signalling for new TCP handshakes, authentication tokens, encryption renegotiation, etc. As a result, your web browser spends way more time than it should just waiting for data transfers to start. In response to HTTP's limitations, web browser make parallel server connections to conceal some of that latency. Users on slow or congested links may find it beneficial to tweak their browser settings for fewer concurrent connections and/or longer timeouts. HTTP2 fixes many of these problems, but server support has been slow to roll out.

      https://www.w3.org/Protocols/H...

    4. Re:Timeout by petermgreen · · Score: 1

      That page is about http 1.0

      1.1 (currently the dominent version) allows connection keepalive and pipelining which were supposed to solve those issues. Unfortunately pipelining has it's own problem. One slow request (large ammount of data, slow CGI script etc) can block the whole pipeline. So afaict most clients use connection keepalive but not pipelining.

      2.0 allows multiple simultanious requests on the same TCP connection but has the downside of being much more complicated to implement.

      --
      note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
    5. Re:Timeout by shess · · Score: 1

      Why does my browser open up 6 TCP connections to try to download six images at once when I'm on a slow satellite connection? That just guarantees that all six images will time out!

      The problem is not opening 6 connections, or failure to retry, but a timeout that's too short.

      The problem is having 279 sub-resources on a page, which makes serializing the requests unreasonable.

    6. Re:Timeout by Octorian · · Score: 1

      The Cisco-made "Wireless Business Gateway" one. And I'm referring to the device's web admin interface, which you likely rarely touch (but do use on occasion). I don't use my unit's WiFi either, but it still wants to broadcast a couple SSIDs "for the heck of it". (I manually disabled the internal SSIDs it sets up, and I had Comcast turn off the public'ish "xfinitywifi" SSID they knew about, but it still wants to broadcast "XFINITY" and "SSID-2.4", neither of which they acknowledge the existence of.)

  7. Slight irony detected by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Tell that to all the people with slow connections, who's operating system is constantly phoning home to a dozen different servers and hijacking their bandwidth to spread itself on a p2p network.

    1. Re: Slight irony detected by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Exactly. And it doesn't provide a way to disable or schedule updates even on dial-up connections like AOL.

      (Don't bash dial-up, sometimes it is the only fallback available.)

    2. Re: Slight irony detected by omnichad · · Score: 1

      I think you can mark the dial-up connection as a "metered" connection and updates will not use it to download.

    3. Re: Slight irony detected by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      THIS so hard THIS

      I have an extremely fast connection and also set it to metered. No updates downloaded in months.

    4. Re: Slight irony detected by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You cannot mark an ethernet connection as metered.
      If you have a LAN that connects to an access point that then connects to the slow connection, you are out of luck. You HAVE to use wireless to get a metered connection setting.

      I spent 8 hours on the phone with Microsoft and several additional days via email trying to solve that very issue. The final answer was "It cannot be done." According to the engineer even the dialup wouldn't mark as metered.

      Not good.

    5. Re: Slight irony detected by omnichad · · Score: 1

      I guess you need to set up a wireless network for your dial-up, then. I remember ICS on Windows 98 working well on a small household LAN. You can easily do this with a Linux server.

      But it appears you can set LAN connections to metered with a manual registry setting:
      http://www.windowscentral.com/...

    6. Re: Slight irony detected by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But you can't mark the AOL connection as metered with Windows 10 Home Edition. You can only do that with the built in Windows dialer which cannot successfully connect to AOL services. I've spent hours researching and talking to dual-up companies about it. Everyone says their stuff works with W10 until you ask about metered connections, at which point they sigh and say they have no solution for that.

      If anyone is successfully using Window 10 with AOL dial-up I'd appreciate a link to instructions. AOL tech support has no solution.

  8. No one tests software on a slow connection by jfdavis668 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I have the same problem with smartphone apps. If you don't have the highest LTE connection possible, the app is a pain to use. Go to a rural area, and you may not even get it to open. Web sites are the same way. They give developers super fast connections, and they develop applications that require that speed. They don't put them on slow networks and test to see if they are even useful on a basic level.

    1. Re:No one tests software on a slow connection by doconnor · · Score: 1

      My transit prediction webapp, TransSee should work fine on slow networks. All that bandwidth sucking still just means more work for me to create it.

    2. Re:No one tests software on a slow connection by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I remember WordPerfect 6. All we, as users and support techs, asked, was that they did not make it slow with new features and debris.

      They failed. Why?

      We find out in one of the responses from the dev team, via support: "All our developers use it too, and they have no problems with performance. Perhaps you need top upgrade your computer?"

      Well, we find out also that the dev team had 486DX2--66 machines with 16MB RAM. In an age when most attorneys' assistants were using 386 machines with 4MB RAM, maybe, and Windows 3.0/3.1. Yep, hanging on. A busy assistant would reboot twice a day. Had the WP dev team been testing even minimally on mainstream workstations, they would have known, and had a better answer, like "that's the price for state-of-the-art features, so suck it up and upgrade"

      How is this related to smartphone apps and network performance?

      First, the issue has nothing to do with user satisfaction. It is about 0. app infrastructure and 1. marketing.

      These apps that require a server infrastructure aren't going to be built to serve 'slow' users. Open connections spanning minutes are expensive. Adapting to network speed by stretching timeouts and optimizing data flow don't make any money for advertisers or the app itself, the devs are focused on new features, gadgets, and monetizing the product. The rural market is literally worthless to them.

      And since the apps are marketed to majorities, smaller populations out in the slow network space have no voice. And no money.

      Lightweight apps like Twitter (how much data DOES it take to send a 140 character message?) and SMS manage, but even maps fail spectacularly when they are used in 2G network spaces, and there are still a lot of those.

      My complaint is that in a metro area, during lunch, the congestion is so bad I lose data entirely. LTE4G is available, as well as UMTS, but when I lose I don't even get 2G - they just drop connections. Reboot my phone and get service for a few minutes, and then gone again. It's just 5500+ employees going out for lunch in a square mile. I have asked, and no carrier is immune to this. And building out capacity there isn't going to happen, because the congestion occurs for 3 hours a day, Monday-Friday. Nope, not worth it. When voice stats failing, maybe.

      Surprisingly, the PSTN had minimum service levels dictated by state legislation, and while the penalties were often minimal, there is NOTHING like this in cell service that I am aware of. AMPS and NAMPS didn't really have them, and CDMA/GSM apparently did not. Now that cell service is the only service for many, SLAs for service woudl be useful. I doubt they will be proposed, enacted, or enforced.

      And app performance will *never* be enforceable. Too many variables. I hear ya, rural performance is terrible, and every claim that it will be improved hinges on the cost benefit analysis. That will not change for a while, even with Band 12/700MHz/600MHz spectrum being deployed. Nope.

      Now Gigabit LTE and the next gen give us hope that the cell companies will build out and try to displace the incumbent wired ISPs, but I'm dreaming here. Or am I? Since rural American doesn't have wired ISPs, it may be overlooked during the transition to 'copious bandwidth'. Glad I don't live in the woods any more, though if I didn't have a great job I would move there and disconnect.

    3. Re:No one tests software on a slow connection by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What is this, spam for breakfast time?

    4. Re:No one tests software on a slow connection by doconnor · · Score: 1

      It's closer to lunch in this timezone.

    5. Re:No one tests software on a slow connection by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Looking out from some not-quite-there-yet developing country, one assumes that America has unlimited and ubiquitous internet connectivity (Windows updates, videos clips everywhere, apps that require to be always connected, etc.) I find it almost jarring to find that that is not true.

    6. Re:No one tests software on a slow connection by antdude · · Score: 1

      That is why testing is important. Lots of companies don't care for low end users. :(

      --
      Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
    7. Re:No one tests software on a slow connection by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Chill out.

    8. Re:No one tests software on a slow connection by chihowa · · Score: 1

      Apple helpfully provides a tool called "Network Link Conditioner" that lets you deliberately slow down or fuck up your network connection in various ways so that you can test how your stuff reacts to bad network conditions. Pretty handy... to bad more dev environments don't have something like this.

      --
      If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
    9. Re:No one tests software on a slow connection by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    10. Re:No one tests software on a slow connection by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well of course not. The dev has to have it done "yesterday!!!!!!!" so they shortcut. Even worse, marketing have complete control/say/reign over what the front end looks like and what it does. So of course you're going to get MB's worth of javascript and css to make all the cute little bells and whistles work not to mention it would hurt the brand if the video is anything less than HD quality!

    11. Re:No one tests software on a slow connection by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Death to the urbanites!

    12. Re:No one tests software on a slow connection by syntotic · · Score: 1

      Looks like Microsoft did everything wrong. It failed to snatch leadership then turned into the main internet route but failed to show the way to others. Must have been hiring engineers... rather than naturals, like at birth? And bad or even fake engineers at that...

    13. Re:No one tests software on a slow connection by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yep
      Testing issue.
      I would give the developers the smallest (these days = 2mpbs) connection.
      That way everything shall work. (by default)

      Regards,
      Khawar Nehal
      http://atrc.net.pk

  9. Most Web Browser Engines Are Open Source by beelsebob · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Most web browser engines are open source. Go and modify one or many of them to handle slow connections better.

    1. Re:Most Web Browser Engines Are Open Source by rudy_wayne · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Most web browser engines are open source. Go and modify one or many of them to handle slow connections better.

      And after you get done with that, you can take your car's engine apart and redesign it to get 400 miles per gallon.

    2. Re:Most Web Browser Engines Are Open Source by l20502 · · Score: 1

      You can tweak most connection-related settings with about:config, but the problem is usually a too short server-side timeout (to free up more resources or to protect again slowloris-type DDoS) or stupid AJAX code that doesn't handle errors properly

    3. Re:Most Web Browser Engines Are Open Source by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 4, Funny

      And after you get done with that, you can take your car's engine apart and redesign it to get 400 miles per gallon.

      It's not hard to get a 400 MPG average. The trouble is, getting back to the top of the hill afterwards.

      --
      "That's the way to do it" - Punch
    4. Re:Most Web Browser Engines Are Open Source by peragrin · · Score: 1

      The question is do you want your browser doing a speed test or an os with an API that the browsers can pick up and adjust accordingly? I usually have chrome and safari open. Chrome eats up less memory and auto connects to my android tablet but safari is needed to connect to my phone.

      Since they won't build a bridge between the two I have to link them the hard way.

      But bandwidth and speed tests should be on a much lower level than web browser. That way other apps can adjust accordingly. Also I always first run an app without a net connection. If it crashes I delete it and find another

      --
      i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
    5. Re:Most Web Browser Engines Are Open Source by beelsebob · · Score: 1

      That was rather my point in a somewhat underhanded way - the article moans about "why don't browsers do this", when the reason is "because everyone writing it found that it was a useless feature for one reason or another". It's not like guys writing browsers aren't thinking about how to deal with this well, it's just not a problem that they can solve magically themselves.

    6. Re:Most Web Browser Engines Are Open Source by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, most of the gripes i've seen in the summary in the comments can be fixed in the about:config in firefox.

    7. Re:Most Web Browser Engines Are Open Source by lgw · · Score: 1

      Back when I had a sports car, I stripped the engine down to the point of leaving the head on, then rebuilt it to give better reliability and (marginally better) performance. I suck as an auto mechanic, but everything is straightforward.

      If the change needed to browser behavior is straightforward, it seems reasonable that a professional software engineer could do this. Of course, the main fix - limit the number of parallel connections - is already configurable in FF and IE.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    8. Re:Most Web Browser Engines Are Open Source by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And after you get done with that, you can take your car's engine apart and redesign it to get 400 miles per gallon.

      It's not hard to get a 400 MPG average. The trouble is, getting back to the top of the hill afterwards.

      Going downhill can create gas instead of using it.
      That would be negative 400 MPG.
      Regards,
      Khawar Nehal
      http://atrc.net.pk

  10. HTTP proxy server? by Ash-Fox · · Score: 1

    I'm not sure why your provider isn't offering a HTTP proxy server (as is standard for Satellite providers) that has all the sufficient timeout values you need as standard to workaround these latency issues?

    --
    Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
  11. Firefox max concurrent connections setting by JohnM4 · · Score: 5, Informative

    You can configure this setting in Firefox. It doesn't look like Chrome has a similar configuration.

    http://kb.mozillazine.org/Abou...
    network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-server - default = 6

    Try setting this to 1.

