Google Chrome To Feature Built-In Image Lazy Loading (bleepingcomputer.com) 131
An anonymous reader writes: Future versions of Google Chrome will feature built-in support for lazy loading, a mechanism to defer the loading of images and iframes if they are not visible on the user's screen at load time. This system will first ship with Chrome for Android and Google doesn't rule out adding it to desktop versions if tests go as planned. The feature is called Blink LazyLoad, and as the name hints, it will implement the principle of "lazy loading" inside Chrome itself.
Google engineers reported page load speed improvements varying from 18% to 35%, depending on the underlying network. Other browser makers have been notified of the Chrome team's plan, but none have provided input if they plan to implement a similar feature. Compared to most JS-based lazy loading scripts that only target images, Google implementation will also target iframes.
Google engineers reported page load speed improvements varying from 18% to 35%, depending on the underlying network. Other browser makers have been notified of the Chrome team's plan, but none have provided input if they plan to implement a similar feature. Compared to most JS-based lazy loading scripts that only target images, Google implementation will also target iframes.
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Yes, it will remain perfectly smooth for people who don't use Chrome
Re:Will scrolling remain smooth? (Score:5, Interesting)
Your not seeing the big picture.
Those megabytes you save per month, that you don't notice. Account for Exabytes of Ads Images, that their resources will not need to send onto sites that the information will not be seen.
If you are going to charge per click why bother wasting your resources downloading data that will not be clicked.
If you are charging for impressions, why scam your customers with extra charges until it actually has an impression.
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So this is a revenue reducer. Excellent.
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Actually it is a cost reducer.
Sending Ads that will not be viewed is just wasting googles money sending the traffic. And if google can show a higher impression rate with their services then all the better.
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Fuck smooth scrolling. Just jump x lines down instantly, please. I don't want an animation, and I certainly don't need an animation that requires the GPU to do work for no reason. The distinct sound an Intel iGPU makes when smooth scrolling is torture to my ears. Even regular scrolling pisses me off. The only thing worse is the metallic whine of an M.2 SSD under load.
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Yes, because touchscreen devices will really appreciate that.
Just because you put your ear so close to the PCB you think you can hear the electrons vibrating doesn't mean nobody else should get a smooth scrolling experience.
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Then add a setting to enable smooth scrolling only for scrolling initiated by touch, not for scrolling initatied by arrow keys, the mouse wheel, or the up or down arrows on the scroll bar.
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I'm about 18 inches away from the NUC on my desk. If drag a scroll bar up and down I can hear an annoying clicking sound, almost like a softer, faster version of a hard drive (the system is running a M.2 SSD). This has been true for Intel iGPUs for over a decade. I have to disable shit like smooth scrolling, font smoothing, etc. on my work machines to reduce it (but not eliminate it). I'm fine with disabling them, because I generally hate those things anyway. It's a problem when I'm on a site that uses
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Plenty of people have similar complaints the newer SSDs and complaints about coil whine have existed for ages.
Yes! It's good seeing I'm not the only one. For other /.ers who think we're crazy, I think there are two things in play
0) Somewhat healthy hearing and not having reached the 40's.
1) SSD noise. Work refreshed the HDD laptop with an new SSD system from the same maker (Dell's Elitebook) around 18 months ago. I'm surprised I stopped noticing it a few months after resigning to my fate. It took me about 5 months of hearing the coil whine from up to 6 feet away whenever the drive is spinning up.
2) Scrolling whine.
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SSDs don't contain coils or switching power supplies. But the motherboards and PSUs that provide power to them do, and they are a possible source of coil whine. Display noises can come from the switching power supply in the monitor as well as the one in the computer.
Another common source of noise is crosstalk between the audio circuits in the computer and other signals that are present. You won't hear that kind of noise if you don't have any speakers or headphones connected, and it will usually go away if y
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Hearing sounds from the computer that are related to display activity is common; I have experienced it on both laptop and desktop computers. It's not that you're hearing the displayed electrons directly. The actual cause is crosstalk between the wires that carry the video signal and the ones that carry audio to your speakers or headphones.
One way to eliminate the problem is to move audio D/A conversion out of the computer. Listen through a USB headset or speakers, or use an external audio interface.
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Damn, is your father a dog or something?
Doesn't take an SOB to hear processor load (Score:2)
I'm no son of a bitch, but I can still hear noise in the 100-8000 Hz band when the CPU and GPU loads change on some machines. I'm not quite sure if it's electrical noise leaking into the audio output or magnetostriction in the power supply.
