Web browser to minimize data usage

[JEDI]

I'm going to be on travel next month.

I'm probably going to tether my phone to my Win7 laptop.

can someone recommend me a web browser that minimizes my data usage?

 

[inf1nity]

Opera used to have a "Turbo Mode" that supposedly reduced the amount of data transferred. I've never tried it, and i don't know whether the new versions of Opera have it.

If you use Firefox or one of its variants, you can set it to not load images. Go to Options>Content Tab>Load Images Dropbox>Select 'Never'. Be advised though, websites will look ugly and broken without it.

 

[lxskllr]

Opera used to have a "Turbo Mode" that supposedly reduced the amount of data transferred. I've never tried it, and i don't know whether the new versions of Opera have it.

If you use Firefox or one of its variants, you can set it to not load images. Go to Options>Content Tab>Load Images Dropbox>Select 'Never'. Be advised though, websites will look ugly and broken without it.

That turbo mode worked, but was kind of crashy on GNU/Linux. It also has privacy concerns since you're running everything through Opera's servers. It worked by compressing images. You'd see the picture, but it wasn't quite as good as what the page served. That was an old dialup trick for speeding up connections.

Get a vpn, and hunt down free wifi if you need to transfer a lot of data. Otherwise, I'll second Firefox, with ads and scripts blocked. Also, limit frivolous data use when you aren't on wifi. Cat videos aren't a necessity of life ;^)

 

[ninaholic37]

I wonder how long it would take to max out your usage if you used Lynx browser?

http://lynx.browser.org/

I think "data plans" are a rip-off though, I only use free wi-fi and libraries w/internet.

 

[R0H1T]

Opera used to have a "Turbo Mode" that supposedly reduced the amount of data transferred. I've never tried it, and i don't know whether the new versions of Opera have it.

If you use Firefox or one of its variants, you can set it to not load images. Go to Options>Content Tab>Load Images Dropbox>Select 'Never'. Be advised though, websites will look ugly and broken without it.

It still does even with the webkit engine & works great IMO, for chrome there's an extension which redirects the traffic through Google's own servers ~

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/...jfiodhbiellfpcjjedhmmmpeeaebmep/details?hl=en

 

[code65536]

The "safe browsing" phishing filters are quite large, and you can consume many megabytes updating them. I recommend disabling them--most tech savvy people can spot a scam site without the browser pointing out the obvious.

Also, browsing with some sort of flash blocking or ad blocking. Or just NoScript, if you don't mind the hassle of whitelisting.

 

[Sattern]

When I needed to save data usage I just used Opera, now that I have a better connection I can run whatever I want.

Opera is extremely lightweight, or at least it used to be that way.

 

[R0H1T]

The "safe browsing" phishing filters are quite large, and you can consume many megabytes updating them. I recommend disabling them--most tech savvy people can spot a scam site without the browser pointing out the obvious.

Also, browsing with some sort of flash blocking or ad blocking. Or just NoScript, if you don't mind the hassle of whitelisting.

This really won't solve the bandwidth problem since the ads/content is still downloaded, it ain't displayed by the browser that's all. There are a few programs that filter known ip ranges of ad servers & malicious sites, alternatively one can manually add the ip addresses to their windows hosts file like the ones listed here ~

http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm

 

[code65536]

This really won't solve the bandwidth problem since the ads/content is still downloaded, it ain't displayed by the browser that's all. There are a few programs that filter known ip ranges of ad servers & malicious sites, alternatively one can manually add the ip addresses to their windows hosts file like the ones listed here ~

http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm

I've never actually used ad blocking, so I'm not sure about that. But NoScript and/or flash blocking does prevent the download of large media ads because they prevent those elements from being instantiated in the browser in the first place.

 

[R0H1T]

I've never actually used ad blocking, so I'm not sure about that. But NoScript and/or flash blocking does prevent the download of large media ads because they prevent those elements from being instantiated in the browser in the first place.

AFAIK only AdBlock & ABP block the content from being downloaded, don't see how noscript can acheive that as it still needs filters to actually block the ad server requests & it doesn't have any option like that. But yes you're correct about certain extensions blocking the content from being downloaded.

P>S> I'm specifically talking ads here & as such your point about noscript blocking flash & other JS based downloadable content still holds true.

 

[code65536]

AFAIK only AdBlock & ABP block the content from being downloaded, don't see how noscript can acheive that as it still needs filters to actually block the ad server requests & it doesn't have any option like that. But yes you're correct about certain extensions blocking the content from being downloaded.

That's because many ads (esp. the media-heavy ones) are loaded by JavaScript. I.e., the JS generates and inserts the HTML or DOM for the ads. NoScript not only prevents JS from being run, but from JS from even being loaded. And most ad-loading JS are hosted on external ad servers. Yes, there are ads that are loaded right into the page by the server without JS, but those tend to be the lighter, older types.

 

[Spacehead]

If you use Firefox or one of its variants, you can set it to not load images. Go to Options>Content Tab>Load Images Dropbox>Select 'Never'. Be advised though, websites will look ugly and broken without it.

Apparently that option is now gone. You now have to block images on a site by site basis through right clicking &"View Page Info". At least with FF.
ImgLikeOpera add-on will leave a placeholder to show where an image was supposed to be. You can right click & load it if you want/need to.

 

[inf1nity]

Actually i don't think that using NoScript is such a good idea. Most sites need atleast their own scripts to run. This means that after opening a site, OP will need to allow the script(s) on the page so that it can function as intended. These multiple reloads may actually cause him to end up using more data than needed.

 

[inf1nity]

Apparently that option is now gone. You now have to block images on a site by site basis through right clicking &"View Page Info". At least with FF.
ImgLikeOpera add-on will leave a placeholder to show where an image was supposed to be. You can right click & load it if you want/need to.

What browser are you using? I am on Palemoon 24.6.2 and that option is there for me.

 

[ninaholic37]

Apparently that option is now gone. You now have to block images on a site by site basis through right clicking &"View Page Info". At least with FF.

I think you can type "about:config" in the url and change permissions.default.images.

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Permissions.default.image#Possible_values_and_their_effects

In Firefox 27, changing it to 2 blocks images, but I think on some older versions it's 1 (as the options were subtracted by 1: 0, 1, 2).

This really won't solve the bandwidth problem since the ads/content is still downloaded, it ain't displayed by the browser that's all. There are a few programs that filter known ip ranges of ad servers & malicious sites, alternatively one can manually add the ip addresses to their windows hosts file like the ones listed here ~

http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm

Since Lynx is a text browser, does it "download" images/javascript/flash?

 

[Spacehead]

What browser are you using? I am on Palemoon 24.6.2 and that option is there for me.

Firefox 31. Not sure when it was removed from "Options".