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  3	<title>BiRabittoh&#x27;s Site - BiRabittoh&#x27;s blog</title>
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  7	<updated>2021-04-09T00:00:00+00:00</updated>
  8	<id>https://bi-rabittoh.github.io/blog/atom.xml</id>
  9	<entry xml:lang="en">
 10		<title>Modern web bloat</title>
 11		<published>2021-04-09T00:00:00+00:00</published>
 12		<updated>2021-04-09T00:00:00+00:00</updated>
 13		<link href="https://bi-rabittoh.github.io/blog/modern-web-bloat/" type="text/html"/>
 14		<id>https://bi-rabittoh.github.io/blog/modern-web-bloat/</id>
 15		<content type="html">&lt;p&gt;This is it. My first blog post; I guess I just became a boomer.&lt;&#x2F;p&gt;
 16&lt;h2 id=&quot;inspiration&quot;&gt;Inspiration&lt;&#x2F;h2&gt;
 17&lt;p&gt;Some time ago I stumbled upon &lt;a href=&quot;https:&#x2F;&#x2F;odysee.com&#x2F;@Luke:7&#x2F;a-demonstration-of-modern-web-bloat:f&quot;&gt;this video&lt;&#x2F;a&gt;,
 18where the popular Linux influencer &lt;a href=&quot;https:&#x2F;&#x2F;lukesmith.xyz&quot;&gt;Luke Smith&lt;&#x2F;a&gt;
 19talked about the effort of looking up a Chicken Parmesan recipe in 2021
 20without having any adblock or privacy extensions enabled.&lt;&#x2F;p&gt;
 21&lt;p&gt;That&#x27;s because most modern websites take a lot of time to load framework
 22files, ads and trackers. While that&#x27;s kinda functional, I think we
 23should change our habits and start making simple websites again.&lt;&#x2F;p&gt;
 24&lt;p&gt;In fact, I thought about creating this blog (and article) when I saw
 25&lt;a href=&quot;https:&#x2F;&#x2F;lonami.dev&#x2F;&quot;&gt;Lonami&lt;&#x2F;a&gt;&#x27;s minimal website and immediately noticed
 26how fast and clean it feels.&lt;&#x2F;p&gt;
 27&lt;p&gt;Yeah, this looks like a first world problem and it probably is, but it&#x27;s
 28not as subtle as you think. I&#x27;m actually convinced that the internet
 29&lt;strong&gt;could&lt;&#x2F;strong&gt; actually benefit from this way of thinking, and that&#x27;s what I&#x27;m
 30going to talk about. &lt;&#x2F;p&gt;
 31&lt;h2 id=&quot;the-problem&quot;&gt;The problem&lt;&#x2F;h2&gt;
 32&lt;p&gt;In the early days of the internet, it was common for webpages to be
 33written using only HTML, so we had very ugly but functional websites.&lt;&#x2F;p&gt;
 34&lt;p&gt;As technology went on, sites needed to get more modern-looking and
 35&lt;em&gt;interactive&lt;&#x2F;em&gt;; that&#x27;s why CSS and JavaScript were introduced into the
 36mix, allowing for dynamic websites that could actually change based
 37on user input.&lt;&#x2F;p&gt;
 38&lt;p&gt;As of nowadays, a lot more stuff went into the mix, to the point where
 39the browser is now the most common program we use in our OS: you can, in
 40fact, use it for doing things that 15+ years ago required external
 41programs, like:&lt;&#x2F;p&gt;
 42&lt;ul&gt;
 43&lt;li&gt;playing music and video,&lt;&#x2F;li&gt;
 44&lt;li&gt;reading PDF files,&lt;&#x2F;li&gt;
 45&lt;li&gt;doing office work,&lt;&#x2F;li&gt;
 46&lt;li&gt;checking e-mail,&lt;&#x2F;li&gt;
 47&lt;li&gt;cloud storage,&lt;&#x2F;li&gt;
 48&lt;li&gt;etc...&lt;&#x2F;li&gt;
 49&lt;&#x2F;ul&gt;
 50&lt;p&gt;I guess people just find it more comfortable if they can do everything
 51with a single program, and they&#x27;re not to blame for that. This &lt;em&gt;is&lt;&#x2F;em&gt;
 52the easiest approach for unexperienced people: just have a program that
 53does everything, instead of having to learn how to use a bunch of
 54different software.&lt;&#x2F;p&gt;
 55&lt;p&gt;This plethora of uses is possible today because of the existence of
 56various libraries and frameworks that simplify JavaScript and CSS and
 57make them easier to develop complicated websites with.