    Source:
    https://support.mozilla.org/t5...

    1. Re:Firefox max concurrent connections setting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      There is an RFC for HTTP 1.1 which suggests a maximum of 2 connections per client. A feature for a browser to dynamically modify its connection behaviour based on bandwidth would not be a bad thing.

    2. Re:Firefox max concurrent connections setting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Just love how you're suggesting that a Microsoft employee should use an open source browser.

    3. Re:Firefox max concurrent connections setting by Bite+The+Pillow · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The point is, browsers can do this intelligently. Automatically. But they don't.

      When I leave wi fi and fall back to 3g, I should not have to tell my browser to behave optimally each transition.

    4. Re:Firefox max concurrent connections setting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      also network.http.max-connections-per-server=2 network.http.max-connections=5 and enable network.http.pipelining

    5. Re:Firefox max concurrent connections setting by Software · · Score: 1

      Equivalent setting in IE is in the registry (where else?) at HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\MaxConnectionsPerServer as a REG_DWORD. See https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.c... and https://support.microsoft.com/... .

    6. Re:Firefox max concurrent connections setting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Doing it "intelligently" is not perfect. The only way to truly test the speed of the connection is to send data. Speed may vary as your signal strength varies, so it would have to be sending data all the time. This would cost you money and slow you down just doing the measurement.

      Sure, in your particular circumstance, you probably know how fast each of your connections is, but there's no way to generalize this to every circumstance. WiFi, wired, cellular, and Bluetooth networking, VPN, proxies can all impact your speed. What if you have a gigabit connection to a dial-up modem router? Which speed should it use, and how would it know?

      It's hard to justify catering to the exceptions when it will impair the majority.

    7. Re:Firefox max concurrent connections setting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      network.http.max-connections=5

      The default value here being 900 for the Nightly.. =)

    8. Re:Firefox max concurrent connections setting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So now you want your browser to have access to your hardware?

      I don't think this is straightforward as all as you armchair engineers are implying.

  12. In other news... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Software runs slow on old hardware.

    1. Re: In other news... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Traffic runs slow on old city streets?

      Water runs slow in old copper pipes?

  13. Follow the money by Larry_Dillon · · Score: 4, Interesting

    A lot of what drives modern internet design is e-commerce. If you're on a slow connection, you probably don't have much money to spend, so why should anyone care? Or so the thinking goes....

    --
    Competition Good, Monopoly Bad.
    1. Re:Follow the money by infosinger · · Score: 2

      I do have money to spend and I maxed out my connection with dual 3Mbit connections into a load balancer. That is the best I could get, period. By the way, I only live about 15 miles from Portland, OR. Internet coverage in this country is very uneven.

    2. Re:Follow the money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Almost any time you get away from a high population density area, internet coverage becomes poor, at least in the western US states. I need both a GSM and a CDMA carrier to be able to make a trip from Seattle to Salt Lake - neither provides good coverage on the route. And most of the small towns have shit for performance. And, most small towns don't have WIFI available, since 'coffee shops' are few and far between.

    3. Re:Follow the money by trg83 · · Score: 1

      15 miles? Are there no terrestrial (surface) RF-based connectivity solutions available to you?

    4. Re:Follow the money by Calydor · · Score: 1

      I am on a 448/96 kbps ADSL connection which is the fastest possible available to the house that I own.

      So which should be the biggest indicator of my available money to spend? My connection speed or owning the house I live in?

      --
      -=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
    5. Re:Follow the money by green1 · · Score: 1

      A website can figure out the speed of your connection, it doesn't know if you own your home.

    6. Re:Follow the money by Larry_Dillon · · Score: 1

      Of course there are exceptions, but in aggregate, faster internet = more disposable income.

      Thought I agree with the article that most web pages are needlessly bloated. I'm not a web developer, but I've seen a few demos of web sites where the customer comes to the developer's shop and is shown a demo of the new site. The page is hosted locally and many elements are cached on the developer's computer, so of course it's much faster than the average home user is going to experience. The customer rarely understands any of this.

      --
      Competition Good, Monopoly Bad.
    7. Re:Follow the money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      A lot of what drives modern internet design is e-commerce. If you're on a slow connection, you probably don't have much money to spend, so why should anyone care? Or so the thinking goes....

      One correction to parent post. Its not that YOU don't have much money to spend, but, the sum total of money from ALL satellite users is NOT enough to justify the extra development costs for making a given application/website/etc. work well on satellite. The best apps/sites I've seen on satellite are the ones who do not constantly load up data asynchronously.

      Signed - Slashdotter who lives in the sticks and is on ViaSat satellite.

    8. Re:Follow the money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      yup, parents are north of Vancouver and only get 1.5M DSL :/

      Millionaire and $500k houses popping up like weeds around em :O Maybe the cable company will finally be bothered to get out there.

    9. Re:Follow the money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A lot of what drives modern internet design is e-commerce. If you're on a slow connection, you probably don't have much money to spend, so why should anyone care? Or so the thinking goes....

      And yet Amazon's website works perfectly with every browser, even without javascript & ajax. Amazon's website even works with my ancient blackberry.

      Why? Amazon wants you to buy stuff.

      Instead of making it difficult for you buy stuff, Amazon tries to make it EASY.

    10. Re:Follow the money by tepples · · Score: 1

      I need both a GSM and a CDMA carrier to be able to make a trip from Seattle to Salt Lake

      15 miles? Are there no terrestrial (surface) RF-based connectivity solutions available to you?

      For one thing, terrestrial RF service tends to cost $5 to $10 per GB. For another, AC mentioned that no single terrestrial RF carrier covers the entire route from Seattle, Washington, to Salt Lake City, Utah.

    11. Re:Follow the money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Of course there are exceptions, but in aggregate, faster internet = more disposable income.

      Unless you are paying to run your own fibre it doesn't matter how much disposable income you got. The speed you will get is a function of the service that is available in your area.

    12. Re:Follow the money by Samizdata · · Score: 1

      I feel your pain. I live in an apartment building and, due to Comcast's greed during the last contract cost negotiations, the landlord's in the building had them pulled. So, if I want the internet, I have to go DSL. The TV is provided via DirectTV.

      --
      It's not the years, honey, it's the mileage. - Colonel Henry Walton Jones, Jr., Ph.D.
  14. Most of the web sucks period... by Red_Chaos1 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Even with fast Internet connections, websites are so bloated with ancillary scripts and tracking code and cross linking to 20 different various advertising and content servers that you get stuck waiting no matter what. CDNs helped but you're still hostage to X advertising companies one slow server because it's not on that CDN.

    1. Re:Most of the web sucks period... by i.r.id10t · · Score: 2

      Unless you run a local dns server that spoofs a lot of those and points them to something local that responds "instantly". I use a Pi for this at home, with 1.5mb dsl it is a big saver, and even though I've finally been able to upgrade to 6mb is is still a saver.

      --
      Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
    2. Re:Most of the web sucks period... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No kidding, just on this slashdot page besides slashdot.org my browser is loading up:

      adnxs.com
      advertising.com
      casalemedia.com
      contextweb.com
      crsspxl.com
      crwdcntrl.net
      cloudfront.net
      demdex.net
      domdex.com
      fsdn.com
      google-analytics.com
      googletagservices.com
      gstatic.com
      janrain.com
      lijit.com
      ml314.com
      pro-market.net
      rpxnow.com
      rubiconproject.com
      amazonaws.com
      slashdotmedia.com
      taboola.com
      truste.com:

    3. Re:Most of the web sucks period... by omnichad · · Score: 2

      It's even worse if you are using your ISPs DNS servers. Each request involves a high-latency hostname lookup before the HTTP portion can even start. And for some reason, CDNs use a different hostname for every client's files - so the DNS lookup is never cached.

    4. Re:Most of the web sucks period... by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

      You can block most of those for a very dramatic reduction on time wasted, except for fsdn.com, unless you don't care about the the page styling. But yes, Slashdot is a good illustration of the problem. A real 'nerd' site would never do this.

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    5. Re:Most of the web sucks period... by Captain+Splendid · · Score: 1

      Honestly, this is why I run NoScript. I really don't give a shit about privacy and all that, but being able to save hours of waiting every month because I'm not loading some bloated advertising shitshow? Priceless.

      --
      Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
    6. Re:Most of the web sucks period... by tepples · · Score: 1

      And for some reason, CDNs use a different hostname for every client's files

      That's to allow the same origin policy to prevent scripts from different clients from colluding to track users across sites.

      so the DNS lookup is never cached.

      It is if you view multiple documents on one client's site.

    7. Re:Most of the web sucks period... by omnichad · · Score: 1

      Same origin policy makes sense for scripts. Not images, which still end up with the same treatment.

      It is if you view multiple documents on one client's site.

      This is relatively rare for me - I tend to do a lot of Google searches and random site visits.

    8. Re:Most of the web sucks period... by tepples · · Score: 1

      But yes, Slashdot is a good illustration of the problem. A real 'nerd' site would never do this.

      Beware of "no true Scotsman" fallacies.

      On what you call "A real 'nerd' site", who would pay for the bandwidth, hosting, code maintenance, selection of stories, and user support?

    9. Re:Most of the web sucks period... by lgw · · Score: 1

      Subscribers, or Patreon, of the donation model the red site uses.

      Slashdot is the only ad-supported site I visit regularly other than YouTube, and most of the people I watch on YouTube aren't ad supported (they get paid from Patreon, not YT).

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
  15. Because of advertising ? by McCaskill · · Score: 1

    With so much crap advertisement on each page, all trying to get a few cents from adchoices, and google crap, no wonder your connection is slow dude.

    1. Re:Because of advertising ? by omnichad · · Score: 1

      That's AdSense (most likely). AdChoices is offered by multiple advertising networks as a way to set "preferences" to get more "relevant" ads (provide advertisers more data for their profile on you).

  16. Web page designers by Grand+Facade · · Score: 4, Insightful

    all show which side their bread is buttered on.

    When the advertising content loads first and the page rebuilds/rearranges itself 6 or 8 times and finally the content you want to see becomes visible or stabilizes enough to click a link.

    I think some of the pages are designed to do this on purpose.
    You get a glimpse of the content you are looking for and click on a link just as the page rebuilds itself and the link has changed to an ad and the cash register rings on a click through.

    --
    Rick B.
    1. Re:Web page designers by mujadaddy · · Score: 1

      You think the page designers make the decisions to add the advertising & tracking pixels? No.

      Those decisions are made by the people who pay them. Some of us cranks sit in meetings and point out the drawbacks to their incestuous, ignorant greed, but again, we don't have the final decision.

      --
      Populus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur...
      "Force shits upon Reason's back." - Poor Richard's Almanac
    2. Re:Web page designers by omnichad · · Score: 2

      Ad networks in general try to make it "easy" for web designers by giving them just a javascript to include. Then you can't pre-define the dimensions of that content block, making it block rendering until it loads.

    3. Re:Web page designers by wvmarle · · Score: 1

      You think the page designers make the decisions to add the advertising & tracking pixels? No.

      Those decisions are made by the people who pay them. Some of us cranks sit in meetings and point out the drawbacks to their incestuous, ignorant greed, but again, we don't have the final decision.

      Yet those developers don't seem to be able to come up with alternative ideas to "monetise" that web site - a necessary evil, as otherwise no-one is going to pay their salaries.

    4. Re:Web page designers by budgenator · · Score: 1

      all show which side their bread is buttered on.

      When the advertising content loads first and the page rebuilds/rearranges itself 6 or 8 times and finally the content you want to see becomes visible or stabilizes enough to click a link.

      I think some of the pages are designed to do this on purpose.
      You get a glimpse of the content you are looking for and click on a link just as the page rebuilds itself and the link has changed to an ad and the cash register rings on a click through.

      I was getting ready to say fuck that shit, I'm out in the boonies on Hughsnet metered connections and we go over our bandwidth every month. What I was going to do is record the domains hosting any adds about herbal viagra, why a celeb doesn't talk about an offspring, or pictures being banned or embarrassing, dingus.tv or dear hughesnet subscriber popunder and the edit the host file so they would resolve to my router who's web server would send back a nice clean 404 error. Some how win10 isn't allowing me to edit the host file even as Administrator, I guess they are all in cahoots now to screw us over.

