
Introducing Twitter Lite - coloneltcb
https://blog.twitter.com/2017/introducing-twitter-lite
======
whalesalad
Correct me if I am wrong - but this thing being branded as "Twitter Lite" and
marketed on lite.twitter.com is actually just the mobile web app, available at
mobile.twitter.com ... right?

~~~
ahoy
Seems to be the case. I use the mobile twitter web app because it crashes less
than the native app on my older phone. It does seem noticeably faster now.

This seems like a weird branding/marketing push for what is essentially "we
did a performance pass on our mobile website"

~~~
josefresco
I also use(d) the _old_ mobile.twitter.com site on my original iPad because
the app would not run (memory limit)

See this _new_ mobile.twitter.com has me wondering: What did they change?

~~~
vram22
Same here. I think it is faster now, though I've only just started trying it
out. The article talks a lot about the stuff they did to make it faster - many
thing. Also there is a Data Saver option under Settings, which may be new.

------
PuffinBlue
This is really nice, even on desktop. And fast. Love it.

Looking at them side by side you really get a sense of how much 'stuff'
Twitter Heavy has compared to Twitter Lite.

It would be so good if they could apply a bit of this stripped down approach
to the main site and really work on list/follow management features.

I'd really love to get more out of Twitter as there are a lot of great people
on there but (unless I'm missing something obvious) there doesn't really seems
to be many tools built in to help you do that.

~~~
tedmiston
A lot of those tools are in TweetDeck. Not sure why Twitter didn't integrate
it more post-acquisition.

~~~
spectistcles
because it doesn't make them any money

------
janvdberg
I love this. I was always frustrated by the ever-growing-in-size Twitter app.
Which is around 105 Megabytes now (aka ~73 1.44 floppies). So I welcome this.

~~~
Ruud-v-A
> Today, we are rolling out Twitter Lite, a new mobile web experience which
> minimizes data usage, loads quickly on slower connections, is resilient on
> unreliable mobile networks, and takes up less than 1MB on your device.

1 MB is “acceptable” by today’s standards, but when you think about it — 1 MB
to display a few 140-character tweets?

~~~
jwarren
Cmon, that's disingenuous. It does a lot more than just display a few text
strings.

You've got routing, templates, event handlers, search, a lightbox, settings
pages, the whole DM chat-style interface, the whole posting interface, and
probably more that I'm not even thinking about.

Now I'm not saying that it couldn't be smaller - quite probably even
substantially smaller. It'd be great to get it down to 100KB. I bet you could
have a much smaller first load for just the feed, and then dynamically load in
the JS for the other routes as they're requested. That could then be cached
locally with service workers.

Edit: Looks like they do actually already do that. I just unregistered their
Service Worker and refreshed - my load was ~300KB. Still kinda weighty but a
lot less than 1MB.

From [https://blog.twitter.com/2017/how-we-built-twitter-
lite](https://blog.twitter.com/2017/how-we-built-twitter-lite):

> the app streams the initial HTML response to the browser, sending
> instructions to preload critical resources while the server constructs the
> initial app state. Using webpack, the app’s scripts are broken up into
> granular pieces and loaded on demand. This means that the initial load only
> requires resources needed for the visible screen. (When available, a Service
> Worker will precache additional resources and allow instant future
> navigations to other screens.) These changes allow us to progressive load
> the app so people can sooner consume and create Tweets.

------
fsiefken
This is much better then the bloated main UI. But I'd wish an option for an
even lighter HN like interface. It still doesn't look to good in a text
browser like elinks. One or 2 lines per tweet max would be ideal. That and a
rss/atom feed that can be fed into the matrix network and clients.

Originally it was a listing of 140c messages, ideal to quickly view the status
of your friends to enhance social proprioception. Since then it unfortunately
morphed into a bloated, marketing oriented and visual distraction party where
it mostly serves the look at me and commercial agendas. Authenticity, tele-
awareness, social proprioception and efficienty flew away with the original
twitter bird. Did he have a name? Is he coming back one day?

~~~
harrygeez
They've got bills to pay. Something's gotta give. Are you willing to pay to
use Twitter?

~~~
fsiefken
I was just thinking why not go the extra mile, I'd pay for using this though
1$/month - but I could also make it myself through tampermonkey or the api

~~~
josefresco
Same here - I would pay $1/month without thinking. My max would be maybe
$5/month, which I'd have to think about for a bit.