 58This is good for basic web users who just want functional websites, and
 59great for developers since they can easily code advanced functions
 60inside the browser, which makes them work in every OS.&lt;&#x2F;p&gt;
 61&lt;p&gt;Sadly, this brings us to the problem: any modern website has become a
 62burden for any browser to load, since our browser needs to download and
 63parse through each library and often fill the page content as you
 64scroll through.
 65In his video, Luke Smith found that a simple Chicken Parmesan recipe
 66would take up to &lt;em&gt;5-10 megabytes&lt;&#x2F;em&gt;, which doesn&#x27;t sound like a lot, but it
 67actually is.&lt;&#x2F;p&gt;
 68&lt;p&gt;It&#x27;s easier to understand it if you think about it with video-games;
 69any game on 16-bit&lt;sup class=&quot;footnote-reference&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;#gaming-storage&quot;&gt;1&lt;&#x2F;a&gt;&lt;&#x2F;sup&gt; consoles and earlier, including
 70full-fledged 30+ hour adventures like &lt;em&gt;Final Fantasy 6&lt;&#x2F;em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;Chrono
 71Trigger&lt;&#x2F;em&gt;, weighs less than one single recipe page.&lt;&#x2F;p&gt;
 72&lt;h2 id=&quot;the-solution&quot;&gt;The solution&lt;&#x2F;h2&gt;
 73&lt;p&gt;Well, I don&#x27;t think this &amp;quot;problem&amp;quot; is getting solved soon, as new
 74frameworks for web development are constantly being introduced. Sadly,
 75it&#x27;s a one-way train, but if you&#x27;re a web-dev you could actually make a
 76difference yourself!&lt;&#x2F;p&gt;
 77&lt;p&gt;I mean, this can not apply to all websites. Some of them just &lt;em&gt;NEED&lt;&#x2F;em&gt; to
 78be as responsive and interactive as they are; most of them actually just
 79became bloated at a certain time period (probably mid-2000s) when having
 80a flashy website was cool and different from what everyone else had.&lt;&#x2F;p&gt;
 81&lt;p&gt;Nowadays you can be different than other websites by using plain HTML
 82and CSS for your website: this ensures your pages will load instantly
 83and be compatible even with the oldest of browsers!&lt;&#x2F;p&gt;
 84&lt;p&gt;If you like this philosophy, you can check out other projects that aim
 85for a simpler and faster web, like these ones:&lt;&#x2F;p&gt;
 86&lt;ul&gt;
 87&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.getzola.org&#x2F;&quot;&gt;zola&lt;&#x2F;a&gt;, a simple and modern static site
 88engine;&lt;&#x2F;li&gt;
 89&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&#x2F;&#x2F;based.cooking&#x2F;&quot;&gt;based.cooking&lt;&#x2F;a&gt;, a modern recipe website based
 90on collaboration via GitHub;&lt;&#x2F;li&gt;
 91&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&#x2F;&#x2F;wiby.me&#x2F;&quot;&gt;wiby.me&lt;&#x2F;a&gt;, a search engine that aims to only index
 92classic style webpages.&lt;&#x2F;li&gt;
 93&lt;&#x2F;ul&gt;
 94&lt;h2 id=&quot;footnotes&quot;&gt;Footnotes&lt;&#x2F;h2&gt;
 95&lt;div class=&quot;footnote-definition&quot; id=&quot;gaming-storage&quot;&gt;&lt;sup class=&quot;footnote-definition-label&quot;&gt;1&lt;&#x2F;sup&gt;
 96&lt;p&gt;As stated in &lt;a href=&quot;https:&#x2F;&#x2F;blogs.umass.edu&#x2F;Techbytes&#x2F;2014&#x2F;02&#x2F;10&#x2F;history-of-gaming-storage&#x2F;#attachment_2827&quot;&gt;this article&lt;&#x2F;a&gt;.&lt;&#x2F;p&gt;
 97&lt;&#x2F;div&gt;
 98</content>
 99	</entry>
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