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by vortico 3448 days ago
My point especially applies to web apps. I just loaded facebook.com, and it took 228 requests, 8,825 KB, and 17.0 s. Scrolling through the page is laggy while a stressful amount of muted videos start playing and mouse-hover events start firing.

Compare this with mbasic.facebook.com, which is 22 requests, 107 KB, and 1.48 s. There are some small UX problems with basic HTML Facebook that I would recommend they improve on (placement of links/buttons, omnipresent header), but overall it is a much better experience for me since I feel much more in control. Same with basic HTML Gmail vs full Gmail.

My point is that it is absolutely possible to not give in to shitty bloated web trends driven by the expectation to increase popularity, while making a quality, profitable website.
2 comments
semi-extrinsic 3448 days ago
> mbasic.facebook.com

Mind blown. It even has messaging that works without having to install privacy-invading Messenger. You have just improved my facebook UX by a country mile.

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Nexxxeh 3448 days ago
The combination of mbasic for Messenger, and m for normal Facebook browsing, is fine on Android. I don't install the awful FB apps on my phone any more, and I'm a fairly heavy Facebook user.
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rtpg 3448 days ago
mbasic.facebook.com is nice for when you want to save the bandwidth, but the experience is nowhere near as nice as the main website. It only loads the first 2 stories or so, requiring you to click forward many times.

It also downscales all the media down, making it hard to appreciate a lot of things.

The main facebook site makes a lot of media requests to preload the things you're going to start reading immediately.

the main facebook site doesn't attempt to scale to the connection speed, which is unfortunate, but it offers a much better experience for those who have the bandwidth to pull in the pictures. Especially for the primary use case (scroll a bunch to see a bunch of people's stuff)

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vortico 3448 days ago
I can see 8 stories on each page on mine, but I agree the images are smaller than I'd like. You have to click the image to get to the image page and then click "View Full Size" to see the full image. But with vimperator, it's much faster to get to that point than it sounds. On the other hand, simply clicking on videos delivers the full raw video, no slow Facebook video player/wrapper needed.

I wouldn't want Facebook to scale things to my bandwidth. That gives me less control over what I see because the system is making mostly arbitrary decisions for me.

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