[HN Gopher] A list of lightweight websites without bloat
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       A list of lightweight websites without bloat
        
       Author : ushakov
       Score  : 104 points
       Date   : 2022-02-24 16:11 UTC (6 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (github.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
        
       | theandrewbailey wrote:
       | See also 1MB Club: https://1mb.club/
       | 
       | 512k Club: https://512kb.club/
       | 
       | 250k Club: https://250kb.club/
        
       | mark_mcnally_je wrote:
       | goodwebsites.org
        
       | minroot wrote:
       | Wait until you see Twitter
        
       | drcongo wrote:
       | The first site from the list I tested performs absolutely
       | horribly - https://gtmetrix.com/reports/levelnews.org/TgumkZOr/
        
       | dmitrygr wrote:
       | how is this missing 68k.news?
        
         | cf100clunk wrote:
         | Likewise it is missing https://www.cbc.ca/lite/ but there is a
         | pull request for it.
        
         | toss1 wrote:
         | Wow - what a great find! Everyone should know of this - thanks!
        
       | henning wrote:
       | When I want to go to a website with quality content and no bloat,
       | I check danluu.com.
        
       | marginalia_nu wrote:
       | Interesting irony that the page containing the list itself has a
       | 2 Mb payload.
        
         | john-doe wrote:
         | Here you go, I hope you don't mind raw markdown:
         | https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mdibaiee/awesome-lite-webs...
        
           | marginalia_nu wrote:
           | If only there was a way to serve HTML over HTTP :-(
        
         | cnst wrote:
         | Came to comment just that!
         | 
         | Isn't that ironic?
         | 
         | The "best" part is all this bloat doesn't even add any real
         | extra functionality of value. Simply extra bullet points to the
         | resumes of the folk who build all these sites.
        
         | nmilo wrote:
         | Not really, it's on github, they can't control that. I guess
         | they could make a static github pages, but a github repo gives
         | hosting and community contribution for free.
        
           | marginalia_nu wrote:
           | Well sure they can control it, by not hosting it on github.
           | 
           | There are plenty of other hosting options.
        
             | rapnie wrote:
             | Codeberg.org and Codeberg Pages comes to mind.
        
               | rhizome wrote:
               | Not having a cable modem also comes to mind. After that,
               | personal webspace gets easy to find.
        
               | marginalia_nu wrote:
               | If you want to serve a list of lightweight web services,
               | is it too much to ask to do it in a way where the people
               | who might benefit from those services can benefit from
               | the list?
        
       | ecmascript wrote:
       | I want to shamelessly plug me and my friends podcast player
       | https://podd.app/ (if you're into podcasts)
       | 
       | It doesn't have all the podcasts yet but it is small and very non
       | bloat. There is no ads and no real framework so it should load
       | fast.
        
         | kevincox wrote:
         | > It doesn't have all the podcasts yet but it is small and very
         | non bloat
         | 
         | That is a weird statement because a podcast is just a URL.
         | However I can't find anywhere on the site to add a URL (other
         | than the Import which I assume is OMPL and would allow
         | arbitrary URLs?)
        
       | smukherjee19 wrote:
       | Perhaps it's not well-known outside Japan but one (domestically?)
       | famous website used to test slow internet here is the famous
       | actor Abe (surname) Hiroshi's (first name) website:
       | http://abehiroshi.la.coocan.jp/
       | 
       | I have no idea how it compares to the ones on the list here
       | though.
        
         | b215826 wrote:
         | Very interesting website. I would never have imagined a 21st
         | actor to have a webpage that looks like that of a professor
         | from the mid 1990s. Hiroshi Abe is also an excellent actor --
         | _Still Walking_ and _After the Storm_ (both directed by
         | Hirokazu Koreeda) are two very enjoyable films I 've seen.
        
       | nicbou wrote:
       | Sometimes, a little CSS and JS go a long way to help the users
       | achieve their goals. Spartan websites can be hard to read.
       | 
       | My own website uses more and more JavaScript, but it supports the
       | main content. For example, a glossary bubble for German words, a
       | table of content that highlights the current section, and
       | calculators give you quicker answers.
       | 
       | A few of the websites listed there might be lightweight, but many
       | seem to offer a poor user experience, even for just text on a
       | page.
       | 
       | In my opinion, the best example of a lightweight website is the
       | NHS. Yes, the page is lightweight, but the effort extends to the
       | design and even the text on the page.
        
         | lewispollard wrote:
         | Bloat is one thing, and good content design another.
         | 
         | The NHS, and gov.uk, are some of the largest employers of
         | UX/content designers in the UK, and recently it shows. A lot of
         | it is considered the gold standard for content design;
         | extremely clear, well presented information, where the most
         | commonly relevant information is easily identified and
         | straightforward.
         | 
         | Less bloat is, I guess, a side effect of good content design,
         | rather than less bloat being the reason they're good sites.
         | 
         | Of course, it's easier to do good content design when there
         | isn't any commercialism involved. As soon as you have to
         | introduce ads, sponsors, paid-for content and unnecessary
         | padding/pages/waffle in the name of views and clicks, you can
         | say goodbye to good content design and low bloat.
        
         | jrapdx3 wrote:
         | Yes, a site can be too spare but that's far less prevalent
         | among sites than behemoths that load so slowly. Question is can
         | a site be attractive and yet be "lightweight" in terms of
         | performance and resource usage?
         | 
         | It's educational to use a tool like Lighthouse and point it at
         | supposed "good" or "bad" sites. I've done this a number of
         | times. Amazing (well, maybe not) how poorly most sites score.
         | 
         | To be sure some of the lightweight sites performed pretty well,
         | but in general sites are a long way from optimal. I know how
         | much effort it takes to make sites that are interesting and
         | performant. I've worked hard on my own sites to reach that high
         | level so I know it can be done. As so often is the case it's
         | more a matter of what one decides to leave out rather than
         | including just one more cool thing.
        
         | the__alchemist wrote:
         | A little CSS and JS isn't the problem - a lot of it, or JS that
         | performs excessive calculations is!
        
       | pdenton wrote:
       | A lightweight website doesn't have to be boring. My current
       | project has a 1920x1080 picture which is only 29KiB with AVIF
       | (and it'll further reduce in size when I crop it for smaller
       | displays, using the picture element with media queries). There
       | was 5,7KiB worth of SVG icons and I turned it into a 2KiB font.
       | Not the best of savings, but still better (although correct
       | sizing and positioning of font icons is somewhat difficult).
        
       | codeptualize wrote:
       | This list makes me realize how much I appreciate design. For all
       | the ones I tried I much prefer the "heavy" versions.
       | 
       | It's probably different on a slow connection so it's good the
       | lightweight versions exist, but for me downloading a few MB's is
       | not at all a problem and totally worth it.
        
       | kloch wrote:
       | My ad-free/JavaScript-free IP address lookup: ip4.me / ip6.me
        
       | zozbot234 wrote:
       | I wonder how many Gemini sites are also served as HTTP(s) and
       | could be directly added to a list like this. What's a tech stack
       | like Gemini good for if the contents you host on it aren't
       | broadly accessible using standard tech?
        
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       (page generated 2022-02-24 23:01 UTC)