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Sigh (Score:3)
Taking control and functionality away from the web developer because browser developers think they know what's best for everyone.
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So everyone that loads an image offscreen and moves it onscreen once it loads so you don't see broken images while the page is loading will just have their pages break. Thanks Google!
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A simple slideshow? A row based thumbnail gallery? There are all sorts of systems that need this kind of functionality for smooth operation. There are alternate ways to do it but they're clumsy and screw up SEO.
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Anything that harms SEO is a blessing.
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Maybe just let the image load normally?
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Are you high? (Score:1)
This is to be implemented as an html attribute, so control is still in the hands of developers. It's a great idea, frankly.
Lazy load JS has all kinds of problems. You know how pages jump around while you scroll? That is JS lazy loading. If it is implemented natively in the browser, then the browser can do things like figure out which images to pre-load and when to do it based on variables that JS does not have access to (network speed, latency, current load...). Further, it is guaranteed to use much fewer r
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If they're doing it as an HTML attribute they should scrap "deferred" and do "load-index". Developer can choose when to load images then and anything below the line can be "deferred" by placing the load-index after the above the line content. It could also be easy to set this via JavaScript for dynamic loading to different screen sizes.
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I located the specification and this is not exactly being implemented as an HTML attribute. It's being implemented by default and for iframes it has an attribute to turn it off. That attribute does not exist for images.
If they made it the opposite so that you need to specify you want an image/iframe lazyloaded - I'd have no problem with that. The developer is given a new tool to optimize but isn't forced into anything.
Also, it breaks the 5.2 rendering standards
It'll be Awful (Score:5, Interesting)
Taking control and functionality away from the web developer because browser developers think they know what's best for everyone.
Gab.ai has this for their pages, and it's awful.
Scrolling down, you have to wait a moment or two to load each image as it comes into view. It's a complete time waster.
I run the slider up and down a few times to activate all the images, then go browse another page while the Gab page loads. I can't imagine doing this for *all* pages on the internet - it would be an unacceptable wast of my time.
It's similar to the google image search, which only shows a quarter page of thumbnails, but if you scroll down it suddenly loads another quarter page... jumping the slider and causing you to lose your place while scanning through the images.
Again, it's intended for some purpose which is not "convenience of the viewer". We're not the customer, so it probably saves their real customers (the advertizers) somehow.
Both of these are for non-phone browsing, for which data rates and caps don't apply. I can see why phone browsing might want to save data, but why inflict this on desktop PCs?
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I couldn't agree more. My usual MO is to load a bunch of tabs in the background, in the expectation they'll be done downloading/rendering/jumping around before I open the tab. This way, I rarely have to wait for a webpage to finish loading, which is bliss.
RAM and bandwidth are cheap enough that I can afford to have lots of background tabs, all fully rendered and waiting for me.
This 'feature' would break that.
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It'd also break my MO with a laptop: load a bunch of documents in browser tabs to read later, close the lid to put it into suspend, board the bus, open the laptop, and read.
Satellite and cellular home Internet have caps (Score:2)
non-phone browsing, for which data rates and caps don't apply.
You appear not to have priced out satellite Internet, fixed cellular Internet, or DSL in some parts of Iowa [slashdot.org]. They still very much have caps. (Source: Exede.com; Verizon.net)
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If you're reading down normally, why does the browser need to preload more than two pages worth of images? If you do read down normally you'd never notice if it's loading a page ahead. It sounds like Gab is too aggressive for its use case. If you rocketed down to the bottom it would be like a normal page load time, no?
I can see why phone browsing might want to save data, but why inflict this on desktop PCs?
You know lots of people around the world live on metered home Internet connections, right?
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You're assuming you've got a quality connection that's able to keep up and your WiFi is not dropping packets (common problem in old apartment buildings due to reflection issues/signal conflicts)
Re:Sigh (Score:5, Insightful)
You do realize that this is how the web is supposed to be, right? Web developer develops a page, the browser determines how to render the page. This is exactly how things are supposed to be.
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Re:Sigh (Score:5, Informative)
You keep talking but keep ignoring the fundamental underlying philosophy of how the web was developed.... it is when fucktard developers insist on overriding the browser that problems happen. There is no requirement for a webpage to render for the entire page if it is not visible. Please stop making stuff up, admit you don't understand, educate yourself and then comment.
