For my dialup brothers and sisters

[Syrinx]

Maybe this post will get totally ignored, because "nobody" is still on dial-up.

But maybe it will get kicked because there are plenty of people (a small fraction, but still plenty of people) that only access the internet through dial-up accounts.

It sucks. But it still happens to some people. Broadband is just out of reach.

My only real option is the satellite service. But from what I've heard it is really expensive, and not that much better than dial-up.

If there is anyone here on dial-up that wants to use sites like Daily Kos and Huffington Post, I say use Firefox, and install Adblock Plus, and then start using some filters.

I don't even bother to block most of the ads. It's other stuff that sucks up the bandwidth.

PUBLICUS.COM. (The biggest single offender.) I don't even really know what that is, but I blocked it, and sites started loading much better.

FACEBOOK.COM.

TWIMG.COM.

GAWKERASSETS.COM.

DAILYKOSTV.COM.

DISQUS.COM

And definitely disable images from huffpost.com.

DailyKos.com wouldn't even load at all, until I blocked dailykostv.com. Now it works fine.

I know dial-up people are rare these days, but there are still some of us.

Tips for my fellow travelers. Please don't make fun of me for living out in the boonies. :)

[taterguy]

1. Ha Ha ! You live in the Boonies!

Oh wait, you said don't make fun of you because you live in the Boonies.

Sorry.

[Syrinx]

2. actually, I live a thousand feet from the Comcast feed

And they want $3,000 to hook me in.

[taterguy]

3. Ha Ha! You live in an area served by Comcast

[Syrinx]

4. as do you

[taterguy]

7. Time Warner for my cable sucker

[TexasProgresive]

5. Thanks. I live on the edge of nowhere

As you said, Satellite is expensive and unreliable. A lady near us has Hughes because she works from home paying >$100.00 a month.

If you come up with any other tips pm me. Especially for media outlets,ie, NBC,CBS,ABC,FOX,PBS. Those are some of the worst offenders.

You know Obama made a promise to do something about the lack of high speed internet in rural areas but like a lot of stuff it doesn't appear to be happening.

[Syrinx]

16. I looked at MSNBC, and it looks more challenging

It'll take a bit of experimentation. Some things that you block might ruin the site for you.

You can look down in the status bar of your browser and see what seems to be taking up most of your bandwidth. And then block those domains with AdBlock Plus, then reload and see what happens.

At first glance, I didn't see any obvious candidates for elimination from MSNBC's homepage. It just seems like they try to cram too much stuff onto their homepage.

But there's one thing you can try, assuming that you generally allow websites to use images, you can set an exception, at least in Firefox, to block images from that website. I blocked images from msnbc.com and msn.com and that caused MSNBC to load very much quicker. This resulted in a less attractive website, especially at the top of the page, but the actual information got to me in a reasonable amount of time.

In Firefox, go to Edit-->Preferences-->Content-->Load Images Automatically-->Exceptions.

Then type msn.com, then click "block."

Then do the same with "msnbc.com."

I hope that helps.

I haven't got around to looking at the other networks yet, but that's the gist of it.

Good luck. :hi:

[dixiegrrrrl]

6. No telephone dsl service available?

God, I had dial up here in my *boonies* before the ONLY telephone landline service provided dsl, which is still clunky and slow compared to services in cities.
You are so right about using Ad Block, and also NoScript ( tho No Script has been accused of mal ware).

Also, I have used Chrome browser, it is faster even than Firefox.

Lastly, anything is faster than Windows, we switched to Linux and I am amazed at the difference.

[TexasProgresive]

8. ADSL is only good for about 8000 feet from the Central Office or remote

and generally the remote site has to be fiber optic feed from the Central office to even offer ADSL. Besides this there are large parts of the country that have no High Speed internet because the "providers" don't want to invest in the major fiber optic routes to connect small rural areas to the world.

The same goes for cell phone service - it is spotty to no existent in many rural areas.

[Syrinx]

14. Glad to hear dixiegrrrrl is in the Linux camp

I originally started using Linux back in the mid 90's, I guess, because I've always been interested in computers. and Linux lets me get "closer to the bone," so to speak, than Windows ever did. Nothing has changed on that front. But nowadays there are distributions, typified by Ubuntu, that are just as "user friendly" as Windows, and maybe even more so.

