Are videos pre-cached? + news rant

[Fidcal]

I have a download limit of 5GB a month so I tend to ration videos and only watch those that seem particularly special for me. But I can't help wonder, particularly with news sites, whether they download them anyway into the cache even if I don't watch them. Anyone know?

 

Why I'm asking is that I notice with many news web pages there is a seemingly endless flutter of download info (changes too fast to read as though it is downloading a million different button icons or something.) I have reached the point where once the page appears I hit my firewall disable all button. But this then brings up the firewall's 'always on top' message flickering that it is blocking a net access. Both are distracting and annoying but at least the firewall assures me that my bandwidth is not being stolen.

 

Yesterday I quickly saved out the pages I wanted to read as text then closed Opera. This is getting ridiculous.

 

The search for a decent free news web site continues. I used to be happy with the BBC text only service (now abandoned by them - why? It obviously was automatic and just converted their bloated graphic pages.) This was ideal because it listed vertical a linking header with a brief summary below so you could skim down and click topic of interest to open in another tab to read at one's leisure - I even save out these sessions if I run out of time. The only annoyance was sports spoilers. I still recall the double whammy of 'Henman equalizes' header which told me (in two words!) not only the result of the tennis match recording I was watching but also the result of the next match! I actually wrote a program to remove the sport section but a few months later they changed the web page format. I think they have some spy script that checks what you are doing and automatically rewrites itself if it feels its not annoying you enough. But that is a side-grumble. hehe!

 

The best I have found for layout so far is http://www.newsdaily.com/news/ which is relatively uncluttered and gives summaries. A main downside for me is that it is US-based. It has been interesting to note though that their reporting of events in Libya is MASSIVELY understated compared to UK news sites. I wonder if this is common to US news? Libya dominates UK news.

 

But a problem is that all news web sites that I have been able to find do not list like the above BBC text - at least not comprehensively. You might get a summary with some main stories but most stories just have a few words that are often meaningless out of context. Why should I click on 'Man lands on the...' or 'Abortive attempt to overthrow...' or 'The ABC asks XYZ if...'

 

BTW I solved my problem of not finding a decent weather website - I no longer read any weather forecasts. Somehow I don't miss the habit.

[New Horizon]

I use flashblock for firefox, since most of the videos on sites use flash. It prevents the flash from ever loading, and just replaces the flash object with an icon. If you choose to view it, you click the icon and then it is loaded. Makes pages load faster, that's for sure.

[Fidcal]

Thanks NH. I did a search for flashblock for opera and found it's already built in to v11 and just needs allow plug-ins only on demand to be enabled. My cautious feeling is that may have cured it. I've only done one test but no never-ending flutter. Be interesting to see if that solves the whole problem.

[stumpy]

Its common for all USA news not to do much news reports of that what happens outside their own country, its basically selfcentered news, the rest of the world does not really exist in the terms of news, and a lot of americans dont even know of the rest of the world.

 

As in if you tell americans that you come from england, the first thing they think of is that your actually talking about new england on the east side of america and not the england where the pilgrim fathers originated from.

 

You need to change your ISP I get a download limit of 300Gb a month, never gotten near the limit, and if you go over the limit you get charged 0.50p a gigabyte.

[demagogue]

Something like the New York Times will report more international news, and the International Herald Tribune reports everything as int'l news of course, even US stuff (as if it's itself a foreign country). But by and large that's about it AFAIK.

 

Now you can understand why I subscribe to The Economist, lol.

[Serpentine]

Yeah I've noticed quite a lot of the US news services using pre-caches, it's bloody annoying. They also now use transparent flash containers that run fullscreen so that it will activate flash for the video too if you so much as open the tab, getting around quite a few on-demand flash blockers, but sites like that I just tend to avoid, whatever I can fetch directly with RSS I do.

 

That said, living in a place where broadband cost is insane and limits are 3gb for standard household users, I feel your pain, but I've found ways and providers which offer things a bit differently, but over here we're free to chop and change isp by just swapping pppoe account info (prepaid is quite fun too). I get about 60gb through some trickery for the same price it costs as 2gb for the majority of more accepting folk... mmm. Might be worth having a shop around for offers and such.

[Fidcal]

I'm hanging on because I've had so much trouble with ISP's in the past I'm just glad this one (madasafish) is fairly problem-free. I do look at other deals from time to time. I'm hoping that as more ISP's offer better deals that madasafish will be forced to upgrade my account. haha. I live in a dream world. But maybe, just maybe.

 

The funny thing is that 5GB has mostly been more than enough most months. But nowadays we see far more videos around than say about 4 years ago when I joined my current ISP.

