PC Gamer's 37MB Article Downloads Half a Gigabyte in Five Minutes - A Case for RSS Readers

There's not much worth quoting in this PC Gamer article but I do want to draw your attention to three things. First, what you see when you navigate to the page: a notification popup, a newsletter popup that obscures the article, and a dimmed background with at least five visible ads. Welcome Mat Second, once you get passed the welcome mat: yes, five ads, a title and a subtitle. A bit of article Third, this is a whopping 37MB webpage on initial load. But that's not the worst part. In the five minutes since I started writing this post the website has downloaded almost half a gigabyte of new ads. Bandwidth bonanza We're lucky to have so many good RSS readers that cut through this nonsense. 1

The Irony of Digital Obesity

The PC Gamer article in question recommends RSS readers as a solution to content overload and poor user experience. Yet the article itself exemplifies exactly what RSS readers were designed to solve: bloated, ad-infested web pages that prioritize monetization over readability.

The 37MB initial payload is staggering. For context, that's roughly equivalent to:

• 7,400 pages of plain text
• 12 minutes of high-quality audio
• 2-3 minutes of standard-definition video

And the bandwidth consumption doesn't stop there. The fact that the page downloaded nearly 500MB of additional content in just five minutes reveals a disturbing pattern of continuous ad refreshing and tracking scripts running in the background.

What Makes Up This Digital Bloat?

Modern news websites have evolved into sophisticated advertising platforms where the actual content is often a secondary consideration. Here's what typically contributes to such massive page weights:

1. Multiple Ad Networks and Retargeting Scripts

• Each ad network requires its own JavaScript library
• Retargeting pixels track user behavior across sites
• Real-time bidding systems constantly refresh ad content
• Video ads that auto-play and consume bandwidth

2. Analytics and Tracking Infrastructure

• Multiple analytics platforms collecting user data
• Heat mapping tools monitoring scroll behavior
• A/B testing frameworks running experiments
• Social media tracking pixels

3. Content Delivery Networks and Third-Party Services

• Font libraries from external sources
• Image optimization services
• Comment systems (like Disqus)
• Related content recommendation engines

The RSS Solution

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) readers strip away all this complexity, delivering content in a clean, standardized format. When you subscribe to a feed, you're essentially saying: "I want the content, not the circus."

Popular RSS readers like Feedly, Inoreader, and NewsBlur provide:

• Ad-free reading experience
• Consistent formatting across different sites
• Offline reading capabilities
• Faster loading times
• Better battery life on mobile devices

The Broader Context

This PC Gamer article serves as a perfect case study for the ongoing tension between content creators who need to monetize their work and readers who want a clean, efficient reading experience. The web has become so bloated that even articles recommending solutions to bloat are themselves bloated.

The irony isn't lost on readers who encounter such articles through RSS feeds, where the content appears clean and readable while the original page is a mess of popups and auto-playing videos.

Moving Forward

As users become more aware of these issues, we're seeing a resurgence in RSS usage and the development of better content consumption tools. Browser extensions that block trackers, reader modes that strip away formatting, and dedicated RSS readers all represent attempts to reclaim the web from the bloat.

The PC Gamer article, despite its own shortcomings, at least acknowledges the problem and points readers toward solutions. In a world where the average news article comes with 20-30 third-party trackers and weighs hundreds of megabytes, perhaps the best way to read about RSS is through RSS itself.