New feature: Data saver option

[ixlone]

We have added a new feature - a data saver option.

This feature has been requested for a while now, and recently we have seen more people (probably the MR newcomers) saying how MD uses a surprising amount of data. The reason is because we don't compress anything uploaded by the scanlation groups - you are seeing the glorious HQ images that they intend you to see. But of course, the downside of this is that a large amount of data is transferred.

If enabled, you will be served a compressed jpg. The server compresses the image and saves it on first access, so all subsequent loads will serve the compressed image.

This data saver option will be opt in, and is intended for those of you who have either monthly data limits, or very slow speeds. You can turn this on in your settings page. Hopefully you'll see images load a bit quicker, especially older chapters.

The new server upgrades are in progress. We are upgrading both our NA and EU cache servers. The NA cache server is already in place, and the EU one is expected over the next couple of days. This does mean that our monthly costs will go up, but it can't be helped. Once all the upgrades are done, the updated costs will be listed on the support page. You can send some crypto (BTC or ETH) our way if you'd like to help us out.

 

[Axel]

is this preventing some chapters to be uploading? cause i can't upload a chap, i've already checked the chapter and there seems like theirs nothing wrong, but i can't upload it.

 

[Inverness]

Good to hear. I'll start using this immediately.

 

[Holo]

@Axel No, this doesn't affect uploading. You should go on discord and ask for help.

 

[Axel]

can i get the link for the discord please?

 

[seekermoc]

@Axel,

Look at the top of your screen, click "Community", then click "Discord".

 

[bkwz]

Would it be possible to implement mobile only? or does the image quality not change from datasaver to non datasaver?

 

[ChronosGuard]

Is the compressed image stored permanently on the main servers or just stored temporarily in the cache servers?

 

[Ranzear]

Here's hoping the opt-in is just a stopgap against slamming your servers with compression work and something can be implemented for primary images.

Could raise the settings a bit though. Going from 1.82mb to 183kb is nice, but the quality loss is visible. Could be mostly from the resolution drop on this image too. Maybe the resize sampling chewed it up instead of the compression.

I brought up on-demand png compression in the other thread. A lossy-but-imperceptible compressor like pngquant would go a long way on the same kind of on-demand arrangement. That same test image I picked out goes to 689kb PNG while still looking close enough to pixel-perfect that you have to flipbook the images to maybe perceive the tiniest shifts in certain patterns and even then I think I'm fooling myself.

A statement here or elsewhere on whether you want to be archiving exact masters of images or just storing a best-effort copy and leaving masters to the uploaders to retain would be nice and clarify a lot of intent in this effort.

 

[gflare]

Will you be rolling out the NA and EU cache servers at the same time?

 

[whosaint]

All hail JPG gang!

Edit: This Mode Saver is really helpful (for me)
tyvm for staff and developer for granting us this mighty feature.

 

[thedinz17]

As a WiFi user with SEA internet speed I thank you for the live saving update!

 

[Xunder]

@ChronosGuard Permanently on the servers

 

[s1]

The change in loading speeds is palpable! Thanks!

 

[Ramon2000]

This is great, especially since i read manga on a cheap fire tab so the extra resolution is basically wasted data.

 

[Halo]

Petition to implement OMEGA data saver:
From 375KB:

Spoiler

to 7KB:

Spoiler

---

Also, it would be nice to have more control over this function. For example, being able to apply it only to chapters over 50MB or pages over 1MB and etc.
As it stands, even releases that were already optimized are getting "jpeg-level-2'd".

 

[Mainsaro]

Thanks for your work!!!
Please don't remove the HQ images , this is a nice site to find good quality images from manga.

 

[Darkmeep]

@Halo
+1 Implement Omega Data Saver on April Fools.

 

[SilverKhan]

Someone's probably already said it, but I'm too lazy to find it. It looks like data saver doesn't convert .gifs (which kinda makes sense) but the server doesn't really know how to handle it, so gif pages just won't load. Dev tools show that the request returns a 404 instead of the gif/jpg.

 

[Nakanowatari]

HOLY SHIT!!! THE MANGA LOADS NOW!!!

When you guys said MD is slow on SEA, I didnt expect to still buffering after 10 minutes of waiting. Thank you, now I dont have to go to kakalot to read new chapter