[jaxa]

Mobile versions tend to accomplish the same thing as the "low graphics" versions:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/mobile/

 

Take a look at these sources:

http://www.reuters.com/

http://english.aljaz...t//default.html

http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Main_Page

 

Additionally try adding a script blocker like NoScript for Firefox (or the equivalent NotScripts for Opera). This can block webpages from loading oft-unnecessary script frameworks and of course, ads, further reducing your bandwidth consumption.

 

The nuclear option: http://lynx.isc.org/

Edited March 22, 2011 by jaxa

[Fidcal]

Thanks Jaxa - I'll try those - especially the bbc mobile one looks reasonable.

[dumpkin]

You could save bandwidth by enabling "Opera Turbo" http://www.opera.com/browser/turbo/

 

And even more of course, if you'd choose View->Images->no images

 

 

 

Edited March 24, 2011 by dumpkin

[Fidcal]

I was suspicious of turbo. I got the impression users' entire web access was routed through another server which sold that demographic information. This raises the whole privacy/spy concerns. We've already seen how this info has been used in the past to profile and identify individuals.

 

Switching off images would be better if I could figure out the hot key setup.

[dumpkin]

Yes, enabling Opera Turbo sends all your traffic through their proxy servers in order to be able to compress the images. Not everyone's cup of tea...

 

Here are two possibilities to turn off image loading:

 

1. adding a button - copy/paste the link below, click it in the error page and you'll be asked to add the button to your existing ones and a window will show up. Drag and drop the item "Disable display images" to a browser bar of your choice. It will let you switch between images/no images.

 

opera:/button/Enable%20display%20images%20%3E%20Disable%20display%20images%2C%2C%2C-383776252

 

2. by keyboard - you can take any non-predefined key you like to do this.

 

Press Ctrl+F12 and click on the second-last entry on the left (I don't know the english words because I'm using the german version)

 

Duplicate the default keyboard configuration item and edit the new duplicated one. Then click on "Application" category and "New" on the right.

 

Enter your hotkey-letter on the left and fill the right field with "Enable display images > Disable display images"

 

 

[Fidcal]

Thanks dumpkin - I would never have figured that out on my own. In fact it was puzzling even with your instructions! I was trying Ctrl+Z over and over with no effect until I realized I had to type it in manually z + ctrl. Even then I could not get the right box until I hit TAB. Also you need to disable show images in preferences otherwise new web pages still show images even though the hot key toggles them off afterwards (which kind of defeats the object.) I set it to use cache only so commonly used things like forum buttons still show.

 

Anyway, working now thanks. I'll see how this goes. Most images are just rubbish anyway so I won't miss them but I can now hit Ctrl Z to display or alternatively I can click an image space and RMB reload image for just that one picture.

 

It will be interesting to see if this is tolerable after a few days. No idea if it might be annoying after a while. Hope not.

[dumpkin]

Also you need to disable show images in preferences otherwise new web pages still show images even though the hot key toggles them off afterwards (which kind of defeats the object.) I set it to use cache only so commonly used things like forum buttons still show.

 

Hmm, do you use 11.01? When I press ctrl+z and directly afterwards open a new page by either typing the address in the address bar, or clicking on a speeddial, the opened page doesn't show any images. Don't know why you have to generally disable the image display, that makes no sense.

[Fidcal]

Yes but it's effect is only temporary. It's not a 'mode'. If you close that web page then open a new one then images show again. So you'd have to hit Ctrl + Z before every webpage is opened. Well perhaps not from links from other web pages but from speed dial and presumably bookmarks.

 

So it depends if you want to generally have no images but only occasionally or else mostly graphics but occasionally not.

[Serpentine]

I just use the button for show images/show cached/no images, works as expected.

[Bikerdude]

Fids can i assume you mean your home broadband and not your handheld..? %Gb pm for BB is, well, draconian...

[Fidcal]

home broadband. It's the 'max' deal on the left:

 

http://www.madasafish.com/broadband/

[MoroseTroll]

Fidcal: What about the "Adblock Plus" plugin? I'm using Firefox with this tool for years and seeing no flash ads, at all. Also, I've heard that something similar does exist for Opera 11 too.

Also, there are lots of traffic compressors exist, some of them are free of charge, if you prefere to don't use Opera's built-in "Turbo" compression option.

[Fidcal]

They all have to process your entire web access and make a profit by selling information about you to commerce. It has been demonstrated before that this demographic information can be used to produce a profile that can identify people.

 

My current methods seem to be working reasonably - plugins only on demand so I no longer really see videos displayed, just a symbol where they are in the page; cached images only so I only see common smilies and buttons like in this forum - yet I can quickly see any image I *do* want to see by clicking it. Less clutter. No agressive adverts. Looking good so far.