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You should really know what the fuck you're talking about before ranting and calling people "fucktards"
https://www.w3.org/TR/2017/REC... [w3.org]
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Just to elaborate a bit more as you are apparently slow, the first freaking sentence of your link says "*User agents are not required to present HTML documents in any particular way. ".
This is an important part of the way the web is supposed to work. You see way back n the day, the founders of the web understood that people would be viewing the web on different hardware, and in the future it would be viewed differently. Some folks might be sight imparted and be using readers. Some would not be able to suppo
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If you continue reading that paragraph you'll come to a link for the "supporting the suggested default rendering". ie: being standards compliant.
Upon clicking that link you'll find this:
User agents that are designated as supporting the suggested default rendering must, while so designated, implement the rules in 10 Rendering. That section defines the behavior that user agents are expected to implement.
ie: if you're in standards mode you MUST render below the fold as described (see "Off-Screen" note and various expectations on rendering non-hidden elements)
In quirks mode they're free to do whatever they want. Which mode it's to be rendered in is also something the developer specifies.
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I suggest you go back and re-read the entire spec, because it completely supports the Anonymous Cowards' perspective.
It goes into very very specific details that not only suggest he is correct, but actually says this it even suggests doing so "In particular, even user agents that do implement the suggested default rendering are encouraged to offer settings that override this default to improve the experience for the user, e.g., changing the color contrast, using different focus styles, or otherwise making t
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Allowing opt-in by the user to override the default is completely fine. The browser complies with the user's preferences which fits with the User>Developer>Browser paradigm. The way the proposal is setup is that it would be opt-out, ie: break the standard in favour of speed
I actually talked with one of the people who are proposing this and he agreed that it does break the standard. His view was that the standard could be rewritten to accommodate it or the proposal could be changed to opt-in, which
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Browsers are supposed to render everything in the viewport. Ie: only the visible part. Once the content of the viewport is determined, anything else is wasted cycles.
There is no HTML standard that says a browser needs to render the entire page. In fact there a provisions for displaying content before the entire page is even retrieved.
eg: The table element was designed so a browser could start rendering it before the element was retrieved.
Does preparing for scroll "waste cycles"? (Score:2)
Browsers are supposed to render everything in the viewport. Ie: only the visible part. Once the content of the viewport is determined, anything else is wasted cycles.
Is it necessarily "wasted cycles" to prepare for further scrolling of the viewport? My use case often involves loading a document, disconnecting from the Internet, and then scrolling the viewport to the remainder of the document.
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Actually, if they are designated as "supporting the suggested default rendering" they are required to:
In the absence of style-layer rules to the contrary (e.g., author style sheets), user agents are expected to render an element so that it conveys to the user the meaning that the element represents, as described by this specification.
An element is being rendered if it has any associated CSS layout boxes, SVG layout boxes, or some equivalent in other styling languages.
- https://www.w3.org/TR/2017/REC... [w3.org]
- https://www.w3.org/TR/2017/REC... [w3.org]
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I should have also quoted this, which specifically addresses the issue of off screen elements:
NOTE: Just being off-screen does not mean the element is not being rendered. The presence of the hidden attribute normally means the element is not being rendered, though this might be overridden by the style sheets.
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As posted before, you need to continue reading the paragraph, click on the link where you'll find the "not required" means quirks mode/non-standard compliant user agents can do whatever they want but a standards compliant one must follow the rendering specified in the standard.
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Images in HTML 5 are replaced elements
The content of replaced elements is not part of the CSS rendering model, so is not required to "render" the element as far as HTML/CSS is concerned.
Sma thing goes with videos, a browser is not required to download the video file to render a element.
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That only applies of scripting is off. If scripting is on (default) it *must* immediately replace (render) the image when it's downloaded.
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There is no requirement stating when an image must be downloaded.
Where does it say a browser must immediately render a replaced element with it's content when it's downloaded?
You started whinging about standards compliance but now you've stopped referencing standards.
Please enlighten me, I must have missed something.
Also, HTML5 compliance does not require a browser supports Javascript, so scripting being on or off has nothing to do with it.
In reference to JavaScript/ECMA262 "User agents are not required to
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HTML5 does specify this sort of thing:
An img element has a current request and a pending request. The current request is initially set to a new image request. The pending request is initially set to null. The current request is usually referred to as the img element itself. ...
In a browsing context where scripting is disabled, user agents may obtain images immediately or on demand. In a browsing context where scripting is enabled, user agents must obtain images immediately.
