How would that cap work? Would the browser be expected to calculate the size of all elements by querying them all before loading anything? Would the browser just start downloading content counting bits as it goes, and then just stop when it reached 2Mb? What if the page was laid out in such a way that the JS includes were >2Mb?

Just a second of though about the comment made would show so many issues with the idea, that maybe the idea isn't really a good one. At the least it would provide pause that maybe some sort of refinement is required to be taken seriously by anyone else.

What would happen if you yanked the ethernet cord after 2Mb transferred? Same thing. You can't precalculate the size since resources are added dynamically (and you can't trust HEAD anyway).

If you want all the javascript, don't count the javascript against the quota. If you don't want videos that you're never going to play deliberately, set the video quota to zero.

it's rare for the html file and the associated css is bigger than 2MB (much epub books is lighter than that if you reduce image size). The culprit are often media (fonts included), JS files, and files loaded dynamically. I'd say get the HTML and CSS files first, then JS and everything else and stops after the 2MB threshold. A lot of currently running JS code are unnecessary and I say this as a React developer.

so many websites don't actually have full HTML. Instead, its just JS that dynamically create elements after fully being downloaded. Not acknowledging this just shows how much of a not good/realistic/practical idea this is. Pie in the sky idealistic concepts are fun sitting in a pub having a few pints or while sitting in the circle, but they are not productive suggestions in making things better.

Making things better is forcing website owners to go back to server-side rendered applications. I just blocked the JS files on my self-hosted instance of Gitea to load, and the resulting total size is close to 900kb, with my profile picture file at 250kb. It is still usable. With JS files, the whole thing is 2.2mb and took two seconds to render (0.7 seconds for file transfers). Caching was disabled. Most websites shouldn't be SPA. And the actual instantaneous navigation argument is often negated by slow data loading. Instead of the browser showing a loading bar, it's the application doing it.

As you can't control other people's choices, you can only control your environment. Which often means Firefox+Ublock/NoScript. I use Safari, but only visit a handful of these kinds of sites and never for long, often immediately closing tabs that show popups and annoying animations. And I have a pihole on my network.

Your declaration of websites not needing to be SPA may or may not be accurate. However, there are so many sites that are made from template providers like Wix/SquareSpace/Shopify/whatEvs that allow people with 0 knowledge of how a website is made. These sites will not render without JS.

These are companies that have allowed so many people to have a website that essentially is a SPA because that's an easy way for them to deploy template based sites. These are much easier to maintain than WordPress sites. Yes, I agree that most of these sites are simply static sites, and I think it would be amazing if these template JS library sites would allow you to render it flat static site once you hit publish or the equivalent. However, they would probably balk at the notion of not protecting their IP with obfuscated code and delivering readable HTML/CSS. I seriously doubt it takes 2MB of JS to operate these sites, and I'm guessing probably 90% of that code isn't used but is just bundled so the same thing is used everywhere.

However, to prove your point, there are many occasions where I've taken as a weekend project to find a template from Wix or similar that I like, and then recreate it in HTML/CSS by hand. It very much is a smaller site. But that's not something anyone here is disputing. The dispute is that you're wanting a fantasy world, and that's not the one we live in.

Just as the article [0] have described it, the web is already split. You can either choose Times Square or the scenic retreat, the consumer magazine or a nice book. I choose to minimize my time on the "normal" web which breaks if I block ads and tracking scripts. And instead spend it here and in my RSS reader.

[0]: https://ploum.net/2023-08-01-splitting-the-web.html

I was thinking like, don't make any more request if the limit is transgressed. So the limit could be surpassed by the last request.

Otherwise I guess the limit could be in the tcp layer too.

And the limit would not care about breaking sites. So I guess it would only be aimed at technical users on mobile where bytes count. Unless it is easy to "continue" without serverside state breaking.

UBlock Origin has an option to block large media elements[0] by default / per-site. You can configure the threshold.

[0] https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Per-site-switches#no-...

Hmm... thanks for the tip.

I actually think I'll see if it is possible to do this with extensions api.

> I don't need autoplay.

I don't need it. I don't want it. I try to disable it. But the setting either is ignored or simply doesn't work.

When and why did browsers give up on reliable autoplay blocking?

Most autoplays seems user hostile. And it is futile to execute hostile code and try to make it behave. (Kudos for UBlock Origin etc for trying anyway, though!)

But at least there should be an easy way to make a website not have access to your speakers unless you opt in. 99% of the times, it's ads anyway, so the default should be to block sound. But that does not solve the bandwidth waste problem.

Fundamentally, the problem is Javascript. It makes it really hard for the user to be in control.