      --
      Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
    5. Re:Web page designers by Voyager529 · · Score: 1

      If I might make a suggestion, if you have an old(ish) desktop and a spare NIC around, check out Untangle. It's a router distribution, and their $5/month home license will likely be super helpful to you. Its web filter can be configured to nix virtually all advertising, and its transparent web caching features can help minimize downloads for content that is requested repeatedly. You can also have a custom set of blocked domains if you'd like, and all the rules apply to all the devices in your home, even if they update or modify hosts files or whatever. You can also look at reports that will tell you what the biggest offenders are, so you can manage accordingly.

      With respect to the Win10 hosts file situation, the 'gotcha' is that the inability to edit hosts files is a function of Windows Defender (which, to be fair, there were a number of malware strains that were redirecting Google and Bing to malware servers). Disable Defender and you're probably fine, but it's probably worth installing a third party antivirus instead - NOD32 is my weapon of choice, personally.

    6. Re: Web page designers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Err... I know you're new but that is not the developer's job. They have nothing to do with monetization.

    7. Re:Web page designers by Waccoon · · Score: 1

      I'd like to think that, but the truth is that almost every site these days rides the latest bandwagon and is designed with flash and aesthetics first. Go to just about any design blog, and you can see designers left and right wetting their pants about the latest stupid trick that shouldn't work, but... in time, will likely become the standard.

      Ads make me sick, but that's just business. People who design stark, minimalist sites that still require 4MB of scripts in the background (after applying your ad blocker) should be shot, because they're supposed to know better.

      There's a reason I got out of web design as a career. I couldn't stand it anymore.

    8. Re:Web page designers by bluegutang · · Score: 1

      Even Slashdot. (which otherwise has a quite sane, usable interface, thanks to user complaints at every attempt to degrade it over the years)

      When I get a message in the upper right of the screen, that somebody has modded or replied to my comment - I go to click it, but then an ad loads just above it, shifting the message down so that I accidentally click on the ad instead.

  17. Because Browsers by Big+Hairy+Ian · · Score: 1

    Are designed for faster connections than yours where doing things asynchronously is much preferred (Though not it appears by the developers I tend to deal with) to synchronous.

    --

    Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.

  18. Opera used to handle this nicely by Lisandro · · Score: 2

    It had a number of options where you could set up the number of global connections and per page. And yes, it was useful during the early days of dialup.

    But anyway, most of the web sucks in this regard. Period. Sites are horribly designed these days - a gazillion JS dependencies, unnecessarily large images which get scaled, zero concern for mobile devices, etc.

    1. Re:Opera used to handle this nicely by sirber · · Score: 2

      You can disable javascript per site (with chrome at least). Helps a lot on some pages, like on slashdot.org.

      --
      Be or ben't
    2. Re:Opera used to handle this nicely by Lisandro · · Score: 1

      A shitload of sites simply stop working if you disable JS. We're long past the days of content + presentation.

    3. Re:Opera used to handle this nicely by omnichad · · Score: 2

      unnecessarily large images which get scaled

      Understatement. I've seen 20MP images scaled down to under 200 pixels high. And worse, they're straight off the camera and not even recompressed for web. 6MB images like this really eat through my mobile data, as I try to stay under 1GB.

    4. Re:Opera used to handle this nicely by Oligonicella · · Score: 1

      If it's a site you really want, disable JS, then enable one secondary at a time until it displays what you want and save.

    5. Re:Opera used to handle this nicely by tepples · · Score: 1

      unnecessarily large images which get scaled

      Is a 400x400 pixel image scaled down to, say, 250x250 pixels "unnecessarily large"? If so, how is a site supposed to know to send a bigger image when you tell your browser to zoom in or change to a high-resolution display?

    6. Re:Opera used to handle this nicely by budgenator · · Score: 1

      But anyway, most of the web sucks in this regard. Period. Sites are horribly designed these days - a gazillion JS dependencies, unnecessarily large images which get scaled, zero concern for mobile devices, etc.

      There's a lot of gotch ya's in there, Google will give your page rank a boost (Mobilegeddon) if your site is responsive, and that pretty much means using bootstrap. Bootstrap doesn't let you define your image sizes because you'll never know, the main purpose of bootstrap is the same code that displays on a 70 inch 4K wide screen tv connected to a computer will work on an El Cheepo smart-phone and everything in between seemlessly; and that sure beats trying to code one version for computers and on for smart-phone and trying to keep them in sync.
      The amount of javascript is horrifying if you are hosting third party ads on your page and none of it wants to play nice. The stuff a lot of other sites is doing with PHP just boggles the mind as well, I'd like to be able to link to some sites from ours but the way they use PHP makes it impossible to do; website security seems to jump from nothing to impossible to use, with no just right in the middle.

      --
      Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
    7. Re: Opera used to handle this nicely by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The sites that don't work are roadkill. If you really need to visit the site whitelist it in NoScript. If it still remains broken, load it in your sacrificial browser or just find an alternate site. It's important for site operators to learn that the traffic of people who will actually be looking at their content will be reduced if they wrap their site in spam.

    8. Re:Opera used to handle this nicely by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Understatement, part 2: I've seen sites where the background header image was a 15 MB .mp4 video. A 20 second loop of a bunch of people going all "Haha, Business!". It added literally nothing to the page.

      Websites seem to increasingly act like they were only tested on machines on the same LAN.

    9. Re:Opera used to handle this nicely by lgw · · Score: 1

      It's not the 400x400 images people are complaining about. It's the 20 MP images.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    10. Re:Opera used to handle this nicely by zenbi · · Score: 1

      Use srcset on your image tags:

      <img src="cat_500px.jpg" srcset="cat_750px.jpg 1.5x, cat_1000px.jpg 2x" width="500" alt="lolcat">

    11. Re:Opera used to handle this nicely by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Still on Old Opera here, and either just don't bother with annoying sites, or I've been using Vivaldi with some plugins like uMatrix (needs some work to teach it but it's great.)

  19. Targetting a too narrow audience by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    This is part of a much larger pattern in software development: Targeting a subset of the user base and assuming that everyone is on a fast connection, every Android user is on a phone with a small screen, every Linux user and potential user is comfortable with the command line, etc. We live in a time of tipping points; if you and your system and your use of it fall into the favored group then your life is somehwat-to-vastly better than if you're walled off in a shunned minority.

  20. Welcome to the Digital Divide. by 0100010001010011 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The digital divide in the US became most evident (to me) in this last election cycle.

    If you look at the page weights of 'conservative' vs 'liberal' news sites the former are much smaller and tailored to people on even a dial up, in large part because they know their demographic. Rural internet in the US flat out sucks. We have counties in my state, not more than 3 hours outside of Chicago that still have dialup as a viable option.

    Drudge Report loads amazingly fast. Huffington Post does not. Drudge was 1.13 MB in size with 44% of that images. (The site I used to analyze them was done with Drudge's 14 assets long before Huffington Post stalled at 220/222 assets.)

    The art of optimization seems to have disappeared, it made a small resurgence when web developers tried to optimize for the mobile web, but it doesn't look like most developers ever tried that hard.

    It's a closed feedback loop. Developers live in places with fast Internet, test in places with fast Internet and then don't understand what it's like anywhere else. Students on college campuses live with gigabit internet and Internet2 connections to peer universities. They move to cities that Comcast pays attention to.

    The best suggestion I have: Turn off images, configure the browser not to thread connections, and get involved in local government to get faster internet to your area.

    1. Re:Welcome to the Digital Divide. by Lumpy · · Score: 2

      The art of optimization seems to have disappeared...

      Because shiny and swoopy is more important that performance

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
    2. Re:Welcome to the Digital Divide. by itamihn · · Score: 2

      It's not that it has disappeared. But if I have to choose between making my website shiny and make it small, 9/10 will prioritise the UX for users with high bandwidth (HiDPI icons, etc).

    3. Re:Welcome to the Digital Divide. by green1 · · Score: 2

      The art of optimization seems to have disappeared, it made a small resurgence when web developers tried to optimize for the mobile web, but it doesn't look like most developers ever tried that hard.

      They never tried to "optimize" for the mobile web, they just removed half the content while leaving all the ads and tracking in place. It means that the mobile version ALWAYS sucks in comparison to the full version, even when viewed on a mobile device.

      I have NEVER seen a single "mobile" web page that was better on my phone than the full version of the same site. I never, under any circumstances, ever want to see the mobile version of any web page.

    4. Re:Welcome to the Digital Divide. by tepples · · Score: 1

      they just removed half the content while leaving all the ads and tracking in place.

      Advertisers pay for a website to keep its lights on. And they don't pay near as much if they can't target a demographic. Would you prefer to have to subscribe to each site you visit?

    5. Re:Welcome to the Digital Divide. by green1 · · Score: 1

      I'd prefer if they hadn't wasted money neutering the site in an attempt to pretend it's "mobile friendly"

      Leaving the full site for use on all devices would have saved money on development (fewer ads needed to "keep the lights on") all while having a substantially better experience for the people visiting the site. Alternatively, they could have spent time actually optimizing the pages to be smaller and more efficient, saving money on bandwidth, and server processing and memory requirements, also then requiring fewer ads to "keep the lights on".

      Bloat is bad for website owners, as well as users, "mobile" sites did nothing to help that in any way, but lots to make it harder to use, which frustrates your users, and decreases the number that visit your site (decreasing your revenue)

      "mobile" websites need to die a horrible horrible death.

    6. Re:Welcome to the Digital Divide. by sims+2 · · Score: 1

      Google is the biggest offender on that IMHO as they give a lightly modified version to mobile users.

      What did they do? They took out the ability to view the cached pages because who uses that amirite?

      If you turn off javascript the buttons come back and it works fine though.

      The Interactive Discussion System (D2) here can't be adjusted on iOS but their Classic Discussion System (D1) can.
      with the mobile view you lose most all controls

      --
      Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
    7. Re:Welcome to the Digital Divide. by Mitreya · · Score: 1

      if I have to choose between making my website shiny and make it small, 9/10 will prioritise the UX for users with high bandwidth

      And then some of them will also make a mobile-version website that insists on showing up even when terribly broken and even if your phone can handle the non-mobile website.

    8. Re:Welcome to the Digital Divide. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's not that it has disappeared. But if I have to choose between making my website shiny and make it small, 9/10 will prioritise the UX for users with high bandwidth (HiDPI icons, etc).

      Not true. The vast majority of web sites don't even optimize their image file sizes. Something that would not compromise the UX at all. Except for making it faster.

      The reality is that the vast majority of "web programmers" really suck at programming. You can see that by looking at the poor quality of the conversation at web sites like stackoverflow and alistapart. Not to mention the enormous number of "me-too" web development discussion web sites.

    9. Re:Welcome to the Digital Divide. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The art of optimization seems to have disappeared,

      The web site for our local train company used to have a 2 MB high-resolution jpeg on its 'train status' page.

      It was scaled down to 220x110 via img width=220 height=110

      It took something like five minutes to load on a basic mobile connection.

      I think someone finally complained about it since it's now 99 KB. (Which is better but still like 100 % too much.)

    10. Re:Welcome to the Digital Divide. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Disable Javascript and use an ad blocker. Most of the problem solved. Any site that is unusable at that point, well good riddance. This points out that most of the web really sucks, full stop.

  21. WTF Microsoft by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I think Microsoft's days in the industry are numbered if they hire such brilliant minds as to use the phrase "low hanging fruit" twice in one sentence.

  22. Important fix by Lumpy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Be sure to run adblockers, stripping out adverts makes a big difference.

    But even slashdot is a big fat bloated pig. no reason at all to load everything and a giant pile of JS.

    --
    Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
    1. Re:Important fix by Calydor · · Score: 1

      Slashdot even gets crazy timeouts if you're lagging TOO much. Won't load all comments, maybe won't even load the main page or stories ... And looking at this site it really should be just friggin' text.

      --
      -=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
    2. Re:Important fix by eyepeepackets · · Score: 1

      An adblocker and Noscript on Linux with Firefox and my internet is blazingly fast.

      --
      Everything in the Universe sucks: It's the law!
    3. Re:Important fix by 0xG · · Score: 1

      Do not kick landmines with remaining foot.

      --
      A pox on web designers who feel that window.innerWidth == screen.availWidth
    4. Re:Important fix by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      This guy is a spammer. Please ignore, and block if possible...