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oh right, the "living standard"
Which will say that until someone submits a pull request to change it. Like Google, who are a member of WHATWG
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Entirely possible - however in this case highly unlikely. The reason that line exists at all is because with scripting you *need* the ability to load images off screen. A basic animation that you don't want something as heavy as video or a canvas element is done that way. Something simple, like loading a logo with negative values so that it starts off screen and gradually makes it's way on screen. That's an expected function and there's no reason any developer should think they can't do that in a browse
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That's not how it works.
Here's the specification: https://docs.google.com/docume... [google.com]
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Yes, because clearly you WANT to load that advertisement further down on the page. That is clearly more important than the image right in front of you.
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Which would make a load-index attribute worthwhile, so that images load in the order of importance instead of as chosen by the browser. Otherwise you're just deferring the load time until scrolling which means they could scroll right past something that hasn't loaded yet.
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Wouldn't the browser be in the perfect position to know where each image will be? I mean, the browser is the one that HAS to know, since it has to display those images.
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Depends on how the developer wants it rendered. There are many techniques which will trigger a repaint cycle on the displayed content to add layers to create an effect. Using jQuery's animate() is a simple example of where the developer would know the load-index that would work best for the animate() cycle but the browser would not know until after it repaints. Currently loading these images off screen allows the animation to execute in a predictable manner once it verifies the images have been rendered.
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Thanks. I didn't know that. I am more of a hardware guy.
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Taking control and functionality away from the web developer because browser developers think they know what's best for everyone.
Based on the internet I see today, yes they really know much better than nearly all web developers.
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What bugs me is that most browsers lay out the page based on image dimensions, and hardly anyone seems to use the width and height attributes. Loading images on demand isn't bad if the page layout is static.
Wait... what am I saying? For better or for worse, what web developer uses static page layout anymore? Most likely as soon as the browser launches, every web page will use Javascript to preload images -- for SPEED -- and lazy load all the content!
Making fonts smaller (Score:2)
Don't they realize the other hand is bloating webpages up with their near monopoly on online advertising?
What else would you suggest for a site to continue to pay its writers? Each site selling static ad space to advertisers? Paywalls? Or firing all employees and becoming a butcher, as Slashdot user bingoUV suggested [slashdot.org]?
Plus their analytics, big CSS fonts, and promotion of more and more javascript frameworks etc.
By "big CSS fonts", do you mean large point size or large byte size?
If the latter: Say a site uses a lightweight JS library built on the advances in vanilla JS since IE <= 11 sunset [youmightno...jquery.com], self-hosts it, self-hosts Matomo (formerly called Piwik) for analytics, and offers a meaningful functionality su
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There are valid, non-tracking, reasons for lazyloading, however, I agree with you completely. The control scheme should always be User>Developer>User-agent
SYNC/ASYNC (Score:2)
As long as they include a SYNC/ASYNC parameter to the HTML elements to override the user agent's behavior, we're all good here. In fact, being able to manually specify ASYNC without any JS at all would be freaggin godsend as a developer!
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What is this "lofi" attribute you're speaking of?
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If you are referring to lowsrc, I hope you're aware that it has been deprecated and replaced in HTML5.
Replacements for lowsrc (Score:2)
W3C's official replacement for lowsrc= [w3.org] is to use formats that support incremental loading, delivering a low-detail image early in the file and the difference between low- and high-detail images later. JPEG has progressive refinement, and PNG has Adam7 interlacing. But not all formats support this; for instance, I don't see a way to make it work for an SVG illustration or for anything animated.
What other replacement did you have in mind, if any?
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The only other solution is CSS-based, resolution-range-dependent images. Which is a neat idea if implemented properly in the browser and used correctly by the coder.
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We're back in the 90s?
Note to self: buy thousands of Bitcoins and sell them all around Christmas 2017.
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When I'm on my phone I don't want the dozen or so images of "look what [celebrity] looks like now, you won't believe it!" ads to waste my data allowance.
Even better is (Score:2)
installing an ad blocker (I recommend uBlock Origin) so most of that crap don't get loaded at all.
Even best is disabling javascript. I recommend "Quick Javascript Switcher".
Talk to rest of Google (Score:2)
Kinda odd as the rest of Google is figuring out how to waste more of our data by cramming preloaded "suggested" items into their apps (Android Chrome & Maps for example).
Also, expect to see new memory-usage benchmark-advertorials - Look how much less memory Chrome uses! It's magic!
