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Browsing Frugally Without Wasting Bandwidth?
Posted by
Soulskill
on Sat Oct 25, 2008 01:09 AM
from the ix-nay-on-the-orn-pay dept.
from the ix-nay-on-the-orn-pay dept.
forrestm writes "At home, my internet connection is limited to 1GB / month before I have to pay extra. At my university, I'm charged around 2.5c per megabyte. I rarely download anything big, but I often go through a large amount of bandwidth by simply browsing around. For example, when I play a YouTube video, click a link, and then return to the video, the whole video reloads. When I read some websites, such as BoingBoing.net or Cnet.com, my status bar shows a whole lot of data being transferred through other domains. Some pages seem to send/receive data at certain intervals for the duration of my visit. When I begin to enter a search in Firefox's search bar, a list of suggestions is automatically downloaded. In addition to this, Firefox often requests internet access of its own accord, even though I have automatic updating turned off. All this is costing me! How do I stop unsolicited use of my internet connection? How do I go about not wasting bandwidth like this?"
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That's lousy (Score:3, Informative)
Why would it be so bad in a day where technology should be so advanced?
What about disabling pictures/whatever in your Internet browser settings?
Re:That's lousy (Score:5, Insightful)
Add that, the high cost of internet access at uni is a problem, even if the poster has good internet access at home. I'm in that situation: my home connection is great, but my uni has really low limits and high costs. This is fine when I can download something at home and bring it into uni, but if I go over my cap at uni, I can not browse anything at uni. This means I can't look up some papers or follow some links.
To the poster, I say, as first step, use No Script (as was said underneath). For you, the cost of whitelisting everything is less than the cost of the net. Also, don't "Always allow" if you can get away with it. If you always allow YouTube, you are back to the start again.
Parent
Re:That's lousy (Score:5, Informative)
$40/month isn't the sort of amount you want to be spending on non-necessary things like internet access.
OUT! Leave your geek card at the security desk.
How can you honestly call the internet "non-necessary" ? Yes, there's a lot of garbage on here, but how could any tech-savvy individual dismiss the evolutionary leap of the global information network ? Computers and the internet are the more significant achievements of our century, because they unlock a million other uses and are the first step toward unifying humankind.
What, you think all this man-vs-man, you-don't-know-what-I-know hate-breeding business is the path to enlightenment ? *cough* Wehell... thanks for nothing!
Parent
Re:That's lousy (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Internet non-necessary... When was the last time you were in college?
Re:That's lousy (Score:5, Funny)
For university students today, internet access falls between beer and food on the scale of necessities. If you have $100/month to spend, you would use the first $40 for Natural Light, the next $40 for access to Facebook, and the remaining $20 for Ramen Noodles.
Parent
Re:That's lousy (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:That's lousy (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm still amazed to hear that your university is charging you such a high rate for access (well, actually I'm surprised they're charging you at all for on-campus access); obviously connections differ depending on where you are, and the number of cables from New Zealand to the rest of the world has an impact on that, but having had a quick look around it seems that even a fairly pessimistic bit of number crunching at NZ prices has your university paying less than 1/10 of the cost they're passing on to you. Has anyone complained about this? Do they provide a reason for the inflated costs?
Parent
Re:That's lousy (Score:4, Interesting)
Telecom NZ was formerly a subsidiary of NZ Post and thereby wholly owned and controlled by the government. The New Zealand economy went into a tailspin beginning in the 1970s, hit with the oil shock and the diminution of trade with its largest overseas market, the UK, who had just entered the European Common Market. In response, during the 1980s and 90s the governments, first Labour and then National, went on a privatization binge (see Rogernomics [wikipedia.org]) and sold off infrastructure right and left in an effort to encourage capital investment. Power generation and transmission, rail lines and rolling stock, and the telephone network were peeled off and their new corporate structures were remarkably free of constraints or oversight from the former owners.
As a result of this monopoly position, Telecom has had two decades in which to milk the cash cow of assets it was more or less gifted from the public domain, and has been loath to increase capacity any more than absolutely necessary. The latest government, after reviewing the pathetic state of everything from landline and mobile pricing to broadband uptake and service levels, finally reinstituted regulation of Telecom and forced a split of the company into wholesale, retail and services divisions. In addition, it has mandated local loop unbundling for competitive DSL providers. Much of this is too little, too late, however, and the elephant in the room has been unacknowledged.