    5. Re:Important fix by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Apk is right though https://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=10230505&cid=53839915

  23. HTTP Spec by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The HTTP spec says you should only open two connections to any given server at a time. You should blame Chrome for making the non-confirming change to allow more than 2 connections, which became widespread across most browser vendors.

    1. Re: HTTP Spec by reanjr · · Score: 1

      Opera started it. Other browser makers had to follow suit to keep up with Opera's speed.

    2. Re:HTTP Spec by green1 · · Score: 1

      Of course the normal way of writing web pages these days includes at least 10 different servers (mostly ads and tracking), so it's easy to only open 2 connections to any one server while still having your browser opening 20 or more connections at a time.

  24. Most of the web really sucks, period. by thunderclees · · Score: 1

    Most of the matrix is clogged with heavy footprint advertising and is light on content.

  25. No shit, Sherlock! by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

    Websites that have to load 50+ JavaScript ads before displaying the page can easily overwhelm a slow processor even with a fast cable connection.

  26. Other stuff affects speed. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I think web surfing is plenty OK with a minimum of 3mbps down if all your doing is web surfing and using one device at a time. If your streaming Netflix or Amazon your probably going to want close to 10 mbps or more if you use multiple devices or insist on HD quality. Wireless, satellite and DSL ISP's can limit your options for quality because their speeds struggle at times with demand and are subject to interference and distance issues. My neighbor has a DSL which is fine for her streaming Netflix and surfing web. I think some over buy speed that they do not need and some just do not have much choice in ISP providers.

  27. Jevons Paradox by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's Jevons Paradox. The bandwidth of the average internet connection has increased dramatically since the 1990s. But the increased bandwidth has been offset by websites using more bandwidth.

    In fact, one Slashdot commenter recently enumerated some reasons why websites are using so much bandwidth:

    https://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=10205275&cid=53807621

  28. Faster pages by SeriousTube · · Score: 1

    Get an extension for Chrome or Firefox that blocks images unless asked not to. Turn off Javascript unless the site needs it.

  29. Crime vs. Capitalism. by geekmux · · Score: 1

    When one of the tactics for those on slow connections is to employ ad blocking technology, one doesn't have to look far as to the impact on bandwidth. Couple that with the fucking telemetry bullshit infecting software these days, and the problem is obvious in both directions.

    I find it odd that our society will label physically tracking everything a human does a crime, but virtually tracking and selling everything a human does is called capitalism.

  30. Opera middle-man. by Ostracus · · Score: 1

    I think Opera came up with an ideal compromise. A middle-man proxy that did filtering and compression. Fast pipe on their end, slow on yours.

    --
    Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
    1. Re:Opera middle-man. by tepples · · Score: 1

      Which means Opera gets to see your payment credentials, correct?

  31. Umm, no. by Viol8 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Ssh, and telnet work just fine over a slow connection and so does email so long as it doesn't have a load of attachments plus other protocols such as gopher. People did manage to use the internet over dial up before HTTP/HTML came along and sucked up as much bandwidth as it could!

    1. Re:Umm, no. by Desler · · Score: 0

      So it's great unless you have to do the something that makes it suck? Wow, what insight!

    2. Re:Umm, no. by trg83 · · Score: 2

      Depends on whether slow means low latency or small bandwidth. SSH and telnet are miserable on a high latency link regardless of its bandwidth.

    3. Re:Umm, no. by Viol8 · · Score: 1

      Sadly insight and the ability to read simple english are something you seem to be lacking.

    4. Re:Umm, no. by Desler · · Score: 2

      I can read just fine. Saying that "things are just fine" unless you do things that are absolutely commonplace is a stupid statement.

    5. Re:Umm, no. by SolemnLord · · Score: 1

      100%. I've had the "luxury" of using SSH on a satellite connection, and there's nothing quite like twenty full seconds of lag between keystrokes.

    6. Re:Umm, no. by Viol8 · · Score: 1

      Where exactly did I say "things are fine"? If you're going to make a straw man its best to make sure it doesn't fall flat on its face all on its own.

    7. Re:Umm, no. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Kill yourself.

    8. Re:Umm, no. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      SSH and telnet are miserable on a high latency link regardless of its bandwidth.

      I'm on a satellite connection right now and this is absolutely true. It's so bad that not even mosh, whose entire purpose is to make ssh more palatable on a high-latency link and is normally extremely useful, can make it reasonable to use. It can almost get there if I use --predict=experimental, at the cost of making a visual mess of the terminal much of the time, but it's still a pile of shit. The best "fix" I've found is to do everything I possibly can with emacs' tramp mode or sshfs, but even that is a huge mess because the ssh connection breaks constantly, so I had to layer a VPN on top of that just to keep the connection somewhat reliable...at the cost of even more latency and less throughput. Awesome.

      Also, someone at Microsoft bitching about this problem is hilarious hypocrisy, considering they took away the ability to control updates with Windows 10. So, no matter how bad your connection is, you can be reasonably certain that W10 is going to make it worse.

    9. Re:Umm, no. by strikethree · · Score: 1

      People did manage to use the internet over dial up before HTTP/HTML came along and sucked up as much bandwidth as it could!

      Anything lower than 2400 baud was quite painful as I can read faster than the text can arrive. 240 bytes per second is still quite slow though. 9600 was much more usable for text.

      --
      "Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
  32. It isn't just advertising and Javascript by feenberg · · Score: 4, Informative

    There is a hilarious (and sad) commentary on website bloat at http://idlewords.com/talks/web... that shows truely outrageous examples of this sin.

    1. Re:It isn't just advertising and Javascript by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Glad to see websites designed in 1990 still being quoted on slashdot.

  33. Metered Users Also Suffer by lannocc · · Score: 1

    Users like myself who are on a metered connection also suffer, but in a slightly different way. All those pesky videos that (partially) download on page load when you're just trying to read a news article. The bandwidth is plenty fast, which actually exacerbates the problem. How is it that Chrome provides a switch to turn off images, but not videos?

    Another commenter here talked about pipelining. Again, this comes back to a lack of proper browsing features in our de-facto web browser, Chrome. We want power options, Google!

    1. Re:Metered Users Also Suffer by desdinova+216 · · Score: 1

      and thanks to comcast/att/verizon et all most people have a limit of some type on their hardwired connection for no reason other than "because we can"

  34. Do you Know WHY it sucks? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    1. Sites that play videos when the load.
    2. Sites that display the entire page for three seconds and then cover it with a full screen ad.
    3. Sites that constantly reorganize the page as it loads new ads.
    4. Sites that load ads FIRST instead of the actual content.

    Bottom line is the web sucks because Madison Avenue got a hold of it. They aren't content with placing an ad like they do in papers or magazines. They all in your face and FORCE your participation in message delivery. And before you even mention Ad Block, more and more sites simply refuse to load when you have that installed/enabled.

    1. Re:Do you Know WHY it sucks? by Kierthos · · Score: 1

      You left out "sites that have slideshows that really reload the entire page".

      --
      Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
    2. Re: Do you Know WHY it sucks? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      When a site refuses to load because of AdBlock, AdBlock is doing it's job correctly.

    3. Re:Do you Know WHY it sucks? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      5. Sites that connect to twenty other sites to do stuff a competent web developer could have done in-house for pennies. Yes, that increases bandwidth usage, but it also embiggens the user experience and reductionafies the risk your site is unusable because of a third party site.

    4. Re:Do you Know WHY it sucks? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So don't ad-block. Script-block instead. It'll still block the ads, and has the added benefit that you can claim "I'm not trying to block ads, but I cannot trust you to not infect me".

    5. Re:Do you Know WHY it sucks? by tepples · · Score: 1

      Script-block instead.

      At the end of the first paragraph: "Please enable JavaScript to view the rest of this article."

    6. Re:Do you Know WHY it sucks? by RandomFactor · · Score: 2

      "So don't ad-block. Script-block instead"

      False dichotomy :-)

      --
      --- Mercutio was right.
    7. Re:Do you Know WHY it sucks? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Madison Avenue"???
      Nice 50 year old reference, Dad.

    8. Re:Do you Know WHY it sucks? by penandpaper · · Score: 1

      If it's something I really want to read I'll go to the html source with the developer tools and/or manipulate the html/css to show the content I want. Usually, if adblock is blocked and javascript is required I go somewhere else.

    9. Re:Do you Know WHY it sucks? by tepples · · Score: 1

      If it's something I really want to read I'll go to the html source with the developer tools and/or manipulate the html/css to show the content I want.

      Unless it turns out that the rest of the article is either a block of encrypted text that the script needs to decrypt or a separate resource that the script needs to fetch using XMLHttpRequest.

      Usually, if adblock is blocked and javascript is required I go somewhere else.

      Good luck with that if the top several results for a given set of search terms also require script.

    10. Re:Do you Know WHY it sucks? by Outta_the_way_peck! · · Score: 1

      Seems like a current reference. Where do you think they got the name "Mad Men" for the TV show?

    11. Re:Do you Know WHY it sucks? by penandpaper · · Score: 1

      Unless it turns out that the rest of the article is either a block of encrypted text that the script needs to decrypt or a separate resource that the script needs to fetch using XMLHttpRequest.

      Honestly, I haven't seen much of them that do this. Thinking about it, I don't think I have seen one do it. I am sure there are some but it hasn't been an issue for me for the few exceptions to adbock + scripts off won't work.

    12. Re:Do you Know WHY it sucks? by Jonathan+C.+Patschke · · Score: 1

      5. Sites that black out content until you provide an email address or dismiss the not-a-dialog-box by clicking the nonstandard close button.

      Who would return to a store if their first experience upon walking through the door was being blindfolded by a sneaky salesdroid demanding a telephone number? 10 years ago, the prevailing wisdom was that only old folks like me used email anymore, anyway. Why does this antisocial anti-pattern persist?

      I can tell you that pop-ins-are-awful@yourdomain signs up for a lot of newsletters, though. no-thanks@example.org used to sign up for them before whatever prevailing validation script started catching RFC 2606 and 6717 domains.

      --
      Pining for the days when The Glorious MEEPT!!! graced SlapDash with his wisdom.
    13. Re:Do you Know WHY it sucks? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Seems like a current reference. Where do you think they got the name "Mad Men" for the TV show?

      You're using a show set 50 years ago to refute him??

    14. Re:Do you Know WHY it sucks? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Often the article loads just fine but I want to read the comments. Yeah, silly maybe to actually want to read comments but when I go to news sites from my country and there's a dozen comments to a war story, I like to see how many anti-war and pro-war comments there are. Comments that accuse the newspaper of being a propaganda mouthpiece, comments that accuse anti-war comments of spreading a conspiracy theory.

      Comments also are a bit useful for some local news stories.

    15. Re:Do you Know WHY it sucks? by Samizdata · · Score: 1

      Also, it's not just Adblock installed any more. I run a Pi-hole (ad blackhole DNS forwarder) instance on a Debian lappy on my LAN and I am seeing more and more anti-adblocking notifications every day. I just wish I had a crappier connection at some point, so I could point and say "Look, man, no adblocking! My connection can't REACH your advertiser!"

      --
      It's not the years, honey, it's the mileage. - Colonel Henry Walton Jones, Jr., Ph.D.
  35. This speeds up ANY browser connection by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    See subject: This speeds up any browser connection & makes it safer via NEW APK Hosts File Engine 9.0++ SR-7 32/64-bit https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&biw=&bih=&q=%22APK+Hosts+File+Engine%22+and+%22start64%22&btnG=Google+Search&gbv=1/

    Ads & malware rob speed/security/privacy

    Hosts add speed (via hardcodes/adblocks), security (vs. bad sites/malware/poisoned dns), reliability (vs. dns down), & anonymity (vs. dns requestlogs/trackers).

    Less power/cpu/ram + IO use vs. DNS/routers/addons/antivirus + less security bugs/complexity & faster vs. addons/routers/remote dns!

    Avoids DNSChangers in routers/IP settings & dns redirects (99.999% of ISP DNS != patched vs. it) + lightens DNS load & resolves faster from local system RAM!

    * Via what you NATIVELY have built into the TCP/IP stack in FASTER kernelmode!