------
jtraffic
Lightweight is awesome. I feel that the absolute most important next
improvement is in managing spam and fake accounts.

Things like Lite keep me from deleting my account. But with less spam, I'd
probably _use_ my account.

~~~
bad_user
I don't deal with spam much, I notice the occasional fav or retweet from
obviously fake accounts, sometimes I get a mention too. But all of these
happen _once per month_ maybe and I do my job in blocking and reporting every
account I notice. Once per month is a pretty low rate, I get more spam than
that in my email Inbox.

I also have direct messages from everybody active. Since enabling it I haven't
received any spam. Maybe I've been lucky :)

And I don't have an obscure account
([https://twitter.com/alexelcu](https://twitter.com/alexelcu)). Maybe more
popular accounts see more spam, I don't know.

~~~
jtraffic
This is an interesting little service:
[https://www.twitteraudit.com](https://www.twitteraudit.com)

"takes a random sample of 5000 Twitter followers for a user and calculates a
score for each follower. This score is based on number of tweets, date of the
last tweet, and ratio of followers to friends. We use these scores to
determine whether any given user is real or fake. Of course, this scoring
method is not perfect"

It says that, as of 4 years ago, 28% of Paul Graham's followers were fake and
30% of Elon Musk's were fake.

~~~
bad_user
I ran it and got as result 1005 Real and 32 Fake.

Well, Paul Graham and Elon Musk are insanely popular.

------
Sindisil
A couple other things I've noticed having to do with "promoted content":

1\. uBlock origin seems to block ads in the normal web client, but not in the
mobile web client (in desktop FireFox as well as mobile FireFox).

2\. Mobile twitter client lacks the drop-down menu where you used to be able
to choose "I don't like this ad".

Now that I look at it, though, that menu on the main twitter web app doesn't
have that option any more, either. You can "report this ad", which isn't quite
the same.

To get to the same menu in the mobile web app, you need to tap/click the add
tweet, then choose the more options icon.

The normal twitter web app has now added a "dismiss" option on mouseover.

FFS, there's no consistency of interface across the three at all!

~~~
vincentriemer
From what I understand, the twitter mobile web client uses react and from a
quick look at the source, they're using css modules which means the class
names are generated at build time.

Considering that most ad blockers work by identifying ads through class names,
it would explain why uBlock origin wouldn't work on the mobile site.

~~~
Sindisil
Makes sense. Thanks.

~~~
mintplant
This uBlock rule should do the trick, despite the use of CSS modules:

    
    
        mobile.twitter.com##div:has(:scope > div[role="article"] > div[data-testid="tweet"] > div > div:last-child:nth-child(3):nth-of-type(3))
    

[https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uAssets/issues/351](https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uAssets/issues/351)

------
warpech
Built mostly with Facebook tech: React, React Native, Jest, Yarn

~~~
afro88
Isn't ReactNative for native mobile apps though? This is a web app

~~~
yasserkaddour
I think they used React Native for Web [https://github.com/necolas/react-
native-web](https://github.com/necolas/react-native-web)

~~~
infogulch
Wait what. A web framework, adapted to work for native mobile, adapted _back_
to work on the web?

~~~
zwily
In React Native, you don't have the standard DOM elements since you're not
working in a DOM, so it provides some standard elements that get turned into
native components (Button, Text, etc). It looks like this is porting those
components back to the web. Sounds silly at first, but looks like it can be
useful for RN shops.

------
joelrunyon
Isn't this basically twitter original? Anyone else remember when it was just
text messaging basically?

~~~
provost
History repeats itself. Seems like Twitter's history has repeated itself very
quickly.

------
jtruk
Twitter Lite appears to omit Promoted Tweets (for me, for now), which is a
bonus for experience.

~~~
driverdan
Report all Promoted Tweets with "I don't like this ad." It confuses their
system and shows them far less frequently. I get one ad every few days now.

~~~
davidcelis
That's never worked for me. I just get more esoteric promoted tweets, and just
as frequently.

------
lauriswtf
Why isn't this the default interface? It's so much more pleasant and faster
than their main web UI.