New Zealand has only one transoceanic fiber link to the rest of the world, and its operator, the Southern Cross Cable Network [southerncrosscables.com], is 50 percent owned by Telecom. The rates for international traffic on the SCCN reflect its monopoly status and appear to be governed by the doctrine of artificial scarcity. As a result, NZ ISPs have to be ultra stingy with bandwidth, forcing onerous data caps on business and retail customers and enforcing a two-tier pricing model on local and international traffic. Of course, in a nation with a land mass and population similar to the state of Colorado and an urgent need to be connected to global markets, this is criminally insane. But until competition [bizjournals.com] enters the picture or the government grows some balls, we're stuffed.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:That's lousy (Score:4, Informative)
Same here, 2.5 cent / MB!?!
If he made me a list I could download the things for him, burn them and send the discs for less :D
I see that people have suggested large cache, I guess ad- and flashblocker are basic stuff to.. But uhm, I guess the web of today do require quite a lot of bandwidth duh to all the bloa.... uhm, web2.0 and flash ..
I wonder if I would really waste my precious 1 GB of data on crap like youtube if I had a cap. Uninstall flash, block all ads, block shitty iFrames, get a decent deal on the connection, .. :D
Parent
No Script (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No Script (Score:5, Informative)
I find No Script to be a bit of a pain, usually, because I seem to spend half of my time allowing things that I need. Adblock, however, is the only thing that keeps the internet usable for me when I exceed my download limit. I get shaped down to 56k instead of my usual 10 Mb/s - a very painful fall. Adblock lets me load pages in far less than half the time it would take without it. It's shocking how much crap is foisted on us at our own expense, really.
Parent
Re:No Script (Score:4, Informative)
I suggest FlashBlock instead of NoScript if he only wants to stop flash from being auto-downloaded and leave the JS alone.
Justin.
Parent
Re:No Script (Score:5, Insightful)
I suggest FlashBlock instead of NoScript if he only wants to stop flash from being auto-downloaded and leave the JS alone.
Agreed. I don't argue that NoScript isn't useful for some people; but for the average person it's too extreme of a solution. FlashBlock stops the vast majority of current web annoyances without requiring user intervention just to get the average site's navigation working.
Some may argue that for a site to require JavaScript for navigation is ridiculous; but we've got to deal with the real world here. Disabling all client-side scripting by default just breaks too many sites.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
A Website that can't be viewed with Lynx is a Web site not worth visiting.
So how would you rate my university's website, the only place I can sign up for my classes (IE only)? Should I quit until they fix it for lynx?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
So how would you rate my university's website, the only place I can sign up for my classes (IE only)? Should I quit until they fix it for lynx?
I don't know what University you go to. One university I was thinking of going to (when I was just a teeny-bopper) offered me a partial scholarship but I turned them down because of the very poor customer service. I would have probably done the same with your university. If you've already committed yourself financially then you can always try to ask for a refund or a transfer. I'm sorry to hear about your school. You should complain to the student union about this absurdity.
Re:No Script (Score:4, Informative)
Tip: focus on "accessibility for handicapped" as the main theme. Papers on these topics get higher grades and a higher chance of anyone actually caring.
Parent
Re:No Script (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I think the guy is doing something wrong. I use NoScript all the time, and I've whitelisted probably 3 sites permanently. The rest I whitelist on a case-by-case basis, as I'm concerned about XSS (and while NoScript claims to protect against XSS and CSRF, but I don't like to take chances.) I have about 70 RSS feeds, many of which are blogs which point to external links, so yeah, I probably visit 100s of sites.
As you say, most work just fine without Javascript. Those that do lose functionality, I often do
WTF!?!?! (Score:5, Informative)
Dude, all you have to do when visiting a site to be white-listed is is :
1. visit the site.
2. navigate your curser to the 'S' with the red circle and slash (in the bottom right corner of FF), and choose "allow this page". If you have not set NoScript to refresh the page withe new settings (Windows= 'tools'> Add-ons> highlight (left-click/hover on NoScript in the 'add-ons' dialog box) NoScript, click on the 'Options' button> select 'General' tab> checkmark the box labeled 'Automatically reload affected pages when permissions change.'
3. ???
4. PROFIT!!!
For extra credit,try the "appearance' tab (Tools>Add-ons>NoScript>Options.
Personally, mine is set at:
(long story, short version) "Show..."
"Status bar labeled" == unchecked
"Full Domain" == unchecked
"Full Address" == unchecked
It provides a nice experience online for me, along with control over which parts of a web page can load.
When in doubt, you can always try "temporarily allow XYZ.org/com/net/edu".
P.S. I am currently having to settle for a Windows machine against my choice, but the above info is the same under Linux and Firefox, except it is accessed from "Edit">"Preferences">....