    APK

    P.S. - Safe https://www.virustotal.com/en/file/e01211ca36aa02e923f20adee0a3c4f5d5187dc65bdf1c997b3da3c2b0745425/analysis/1433430542/

  36. my solution: turn off images and javascript by lcall · · Score: 1

    My solution (though my connection is fast enough) is to turn off images and javascript (and cookies) all the time, specifying some sites as exceptions, and leaving the browser config tab open for the rare one-off exception when I want to see images for one page refresh. I also separate browsing activities by my multiple user accounts, depending on the type (eg, banking in a separate account from general browsing), and either use separate consoles (Ctrl-Alt-Fn) for the accounts or put them on the same X desktop with "ssh -X ..." for most things, "ssh -Y ..." for very few, and some convenience scripts to automate starting some apps that way. This has worked well enough for me on multiple free OSes.

    The benefits include speed, simplicity, I don't have to see garbage ads or images of things I just don't want in my mind, and hopefully a lower attack surface thus more secure browsing. The stuff I want is almost always in the form of text anyway, and I don't mind text ads.

    Suggestions/critiques welcome.

    --
    A Free, fast personal organizer for touch typists: onemodel
  37. No shit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Really?

  38. Most efficient fastest adblocker (& more)? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Most efficient fastest adblocker & more = NEW APK Hosts File Engine 9.0++ SR-7 32/64-bit https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&biw=&bih=&q=%22APK+Hosts+File+Engine%22+and+%22start64%22&btnG=Google+Search&gbv=1/

    Ads & malware rob speed/security/privacy

    Hosts add speed (via hardcodes/adblocks), security (vs. bad sites/malware/poisoned dns), reliability (vs. dns down), & anonymity (vs. dns requestlogs/trackers).

    Less power/cpu/ram + IO use vs. DNS/routers/addons/antivirus + less security bugs/complexity & faster vs. addons/routers/remote dns!

    Avoids DNSChangers in routers/IP settings & dns redirects (99.999% of ISP DNS != patched vs. it) + lightens DNS load & resolves faster from local system RAM!

    * Via what you NATIVELY have built into the TCP/IP stack in FASTER kernelmode!

    APK

    P.S. - Safe https://www.virustotal.com/en/file/e01211ca36aa02e923f20adee0a3c4f5d5187dc65bdf1c997b3da3c2b0745425/analysis/1433430542/

    1. Re:Most efficient fastest adblocker (& more)? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Somebody, please, shut this spammer down!

    2. Re:Most efficient fastest adblocker (& more)? by lgw · · Score: 1

      Didn't see you upthread where people were discussing the limits of ad blockers, and wondered if you were doing OK. But here you are.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    3. Re:Most efficient fastest adblocker (& more)? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
  39. Maybe someone can clarify this. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    My understanding was that on Firefox the ad blockers prevent the ads from loading, but on Chrome the ad blockers load the ads and only prevent them from displaying. Now that Firefox is moving to the plugins like Chrome, it too will not really block ads anymore.

    1. Re:Maybe someone can clarify this. by l20502 · · Score: 1

      That was true up to 2012 or so, now it should block them from loading.

    2. Re:Maybe someone can clarify this. by green1 · · Score: 1

      As much as I'm not a fan of APK and his hosts file spam, this is somewhere he's right.
      The only way to really use the internet these days is with either a hosts file blocking thousands upon thousands of entries, or better yet, a DNS server that does the same for all your devices at once (I use the latter).
      Without that, many ads still waste your time and bandwidth, even if you don't have to see them at the end.

      Of course the downside is that it makes it even easier for sites to detect when you're blocking ads, but there are ways around that too on a case by case basis.

    3. Re: Maybe someone can clarify this. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sites that figure out you are adblocking are surveillance sites and should simply be avoided.

  40. wait, I think I figured it out by ooloorie · · Score: 1

    But why should users have to use two entirely different programs, one of which has a text-based interface only computer nerds will find palatable?

    I think that has to do with a really big company up in Redmond, which made a lot of money with a rip-off of another graphics-only operating system and produced code of dubious modularity and unnecessary bloat and complexity. I think their name starts with "M" or something. Maybe you should go and work for them and fix their software.

    Meanwhile, somewhat more innovative companies than that Redmond company have come up with solutions like putting much of the browser and rendering into the cloud or using HTML-rewriting proxies. Well, it was innovative 20 years ago at least. Maybe people at that "M" company haven't heard of it, but the rest of us use this when we need it. (Of course, the rest of us usually can't afford satellite phones anyway; you need some old Microsoft stock options for that.)

  41. Annoying as fuck by ArchieBunker · · Score: 1

    I hate pages that look like they stopped loading and decide to do one last refresh AFTER I've started scrolling. That and images that don't load until you get near them. All that does is rearrange text while you're trying to read.

    --
    Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
    1. Re:Annoying as fuck by jgdnavy · · Score: 1

      Worse than that is the occasional page that appears to completely load, and then the browser decides it's broken enough that they clear the screen you've been reading and say the page couldn't be rendered.

    2. Re:Annoying as fuck by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or ones that load ...until they suddenly get replaced with a page timed out error.

      Like, say, Slashdot, when my DSL connection was trickling along at ~512k...

  42. doctor, when I do that, it hurts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Don't be on a satellite connection. duh. Just because you are on one doesn't mean the 99.99999998% of the rest of internet users should suffer.

    1. Re:doctor, when I do that, it hurts by tepples · · Score: 1

      Don't be on a satellite connection. duh.

      Then what instead? You buying?

  43. Welcome to the rest of the world. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Most of the world lives with internet speeds that people in the US think of as historic. I most of the world I cannot use Video on Skype and have to settle for speech only.

  44. Easy solutions by guruevi · · Score: 3, Informative

    Most browsers open 6 connections because most connections these day can handle it. If you live in a time warp (like most of the US) with tech that's 20 years old, then you have to use 20 year old tricks of the trade.

    "Back in the day" we had 56k at home or for the rich folk, 128k (ISDN), double ISDN if you were really lucky. We had the same problems, the 'web' was getting fancy with things like Flash, video and high-def images because all the 'work' was being done at places that had either access through an institution with at least Fractional T1's and things like 100Mbps home-internet copper/fiber connections for $10 were being promised as less than a decade away by the ISP's which were then repeatedly subsidized by the governments to do just that.

    How did we do it:
    a) Set up your own DNS caching servers
    b) Set up your own HTTP/HTTPS proxy caching servers with giant caches
    c) Proper QoS to make sure certain traffic had priority over others, small packets and small buffers
    d) Set up your own servers (such as IMAP/SMTP, gaming etc) and have them sync during times of lesser activity. These days, with a bit of API tinkering, even social media can be done that way.

    We had LAN parties with 100's of computers behind a 1Mbps cable modem, no problem.

    --
    Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
    1. Re:Easy solutions by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      THIS!

      I've designed and ran a corporate network that included a few ships and this is basically what was done: a lot of local services and caching with proper QoS.

      There were also WAN optimization devices that would compress the data between the offices on land and the ships, with Internet traffic going in and out through the offices. The device on land, using its faster Internet access, would compress data before sending it to the ship. Of course, this is probably out of reach for this person but he/she could try a service like Opera Turbo which is free and works well.

      http://www.opera.com/turbo

    2. Re:Easy solutions by sims+2 · · Score: 1

      When I was on satellite I was using a program similar to treewalk dns ( I can't remember the name) to cache DNS

      Is WWWOFFLE still going? or are you talking about something else?

      --
      Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
  45. https://alterslash.org by TheStickBoy · · Score: 4, Informative

    Be sure to run adblockers, stripping out adverts makes a big difference.

    But even slashdot is a big fat bloated pig. no reason at all to load everything and a giant pile of JS.

    I highly recommend https://alterslash.org it removes all the bloat from slashdot.org Thanks to Jonathan Hedley!

    1. Re:https://alterslash.org by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It unfortunately removes the comments too. (Mostly.)

  46. Opera 12 by sgunhouse · · Score: 1

    It's a shame Opera Software abandoned their old Presto engine for Chromium instead - Opera (through version 12) had a setting for number of connections per site and total number of connections. And ad blocking, and on and on.

    1. Re:Opera 12 by Lisandro · · Score: 1

      Ahh, the Presto days. I wish they opensource that engine someday...

    2. Re:Opera 12 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's on some sites. It got leaked.

    3. Re:Opera 12 by sgunhouse · · Score: 1

      They issued a takedown notice on at least one site already, but I'm sure it's still out there somewhere. Not that I'd have the skills to update it anyway - if you're just recompiling the existing code then why bother?

    4. Re:Opera 12 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      https://bitbucket.org/prestocore-fan/presto

      HTH.

  47. Most efficient fastest adblocker (& more)? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Most efficient fastest adblocker & more = NEW APK Hosts File Engine 9.0++ SR-7 32/64-bit https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&biw=&bih=&q=%22APK+Hosts+File+Engine%22+and+%22start64%22&btnG=Google+Search&gbv=1/

    Ads & malware rob speed/security/privacy

    Hosts add speed (via hardcodes/adblocks), security (vs. bad sites/malware/poisoned dns), reliability (vs. dns down), & anonymity (vs. dns requestlogs/trackers).

    Less power/cpu/ram + IO use vs. DNS/routers/addons/antivirus + less security bugs/complexity & faster vs. addons/routers/remote dns!

    Avoids DNSChangers in routers/IP settings & dns redirects (99.999% of ISP DNS != patched vs. it) + lightens DNS load & resolves faster from local system RAM!

    * Via what you NATIVELY have built into the TCP/IP stack in FASTER kernelmode!

    APK

    P.S. - Safe https://www.virustotal.com/en/file/e01211ca36aa02e923f20adee0a3c4f5d5187dc65bdf1c997b3da3c2b0745425/analysis/1433430542/

  48. It is really sign of Bufferbloat by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Satellite links (especially on planes) have poorly implemented queue management and have extreme bufferbloat. With multiple connections the amount of data queued can cause delays of seconds, and when that happens connections timeout. Although it sounds like a browser or web site problem, the root cause is a design flaw in the head end satellite head end routers.

  49. Unfortunately by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    like everything else touched by any kind of software coder, they always aim their products at whatever newest/fastest tech there is then tell everyone else to upgrade to that.

    because they don't give a shit. And they especially don't give a shit about people on dialup or who have no other recourse than satellite internet.

    1. Re: Unfortunately by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Web 'developers' are not coders.

      At best they are layout artists given dangerous extra responsibilities they are not qualified to complete.

      Oh, they try hard, though. The dears.

  50. Tips for Dan Luu by HBI · · Score: 2

    The problem with a satellite connection is not precisely related to latency but rather to jitter, the large differences in latency from one packet to the next. This happens as a result of rain fade, or a poorly engineered link to your transponder on the bird, or a variety of other more infrequent issues.

    You can (and should) up your TCP timeout values from the default 3 seconds on a satellite connection, and adjust the http keep-alive timeout, etc, but a lot of times this just means you wait longer to be told when the connection fails.

    The solution is a combination of caching, compression, and a performance enhancing proxy or PEP. The PEP does TCP spoofing, basically faking the acknowledgements to speed up the transmission of packets. Compression is similar to the MNP5/v.42bis stuff from modem days applied to a satellite connection. Caching is basically Squid. A lot of PEPs combine all three functions into one - Riverbed is a really good example, though i've worked with pretty much every vendor and they all do the same stuff, with differences in ease of use and efficency.

    Implement the timeout fixes, implement a good PEP with all three of the ingredients noted, and make sure the connection is dialed in well with a good shot (line of sight) without physical impediments like trees, buildings, and most importantly microwave interference, and you should have a fairly reliable internet connection. You will still take hits, but you can look at the front of the satellite modem and see that is happening if it's an iDirect or something similar.

    Bottom line though is that unless you are taking hits, you should be able to set up downloads of a lot of images and never see a timeout.

    - someone who has spent a lot of time doing this (and living off sat connections) in awful places in the world

    --
    HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
  51. Thanks green1 but DNS has issues by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    See my subject: DNS gets Kaminsky redirect poisoned & DNSChanger malware (adversely altering dns settings in both routers & OS IP stack config). Hosts don't & have less overheads in resource consummation + moving parts complexity for breakdown &/or exploit.

