Going lean and fast on the bloated web
Years of broadband privilege hasn’t softened my stand on the need to be lean and fast. Memories of painful access from my first VSNL account has taught me to be humble on bandwidth; now you know why this site is a plain vanilla. There are millions of people still on dial-up connections across developing nations, trying to access meaningful content. Where’s the fun when your site is bloated with adware, javascripts and stuff that prevent your content from loading first? While feed is a blessing for those on limited resources (bandwidth and older hardware), a lot of content is still only accessible via the conventional way—search and web pages. Thankfully, there are sites and services that ease the pain for you.
Whenever I am out of my broadband comfort zone, I use mobile versions of sites to get things done quickly. This following list is a rather short, but useful list of sites I use while on the road, while in cybercafes, or while accessing via dial-up connections.1
- Google search: http://www.google.com/xhtml (Updated)
- Gmail: http://m.gmail.com (Updated)
- Google (Blog/News) Reader: http://www.google.com/reader/m
- Flickr (photo-sharing site): http://m.flickr.com
- Wordpress.com (hosted blogging site): http://m.wordpress.com
- Twitter (microblogging site): http://m.twitter.com (Updated)
For mobile version of any site:
http://www.google.com/gwt/n?u=<URL>
I use the above string to load any site in its mobile version. (Replace <URL> with the actual web address.) For example, if I’d like to load this site’s mobile version, I’d type the following (in browser’s address bar):
http://www.google.com/gwt/n?u=ckunte.com
Yes, I know the URL prefix is long and hard to remember. Well, now you don’t have to, for I’ve created a Bookmarklet you can use. Just drag the following link to your bookmarks bar.
Mobile Version (Powered by Google.)
Then click on it and use the form to enter the web address you’d like to visit—instead of the address bar. (Needless to say, your browser should have javascript enabled—as bookmarklets are simple dhtml javascripts.)
Update: I’d also recommend using Opera—it is the fastest among browsers.
- These are not only for dial-up connections, but also those on limited broadband access—particularly if your upload/download are metered. [←]
Hey, how come I never thought of that. Have been using mobile version of these sites every time I access content from my mobile. But I never thought how useful it would be to access these mobile versions when on low-speed connections. Thanks for the bit!
Dec 15, 07 at 14:52You’re welcome
Dec 16, 07 at 04:27