Parent
Re:No Script (Score:5, Informative)
And if you are not a Firefox user. Become one.
Some extra things you can do on top of most other things /. with the "Low Bandwith", simple design and such set
1) http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm [mvps.org] will block out many things without even trying to fetch them.
2) Use privoxy or junkbuster
3) https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1672 [mozilla.org] ImgLikeOpera This extension is very useful for non broadband users
4) If you have more then 1 PC, install a proxy server. Or perhaps using your providers proxy server won't count for as much (a long shot, but worth ti check out)
5) Use a webinterface for your mail without too many adds, like Gmail.
6) Read
7) Use Lynx, links or w3m to browse most sites and only use firefox for those that actually need it.
Do use all of the things, not just one or two. Only when they conflict yiu need to choose.
Parent
Re:No Script (Score:4, Informative)
And don't forget the wonder that is "Flashblock". That will stop your YouTube movies and other Flash content from loading until you explicitly click on them, so no more "driveby" bandwidth wastage.
Parent
Use Squid (Score:4, Informative)
Here you go (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Here you go (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
To quote Adam Savage: (Score:5, Insightful)
At home, my internet connection is limited to 1GB / month before I have to pay extra.
"Well there's your problem."
Re:To quote Adam Savage: (Score:5, Informative)
There are two kinds of problems in this world:
Those you can do something about, and those you can not.
Soulskill did not say so, but I am willing to bet he is from South Africa (as I am). I will therefore answer in this context, if the context is wrong, apologies.
The 1Gb limit is fairly typical as is the charging per bandwidth by your university. Even if you go to the library, you still have to log in and you are charged.
The reasons for this are numerous (and I am not going to claim that I can give a fair analysis in such a short space) but it includes the facts that
* South Africa get's its international connectivity from the States and Europe. So there are seriously long cables that run to serve RELATIVELY small population of internet users.
* There is an effective monopoly (or by now duopoly) on bandwidth provision (and yes, this is being fought)
* South Africa (and most other third world countries) needs to pay for it connectivity to other countries (but why not the other way around?)
This landscape is changing, extra cables are being laid under sea, SLOWLY the market is being deregulated so we can look forward to some cheaper bandwidth in future. In the meantime, these are the cards we are being dealt.
So before giving an answer as simplistic as this (and being marked insightful 5!!!!) consider that the world is larger.
I hope this does add insight.
Flame away.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Squid. (Score:5, Insightful)
Install a cache server. Like Squid.
http://www.squid-cache.org/ [squid-cache.org] /thread.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squid_cache [wikipedia.org]
--
BMO
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Which actually doesn't help the youtube problem. Squid can't cache youtube videos. You'd think it'd be able to, I would expect it to, but it doesn't.
Re:Squid. (Score:5, Informative)
Something like "Downloadhelper is good for Youtube. It's a Firefox extension. You don't need Javascript or flash enabled to use it. Just download the video and watch it as many times as you want. I know there are other programs like this, but this one is actually up-todate and simple to use.
Parent
Re:Squid. (Score:4, Informative)
It is *possible* to cache YouTube videos and the like, but you'd need some technical skill to pull it off. Basically, you'd write a Squid pre-filter that replaces embedded YouTube videos with an embedded call to a local cgi-script. On the first invocation, the cgi-script would download and cache the video while streaming it to the client. Subsequent calls would skip the download process.
Of course, this only saves bandwidth when you re-watch the same video over-and-over.
Even in the pre-YouTube days of the internet, Squid didn't help with bandwidth all that much. I once set up a Squid cache in transparent-proxy mode at an ISP with around 400 dial-up customers. I gave it 4 GB of cache space, which doesn't sound like much now, but our biggest drives were 500mb full-height SCSI bricks. I tuned every configurable option and pulled every trick in the book to maximize the caching. The experiment lasted around a month, during which time Squid saved us around 30% on our inbound bandwidth, according to log analysis. We finally had to shut it down because customers started to notice that they weren't seeing real-time data (like stock quotes) and some of them threatened to sue.
Bottom line: If you want low-bandwidth internet, use one of the these:
Lynx [isc.org]
Links [jikos.cz]
ELinks [elinks.or.cz]
w3m [sourceforge.net]
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Judging by my squid analysis (using Calamaris), Squid will only save about 10% of a small network's bandwidth -- even if it is setup with a reasonably large (5GB) cache and a large size (100MB) for the maximum size of cached objects.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I like polipo [jussieu.fr]. It's much, much easier to use for personal browsing and you can have it cache your cgi-bin stuff or whatever. You should be able to set it up to cache the youtube videos, even if they are 'Cache-Control: no-cache'.
