# Low bandwidth users

**URL:** <https://meta.discourse.org/t/low-bandwidth-users/34620>\
**Category:** UX\
**Created:** [October 16, 2015, 11:06pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/low-bandwidth-users/34620 "2015-10-16T23:06:05Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 1

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**Author:** ![ky\_metro](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/ky_metro/32/42807_2.png) [@ky\_metro](https://meta.discourse.org/u/ky_metro)\
**Post date:** [October 16, 2015, 11:06pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/low-bandwidth-users/34620/1 "2015-10-16T23:06:05Z")

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Continuing the discussion from [Make Discourse play nice with the Wayback Machine](https://meta.discourse.org/t/make-discourse-play-nice-with-the-wayback-machine/34579/7):

[quote=“codinghorror, post:7, topic:34579, full:true”]

> [@Make Discourse play nice with the Wayback Machine](https://meta.discourse.org/t/make-discourse-play-nice-with-the-wayback-machine/34579/6):
>
> With js enabled, it takes around an hour to load a page with no photos.

Where are you getting this data from? [/quote]

Measuring from my own site on a [text-only topic](http://forum.driveonwood.com/t/arkansas-woodgas-gathering-october-3-2015/1960), no cache, I’m getting 4.3 MB. At 56k simulated speeds in Chrome dev tools, it churns for 15-20 minutes and times out, less than a quarter of it loaded. (I’m still trying to find out why my site is heavier than meta… ) I have yet to successfully load a page at this speed.

> [@Make Discourse play nice with the Wayback Machine](https://meta.discourse.org/t/make-discourse-play-nice-with-the-wayback-machine/34579/7):
>
> May you first find actual data showing us how many there are?

I’m not saying there are lots of dial up folks out there. But there are a few left, by choice or necessity.

Verizon inherited about 2.3 million AOL dial up customers, [according to Time magazine](http://time.com/3856066/aol-verizon-deal-dial-up-internet/). And 3% of Americans still use dial up at home, [according to this research group](http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/08/21/3-of-americans-use-dial-up-at-home/).

On top of that, folks throughout the developing world have limited access speed and data caps - not to mention under-powered hardware. A simpler, lighter interface will open the door to them as well.

Obviously we aren’t catering to these folks… but since we already serve up an stripped down HTML version, making it functional will let them participate.

* * *

Here’s some other big sites that present a functional stripped down version.

Facebook now has “Facebook Lite”: [Facebook Lite Is A Stripped Down Android App For The Developing World | TechCrunch](http://techcrunch.com/2015/06/04/download-facebook-lite/)

Gmail has basic HTML: [https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=html](https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=html)

Twitter with javascript disabled redirects to [https://mobile.twitter.com](https://mobile.twitter.com), and is functional.

Google Search with javascript disabled redirects to an older but functional version (and slims down from 362kb to 62kb).

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