~~~
lucasmullens
I would guess because it's new and probably doesn't have 100% feature parity
yet

------
professorumbra
It's great to have a less bloated site, but it still uses the same UI which is
only viable for the most basic usage. The thing I want improved the most is
list viewing and management. Right now the only good way to view lists is
tweetdeck which only really works on desktop.

~~~
qznc
This Twitter lite seems to ignore lists completely. I like it, but lists are a
killer feature for me.

~~~
PKop
If you click on your profile avatar image you can access your lists.

From that point, you can use the url for a specific list as your entry into
"Twitter". So in some ways, the use of lists is _better_ than the mobile app,
because they are URL accessible.

On mobile, if you "save to home" screen, then that icon becomes a one click
way to get to a list.

------
vallavaraiyan
Looks great. And such beautiful URL structure. Will be my goto example to
illustrate how to represent resources in the web.

------
asgeirn
Awesome. Hidden in the preferences is also the possibility to remove pictures
completely!

~~~
sunilkumarc
Where exactly? I couldn't find it.

~~~
fwn
[https://mobile.twitter.com/settings/](https://mobile.twitter.com/settings/)

In the data saving settings sub category. The setting panel itself seems
rather hidden.

------
croon
This is going to sound negative, even though I'm glad this is here:

How did we arrive at a time where it is news-worthy to launch a non-bloated
service client?

Or to phrase it differently: What is the claimed consumer gain of a bloated
client?

More like this please. It feels like going back in time when I first tried a
100Mbps connection in the late 90s and all the web content was made to
accomodate DSL and modems.

~~~
unwind
I support your idea that software is often bloated.

However, as usual you're doing the mistake of somehow thinking that you are a
customer of Twitter's. Of course you're not, since you're not paying to use
the service.

That turns things around so that you're the usual ad target product, meaning
the app might swell to contain more candy to tease you into clicking, and so
on.

Uh, and just to be clear I'm not meaning "you" in a very personal sense, this
applies to me too when I use Twitter, of course. :)

~~~
croon
I understand, but I have two counter points:

* I disabled UO, and I can see no ads on twitter, other than the occasional promoted tweet.

* Ads can be served very discretely (as pointed out above), and doesn't have to "bloat" a client from a sub-1MB to a 20MB app. Ads also doesn't have to adversely affect (much) how fast something loads.

A third point would be how much gain ads actually drive, but that's another
discussion.

------
snackai
Well they can release something good after all. Look at the main Web UI. I
don't know what they are thinking at Twitter. Its the most unintuitive UX I've
ever seen.

E.g. :

Click on the Image -> Only the Image gets larger

Click on the frame around the image -> See the comments and Image is larger.

~~~
pygy_
That's the happy scenario. Sometimes, the image is _smaller_.

------
qubyte
This lets me do side-by-side full screen on a mac, which the full website
can't do (not responsive so I can't make it narrow enough) and the mac app
won't. The previous mobile site was nearly good enough, but required
refreshing for new tweets. Very happy that this is available.

------
slim
I hope they won't discard mobile.twitter.com it's lighter than lite and works
without javascript

~~~
overcast
What exactly is the issue with allowing javascript. The entire internet runs
on it. I keep seeing this comment on various other posts. Javascript is here
to stay, and for you to get the best experience, or at all, you're going to
need it.

~~~
coldpie
Javascript does all sorts of nasty shit like opening the app store on my
phone, animating pages, popping up "give me your email address!"
notifications, tracking my web browsing, wasting my bandwidth, eating my CPU,
dumb crap like making text fade in instead of just showing it to me. I find
the web is a much more pleasant place if I can control what JS gets run.

------
CivilianZero
I'm one feature away from making this my main twitter client on my phone: when
I save a web app made to run by itself as an alternative or replacement for a
native app to my home page, opening it should by default hide the trappings of
the web browser.

The constant pop-in/pop-out of the header and footer makes tapping on things
just obnoxious enough to make me not want to use it. I know some web apps have
removed them, I just don't know why it isn't more common.

Also, it has that little bar at the top to open the site with the app. I feel
like that should've been the first thing they got rid of.

------
Sindisil
I note that, in the "lite" version's settings pages, there is no "Content"
section.

Does that mean that "Show me the best Tweets first" is enabled, disabled, or
follows the setting in the main twitter web app?

I assume the latter, since toggling that setting in the Android app also shows
it as toggled in the man web app, which would indicate it is probably an
account wide setting.

However, if the "lite" (mobile, really) web app became the only interface, it
would mean that we would lose the ability to change that setting, which would
suck.

------
Quanttek
I get an error loading
[https://mobile.twitter.com](https://mobile.twitter.com) in FIrefox (desktop):
TypeError: Referrer URL [https://lite.twitter.com/](https://lite.twitter.com/)
cannot be cross-origin to the entry settings object
([https://mobile.twitter.com](https://mobile.twitter.com)) (Console output)

------
steinuil
I've been using mobile.twitter.com on my desktop browser for a while in place
of the main website, and I find it much better and more pleasant to use.

------
dnel
Seems pretty usable on the desktop, I might switch to this one to save uBlock
origin from having a heart attack everytime I load up the main site.

------
ouid
Pretty soon they'll release twitter classic.

------
kristianc
To get something similar on the desktop web, you can install the Refined
Twitter Chrome extension: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/refined-
twitter/nl...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/refined-
twitter/nlfgmdembofgodcemomfeimamihoknip?hl=en)

