Comments (7)

• 4

  JB - September 5, 2022

  There are a few that I frequent that might be helpful. I like how they are all text based, don’t have ads or loud videos that just start playing, it improves my focus, load incredibly fast, and don’t use up all my data on my phone. And in locations where reception is not that great, these sites load much easier than the full thing.

  For emergency preparedness, these are good ways to access the news when towers are broken or congested as well. Everyone should bookmark these and have them in your arsenal.

  • NPR – https://text.npr.org/
  • CNN – https://lite.cnn.com/en
  • CBC, a Canadian news page that still covers world topics if you are in the US – https://www.cbc.ca/lite/news

  Also check out Lite versions of websites/apps like I remember there being a Facebook Lite and Twitter Lite app in the app store that has much smaller downloads and works better on lower powered phones.

   
  • 2

    JB - September 5, 2022

    I looked up if there were any other sites that offer text only, and it looks like there are. 

    Here’s a site sharing a list of some of them.  https://www.cogipas.com/complete-list-of-text-only-news-sites/

    Another thing you can do, which is mentioned at the very end of that article is to turn on reader mode on your web browser. It cuts out a lot of the ads, pictures, and other junk and gives you a streamlined version of any site that is easier to read.

     
  • 1

    Gideon ParkerStaff - September 8, 2022

    Great suggestions and research JB! I will  be adding some of those websites to my bookmarks. I occasionally go into poor service locations, so being able to still catch up on news will be helpful.

     
  • 1

    Gideon ParkerStaff - September 10, 2022

    I have been playing around with those news sites you recommended JB, and the CNN also has a low-bandwidth audio stream of their news if you don’t want to read: https://lite.cnn.com/en/audioplayer

     
• 1

  Gideon ParkerStaff - September 8, 2022

  Hello Adriaan, I expanded the title of this post to hopefully draw more people in. Do you have any text-only sites that you recommend for us? JB seems to have found you a few, hope those where the type of sites you were looking for. 

   
  • 2

    Adriaan - September 10, 2022

    Thank you. I have found these too, they are great. I found another one in a similar vein, here: http://txti.es/about. Basically it let’s you create a web page on the fly. I’m trying to think of ways to communicate when things really go bad.

     
  • 1

    Gideon ParkerStaff - September 10, 2022

    I love that concept of txti, thank you for sharing it!

    If I understand the idea of this website, I can type up a bunch of information, create a URL for that information, and then use a low bandwidth text message to a family member with that URL so they can view all that information. Or the reverse, a family member could send me a txti URL that I then could load with information such as what to do after an emergency.

    For ham radio operators, it would be much easier to quickly tell a txti URL and then have people look it up after instead being on the air and saying your entire message.

     
• 2

  Bradical - September 22, 2022

  My weather tracking website of choice is weather.gov. I trust the government, many other weather websites just load up their information, and there are no ads or creepy data selling that I am aware of.

  There is the full sized website that has images and such, here’s an example of the full Santa Monica CA forecast. But I just noticed at the bottom of the page a text only forecast option.

  To set it up:

  1. Go to weather.gov and plug in your zipcode.
  2. Scroll down the page until you see the “Additional Forecasts and Information” section. In there, click the “Text Only Forecast”
  3. Bookmark the URL that pops up. You can then click this whenever you want to get a minimal text only 7 day forecast of your area.

  Here’s an example of that Santa Monica forecast in text only mode.

  You all have all these great resources for other text only sites but now I have something to contribute!