Why is mobile web browsing still miserable?

Megalith

Megalith

24-bit/48kHz
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Aug 20, 2006
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I can only speak for Android, but I feel like I'm using a badly set-up virtual machine whenever I browse the web on mobile. Mobile hardware seems pretty powerful now---look at the games they can run these days---but why the hell am I still getting milliseconds of lag and stutter while browsing the web? Maybe it's a browser issue or just badly coded sites, but I feel like a lot of it has to do with mobile hardware or software being very bad at running simultaneous operations, which your average website calls for (multiple scripts, images, etc.).
 
Unfortunately, it's the bloaded ads. Static ads are ok but it's the animated and bloated ones that negatively affect mobile browsing experience. Stopped being an issue even on old 2012 or low end devices when I started using Adguard. It doesn't require root and supports whitelisting.
 
Yup, plus JavaScript that runs for like a million seconds doing who knows what.

Most websites are awful even on the desktop these days. The whole experience is just fundamentally broken.
 
Firefox Beta w/ublock origin and ghostery is not that bad on my phone, if you're using Chrome or Opera or something thats the problem.
 
Was alternating between Firefox mobile with uBlock Origin and naked Chrome mobile because Firefox doesn't render all sites properly. With the near perfect experience with Chrome and Adguard I uninstalled Firefox.
 
I'm running Chrome beta with AdAway on my Note 5, and it's buttery smooth and fast.
 
Megalith said:
I can only speak for Android, but I feel like I'm using a badly set-up virtual machine whenever I browse the web on mobile. Mobile hardware seems pretty powerful now---look at the games they can run these days---but why the hell am I still getting milliseconds of lag and stutter while browsing the web? Maybe it's a browser issue or just badly coded sites, but I feel like a lot of it has to do with mobile hardware or software being very bad at running simultaneous operations, which your average website calls for (multiple scripts, images, etc.).
Click to expand...

The only way I managed to make web browsing tolerable on Android was to run dolphin hd and disable EVERYTHING. Now it's good enough to get by.
 
wow, adguard might be my new favorite thing. A car blog I frequent was unusable on my phone. Always chalked it up to crappy 3G speeds.
 
It also highly depends on support by the manufacturer, quad core Qualcomm chipsets seems to fare much better than others in general. Going from 5.0 to 5.1 on my Sony Z1 made quite a difference with Firefox.
My parents are still using their Motorola Razr's and in comparson they're very slow and they're stuck on 4.3 or 4.2.
 
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Probably all the fucking ads. I can't pull up any site without having to wait several seconds for all the ads to load and for the pop ups to show and then have to close them. They're driving me crazy. I tried ad block on my phone and it didn't work worth a shit. Tried the "block pop ups" on Chrome and that didn't work. It was fucking ads that drove me away from TV and over to Netflix and it may be ads that drive me away from mobile Web browsing.
 
MacLeod said:
Probably all the fucking ads. I can't pull up any site without having to wait several seconds for all the ads to load and for the pop ups to show and then have to close them. They're driving me crazy. I tried ad block on my phone and it didn't work worth a shit. Tried the "block pop ups" on Chrome and that didn't work. It was fucking ads that drove me away from TV and over to Netflix and it may be ads that drive me away from mobile Web browsing.
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Some of the sites out there -- even on desktop -- are so annoying that it's unbearable. You want to read some article and the entire browser is frozen loading up and displaying one ad after another. It just makes one want to give up on the Internet.


Well, for you entrepreneurs out there, everyone's misfortune is your opportunity. Grab an open-source Android browser like Chrome or Chromium or AOSP or whatever and get some code in there that auto-weeds out stupid ads, ridiculous JS and all that other crap while at the same time allowing for a functional web experience. Sell it for $1 and you'll be a trillionaire.

Google allows competing browser technology on Android so you've got the green light! Get busy!
 
I am glad someone is finally talking about this. Fact is that an ordinary desktop computer or laptop is superior for web browsing.

Hardocp deserves credit though for having a nicely optimized for phones and tablets site. It works great with all of my mobile devices.

I have lost count of the number of times that my wife's iPad 3 gave the error "a problem occurred with this webpage so it was reloaded." Happens with Safari constantly.
 
biggles said:
I am glad someone is finally talking about this. Fact is that an ordinary desktop computer or laptop is superior for web browsing.

Hardocp deserves credit though for having a nicely optimized for phones and tablets site. It works great with all of my mobile devices.

I have lost count of the number of times that my wife's iPad 3 gave the error "a problem occurred with this webpage so it was reloaded." Happens with Safari constantly.
Click to expand...


This no spam when I try to open the forums saying dl app x to read this page and no pop ups. Its not the technology its the greedy web page owner's that want as much $$ as they can get and the hell with how it runs and looks
 
Agreed. I read a lot of sports articles this time of year off Bleacher Report which links to articles on your particular team. When you go to these sites you wait 10 or so seconds for all the ads to load and then when you finally get it loaded and start scrolling thru the article, a full page pop up appears.

I get that sites need ads. I'm all for ads because they keep content free. However I can't believe that times are so tough that a web page has to be 85% ads and 15% content.

I mean HardOCP and a handful of other sites works just perfectly on my Note 4. Every page loads up fast and there are no overbearing ads flashing around all over the place. So much so that I use the full site display when I'm here because there's no need for the mobile display. Why won't everybody else do that?
 
Any seen those ads that cover the content you want to read and to get rid of you have to drag it from bottom to top off the screen? That has got to be the worst of the worst.
 
I hate the ones that make you sign up to read the damn blog/article.
But on the desktop version, it doesn't. Wtf?
 
DUDE!!! Thank you for the link. This app is AWESOME


mi7chy said:
Unfortunately, it's the bloaded ads. Static ads are ok but it's the animated and bloated ones that negatively affect mobile browsing experience. Stopped being an issue even on old 2012 or low end devices when I started using Adguard. It doesn't require root and supports whitelisting.
Click to expand...
 
Make sure you're blocking ads and javascript wherever it makes sense, especially on mobile data. The "reading mode" in Mobile Safari is great for this and Chrome should be getting it again very soon (but you can enable it as a beta feature right now if you want it).
 
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screen size and overall lack of a good experience items are small have to zoom a lot to get readable results, etc...
 
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