    For the BEST hostsfile (best performing ad & malware blocker & also lightens DNS server loads (& avoids dns security issues above by AVOIDING DNS altogether & resolves faster locally from system RAM) NEW APK Hosts File Engine 9.0++ SR-7 32/64-bit https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&biw=&bih=&q=%22APK+Hosts+File+Engine%22+and+%22start64%22&btnG=Google+Search&gbv=1/

    APK

    P.S.=> Remote DNS is slower on roundtrip resolution (by far) & locally it eats more resources & has issues in MANY categories https://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=9007355&threshold=-1&commentsort=0&mode=thread&pid=51969075/

    1. Re:Thanks green1 but DNS has issues by green1 · · Score: 2

      oh boy....

      Your DNS can easily be local, on your network, and it means that everyone connecting to your network, regardless of device, has the advantage of ad blocking.

      I don't need to jailbreak my mother in law's iPad for her to get the advantage of the DNS blocking, I don't have to root my wife's android, every device that comes in to the house and connects to the network automatically gets the advantage of ad blocking just by virtue of connecting. And best of all, I can make updates to one device instead of dozens as new ad domains appear.

      Hosts is great for people who only use a PC, never use a mobile device, have few devices, and don't know how to configure a DNS server, but for true geeks (the main audience of this site) it's lacking on many levels.

      There's a reason we don't all just have hosts files for the whole internet, there's a reason DNS was invented, those same reasons are what makes it superior to a hosts file for this application as well.

    2. Re:Thanks green1 but DNS has issues by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Meh, tools like Pi-Hole are much more effective on a network and easier to manage.

  52. There are several reasons why things are this way by anegg · · Score: 1

    1. People are egocentric. Everyone thinks (by default) that everyone else is in the exact some relationship with their environment as they are. I've been in corporate IT for many years (in the past) and have seen a large number of major initiatives designed from the point of view of the HQ folks who are on top of the data center, network-wise. You know, millisecond latency to the servers. Then the app is deployed out to the remote masses, and... it sucks. So the app developers demand to know when the network staff is going to fix the problem. Bloated web pages happen because the people who design them do so when they are milliseconds away from the servers, and it all works fine for them.

    2. Networks are layered. The idea of the layering concept is that each layer has its own set of responsibilities. The application layer through which the web browser communicates doesn't have any responsibility for managing data traffic flows. That is the responsibility of a lower layer. So the application just requests the data, and lower layers are supposed to take care of making it happen. As others have pointed out, parallelization of the work is useful, much of the time, so URL requests aren't serialized. When you are on a slow link, or a high latency link, this strategy fails. Should the network layer take care of it, or should the browser somehow become aware of the speed of the physical/data-link and adapt its behavior? Having the browser adapt might be seen as a violation of the layering principles; having the network/session layers interfere with which TCP connections are prioritized would definitely be a violation of layering. Come up with a good way to handle this type of problem, and you can help design the next version of the TCP/IP protocol suite!

    3. It's mostly crap anyway. As others have pointed out, its mostly crap anyway. And in my experience its the crappier sources that load more pictures and other cruft onto the pages that you are accessing. An ad blocker helps, and just avoiding those pages works even better. My ad blocker is tuned to let in everything from certain sites, and helps me determine which sites to avoid by showing me the rapidly incrementing "I blocked this" count in my browser's top bar. When that number climbs too high, too fast, I just bail out of the page.

  53. Even HTTP 1.1 has keep-alive by tepples · · Score: 1

    For each page of text and every image, HTTP requests a new TCP connection and tears it down after transfer.

    Which version of HTTP are you using? Even HTTP 1.1 has keep-alive.

  54. and for pete's sake, MTU!!! by HBI · · Score: 2

    A lot of times, bad MTU settings are the problem with a sat link. The problem is simply stated: GRE tunnels are common on such links, and a GRE tunnel will encapsulate each packet and add a 16 byte header. Since the modems usually only permit a 1500 byte MTU, this means the maximum packet size you can get through the GRE tunnel will be 1484 bytes long, inclusive of header. If someone sends out a packet that is maximum size for a 1500 byte MTU, and sets the DF (Don't Fragment) bit, when the packet hits this GRE tunnel it will be dropped. This happens frequently with bad SSL implementations.

    This is only one version of MTU problems with sat links. There are others.

    --
    HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
    1. Re:and for pete's sake, MTU!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ahh so you work for UN or another aid organization. ;)

      Best of luck to you and thank you for this interesting tidbit of information.

  55. Solutions by NotFamous · · Score: 1

    Use a browser like Opera Mini on your phone. Use the browser with an Amazon tablet. Both user cloud technology to cache pages, greatly enhancing the loading of pages. Similar solutions are available on the desktop. Adblock helps reduce page load time also.So...with just a little work you can find your own solution.

    --
    Some settling may occur during posting.
  56. this is what happens when you make creation "easy" by originalmouse · · Score: 1

    unless you're a developer to start with, creating a website happens through a low-code or no-code suite, usually. (or you spend a few weeks learning html and javascript, which is actually less efficient, since you can't learn good practices and sufficient vocabulary to be good in that short time). also, with the vast majority of people using broadband, there's little incentive to work extra hard so that last 0.002% of your user base still connecting through 33.6Kbps dial-up connections has a good experience. you could have just as easily asked "why are OSes so bloated? what about those of us still working on pentium series processors?" the answer would be the same: "they don't think of you, because you're not an influential enough part of the market". imagine you're a developer tasked with creating a news site. do you spend months optimizing your work for the tiniest fraction of the market, or do you spend that time putting polish on the parts the vast majority of your users are going to actually see?

  57. Labor to trust an HTTPS proxy's root cert by tepples · · Score: 1

    Providers don't offer a proxy because an HTTPS proxy requires each user of each browser on device to add the proxy's root certificate to the certificate store used by the profile associated with that user, browser, and device. Non-technical users are unlikely to successfully complete this process for both the OS-wide certificate set and the separate NSS set used by Firefox.

    1. Re:Labor to trust an HTTPS proxy's root cert by Ash-Fox · · Score: 1

      Providers don't offer a proxy because an HTTPS proxy requires each user of each browser on device to add the proxy's root certificate to the certificate store used by the profile associated with that user, browser, and device.

      Over here in Europe, it's been pretty standard in my experience for Satelitte provides like Astra Connect to provide their own software that sets this up.

      Non-technical users are unlikely to successfully complete this process for both the OS-wide certificate set and the separate NSS set used by Firefox.

      Hence the software.

      --
      Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
    2. Re:Labor to trust an HTTPS proxy's root cert by tepples · · Score: 1

      Is the software provided for all five of Windows, macOS, GNU/Linux, iOS, and Android?

    3. Re:Labor to trust an HTTPS proxy's root cert by Ash-Fox · · Score: 1

      Is the software provided for all five of Windows, macOS, GNU/Linux, iOS, and Android?

      For Astra Connect, I remember on Linux I had to do manual configuration, not on Windows or macOS. Couldn't tell you about iOS or Android.

      --
      Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
    4. Re:Labor to trust an HTTPS proxy's root cert by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I have a proxy (squid) that supplies HTTPS just fine. It just can't cache anything served over HTTPS.

      The browser sends CONNECT example.com:443 to the proxy for HTTPS requests. For normal requests, it sends GET example.com/something

      https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2616#section-9.9

      http://muffin.doit.org/docs/rfc/tunneling_ssl.html Netscape RFC from 1995

      Or did you mean that the proxy itself is accessed over HTTPS?

  58. Sprites by Tukz · · Score: 1

    Why does my browser open up 6 TCP connections to try to download six images at once

    The website could easily be serving those 6 images as 1 image and use CSS to display them individually.
    So it's not only a browser issue.

    Actually, it's a protocol issue.
    I believe this sort of thing is being changed for HTTP/2, with multiplexing.

    --
    - Don't do what I do, it's probably not healthy nor safe. -
  59. other options available by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    internet.org

  60. Add an exclusion for hosts by tepples · · Score: 1

    Some how win10 isn't allowing me to edit the host file even as Administrator

    Since Windows 8, the administrator has to exclude %SystemRoot%\system32\drivers\etc\hosts from Windows Defender. It's under Windows Defender protection in the first place because in the past, malware has used this file to redirecdt popular social media sites to phishing sites. Go to Start (Windows logo) > Settings (gear icon) > Update & security > Windows Defender > Exclusions.

    1. Re:Add an exclusion for hosts by budgenator · · Score: 1

      That I'll try thanks. You would think a guy that was disappointed that file manager disappeared on a clean install of windows 95 would know more about windows.

      --
      Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
  61. Ivory Tower syndrome by RogueWarrior65 · · Score: 1

    This is the disconnect (no pun intended) between internet application developers, most of whom live in a big city with huge data pipes, and the rest of the country that doesn't (and doesn't always have cellular internet either).

  62. Umm, maybe configure your tools for your purposes by holophrastic · · Score: 1

    I'm sorry that your screw driver isn't a ratchet, and that your ratchet isn't a hammer.

    But have you tried to actually lace up your shoes? They'll work better that way.

    Read, learn, and re-configure your browser, your operating system, and your network to actually do whatever it is that you want it to do. Most browsers can easily be configured to limit the number of simultaneous connections. It's a number somewhere -- think registry, about::config, etc. Did you try? No.

    You're on something that's both atypical and inferior. So configure it to your preferences.

    Also, you could configure your router to limit connection counts. You could configure your browser to access only one domain at a time. You could load your hsts file to block ad servers.

    You could choose to block most typical third-party sites when you aren't interested in them -- like blocking facebook would block like buttons everywhere. Unblock it when you want them. Block them when you don't.

    You seem to be surprised that the default out-of-the-box isn't for you. Big surprise -- it isn't for anybody. It takes me three days to configure a new machine. There are about ten thousand settings to look configure to my liking. I remap keys on the keyboard, configure macros on the mouse, firewalls and hosts files. Does my browser show image placeholders for still-loading images? Security settings, privacy settings, themes, colours, mouse cursor sizes, the list goes on. Toolbars, a dozen little UI tools, notes and reminders, icons a'plenty, work drive, play drive, system drive, memory limits, processor limits, user permissions.

    Your car has another 100 -- radio stations, temperatures, seat positions, steering wheel positions, tire pressures, cargo nets, folding seats, et cetera.

    Geez, do you buy photographs that come pre-hung on your walls?

    Make a decision on your own for a change.

    I've changed my mind. Call me. I'll run through the whole thing with you. You can pay me to configure everything with your usage-scenarios in-mind. I'll happily take your money. And nearly all of it can be done remotely -- I'll need your help for a few boot-time (e.g. BIOS) settings, like boot disks, power management, and power failure recovery settings.

  63. Concurrent connections are fine by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The problem is short timeouts and bad error handling. There is no reason for a web browser not to recover from an error during the transmission of a static resource. It could just get the rest of the image or whatever it was loading. "Modern" script based sites mostly don't handle errors at all: If a resource fails to load, the site is hosed and needs a full page reload (forgetting all local state, of course). It's a symptom of a ubiquitous problem: People don't want to think about the many ways something can fail. It's not done when it does what it's supposed to do. It also must not do what it's not supposed to do.

  64. Famicom was Nintendo's answer to ColecoVision by tepples · · Score: 1

    I think that has to do with a really big company up in Redmond, which made a lot of money with a rip-off of another graphics-only operating system and produced code of dubious modularity and unnecessary bloat and complexity. I think their name starts with "M" or something.

    Or was it an N?

    Nintendo of America is also in Redmond, Washington, and the feature set of the Picture Processing Unit in the Nintendo Entertainment System was heavily inspired by that of the Texas Instruments TMS9928 in the ColecoVision. NES games likewise ballooned up to half a megabyte over the system's life,* compared with the more compact ROM sizes of the Atari 2600 and ColecoVision. I mean seriously, 48K for Tetris ?

    * Only three licensed NES games were larger than 512 KiB: Kirby's Adventure, AD&D: Pool of Radiance, and Uncharted Waters.

  65. Turn off images by TJHook3r · · Score: 1

    If you have a shitty connection, just turn off images - you'll be amazed how much time you stop wasting when you don't have eye-candy to lead you to rubbish sites. Looking at you, Buzzfeed.

  66. Even high speed internet doesn't matter... by superdave80 · · Score: 1

    I've noticed over the last few years that most websites suck as far as loading time, even on DSL connections. There is so much garbage loaded that even a relatively new computer on a good connection loads slowly. Web developers today should all be lined up and shot.

  67. I'm doing it right by gman003 · · Score: 1

    I'm working on a system now, and for the first time in my career, I'm taking the time to really do it right (mostly because, for the first time in my career, I'm being allowed to). Even though it's mostly used in-house, we do have outside customers with access so I do make sure it runs acceptably on slow connections or devices.

