Ignoring the security implications, I miss kb large old raw html websites that loaded instantly on DSL internet. Nowadays shit is too fancy because hardware allows that, but I feel we’re just constantly running into more bugs first and then worry about them later.
Edit: I’ve thought more about it, and I think I just missed the simplicity of the internet back then. There’s just too much bloat these days with ad trackers and misinformation. I kinda forgot just how bright and eye jarring most old UIs were lol.
You know what I miss? When information was condensed instead of spread out to insert more ads. When software willingly gave you all the options you could ever need instead of removing most of them because “people might get confused”. When website took up the entire screen instead of a mobile wide strip in the middle because “it can be scary for people”.
Fuck everyone who keeps lowering the bar of tech literacy just to appeal to the general public.
Click next after each paragraph of the story so I can load more ads! And by paragraph, I mean one <p> tag per sentence.</p>
I miss the time when UI was utilitarian. None of that rounded corners and fancy themes nonsense. Function over form.
Not that unpopular an opinion I bet.
Google thinks otherwise :(
Unfortunately, Google is also complicit in this
The Google front page is no longer plain HTML but apparently, they spent a lot of time optimising the logo so it could load in less than a second on a dial-up connection. It’s still remarkably plain when compared to other search engines though.
I saw a web page from 1999 today and as a full stack dev I immediately clicked away bc obvi NSFW
BUT then I had the urge to go back to this simple ass web “site” and just admire it for a second like “wow, someone probably spent weeks on this 2 day design”.
Tbh afterwards I was kind of in awe that every option was available on each page with no sidebars or extra clicks. Not slick but quick tho!
There was a design/development company which made sites and they bragged about making pixel perfect web sites. I can’t for the life of me find them again but I remember when I saw their portfolio it was like porn for web developers. Everything was done simply and with least amount of images possible, but it looked so good.
Ignoring the security implications.
There are literally none with basic html.
It’s when you started adding shit like Shockwave, javascript and the like, all massive security holes, things got dicey.
Plain old HTML, none what so ever.
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That’s a separate and unrelated issue of connection encryption, nothing to do with the contents of a site. You can totally have a basic HTML page served over HTTPS
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It is more secure than anything now is if used over HTTP.
Oldschool HTML isn’t active, it doesn’t do anything client side.
So the only insecure thing about it is that someone external can see what you were looking at.
Someone external can see what you look at, and they can show you a fake version of the site.
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So is ASP, PHP, javascript and everything else.
And has nothing to do with HTML.
HTML is not HTTP.
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My friend, enjoy.
I was expecting this motherfucking website
Thank you
Funny how sluggish browser feels on these old sites. I guess it would be obvious considering they try to optimize loading and rendering speeds based on trends and developer habits which didn’t exist back then, but still I would have thought simple HTML with monochrome background and very limited number of tags would load instantly.
I mean, there are basically no security implications for plain html.
Oh, I just thought older websites were less secure. But I guess now that I think about it, you only got viruses if you clicked on the sketchy links yourself.
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Raw HTTP with no protection is as dangerous as the activity implied by this innuendo.
There’s another: https://thebestmotherfucking.website/
Wow that was a beautiful journey
A prophet in these troubled times.
Most of the issue with loading times are the billion ads and trackers. There are sites I visit that load instantly with Adblock on but extremely slow without it.
Find the right webring, and you’d hit a treasure trove of content. Dig a little deeper and find something even more interesting. The pre-corporate takeover internet.
We talk about enshittification ruining everything, but Facebook and Web 2.0 started ripping out the heart of the internet. Everyone went along with it, and corporate claws sunk in. The fun internet got pushed aside for the ad-friendly internet.
Speaking as a web developer - sorry.
No need. As someone who understands web development enough to know I know nothing about web development, it makes sense to me why the internet is what it is today. It’s all about establishing a brand and identity now so doing extra things can make you stand out.
While YouTube has gotten more sluggish over the years, I do think some recent changes like ambient mode have been pretty cool. I also support reasonable hardware requirements because things get obsolete over time.
I guess I just miss the simplicity of early internet browsing more compared to all the bloat that exists today.
Soorrryyyy
There isn’t a day I don’t think about how annoying the modern web is. Fancy crap, GDPR, a trillion frameworks weighing 1mb+ each, a ton of useless extra info for SEO and whatnot. All to see the pure information I initially seeked saying “yes”. Which could’ve been a 1kb site.
The GDPR is not annoying. The fact that it is necessary is annoying.
Truetrue. Yet it still doesn’t serve much of a protection service. What should we care a about a tracking-cookie when most sites use multiple tracking-scripts anyway? Or force you to either accept or pay. Or simply deny entry at all.
