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Is it possible that when a website is opened only text data is displayed, i.e. no images, advertisements etc. so that it takes less time to load the website? Is there a browser that supports this?

5 Answers 5

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Well, you could use w3m or lynx , or install an extension of some sort. I'd also suggest taking a look at qtweb, which allows easy disabling of all the things i mention later.

You can manually disable things from your browser - Instructions below for FF and chrome - I don't use IE, but i can check if its your browser of choice.

You can disable load images automatically (which will prevent images from loading) - this is under options -> content on firefox or privacy -> content on chrome

Disable javascript and flash and all plugins

And switch all mimetypes to 'always ask' - this is under the applications tab on firefox and i believe handlers under chrome

I would add screenshots, but that would somewhat defeat the purpose of this question ;)

As of 2017, firefox also has reader mode - which seems to give you a text only webpage - however its a little crochety (and dosen't quite work right here), and I'm not sure if it saves any bandwidth. Ironically my internet connection is too fast to really tell.

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  • Well I did change the settings on chrome and it works but i ll have to add exceptions as this is generic. Thanks
    – 2FaceMan
    Mar 18, 2012 at 7:34
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Textise (http://www.textise.net) allows most web pages to be converted into neat text and can be accessed via its home page, a Firefox add-on or a bookmarklet. It's also used by many sites for their "text only" links- see the showcase page at http://textise.wordpress.com/showcase/.

As the developer of Textise, I'm concerned about the phrase "not working so well lately" that appears in another answer!

Textise is up and running (faster than ever) and, as far as I know, experiencing no issues. Please get in touch if you're having problems, via the contact form at textise.wordpress.com. Thanks.

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  • There were several days when I was having difficulty with your site, and they happened to coincide with my response to this question. This is one of those occasions when one is happy to have been wrong. Textise.net is exactly the right idea for what this service should be like.
    – cssyphus
    Apr 8, 2014 at 15:28
  • Thanks for the update, gibberish. Very glad you're still finding Textise useful.
    – Textise
    Apr 8, 2014 at 19:33
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You can disable image loading in all of the popular web browsers. Opera also has an option to show only cached images.

Ad-blockers are also available as plug-ins/extensions for Firefox, Chrome, and Internet Explorer. I've only linked to a few popular ones, but others are also available. Opera has a built-in ad-blocking feature.

In Firefox, you can use the NoScript add-on to selectively disable or enable JavaScript for certain sites. Chrome also has extensions similar to NoScript, such as NotScript. You can also disable JavaScript entirely, but some websites won't work properly if you do.

If you have really limited bandwidth, you might want to consider trying Opera's Turbo mode, whereby a web page is downloaded and rendered on Opera's servers, then an optimized version is sent to your browser. The Kindle Fire's Silk web browser has a feature similar to Opera's Turbo mode.

Many websites have mobile-optimized versions which you can access by replacing www with m or mobile. In addition to being optimized for smaller screens, they are also often optimized for lower-bandwidth connections. For example: m.wikipedia.org.

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  • But its downloading complete page and then filtering.I need to save my internet download.This might not be helpful in my case
    – 2FaceMan
    Mar 18, 2012 at 7:12
  • @livinggourmand No, Opera doesn't download images if you're in "do not show images" mode. That is shown by the delay in downloading images when you turn it back on while on a page. (However it will follow and load links like ads, so you may want to use an adblocker)
    – mtone
    Mar 18, 2012 at 7:20
  • @livinggourmand: your use-case sounds like a prime candidate for Opera Turbo.
    – rob
    Mar 18, 2012 at 7:34
  • @rob I use Chrome and made some changes there & it works.
    – 2FaceMan
    Mar 18, 2012 at 7:37
  • Glad to hear you got it working. Keep in mind that many sites also have mobile versions which will be lower-bandwidth. (I just edited my answer to include that.)
    – rob
    Mar 18, 2012 at 7:40
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Another website: ViewText.org strips away all the ads and gives a text-only version of any website, but retains simple formatting.

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  • No longer available (see below)
    – cssyphus
    Mar 18, 2014 at 20:11
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viewtext.org seems no longer available. This is a common plight for this type of service. The following similar services also no longer work:
* baresite.com
* tidyread.com

Other alternatives, currently working as of this posting date, are:

w3dt.net

ipodulator -- zero formatting, best viewed in long, skinny window

textise.net -- for a long time, THE BEST, but not working so well lately (I take that back - it's working great again. Been rock steady for a few weeks so returned to update answer. I see that the site dev has added his own comment/answer and am happy to strongly recommend this site.)

textmirror.net

textonly.in -- not working so well


REQUIRE SIGN-UP:

readability.com


ADD-ONs

You can also accomplish this locally using the correct extensions in Firefox or Chrome:

Hide all images on a page in Firefox (plain text only)

If use both Chrome and Firefox, keep one browser always configured for plain text. Else, install a second distro of Firefox, such as Pale Moon (portable version), and keep that always configured for plain text.

OTHER

http://www.tothepc.com/archives/view-text-only-version-of-webpages/

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