I am dreaming of a solution to bloat where all mainstream browsers would be throttling per-tab CPU/memory/bandwith usage to Pentium III-on-DSL-circa-2001 levels by default.
(The "full speed" option should be there to keep power user from switching, but it should not be obvious to, say, 50% of users).
This should be pushed as a feature: now your browser helps make your computer work faster; any slowness in page loading is to be blamed on the websites.
This will not affects sites like Hackernews, but will bring a lot of websites to a standstill - and will force them to slim down.
A perhaps more workable solution would be to have per-tab indicators of total bytes downloaded, peak memory used, and total CPU time used (the first one already exists as part of the developer tools, but it's hidden by default). People on fast computers and fast networks do not feel the weight of bloated pages; making it visible to everyone provides an incentive to reduce it.
I really think that you are onto something there. Or maybe a bloat index calculating the ratio between user content and downloaded content. Like 1kB of text but with 2 MB of JavaScript/CSS etc would give you an index of 2000 whereas if you only had 23 kB of JavaScript/CSS etc, it would 23.
I've always wanted something similar as a devtool. I can throttle a pages bandwidth in chrome, but I can't easily put limits on how much CPU time it is allocated, and I can't constrain its memory usage or simulate swapping to disk.
Most designers and web developers chuck their stuff together on a brand new 27" iMac and it runs (and looks like) like trash on a computer an average person would own.
Chrome devtools now has CPU performance throttling. Go to the performance panel and click the red gear in the top right. There's both network and CPU throttling options.
I'll be making heavy use of that, its a shame its a relative slowdown though. I realise throttling consistently down to an absolute performance level would be difficult to implement, but it would be handy.
I had a similar idea but I couldn't work out how to resolve all the issues that would cause.
For example, things that naturally need more performance, like 3D games.
I don't think playing games in your web browser would put you in the category of power user.
The key would be a permission prompt like browsers now have for camera access, notifications, geolocation, pop ups, etc.
If a page uses too much CPU it will get throttled and ask the user if they want to unthrottle it.
Website owners currently assume they’re entitled to as much of my processor time and battery life as they want, just as they once assumed they were entitled to display popup ads just because they could. If this behavior is going to change, it will only happen because browsers stop letting them and instead say “No, this is the user’s CPU time, not yours.”
(The "full speed" option should be there to keep power user from switching, but it should not be obvious to, say, 50% of users).
This should be pushed as a feature: now your browser helps make your computer work faster; any slowness in page loading is to be blamed on the websites.
This will not affects sites like Hackernews, but will bring a lot of websites to a standstill - and will force them to slim down.