I just need another plugin to block another thing…
Right there with you buddy.
Craigslist and McMaster are so efficient…
What would stop an individual or company nowadays to build a pure html website? Isn’t this what a “static site” is?
Isn’t this what HUGO and Jekyll produce, only a little bit prettier?
Nothing. Warren Buffetts company Berkshire Hathaway has the most simple business’s site of all time.
https://www.berkshirehathaway.com/
The fault is a combination of execs wanting a slick site, marketing wanting a highly SEO scoring page, and Devs wanting to play with web frameworks.
Hey, they even have an old-school tracker-free static advertisement image on that page. Now that’s a classic.
I’d love to know how much they paid for it. Even part of the “message from warren” page too. Must have been a pretty penny. I bet a lot of pages would love to do static links in exchange for upfront fees similar to it.
Geico is owned by them, so they may not have to pay.
Today I learned. Good point, thanks. Wonder why they chose to highlight it over the others. Must have a good conversion rate comparatively.
Found this list of assets owned by Berkshire Hathaway to be more than I knew, especially at 100% ownership: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_assets_owned_by_Berkshire_Hathaway
Table-based layout, that shit is ancient. We used to build websites this way >20years ago ^^ Mainly because IE was too stupid for anything else.
I distinctly remember when designers got a hard on for rounded corners and IE couldn’t render them. So we ended up making a 9 cell table for each element that was suppose to have rounded corners and loaded images which repeated themselves. Indulging IE users, which were plenty, was such a pain.
The need to have a “responsive” layout and webdesigners. At work i see this happeneing a lot. Someone has a quick loading basic website, but it’s old and it’s sometimes complicated to use on phones. They hire a webdesigner to modernize it, to make the UI rearrange when you tilt your phone sideways and have a big menu on big desktop screens and a folded hamburger menu on small phone screens. They need touch support and want less reloads. Every requirement adds code and libraries. The result really has better usability and neat spinners instead of complete page reloads, but it initially loads a bit slower and has bigger components.
I dont think that usability or acessibility gets so much in the way. It’s more about thinking webpages as applications instead of documents. Plain html is easier for screenreaders and larger fonts. You can also get responsive with very little css.
Simplicity is just not the goal anymore.
So essentially what you are saying is getting in between people and smaller, simpler and faster loading sites is convinience and other people?
Yes, if they were comfortable with stuff like pinch zooming the site a lot between actions on their phone, they would not need a modernized UI. Of course, there’s also peer preasure, ie. the competition having a cool redesign and getting more often linked to on social media, etc
I don’t have any real knowledge of html but I have a vague memory about reading an article where it was mentioned there was a very simple way for a website to “ask” what was the available resolution and fit itself to it in human friendly format.
When comes to manually zooming in or out - especially when on a smartphone - on a webpage, I admit I prefer it. It had a very short learning curve and it transmits a cleaner feeling of interacting with the website instead of having whatever it may be running behind the scenes shifting and adjusting the focus to some random point I have no interest on.
This is the wiki of an old game: wiki.spiralknights.com
As you can see, on mibile the text is hard to read and you have to zoom and move around a lot to navigate. It’s the same software as wikipedia, but an older design.
What responsive UI optimization does is it changes all of this into vertical scrolling and makes it readable right away. You just swipe up until you see what you wanted to. As you can see on the modernized en.m.wikipedia.org on mobile the search is right on top and the font size and zoom are easily readable. If you tilt your phone it auto rearranges some content for better readability. That’s what some people and designers want for sites nowadays.
I have used the search of that old game a lot and I tell you: It sucks when you miss tapping the search box and hit a button instead. It loads a different page and the server is often slow. I could prevent it by pinch zooming beforehand, so it’s more easy to hit, but it’s unintuitive. I usually forget to do it.
You mention wikipedia and that is one site where regardless being essentialy text, pages can take immense time to load.
I respect the efforts to make things more accessible but there is the feeling that much more effort goes towards fluff and eye-candy than real, tangible, improvement.
Yeah, thar’s not a counter argument; just demonstrates the usability gains.
Btw, did you open the browser tools (usually F12) of a desktop browser and check if it’s the server response or the rendering, that takes long for you in the network tab? I’m asking, because for me wikioedia isn’t that slow.
I miss kb large old raw html websites that loaded instantly on DSL internet
Instantly? We had very different DSL connections 😳
It depends on when you had it. I had a 4Mb connection when most people were still on dialup, and it flew.
Try this: https://makefrontendshitagain.party/
Also wiby.me. (hit “surprise me”)
I instantly hit the Firefox Reader Mode button or turn on Brave’s accessibility reader. They cut all the crap out of most websites. Bonus is they often remove paywalls.