I tried to install squid, but it brought back sendmail nightmares. Squid is just way overkill for personal browsing proxy/cache.
hosts file (Score:3)
make believe you are a cell phone (Score:4, Interesting)
force text only. no flash or images
and set your browser to identify yourself as say, blackberry's browser. opera can do this sort of cloaking through an easy menu interface. large sites you visit will automatically downstep your content. otherwise, purposefully only visit sites that are mobile friendly versions of the main sites. for example, slashot's mobile friendly site is http://slashdot.org/palm [slashdot.org]
A wifi card and your neighbour's internet. (Score:4, Funny)
Disable prefetching (Score:5, Interesting)
about:config
network.prefetch-next false
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Crap like this enabled by default hurts Firefox mindshare.
From my about:config there dozens of entires i had to manually change for firefox to work smoothly,plus adblock.
Adblock doesn't have the NoScript functionality of "Block everything unless i told you otherwise" and i have to block ads one by one(i don't use susbscription filters).I once tried using blocksite,but its much slower to operate and interface is primitive.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
From https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Link_prefetching_FAQ [mozilla.org]:
It is important that websites adopt tag based prefetching instead of trying to roll-in silent downloading using various JS/DOM hacks. The tag gives the browser the ability to know what sites are up to, and we can use this information to better prioritize document prefetching. The user preference to disable tag prefetching may simply encourage websites to stick with JS/DOM hacks, and that would not be good for users. This is one reason why prefetc
Some Firefox suggestions (Score:3, Informative)
I have a couple of suggestions for Firefox...
Don't load images: Preferences -> Content and uncheck "Load images automatically".
Block other media you don't want: FlashBlock [mozdev.org], AdBlock [mozilla.org], QuickJava [mozilla.org] (for Java and JavaScript)
You could also try fiddling with the browser.cache.check_doc_frequency [mozillazine.org] in your about:config. I haven't tried it, but setting it to 2 might yield good results.
Try a compressing proxy (Score:3, Interesting)
It seems that RabbIT [khelekore.org] does that too, but I've never used that software myself.
Four ways (Score:3, Informative)
1. Adblock Plus (not plain Adblock)
2. FlashBlock
3. Modified Hosts file (http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm)
4. If you need to watch a Youtube vid more than once, you can download it to your PC via keepvid.com.
Use Opera (Score:5, Informative)
Nobody suggested this yet, so I will:
Use Opera.
One of its really great features is the ability to browse the web with image loading turned off, either completely, or just by allowing already-cached images to be displayed. Ever ended up on a random forum while googling something and had half a dozen megabytes of flashy avatars and signatures loaded, plus someone embedding giant images into the thread? I have. Image loading toggle is a keypress or a mouse click away.
If you globally turn JavaScript and plugins off, you won't be surprised by a site loading a megabyte of JS from somewhere (damn those huge libraries), or by any kind of Flash content or embedded videos. Helps security, too. You can always whitelist sites you regularly use.
The third great thing about Opera is instant Back/Forward navigation. Nothing is reloaded. Extra bandwidth savings. Extra time savings, too, with mouse gestures.
Firefox's search bar (Score:3, Informative)
Turn this feature off. Click on the downarrow to the left of the search box, select "Manage Search Engines" and de-select "Show search suggestions".
You can also disable this (annoying) feature for Google page searches from their Preferences page. This sets "SG=0" in the Google PREF cookie -- which I've set in my proxy server so it's effectively disabled for all my browsers.
Re:easy (Score:5, Informative)
Use adblockplus rather than adblock. Adblock is obsolete, and does not work with current Firefox versions.
Here are some bandwidth saving keys to add to your user.js file: // Don't submit every character I type in the search box to google // Update extensions and Adblock filters every 15 days. // Note that the first is measured in seconds, and the second is measured in hours. // Block pages from autorefreshing
----
user_pref("browser.search.suggest.enabled", false);
user_pref("browser.search.update", false);
user_pref("extensions.update.interval", 1296000);
user_pref("extensions.adblockplus.synchronizationinterval", 360);
user_pref("accessibility.blockautorefresh", true);
---
Leave youtube videos loaded in the tab until you are sure you won't want to watch it again. I typically turn the sound off and allow a youtube video to load while I am surfing in another tab. When the video is done loading, I turn the sound back on and watch it from the beginning.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Or you can hit pause, switch to another window/tab and it will continue to load. When done, unpause.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
What would be nice is if they had a large caching system on the local university network (whic