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I had a similar problem working over a metered cellular data connection recently. One thing that helped a lot was the uBlock Origin extension for Chrome & Firefox, which has a feature that prevents automatically loading media elements over a certain size (say, 50kb). If you want to load a large image or video you can click to load it or turn the feature off on a per-site basis. Can use it in Firefox on an Android phone, too, since it has extensions.

if I had only two words for anybody desperate to reduce their monthly data download while browsing: uBlock Origin

I'm loving the big improvement so far. Plus many sites seem to be loading faster now.

What I find annoying is that most of the websites that have the features consuming the broadband that you are describing ("autoplay videos, huge JS libraries, giant pictures, etc.") are just showing some text and a few pictures and video, and there is no need for them to require things like sophisticated js that make them slower - I am OK with a website that does 3D animation in js being slow, I am less tolerant with, say, quora's scrolling being slow.

I will never forgive websites that break scrolling.

But the Google Plus experience would be irrevocably compromised if you were able to scroll by hitting the space bar!

I can sympathise with this, as the average Internet speeds at my place are terrible, especially on the so-called "unlimited" plan, which actually has a ridiculously low Fair Usage Limit set by my ISP so that I apparently blow through it within days of the start of a new month, all from just plain browsing and updating (Linux) software, not even torrenting. Once you're beyond the fair use limit the speed becomes 60 kbps for the rest of the month unless I "top-up", for which the ISP often nags by redirecting plain http connections to their nag-page or sending me emails. But I stick it out and do any heavy downloading by running the program continuously overnight. It takes ~12 hours to get ~1 Gb of data.

>so that I apparently blow through it within days of the start of a new month

Interesting, had the same experience this month, though on my mobile phone's post-paid data plan. Actually in earlier months too, but those were near the middle or end of the month. This time it happened within 5 days of the start of my billing cycle.

You in India? Asking because Fair Use Policy (also has another cynical/realistic expansion given by users) is a term used by Indian ISPs (though could be other places too of course).

That's a pretty exact description of a Canadian service I had until recently as well. It's not just India.

Wow. Sort of thought so (that it could be world wide), but interesting to hear it. And shit.

Yes. And my so-called "broadband" ISP is BSNL to be exact. But since their "full-speed" (~200 kbps) connection lasts only a few days each billing cycle before their fair-use policy kicks in, throttling me to ~60 kbps, you can hardly call it 'broadband' in any sense of the term. Nevertheless I stick with it since its sufficient for my needs (albeit you need to cultivate patience) and cheap enough. But their recent increasingly aggressive attempts to redirect my connections to their nag-pages asking me to "top-up" or register for their email are testing my forbearance.

Bad scene.

I was in Kashmir a couple of years ago and Aircel 3G was almost invariably faster and more reliable than the BSNL ADSL "Broadband".

>for which the ISP often nags by redirecting plain http connections to their nag-page or sending me emails

My phone ISP nags me too. After I buy a booster pack (see nearby comment by me) because the main one got over early, I get unwanted calls from them selling more offers. Have to tell them I'm not interested.

I used to work at a place that tested their software on a >5 year old POS computer, with a <1mbps Internet connection. If their software ran on that computer, it would run on their user's computers. I wish more people would test like this.

Your webapp runs great on a laptop in the middle of SF, but not on my crappy phone in the middle of Nowheres-ville.

Yes, so much this! I went to Wisconsin recently to visit relatives, they had a really nice house but in the rural location. They were always going over the data limit (30GB cap through satellite) and it was an awful experience overall. With all the same problems, trying to install ad-block and figure out how to minimize data drainage from auto updates. At that point I just never realized that there are places in US that might have these problems still. Everything is geared towards unlimited high speed cable connection.

Broadband in the US is an excellent example of how a free market doesn't really provide any benefits for consumers.

Case in point: Wisconsin has about as many people as Norway, but Wisconsin is around three times smaller in area and has a much simpler topology and topography. Still, Norway has a lower number of households where broadband is unavailable.

Can US broadband be considered free market? Cellular (and satellite?) is limited by frequency allocations and wired is limited by franchise agreements.

Regarding unanticipated software updates, this may be slightly off topic, but updates are particularly troublesome with Windows 10. Unfortunately Win10 doesn't permit reviewing updates before downloading them, an option that was available in prior versions. Even though Win10 Pro version users can delay update installation, automatic downloads can't be turned off and occur without prior notification.

While some tools are available to reduce tracking and other MS privacy-invading practices, auto-updating remains a curse that's hard to counter.

Obviously this is not a fault of the web itself, but an example of the ways vendors use the internet in opposition to interests of users. It's unclear how these abusive practices can be curbed, but I'm all for Mozilla and other organizations trying to do something about it.

> updates are particularly troublesome with Windows 10.

A happy discovery: marking a particular wi-fi network as 'metered' (the obvious thing to do, right?) will prevent automatic downloads of updates over that network.

Thanks for your observation! I'll have to try it.

I'm assuming having to check manually for updates but that's not a big burden. Hopefully no inadvertent "side-effects" from running as a metered connection.

I just got back from a 2-week Asia trip where the only Internet I had was on my phone, on high-latency 3G. I completely agree with you. My online experience was simply atrocious. Most sites I visit on a daily basis were simply unusable.

Hear, hear. Coincidentally, and on the same topic, I posted this question on superuser.com. Was surprised that there were not more responses [1]:

http://superuser.com/questions/1085654/how-to-minimize-unwan...

[1] The NetBalancer software seems to be helping with the issue.

I'm pretty sure that a lot of these ISP issues of excessive bandwidth usage are intentional.

Where in the world did you have the issues you describe, if not private?

The "Metered Connection" option in Windows 10 might help here, but as for websites you can't do much except using Ad blocker, "Disconnect.me" or Opera Turbo. (I'm not sure if Disconnect.me exists on opera).

Another way to mitigate would be to have the browser identify as a tablet/mobile as some websites assume mobile == metered connection. On top of my head, there is some addon like this in Chrome.

This is a two sided problem. The massive page sizes and the sad state of rural internet options. Everyone loves to complain about Comcast and the other big providers (I'm not going to defend them either) but honestly, you don't know how good you have it until you've tried to find a good provider in a rural area.

I wish I could get a fixed cellular install with 30GB. I pay $60 for 10GB cellular, and I only survive by watching like 5 videos a month, using my church's wifi and putting anything that doesn't require low latency on my dad's 10GB per month satellite, which with 5 people in the house the high speed data is gone in a week.

Have you looked into Amazon Prime? You can download stuff to your phone/tablet when you have unmetered internet and then listen or watch it later.

I haven't tried it yet, but I think that the Apple Lightning to HDMI adaptor will work to get Amazon Video on the TV. I would think that HDMI would be even cheaper/easier on an Android device.

I didn't know about Opera with turbo and I'll try. But it's a real problem. Since it's been redesigned I'm unable to access Coursera at home. I had to download videos at work and bring them back home. There is nothing in the UI that justify this.