~~~
iand
Or just use mobile.twitter.com in a desktop browser.

------
k-mcgrady
This seems like the sort of thing they should have had out years ago
considering their business depends on growth.

------
leephillips
It looked like a better desktop client until I noticed that the search box
does not display my saved searches.

------
mhd
Is a PWA really the non-bloated way these days, compared to a lean native app?
What went wrong?

~~~
davewasthere
I guess it is when it can be instantly updated for all users. And it does work
incredibly well. They've done a nice job!

------
brtknr
FYI, [https://m.twitter.com](https://m.twitter.com) also redirects to
[https://mobile.twitter.com](https://mobile.twitter.com)

------
JBiserkov
That's great.

When viewing someone's profile:

On mobile the 'Tweets' tab shows Tweets, Retweets & Replies.

On desktop - Tweets & Retweets.

Is there a way to see only Tweets & Retweets on mobile?

For that matter, is there a way to see only Tweets, on mobile or on desktop?

------
spookyuser
IMO installing this alongside third party twitter apps will make a great combo
for push notifications alone. My preferred app just refreshes all
notifications hourly, which is obviously worse than the official app.

------
valbaca
I would _LOVE_ something like this for Facebook, but I understand that there
is little to incentivize companies to do this other than the "emerging
markets" argument.

~~~
chrisper
Well there is

[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.facebook.l...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.facebook.lite&hl=en)

and

[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.facebook.m...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.facebook.mlite&hl=en)

But neither seem to be eligible for some reason.

------
mxuribe
Near the bottom of the lite.twitter.com page it states "Twitter
Lite...developed in partnership with Google." Is this the beginning of a
partnership test with google as a sort of test to see how viable twitter would
be to be acquired by google? Sort of like a few first dates before considering
"corporate marriage"? Hmmm...perhaps my conspiracy theorist cap is on too
tight. I wouldn't say that I'm a fan of either of the twitter or G+ platforms,
but i can see some business rationale for google absorbing and continuing to
run twitter - both the company and the platform. Ah, well.

~~~
jacobr
Google might have helped out to promote the PWA technology which they are
pushing hard.

------
miles_matthias
How does this help their profitability? Expanding to developing regions when
they can't make a profit in the US seems like a waste of time.

~~~
obstinate
I'm sure that they have a lot of people trying to work toward profitability.
But it's a big company. Lots of engineers. They still have a frontend team,
and those folks gotta work on something.

~~~
miles_matthias
"...folks gotta work on something" is exactly the attitude that unicorns with
too much VC money take and end up tanking.

~~~
obstinate
I don't know of any company, regardless of unicorn status, that fires their
frontend team because their monetization team hasn't figured things out yet.

------
anc84
> Starting today, Twitter Lite is available globally by visiting
> mobile.twitter.com on your smartphone or tablet.