    Images are small and scarce. That's not exactly a big deal these days, but honestly, it makes styling easier.

    There is one CSS file. It caches just fine. I just ran a test simulating a 22kbps connection - the first page load is about ten seconds, but after that, nothing takes more than a second or so to load, save for one page I've already marked for revision.

    Javascript is minimal, mostly used to make nested menus load with AJAX or to do form submission with nice validation. This saves bandwidth overall, so I'd call it a win. The site does not degrade gracefully without Javascript but it doesn't require that much CPU horsepower to do what we do with it.

    There are no ads or tracking. Not even Google Analytics. The designer wants to add it but I'm not gonna let it happen. We have server logs we can analyze for all the info we need, why would we send that on to Google, not to mention the perf hit?

    Tested in current versions of Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Vivaldi, and Edge, and also IE10, under Windows and Linux (for browsers that run on Linux). IE misses some styling features, Firefox has some alignment glitches I haven't gotten around to yelling at the designer to fix it yet, but everything is fully usable. Safari and OS X testing will happen if we ever get a Mac to test with. Mobile browsers technically work but the site is very information-dense and nobody in their right minds would use it on a phone. (And I've tested it with Lynx, you can read it but it's not easy, and saving stuff is broken... if I ever run out of stuff to do, I might fix that, but it's not exactly a priority)

    On a normal business-class internet connection (25Mbps shared across a dozen people), and a normal business-class browser (dual-core, 8GB RAM, Windows), most pages load in about 30ms. Only one takes longer than 100ms, and that's already queued for revision.

    The fundamental problem is that too few programmers have a direct profit incentive to make a good website user experience. The big sites make money from ads, which are inherently anti-user. Contractors (which I used to be) care more about getting it out under the hours estimate than about quality. I work directly for the people who use this site eight hours a day, you can bet your ass I'll make this a good site for them to use.

  68. Hosts lacks DNS' security issues/overheads by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    See my subject: Local DNS introduces SINGLE point of fail/breakdown/exploit (link I posted shows many) & has more moving parts & overall weight in them!

    Hosts is EASILY migrated to ALL endpoints via admins script running it manually or logon/startup scripts (or a timed chronjob/windows scheduled task).

    * On Apple - ONLY apple devs can migrate stuff to it (I know for a fact, my relative runs their nightly OS builds) via a "GodMode" rooted iPhone/iPad etc. & SSH into it.

    (I disagree w/ Apple here - Android Debugging Bridge exists for droid users & they can do it on a rooted droid - hosts = good security down @ all endpoints).

    DNS is good @ central 'topmost' ICANN levels (99++% of ISP's DNS !=t patched vs. Kaminsky redirect flaw, OpenDNS is though)

    Hosts secure you vs. those flaws & lighten DNS load + avoid dns security issues by avoiding DNS totally & yes, hosts in local RAM resolve faster.

    APK

    P.S.=> You omit users of rooted droids can do it... apk

  69. It's QoS (or the lack thereof) by Strider- · · Score: 1

    The problem with your link isn't that your browser is opening up multiple connections, it's that your satellite link has shitty (or non-existant) QoS. I run a satellite network to a remote site, that is serving about 60 users using 3.3Mbps. Between WAAS and some carefully tuned CBWFQ, it's slow but reliable, you click on something you can be pretty sure that it will load. Heck, this link is also running VOIP for everyone, and calls are nearly toll quality even when the network is saturated (which is most of the day and evening).

    --
    ...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
  70. I don't use hosts like you think either by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I don't 'cache all hostnames/domainnames possible' in hosts! Only 50 fav. sites @ top of hosts (resolves FAR faster vs. remote/local DNS as it's from local system RAM cached) where I spend 96% of my time online!

    It proofs me vs. DNS redirects/DNS down & gives more speed resolving faster + protection vs. threats.

    Plus I actually DO USE DNS - OpenDNS sparingly via my hardcoded favorites that speed me + protect me vs. threats (sub 4% of time, I spend most time online @ my fav sites) OpenDNS = proofed vs. Kaminsky redirect poisoning & filters threats too (supplementing hosts doing so also) 99++% of ISP dns aren't patched vs. it.

    APK

    P.S.=> Who needs local DNS? ActiveDirectory users on a LAN/WAN but hosts supplement DNS + performance/security & lighten DNS loads (via hardcodes of where uses spend most time online & hosts = easily migrated to PC's on LAN/WAN by admins running scripts manually, scheduled ones or startup/logon scripts)99++% of ISP dns aren't patched vs. it.

  71. Calling APK (and the luddites) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I bet APK has an app for that!

  72. Blame the ISPs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    When you remember that no ads = no websites, it becomes a trade off the overwhelming majority of people willingly accepted long ago. And since the revenue from actually playing video ads dwarfs all other types of ad revenue by an order of magnitude, it's only logical those are the ads you'll be served. It is still far, far better than paying $0.25 per website per visit.

    And, site owners *do check for slow connection speeds, and adjust video stream quality accordingly. And they use CDNs. And they performance test response times. And they encourage local browser caching. And browsers *can be configured to request one asset at a time.

    You really want to blame someone OP, then you blame your one or two local ISPs for not doing anything about that 30 year old last mile copper wire just barely stretching into your town that they won't ever, ever upgrade or replace, since rural areas aren't worth the $ and they have you by the balls anyways.

    Your best recourse: Lobby your local government representative. Tell them about fiber to the home. Over and over and over again.

    Good luck!

  73. Personalized Web Crawler... by Lodragandraoidh · · Score: 1

    Back in the day we were used to time-shifting our collection of information, and the viewing of information. This was accomplished on BBSs - such as FIDONET - by up and down loading content for later viewing with offline viewers. You would just set up some automation to run during off times (while you were asleep for example). Back in those days -- even as slow as things were, your time didn't seem to be wasted as much as today.

    I don't have a bad connection - I stream videos no problem - so I can only assume the problem is the advertising cruft layered on top. As a result, I'm in the early stages of putting together a web crawler of my own...basically I go to the same sites day after day -- so most of what I read comes from the same sources - so why not crawl those sites and draw down what I want to read at my leisure? I can also automagically separate the multimedia from the text, and deal with that as I want to - rather than how a standard browser decides to do for you.

    Website owners and ad people have gotten lazy - and disrespectful of users; time to claim back our time.

    --

    Lodragan Draoidh
    The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
  74. Easy answer... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...because you're in the severe minority.

    Write your own browser for people who are on slow connections.

  75. So how many people by MouseTheLuckyDog · · Score: 1

    were planning on making the same comment if it wasn't already here?

  76. bufferbloat mentioned not once in the article by mtaht · · Score: 1

    Bloat, yes, bufferbloat, no.

    Recently I made a trip to nicaragua and deployed a few fq_codel and cake equipped routers there. The effects were *marvellous*. The kind of total failure to load problems dan describes, in particular, went away.

    Still, I'd like to banish those that think IW of greater than 2, TSO and GSO, and 6 simultaneous connections in web browsers - as a good idea - to remote locations for a while, until they learn the errors of their ways.

    https://tools.ietf.org/html/dr...

    is also a good read.

  77. Not only by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "Most of the Web Really Sucks If You Have a Slow Connection "

    The Pope is catholic.
    The bear shits in the wood.
    Water is wet.

    signed: the other Captain Obvious.

    1. Re:Not only by RockDoctor · · Score: 1
      Also,

      "No shit, Sherlock?"

      --
      Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
  78. Hosts do more for less vs. addons & faster by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What hosts do addons can't (or as well):

    PROTECT vs.:

    1.) bad sites (past ads)
    2.) fastflux C&C
    3.) dynDNS C&C
    4.) DGA C&C
    5.) DNS down
    6.) poisoned dns
    7.) trackers (dnsrequestlogs/ads/transparent ISP proxy)
    8.) spam/phish payload
    9.) dns blocks
    10.) slowdown 2 ways: adblocks & hardcodes
    11.) Easier data & rules edit
    12.) Efficiency (cpu/ram/I-O)

    13.) UBlock no DNS bennys = poor imitation = "sincerest form of flattery"
    14.) NoScript tag parses. Hosts block ad script before it downloads!

    APK

    P.S.=> AB+ 151mb http://cdn.ghacks.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/adblocker-memory-consumption.jpg/

    UBlock 64MB http://cdn.ghacks.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/adblocker-memory-consumption.jpg/

    (hosts ~6mb)

    ClarityRay defeatable

    Don't work http://www.businessinsider.com/google-microsoft-amazon-taboola-pay-adblock-plus-to-stop-blocking-their-ads-2015-2/

    SLOWER: http://superuser.com/questions/686041/which-leads-to-faster-browsing-an-ad-blocker-or-an-edited-hosts-file/

  79. It's the market by hackel · · Score: 1

    People on slow connections like satellite make up such a ridiculously small percentage of the market that it makes no sense to optimize or create functionality for them. Most people's mobile connections are faster than their home broadband these days. There are plenty of extensions out there to help you on a slow connection, click-to-load images, etc. but ultimately it's just the nature of the beast. We aren't downloading web pages, we are downloading entire applications that we are running through our browser virtual machines. Slow-connection functionality shouldn't be added to mainline browsers--they should be focused entirely on speed and efficiency. Browser extensions are the best solution.

  80. WIPO Copyright Treaty in other countries by tepples · · Score: 1

    and use the DMCA [...] or foreign counterparts

    DCMA, yeah. The world does not care about DCMA, only the US.

    Technically, you are correct. But in practice, two things are true. For one thing, Slashdot and many of its users are in the United States. For another, I mentioned not only DMCA but also "foreign counterparts" to the DMCA, by which I meant other countries' implementations of the WIPO Copyright Treaty of 1996, such as Article 6 of the Directive 2001/29/EC in the European Union and the "digital locks" provision of the Copyright Modernization Act of 2012 in Canada.

  81. I block ads & adscripts via hosts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    NoScript's inferior to hosts on ads - it parses tags: Hosts block adscript source in 1 step before NoScript starts via NEW APK Hosts File Engine 9.0++ SR-7 32/64-bit https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&biw=&bih=&q=%22APK+Hosts+File+Engine%22+and+%22start64%22&btnG=Google+Search&gbv=1/

    Ads & malware rob speed/security/privacy

    Hosts add speed (via hardcodes/adblocks), security (vs. bad sites/malware/poisoned dns), reliability (vs. dns down), & anonymity (vs. dns requestlogs/trackers).

    Less power/cpu/ram + IO use vs. DNS/routers/addons/antivirus + less security bugs/complexity & faster vs. addons/routers/remote dns!

    * Via what you NATIVELY have built into the TCP/IP stack in FASTER kernelmode!

    APK

    P.S. - Safe https://www.virustotal.com/en/file/e01211ca36aa02e923f20adee0a3c4f5d5187dc65bdf1c997b3da3c2b0745425/analysis/1433430542/

  82. Hosts = old school & still works great by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Prevention = best medicine (& what you can't touch can't hurt you) via NEW APK Hosts File Engine 9.0++ SR-7 32/64-bit https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&biw=&bih=&q=%22APK+Hosts+File+Engine%22+and+%22start64%22&btnG=Google+Search&gbv=1/

    Ads & malware rob speed/security/privacy

    Hosts add speed (via hardcodes/adblocks), security (vs. bad sites/malware/poisoned dns), reliability (vs. dns down), & anonymity (vs. dns requestlogs/trackers).

    Less power/cpu/ram + IO use vs. DNS/routers/addons/antivirus + less security bugs/complexity & faster vs. addons/routers/remote dns!

    Avoids DNSChangers in routers/IP settings & dns redirects (99.999% of ISP DNS != patched vs. it) + lightens DNS load & resolves faster from local system RAM!

    * Via what you NATIVELY have built into the TCP/IP stack in FASTER kernelmode!

    APK

    P.S. - Safe https://www.virustotal.com/en/file/e01211ca36aa02e923f20adee0a3c4f5d5187dc65bdf1c997b3da3c2b0745425/analysis/1433430542/

  83. I block ads & adscripts via hosts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    NoScript's inferior to hosts on ads - it parses tags: Hosts block adscript source in 1 step before NoScript starts via NEW APK Hosts File Engine 9.0++ SR-7 32/64-bit https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&biw=&bih=&q=%22APK+Hosts+File+Engine%22+and+%22start64%22&btnG=Google+Search&gbv=1/

    Ads & malware rob speed/security/privacy

    Hosts add speed (via hardcodes/adblocks), security (vs. bad sites/malware/poisoned dns), reliability (vs. dns down), & anonymity (vs. dns requestlogs/trackers).

