Pointless images, the great data traffic ripoff

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dogle
Posts: 409
Joined: Thu 11 Oct 2007, 12:41

Pointless images, the great data traffic ripoff

#1 Post by dogle »

Most of my time on t'internet is spent reading. In recent years I have become more and more vexed by the insistence of morons like newspaper editors to add an image preceding their text, and the more so because the pic is usually not specifically relevant to the actual text. Generally it is just an image culled from an image library, on the apparent basis 'no story without a picture .. relevance is irrelevant'.

Today I finally got round to an experiment I had been meaning to do for so long .. but never did till now.

I invoked ifconfig to see, right down to the last byte, just how much data traffic those stupid irrelevant pictures were costing me. I totted up the traffic on loading a well-known newspaper page, with and without image enablement in the browser.

I was stunned to see that the full deal with pix cost 5.8 MB (hey, that's just one page!), but the image-free information which I sought to read clocked only 0.49MB. This kind of nonsense is hugely beneficial to the sharks who sell us data connections on a limited GB basis, and hugely expensive to the poor punters who can't understand why they're being charged so much for their browsing.

I do need to look at images now and then - charts, diagrams - as most people do. Soooo, there is surely a need for a quick images on/off switch for economical browsing, rather than the very lugubrious edit=>preferences=>privacy=>etc. route to change the browser settings.

If only I had the knowledge and skill to provide a .pet to do just that, I'd be be posting it right now .... but I haven't ... can anyone help?

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ally
Posts: 1957
Joined: Sat 19 May 2012, 19:29
Location: lincoln, uk
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#2 Post by ally »

hey dogle

a work around until the clever people pitch in.....

view the cache'd pages using google and select text only on top right

:)

jpeps
Posts: 3179
Joined: Sat 31 May 2008, 19:00

#3 Post by jpeps »

Text browser (when you don't need to view pictures). First try links2 for the best of both worlds. A javascript switch definitely helps (I use QuickJS pluggin with FF).

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Ted Dog
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Location: Heart of Texas

#4 Post by Ted Dog »

there used to be image load checkbox in the browser. Unselected keeps the images from being autoloaded ( unless they are embeded within the text as text, not seen since early Netscape Brower era. still wish I saved a copy of how that used to be done. )

Jasper

#5 Post by Jasper »

Hi Ted Dog,

If you use Seamonkey or Firefox try the PrefBar 6.2.2 addon as shown in the screen shot below.

My regards
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dogle
Posts: 409
Joined: Thu 11 Oct 2007, 12:41

#6 Post by dogle »

Thanks, everyone!

I agree that a text browser has much merit .... but that is a fairly heavy way of handling the requirement for a quick images/no images switch.

Ted Dog, I also mourn the passing of the early Netscape stuff, which seemed to do just what I wanted, without the burden of all that jobsworth-inspired bloat and bling which Mozilla now seeks to thrust up me, to do what Mozilla wants instead of what I want.

Jasper, the PrefBar addon looks just grand .... but (here we go again!) Mozilla, blast them, are it seems no longer offering PrefBar 6.2.2, just the 6.3.0 which apparently lacks reverse compatibility with my cherished Seamonkey 1.1.18 ... mozdev link is not responding ... most grateful if you can point to any alternative source of the good stuff.

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