Google is Retiring Chrome's Data-saving Lite Mode Next Month, Saying It's No Longer Necessary (androidpolice.com) 26
In a Google support forum post, Chrome's Support Manager Craig announced that mobile Chrome 100 will do away with the browser's data-saving feature -- the release is due to make its way to the stable channel on March 29, 2022. From a report: The mode will also stop working on previous versions of the browser from that day. Besides several improvements to Chrome over the years to reduce data usage and improve page load times, Google has also seen mobile data costs decrease in many countries. Thus, it believes the data saving mode is no longer relevant in today's world.
Dang (Score:3)
I wasn't aware that this feature even existing, but not that I hear they're taking it away it sounds interesting.
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There are a few very good data savers still out there, that makes pages load faster and increase security.
They are called ad-blockers.
Good (Score:1)
Good that at least the codesize will reduce.
Mobile app sizes have bloated exponentially. Android apks of apps (such as banks) these days are hovering around 100MB in size. For what exactly is 100MB of code needed (there are no videos in the apps)?
There needs to be a push back from all on bloated apks.
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Good that at least the codesize will reduce. Mobile app sizes have bloated exponentially. Android apks of apps (such as banks) these days are hovering around 100MB in size. For what exactly is 100MB of code needed (there are no videos in the apps)? There needs to be a push back from all on bloated apks.
Google itself is probably one of the worst offenders. Check out the size of apps like Maps compared to a few years ago. They've added barely anything I'd care about, but made the package 10 times the size.
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Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
If the data saving mode is entirely in the browser, it shouldn't stop working in older versions.
If it isn't, but relies on Google to screen out data, then I'd argue the mode is a privacy violation.
Regardless of which is true, altering the behaviour of existing installations is very bad form.
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Remote rendering, turned into basically an interactive picture of the page.
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If it isn't, but relies on Google to screen out data
That's how it works. Obviously you can't reduce your data if you're downloading the entire site on your device anyway. You instead have Google make the request, compress the data more, then send you the "lite" version.
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If you're downloading the entire page, you're limited, yes. You can support additional compression methods, but that's only effective if the server also does and is limited in what it can do. You can also use multiviews to ask for a lite version of a page, but that depends on such a version existing and multiviews being supported.
In terms of partial pages, you can also not download images, which is the path some browsers take. So long as the correct amount of space is allocated, the page would still look mo
Re:Huh? (Score:4, Informative)
It download compressed copies of files from Google servers. The compression is lossy, JPEGs are reduced in quality to save data.
So it costs Google money to serve copies from their CDN.
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> If it isn't, but relies on Google to screen out data, then I'd argue the mode is a privacy violation.
>
> Regardless of which is true, altering the behaviour of existing installations is very bad form.
Reading between the lines and based on prior Google engineering moves, they likely got an NSL for the requests - the feature effectively breaks the "going dark" problem for state actors. Certainly a subset, but they want "every drop".
Laudatory IMO.
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It is essentially a proxy service that compresses data, and AFAIK, it is not enabled by default.
They are shutting down the service, probably because it is a free service that costs them money and they don't get good returns. Shutting down services is a thing Google does, a lot.
As for the privacy implication, they are obvious since it is a proxy, the the way it is presented is confusing. It is not "lite" like, for example, reader mode, it just compresses data. And while it clearly says that it goes through G
not really (Score:3, Interesting)
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that was the one feature keeping me using it (Score:1)
well whole reason I was using chrome on my phone, guess back to firefox with ad block on my phone
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whole reason I was using chrome on my phone
Obviously you're wrong. Google just said it isn't necessary anymore.
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Don't worry. Google has announced a new standard that will improves everyone's lives, and they promise that it will last at least two years before they cancel it!
Brave (Score:1)
"The mode will also stop working on previous versions of the browser from that day."
LOL, what?
Please use Brave. Chromium based but without Google spyware and zero ads.
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Brave? You mean the browser that brings in its own adware? I get enough ads from websites, having the browser pop up stuff isn't something I care to deal with.
Opera Mini (Score:2)
For those unaware, the data-savings Lite Mode was what Google called their version of the tech that rendered things on their servers and then sent a compressed binary to the user -- the same thing that done by Opera Mini.
It does not sound like this has anything to do with the Save-Data HTTP header that browsers can send to servers to provide them a hint if the user would like a reduced version of the site.
Apparently some countries aren't relevant (Score:3)
Google has also seen mobile data costs decrease in many countries. Thus, it believes the data saving mode is no longer relevant in today's world.
But not all of them.
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Most of the developing world really does have somewhat inexpensive cellular broadband. On the other hand, there's the US.