    Less power/cpu/ram + IO use vs. DNS/routers/addons/antivirus + less security bugs/complexity & faster vs. addons/routers/remote dns!

    * Via what you NATIVELY have built into the TCP/IP stack in FASTER kernelmode!

    APK

    P.S. - Safe https://www.virustotal.com/en/file/e01211ca36aa02e923f20adee0a3c4f5d5187dc65bdf1c997b3da3c2b0745425/analysis/1433430542/

  84. Fastest most efficient ad/threat blocker by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Prevention = best medicine (& what you can't touch can't hurt you) via NEW APK Hosts File Engine 9.0++ SR-7 32/64-bit https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&biw=&bih=&q=%22APK+Hosts+File+Engine%22+and+%22start64%22&btnG=Google+Search&gbv=1/

    Ads & malware rob speed/security/privacy

    Hosts add speed (via hardcodes/adblocks), security (vs. bad sites/malware/poisoned dns), reliability (vs. dns down), & anonymity (vs. dns requestlogs/trackers).

    Less power/cpu/ram + IO use vs. DNS/routers/addons/antivirus + less security bugs/complexity & faster vs. addons/routers/remote dns!

    Avoids DNSChangers in routers/IP settings & dns redirects (99.999% of ISP DNS != patched vs. it) + lightens DNS load & resolves faster from local system RAM!

    * Via what you NATIVELY have built into the TCP/IP stack in FASTER kernelmode!

    APK

    P.S. - Safe https://www.virustotal.com/en/file/e01211ca36aa02e923f20adee0a3c4f5d5187dc65bdf1c997b3da3c2b0745425/analysis/1433430542/

    1. Re: Fastest most efficient ad/threat blocker by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nobody wants your malware, Alex.

  85. I block ads & adscripts via hosts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    NoScript's inferior to hosts on ads - it parses tags: Hosts block adscript source in 1 step before NoScript starts via NEW APK Hosts File Engine 9.0++ SR-7 32/64-bit https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&biw=&bih=&q=%22APK+Hosts+File+Engine%22+and+%22start64%22&btnG=Google+Search&gbv=1/

    Ads & malware rob speed/security/privacy

    Hosts add speed (via hardcodes/adblocks), security (vs. bad sites/malware/poisoned dns), reliability (vs. dns down), & anonymity (vs. dns requestlogs/trackers).

    Less power/cpu/ram + IO use vs. DNS/routers/addons/antivirus + less security bugs/complexity & faster vs. addons/routers/remote dns!

    * Via what you NATIVELY have built into the TCP/IP stack in FASTER kernelmode!

    APK

    P.S. - Safe https://www.virustotal.com/en/file/e01211ca36aa02e923f20adee0a3c4f5d5187dc65bdf1c997b3da3c2b0745425/analysis/1433430542/

  86. Hosts do it FAR faster vs. NoScript: How? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    NoScript parses tags. Inferior usermode slower vs. hosts. Hosts block adscript sources in 1 step before NoScript starts via NEW APK Hosts File Engine 9.0++ SR-7 32/64-bit https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&biw=&bih=&q=%22APK+Hosts+File+Engine%22+and+%22start64%22&btnG=Google+Search&gbv=1/

    Ads & malware rob speed/security/privacy

    Hosts add speed (via hardcodes/adblocks), security (vs. bad sites/malware/poisoned dns), reliability (vs. dns down), & anonymity (vs. dns requestlogs/trackers).

    Less power/cpu/ram + IO use vs. DNS/routers/addons/antivirus + less security bugs/complexity & faster vs. addons/routers/remote dns!

    * Via what you NATIVELY have built into the TCP/IP stack in FASTER kernelmode!

    APK

    P.S. - Safe https://www.virustotal.com/en/file/e01211ca36aa02e923f20adee0a3c4f5d5187dc65bdf1c997b3da3c2b0745425/analysis/1433430542/

  87. Yes: Fastest/most efficient - does more4less by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    See my subject & NEW APK Hosts File Engine 9.0++ SR-7 32/64-bit https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&biw=&bih=&q=%22APK+Hosts+File+Engine%22+and+%22start64%22&btnG=Google+Search&gbv=1/

    Ads & malware rob speed/security/privacy

    Hosts add speed (via hardcodes/adblocks), security (vs. bad sites/malware/poisoned dns), reliability (vs. dns down), & anonymity (vs. dns requestlogs/trackers).

    Less power/cpu/ram + IO use vs. DNS/routers/addons/antivirus + less security bugs/complexity & faster vs. addons/routers/remote dns!

    Avoids DNSChangers in routers/IP settings & dns redirects (99.999% of ISP DNS != patched vs. it) + lightens DNS load & resolves faster from local system RAM!

    * Via what you NATIVELY have built into the TCP/IP stack in FASTER kernelmode!

    APK

    P.S. - Safe https://www.virustotal.com/en/file/e01211ca36aa02e923f20adee0a3c4f5d5187dc65bdf1c997b3da3c2b0745425/analysis/1433430542/b

  88. Hosts = far better vs. CDN trackers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Via NEW APK Hosts File Engine 9.0++ SR-7 32/64-bit https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&biw=&bih=&q=%22APK+Hosts+File+Engine%22+and+%22start64%22&btnG=Google+Search&gbv=1/

    Ads & malware rob speed/security/privacy

    Hosts add speed (via hardcodes/adblocks), security (vs. bad sites/malware/poisoned dns), reliability (vs. dns down), & anonymity (vs. dns requestlogs/trackers).

    Less power/cpu/ram + IO use vs. DNS/routers/addons/antivirus + less security bugs/complexity & faster vs. addons/routers/remote dns!

    Avoids CDN tracking, DNSChangers in routers/IP settings & dns redirects (99.999% of ISP DNS != patched vs. it) + lightens DNS load & resolves faster from local system RAM!

    * Via what you NATIVELY have built into the TCP/IP stack in FASTER kernelmode!

    APK

    P.S. - Safe https://www.virustotal.com/en/file/e01211ca36aa02e923f20adee0a3c4f5d5187dc65bdf1c997b3da3c2b0745425/analysis/1433430542/

  89. Suggestion & keep images, block ads/scripts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Block ad script sources most efficient fastest way & keep images as compensation via APK Hosts File Engine 9.0++ SR-7 32/64-bit https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&biw=&bih=&q=%22APK+Hosts+File+Engine%22+and+%22start64%22&btnG=Google+Search&gbv=1/

    Ads & malware rob speed/security/privacy

    Hosts add speed (via hardcodes/adblocks), security (vs. bad sites/malware/poisoned dns), reliability (vs. dns down), & anonymity (vs. dns requestlogs/trackers).

    Less power/cpu/ram + IO use vs. DNS/routers/addons/antivirus + less security bugs/complexity & faster vs. addons/routers/remote dns!

    Resolve site names faster from local system RAM!

    * Via what you NATIVELY have built into the TCP/IP stack in FASTER kernelmode!

    APK

    P.S. - Safe https://www.virustotal.com/en/file/e01211ca36aa02e923f20adee0a3c4f5d5187dc65bdf1c997b3da3c2b0745425/analysis/1433430542/

  90. Not the browser's fault by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's not the browser's fault that you haven't configured it to work the way you need it to work on your connection.

  91. ...because owners of websites don't want you... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Many websites load up all sorts of other stuff than the stuff you went on the site to see. Uses of bandwith and or Ram and or neurons.
    Then, a while back I had an insight. A lot of websites are hoping they can make money off you, either you paying them or them selling eyeballs to advertisers. A lot of websites overload all sorts of things because owners of websites don't want you switching to another website. If they can freeze your computer, all the better.
    BTW, some of the worst are old-pre-internet news sites, newspapers, TV networks.

  92. Eat your words #1/3 unindentifiable troll by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    See my subject & proof vs. your libelous lies https://www.virustotal.com/en/file/e01211ca36aa02e923f20adee0a3c4f5d5187dc65bdf1c997b3da3c2b0745425/analysis/1433430542/ that prove my ware's safe/clean

    That's in addition to & the fact that the highly esteemed Malwarebytes' own employee verifed the code as safe too "I've seen the code & it's safe" http://forum.hosts-file.net/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=4290/

    PLUS h t t p : / / f . v i r s c a n . o r g / A P K H o s t s F i l e E n g i n e I n s t a l l e r 3 2 _ 6 4 b i t . e x e . h t m l (take out spaces here)

    * How did it taste eating your words? A bit like your FOOT IN YOUR MOUTH ramming them down & washed down by the BITTER taste of SELF-defeat??

    APK

    P.S.=> Plenty of our /. peers alone & many 1,000's worldwide disagree outnumbering you in next 2 posts from me... apk

  93. Eat your words #2/3 unindentifiable troll by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    his hosts program is actually pretty good by xenotransplant

    his hosts tool is actually useful for those cases in which one does indeed want to locally block stuff outright while consuming minimum system resources by alexgieg

    I've never tried to belittle (APK's) work, I've flat out said it's good by BronsCon

    take a look at the APK hosts file engine by SuperKendall

    APK is kinda right. I've tried his hosts file generating software. It works by bmo

    APK is totally right on this count. Adblock Plus on Firefox mobile is a dog on older, or lower end, phones. A hostfile based adblocker makes for a much better experience by chihowa

    I like your host file system by Karmashock

    I find your hosts file admirable by vel-ex-tech

    * My code's liked + recommended & hosted by Malwarebytes' hpHosts!

    QUESTION: How'd it taste eating yer words? Like yer FOOT IN YER MOUTH ramming 'em down washed down by the BITTER taste of SELF-defeat??.

    APK

    P.S.=> More coming... apk

  94. Eat your words #3/3 unindentifiable troll by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I support APK's stand on the hosts file by Trax3001BBS

    Your premise that hostfiles are a good way to deal with advertising and malvertising is quite valid by JazzLad

    No complaints from me, I like APK... Reminds me to use a host file. Also, his stuff is free by aaaaaaargh!

    APK's monolithic hosts file is looking pretty good by Culture20

    APK... Awesome to see he's still spreading the good word by Molochi

    ABP is insufficient as a solid hosts file does everything that APK reminds us about by fast turtle

    APK isn't wrong by cfalcon

    APK, I know people give you a lot of shit regarding hosts, but please don't ever stop by nasredin

    You need APK's hosts file by Teun

    APK solution STILL relevant by Thud457

    you're right about hosts files by drinkypoo

    APK

    P.S.=> They're in addition to https://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=10230505&cid=53845733/ many more earlier + 1,000's worldwide - there's no arguing w/ success... apk

  95. http2 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Use http2 on a proxy link.
    Change the tcp initcnd and timeouts.
    If possible, tune the response to packet loss to be 1/6th or so of what it is by default.

  96. HTTPS adoption will make more traffic uncacheable by tepples · · Score: 1

    I have a proxy (squid) that supplies HTTPS just fine. It just can't cache anything served over HTTPS.

    Polipo is the same way: it caches cleartext HTTP and uses CONNECT for HTTPS. But with HTTPS traffic having already exceeded cleartext HTTP traffic, the majority of traffic passing through the Squid or Polipo proxy will be under the CONNECT method. And as more and more public sites continue to adopt HTTPS, your cache hit rates will fall to single digit percentages, at which point there becomes less of a business case for continuing to maintain the proxy in the first place.

  97. I tore up EvilBS on that note here... apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    See my subject & on MANY levels, routers vs. hosts files https://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=10230847&cid=53852149/ & he literally ADMITTED DEFEAT https://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=10172213&cid=53820595/

    So "eat your words"...

    APK

    P.S.=> Routers = another a layer of "Bolt on 'MoAr'" illogic logic imo, yes they work, but cost more (for router itself + higher power bills) & are non-native complexity + are exploitable as hell as well as a SINGLE point of fail + are slower on resolution by FAR (hosts are easily centrally migrated to all PC/Server endpoints by admins using logon/startup script, chronjobs or manually run scripts))... apk

  98. Irrelevant. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Irrelevant.