Websites have recently begun to get so demanding in terms of throughput (admins just naturally assume everyone has broadband, and build their sites around that assumption; thankfully DU doesn't seem to have surrendered to that notion just yet, though this impending update of the DU software has me a little bit concerned).

A couple of weeks ago, I just really got fed up. People would post DK links here and they would not load period, even if I went away for thirty minutes. It was ridiculous. I toyed with the idea of making a basic, text-only browser tailored to the websites that I frequently visit. But that idea soon turned problematic, because HTML is so idiosyncratic. Such an idea may be more feasible when HTML5 becomes finalized, but who knows when that will happen?

So I turned to more aggressive use of AdBlock Plus. I have limited results so far, but at least now Huffington Post and DailyKos are useable.

I haven't tried the Chrome browser yet, and don't know if I will. I've heard bad things about Google's privacy policy, and despite their supposed motto of "do no evil," I don't trust that company at all.

I haven't tried NoScript either, but I will look into it. Thanks for mentioning it.

:hi:

[NEOhiodemocrat]

9. Thanks for the Info!

I tried to sign up for another way but the company said I was too far away from their office for it to work. And where I live would not techinically qualify as the boonies (well, except to my children when they were at home) So I live with dial up and tell my children they will practice patience when they come home and go online. My son in law brings one of those tiny little satellite uploaders and pops it on top of his laptop, man, I would like one of those!

[Syrinx]

18. well, I'm not really in the "boonies" either

Just so far off the road that I would have to pay thousands of dollars to get them to hook me up. I don't understand that really. How much could it really cost to string a cable a few hundred feet?

Satellite uploaders? Do you mean one of those "air card" thingies? If so, I think those use cellular technology, and they are pretty pricey, I think, at least for people that like to do a lot of downloading.

:hi:

[BrklynLiberal]

10. What about Hughesnet. I see ads.

http://www.nationwidesatellite.com/hughesnet/?G3900&gclid=CMqt-aXH5KYCFaE65Qod6Rmgzw

They claim to be having a special 39.99/mth for three months...after rebate.

Have you checked them out?

[Syrinx]

17. thanks for the suggestion

I wasn't aware of that offer. But I think after that three months, the rates jumps to over a hundred dollars a month, and I can't really afford that. Plus, according to people that I've talked to that have subscribed to that service, it's barely better than dialup, and goes out completely when it rains. I already have DirecTv. When it rains and I can't watch TV, at least I can get online. :)

Thanks for the suggestion though. :hi:

[BrklynLiberal]

19. Aha...more false advertizing, I see. They sure make it sound a lot better than that in the ads.

[scarletwoman]

11. You are not alone, I'm a dial-upper living out in the boonies, too.

Same deal, only other option is satellite which would cost big buck$.

Anyway, thank you for the tips.

:thumbsup:
sw

[Maine_Nurse]

12. Same here but no satellite option either

I'd have to amputate a ton of old-growth trees on a neighbor's property to even think about satellite. I was going to try Verizon wireless, but thankfully a friend with it came up here and we found out that the coverage is too weak to function decently. I'm guessing about another 10-15 years before cable or DSL are available.

[Angry Dragon]

13. K&R

[Turborama]

15. Al Jazeera English have an excellent live blog. It has audio clips, too.

Here: http://blogs.aljazeera.net/middle-east/2011/01/31/live-blog-feb-1-egypt-protests

[kayakjohnny]

20. Well, I'm not on dial-up, but I think it's really decent of you to help people out like this.

That's a cool thing to do.

I'm sure you are helping plenty of people.

Cheers.

[Syrinx]

21. that's nice of you to say

I welcome anyone to join in and post suggestions for how the dialup-tethered minority can improve their online experiences. I love to play with broadband when I visit friends. Watching video on demand and all that cool stuff is so great. But information is still king, in my mind.

Thanks for the nice words. :hi:

[Toon Me Out]

22. flashblock available too

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/flashblock

:fistbump:

[Raine]

23. THANKS so much

I'm on dial-up and this will really help! :yourock: