Enabling a browser to display content before loading assets

Question

I moved recently and still have no internet connection, so I'm trying to live with 3G somehow for a few days. It's really frustrating to browse the internet loading things at 8kbps(that's how it works in Brazil, folks).

All the browsers nowadays never display the content before loading stylesheets. Even though the html is already loaded. All I want is to read the content, I don't need no css, images and anything else, nor I need to wait over one minute to load a single page.

Is there any way to allow the browser to render the content after the html is loaded, without needing to wait for css and javascript?

Firefox, chromium and opera solutions accepted.

Answer 1

A simple solution for the "old" Opera (12.x; as far as I know this isn't possible with Blink, i.e. 15+) would be to set it to display in user mode:

User mode's default settings are designed to display webpages with only CSS that has been specified in the options described under Site Preferences and Style Options. By default no CSS that the creator or site specified will be used.

You can do this globally (Preferences > Advanced > Content > Style Options..., then select your style sheet on the Display tab, and on the Presentation Modes tab, set the Default mode to be User mode), and/or use specific user styles for individual web pages (Right-click on page > Edit Site Preferences... > Display, then select your style sheet.

While mainly intended for usability purposes (e.g. for the visually impaired), this should do the trick for you if you don't want any CSS to load. Whether you want to apply some basic local styling of your own is up to you.

As for the JavaScript, it shouldn't download the JS files unless they've been updated, but if you want, you can turn it off altogether via Preferences > Advanced > Content > Enable JavaScript.

You may also want to consider enabling Preferences > Webpages > Opera Turbo if you haven't already; it loads web content on Opera's server, sends it to you in compressed format, and Opera decompresses it for you locally. Not ideal for dynamic web apps, but great for speeding up static pages on slow connections.

Answer 2

You can configure Chrome to open links with Google Mobilizer, a free service that can display stripped down mobile-friendly version of web-pages & optionally hide images so that pages load faster, especially on a slow connection

You can also choose to open links with "Read Later" Apps like Pocket, Instapaper, Readability which let you focus on the content without distractions.

The mobile version of popular websites load faster so check if your favorite sites have a mobile version (by appending m. or mobile. in front of the domain name)