Consuming Articles Offline
blog.nawaz.org
blog.nawaz.org
Not for me. I have been using a text-only browser to read the www for over 20 years. The keyword here is "read". I do not need graphics to read text.
Ocassionally I get a glimpse of the type of images that users of graphical browsers would see when reading articles and I am often shocked by how little these images add to the text. In a remarkable number of cases, they are just garbage "filler". As if the publisher was "required" to use some images. Perhaps use of images has some effect on users' response to advertising.
What's more is that in cases of true photojournalism, by a reputable media outlet, where I do want to look at the photos, I often find I can extract the URLs and download the images, for offline viewing, easier with non-graphical clients than if I am using a graphical browser. Viewing images is one thing, but I would not want to rely on a graphical browser for downloading them to view offline.
On today's www, I think graphics are overrated. They have a place, but they are routinely being used in situations used when they are not truly necessary. In a surprisingly large number of cases, they do not add anything except distraction.
What browser do you use? It sounds like bliss.
1. I can compile an OS, including a customised kernel and hundreds of robust, reliable and secure programs, in less time and with fewer resources than I could compile one of the popular browsers. (By comparison, I do not consider popular browsers to be robust, reliable nor secure. In practice, customisation by users is only possible with "permission" from a company. These oversized programs do not belong to users.)
"Overview
Gemini is a new internet protocol which:
Is heavier than gopher
Is lighter than the web
Will not replace either
Strives for maximum power to weight ratio
Takes user privacy very seriously" <--- Yet it REQUIRES user to send plaintext hostnames over the wire
At present, I only need to send plaintext hostname over the wire for a minority of HTTPS sites. Most sites do not require it. One shared hosting provider, Cloudflare, even offers encrypted SNI, which works fine while encrypted Client Hello (ECH) is being finalised. AFAICT, the SNI problem will eventually be fixed in HTTPS.
Making SNI mandatory, i.e., no option to disable it, is against the philosophy of user control. One of the reasons I use links and other non-graphical clients plus a local TLS proxy, instead using of a popular browser, is because the popular browsers do not permit the user to disable the sending of plaintext hostnames over the wire.
Not all HTTPS sites require SNI, in fact most do not require it, yet popular browsers send hostnames in plaintext to every website. From a user perspective, that is stupid. Gemini is arguably worse because it codifies this stupidity into the protocol, thereby ensuring people will write clients that send hostnames in plaintext over the wire to every site and servers that will reject TLS negotiation without SNI. If there is only one Gemini site on an IP address, then it makes no sense to send the hostname in plaintext over the wire.
Select the pencil-like icon on the right of the top bar (hover over it to see words "Bulk Edit"). Select the articles you want to delete, then select the trashcan to delete them.
On the Kobo, you are limited to deleting one item at a time, unfortunately. So you bulk edit on the web, then sync your Kobo to remove the items.
The TTS feature is pretty nifty (on Android, not sure if there's an equivalent on the web version, though firefox reader mode has TTS). With bluetooth headphones/speaker I can just have a bunch of articles read to me while I'm doing something else.
[0]: I hate random buttons for services I don't use showing up in my browser unexpectedly! I think stuff like this is part of why so many people (at least used to) avoid automatic updates. UI changes that don't immediately benefit the user.
I really hope e-readers get to the point as mentioned towards the end where it replicates paper more accurately. High DPI, proper size, easy to write on.
I download a few (10 at most) articles a day with MarkDownload and create an ePub.
I either read them on a reMarkable during daytime or a Kobo HD if in bed (I prefer the backlight to an actual light on eInk).
What I like is the artifical limit on the amount to read. It stops me engaging in the infinite scroll trap of tablets and I find reading on a eInk quite relaxing, unlike other displays.
[0] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/markdownload/
If anything, my main complaint was that the process of getting the content I wanted to read on to the thing was the problem: no matter what software or special formatting I used PDFs were rendered terribly and the steps involved in using that 'send an article to your Kindle' really cut into my desire to take an article I saw on my normal computer and read it over there.
I know they've got large, monitor-sized eInk displays now so I think the only thing standing between me and my ideal reader is a more sophisticated way to reformat/reflow PDFs (I vaguely recall Adobe saying they were going to make this a component of their new reader?) and an easy way to 'cast' pages to it that performs the same ad-stripping and reformatting that's mentioned in the article.
How does that Kindle compare with laser printer paper? I get 600 dpi on the normal setting and the difference between it and an ereader is very noticeable.
Also bigger screens tend to have lower DPI. 6in screens are too small for me.
* Fairly durable * A security violation requires physical access to the paper storage * Flexibility - you can take a pen and draw anywhere on paper - and it will make sense to other readers without having to write custom software * Flexibility 2 - you can organize bits of paper any way you like
Having had my identity compromised through third parties (Premera, Experian), the security aspects are particularly compelling.
It also feels like a lot of the business innovation credited to software could have been possible using paper systems, e.g. reading about the Toyota Production System, it seemed more about process innovation than anything to do with software.
I use it for all articles and books. I love it so much that, if a book is available only in print, I’ll scan it so I can use it with Voice Dream.
What I love about it:
- Switch fluently between text-to-speech and reading visually - Add highlights and comments - Export my annotations - Having my entire library with me wherever I go - Connecting to a projector for a “reading cinema” (AirPlay)
Being able to annotate and copy quotes has actually made me prefer reading an EPUB inside VDR over listening a professional Audible audiobook.
Although I've now stopped printing stuff; I care a bit more about the planet than I did back then.
Now I long for solutions to help me curate and organize content.
There was also a satisfaction for me to get rid of the articles I was done with. A bit like this moment in Matrix where Neo says "I know kung-fu" :)
That way I retain and find information much easier.
With digital content it is all a blur on the same mini screen of my smart phone.
My biggest problem is formatting for printing. And, unlike the author, I often find that there are graphs or tables in images that I want printed, so stripping all images doesn't work. But I don't need pictures just because there are pictures.