Moron web developers (Score:1)
If moron web developers indicated the size (both in pixels and MB) of every image they use, and used preogresive Mpeg everywhere an mpeg is used, browser developers would need to resort less to hacks like this
JMNSHO
Progressive MPEG? Since when? (Score:2)
preogresive Mpeg
I've heard of progressive JPEG and Adam7-interlaced PNG for still images, but not progressive MPEG. The closest thing I can think of is a CSS trick to display a JPEG filmstrip as an animation [pineight.com], where the underlying JPEG is stored progressively.
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You are absolutely right. I meant progresive JPEGs.
Sorry.
But, on the bright side, thanks to you I learned about Adam7, and this CCS trick.
So, something good came out of my absentmindedness....
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What about moron /. commenters who confuse "progressive jpeg" with "preogresive mpeg"?
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Touche!
But the point Still stands.
This could be Great (Score:1)
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the law of totally expected consequence (Score:2)
This is all a huge exercise in gaming metrics, a natural by-product of Google's OKR system, according to the Law of Totally Expected Consequence.
I define a page as being loaded as when I can scroll down without noticing that the page wasn't really loaded in the first place.
From my vantage point, load times are getting worse and worse.
If the system instruments itself to determine the amount of image load delay exposed to the end user, and then adjust the loading threshold to the activity patterns of the user
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I really hate going to a web site, wait for it to load and then suddenly BOOM! a full-page image is the first thing the appears before all the other parts of the web page. Where's the "X" so I can close it? Huh, it doesn't have one? Why can't I scroll past this? Oh, it's covering up the scroll bar.
Sounds like that ad doesn't follow The Coalition for Better Ads standards [betterads.org], and as such, will be blocked by Chrome [google.com] as of February 15th.
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Which only means viewers will be seeing a lot more "To continue, unblock our ads in Chrome and disable tracking protection in Firefox" notices on websites, including websites linked from Slashdot stories.
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Failure to RTFA; exclude domains from search (Score:2)
[Dealing with anti-adblock in] websites linked from Slashdot stories
not visit the site.
And get moderated down for making uninformed comments based on not having read the featured article.
Now how should I tell a major web search engine which domains (plural) I don't want to visit so that it doesn't return them in search results that it presents to me? Google Search limits the number of -site:example.com terms that I can add to each query.
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Now how should I tell a major web search engine which domains (plural) I don't want to visit so that it doesn't return them in search results that it presents to me? Google Search limits the number of -site:example.com terms that I can add to each query.
Same way you used to tell the Yellow Pages not to list business you don't want to visit.
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Did the Yellow Pages allow businesses that you don't want to visit to clog up almost the entire first page of results in a particular category?
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But yes, people were allowed to advertise in the Yellow Pages, with those ads being of larger sizes if they chose to spend more.
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I'm not talking about ads on Google Search. I'm talking about organic results on Google Search when the organic results that require consent to tracking as a condition of viewing the document outnumber the organic results that do not.
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Same way you used to tell the Yellow Pages not to list business you don't want to visit.
If, somehow, you'd want Google to implement this feature, you'd have to consent to Google tracking you to figure out what particular things a website does that you don't like.
-site: query tedium; first-party tracking (Score:2)
Google, Yellow pages et al, are meant to be a listing of results matching a search term
A list of domains to exclude from results could be construed as "a search term", as the same functionality is available with -site: terms. My practical problems are that 1. entering a long list of -site: terms every time is tedious, and 2. Google Search caps the number of -site: terms in one query. My ideological problem is the intent inherent in the fact that Google Search used to let a logged-in user store what amounts to a list of -site: terms to apply to all queries but has since removed this feature.
you'd have to consent to Google tracking you to figure out what particular things a website does that you don't like.
I'
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Or won't be blocked by anything if they're hosted by the site you're visiting. Like what quite a few news websites are doing now on their mobile optimised pages.
Commercials in cinema (Score:2)
Anonymous Coward wrote about prestitial ads on websites:
It's like trying to watch a movie that I paid for at the theater but before the projector starts, a really loud guy sitting in the seat in front of you stands up, turns around and starts yelling you about some product or service he thinks you might be interested in because the movie kinda is about that. He won't shut up and he's blocking the screen until you agree to read the brochure he's holding out in front of him.
You mean like the commercials that movie theaters have been showing for decades to supplement box office revenue? I imagine theaters do this because the movie studio gets a cut of ticket sales, but not of overpriced popcorn or these ads.
Chrome will soon block ads [slashdot.org] on sites that use prestitial ads with countdown [betterads.org] or any prestitials on mobile [betterads.org].