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0 pointsvoltagex_9y ago0 comments

I've posted at least once before about this. Google, Microsoft and a lot of other companies really don't think about "low" bandwidth (<20 megabit downstream) or situations where you're not always connected.

Props to Facebook for having "2G" day. I hope it still happens.

* Dropbox is meant to have a LAN sync but fails back quickly to syncing from their servers. There's no way to debug why it isn't using other hosts on your LAN

* OneDrive has no LAN sync at all

* There's no way to debug Windows 10's LAN update sharing if it fails.

* Windows 10 will default to uploading partial updates to other users on the Internet (bittorrent style)

* Windows 10 will let you set a Wifi connection as "metered" and actually behave quite well (deferring updates, driver downloads and OneDrive data), but there's no way to set Ethernet networks as metered, outside of a registry hack.

* Google not supporting SD cards in the Nexus line (yes, I know about the performance issues, I own several >$50 SD cards that are trash). Mobile data is expensive.

* It took Google until 2016 to offer offline caching of YouTube videos, and even then you have to pay them for the privilege

* Microsoft's newer .NET and Powershell stuff download >50 megabytes of dependencies from NuGet.org and MyGet.org. Offline caching is possible, but maybe not on Linux

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4 comments · 2 top-level

bigiain9y ago· 2 in thread

Heh - it's quite a struggle for me to get 20megabits at my place. I've got reasonably affordable 12-14mbits of ADSL2 (with unimited traffic) for $70/month, but I can't get NBN where I live, there's no Telstra or Optus cable (our local shared 100mbit down HFC option which tops out a maybe 3mbits up) in my building complex, so the only "high speed" options are LTE (a several dollars per Gigabyte) or _maybe_ NBN fixed wireless (tops out at 50mbit).

Lucky Australia is such a beautiful country, eh?

voltagex_OP9y ago

I feel guilty every time I mention that I'm on the NBN - the real one. The fibre terminates into a NBNco branded box and as long as I've got a device that speaks PPPoE I'm online.

It doesn't solve all problems - there's massive congestion on Internode where I am that limits me to 20 megabits during the day, and TPG have messed up the routes to everywhere (Xbox Live gets <2 megabit, but Steam works fine).

bigiain9y ago

So I just checked again - the brand new 200 apartment building up the end of my street is wired for NBN, pretty much all of the rest of my suburb isn't even in the planning stage still.

(I bet I could get a bunch of wifi signals from that new apartment block with my 24db gain 2.4GHz yagi...)

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icebraining9y ago

Regarding SD cards, you can use flash drives w/ micro-USB ports (or a regular drive with an OTG cable). Not as handy since they stick out, but for occasionally swapping out data or bringing extra content with you on trips, they're pretty useful.

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