#visual vertigo

I find reducing Firefox to 1 frame/second helps protect against a lot of painful/standard animation. For example:

Many sites put scrolling body sections alongside non-scrolling sidebars, or in front of non-scrolling backgrounds. And many sites put non-scrolling nav bars and pop-ups and so on in front of scrolling body sections.

Maybe there’s a global fix to replace these now-standard layouts with other layouts but I doubt it. But cutting the frame rate to 1 frame/second is a way to avoid the painful animations of part of the parts sliding past another.

Many sites implement smooth scrolling via javascript, and convert page down to smooth scrolling. But cutting the frame rate to 1 frame/second is a way to avoid the “smooth” animation.

Many sites implement blinding cursors via javascript, and override system and/or browser settings to stop blinding cursors. Now cutting the frame rate down to 1 frame/second isn’t enough, but it’s something.

Many sites implement various other animations via ease in-out timing functions. Others implement sllideshows via timing functions. Replacing timing functions with instant transitions to avoid the “smooth” migraine-inducing animaton from the one set only causes strobing animation with the other. But reducing the frame rate to 1 frame/second kills 2 types of painful animation with 1 giant space rock.

In Firefox, I can reduce the frame rate to 1 frame/second, by typing about:config into the url bar, clicking through the warning, typing layout.frame_rate, and resetting it to 1. Unfortunately, I can’t set it to 0.2 or 0.5. But I can’t easily toggle the frame rate back and forth, or set different frame rates for differet sites.

I’m considering using different browsers for different sites. Maybe just using Firefox for most sites, and Waterfox where I need to allow 50 frames/second.

I‘m sick of flashing.

I’m sick of animation.

I’m sick of “but that’s not animation, it’s just standard web design” painimation.

I’m sick of animated “sticky” headers.

I’m sick of animated “smooth” extra-painful scrolling.

I’m sick of animated zooming.

I’m sick of sidebars and pop-ups that don’t scroll with the rest of the page, and modals and pop-ups that scroll on their own.

I’m sick of “ease in-out,” it fucking hurts.

I’m sick of animated marqee text. “But how are we supposed to show it’s important? We show you need to read itg by making painful and unreadable.”

I’m sick of animated carousels.