I would also like to use it on my desktop!

~~~
sgk284
It works fine on desktop. Just go to
[http://mobile.twitter.com](http://mobile.twitter.com)

~~~
_delirium
It's impressive how much faster it is on even a recent laptop on broadband
(admittedly I'm "only" on DSL broadband, not fiber). You now click on a
username, for example, and you get their page almost instantly. While on
normal Twitter, there's a noticeable half-second or so lag for the transition
to load and render.

~~~
anc84
You might LOVE the paginated, minimal javascript version you get if your user-
agent is an older mobile browser like "Opera/9.80". You can use
[https://addons.mozilla.org/de/firefox/addon/uacontrol/](https://addons.mozilla.org/de/firefox/addon/uacontrol/)
to set that just for mobile.twitter.com.

[https://i.imgur.com/NfdM2sk.png](https://i.imgur.com/NfdM2sk.png)

I wish we did not have to use such hacks though. And the normal mobile site
has a huge header on my desktop, annoying.

------
dragonshed
I really like it - very fast. I note the Compose Tweet FAB is another step
towards a bland, Google Material user experience.

------
nonsince
That guy who does sarcastic hacker news summaries is going to have a field day
with this

------
Enginerd3
Using Lighthouse on Google Chrome shows that Twitter Lite has a score of
82/100.

------
rocky1138
I am so happy this is a website and not an app. No more walled gardens!

~~~
iand
The term walled garden refers to service lock-in where membership and mode of
access is tightly controlled. It's not about using an app.

~~~
kome
But more often than not, apps are walled gardens. And that's really boring.

------
paradite
Finally Google is able to push its PWA concept to a potentially successful and
widely-used product. Looks like a good replacement for the native app.

Sadly the Google stack (ionic, angular) is not so mature at this stage and
twitter opted for the facebook stack.

------
digi_owl
Funny how now both Facebook and Twitter has "lite" versions.

Maybe a lightbulb should brighten somewhere and ux people would realize that
lite in contrasts is not the same as lite in memory and CPU?!

(fat chance, they are too hung up about their "art")

------
richardboegli
The mobile site looks exactly the same as it always has?

------
DanBC
It's nice. It's a shame that the reply / retweet / heart icons are tiny.

The font is also unreadably small, and there are no options to change font
size.

------
bonoetmalo
If you like this, you should look up Facebook Lite and Messenger Lite. My
phone runs so much better after switching to those.

~~~
mplis7
"This item isn't available in your country."

That's disappointing. I should be able to choose Facebook Lite if I feel like
it'd be a better experience for me.

~~~
bonoetmalo
Yeah, it's only available through Google services in developing countries, but
the APKs are freely available online

------
jerianasmith
We should take a cautious approach before analyzing the positive or negative
aspects of Twitter Lite.

------
sleepychu
Broken on FF android,
[http://i.imgur.com/p3jWX87.png](http://i.imgur.com/p3jWX87.png)

~~~
PuffinBlue
Not for me. What phone, app version and OS version are you running?

------
agumonkey
The only thing I miss is CTRL+RET for sending a tweet without clicking.

------
isomorph
Got excited, clicked on it, and then realised I'd been using it for a while
anyway.

Wish I hadn't given away my 2007 twitter account for free.

------
Yuioup
I deleted my Twitter account on January 1st of this year and I don't miss it
at all.

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
Congratulations?

------
Zenst
When twitter stated it ran via SMS, that was twitter as about as lite as you
can get data wise.

SO in effect they created a problem to promote a solution that is still short
of what they had originally.

Now I understand they need to make money but I personally find the promoted
tweets they offer do seem to miss the target and are in need of some
refinements in who they promote towards. I find it rare to find a promoted
tweet that is relevant and the amount of PPI promoted tweets which I have
objected to and still do is a clear sign of needing better control. Be that
from analytics or even allowing the user to select preferences in a way that
suits them better and by that aid Twitter in presenting relevant adverts.

I would be interested in seeing how well advertisers get on with there
promoted tweets as I see so many with comments that indicated those targeted
are clearly not the market audience and as such, very negative. Indeed I do
that to PPI adverts, as a cathartic release of how I loath them.

that said if I see a promoted tweet of interest or of merit, even if not what
I would use then I will support it. Only the other day was one for passports
for toys, I don't even have children, let alone a teddy bear these days. But
loved the idea and fed back my encouragement and had a most delightful
exchange with the owners. Have to encourage and support positive avenues in
life.

~~~
madeofpalk
An HTML interface is worse than SMS?

Please, lets not pretend Twitter is worse with a richer interface with amazing
features such as links and images.

~~~
Zenst
WAT, No that was not the point I was making. The point I was making was
twitter have done this to produce a lower usage client for users who are still
upon the likes of 2G networks and with that they already had SMS, which is
about as lite as you can get upon that platform.

As for the rest of your assertions, that is entirely a different matter and
not one I raised in the slightest.

