Lemmy appears to use more data than Reddit, so I’m thinking that maybe the images I see while scrolling are full sized instead of smaller previews. Anyone can confirm?
Yes. You can inspect elements on the feed page and see that it uses thumbnailed version of pictures.
However, you mention data usage, which makes me think you’re talking about mobile usage, maybe through an app. The thumbnails are provided as alternative to the main image, which might not be supported everywhere.
Yes, I was talking about apps. In my case it’s liftoff, so taking into account your comment I can assume information is available, but app must have to use it.
Considering how I can watch the thumbs load as I scroll, I’ve assumed they are full size. I’m interested in this as one of Sync for Reddit’s best features was it’s data optimization; hopefully the same will be true of the upcoming Lemmy version.
It depends on the source. Lemmy uses “pict-rs” as the built in image hosting mechanism, this includes a way to fetch small thumbnails. But other hosts, like catbox.moe or Imgur or anywhere else might not be being fetched efficiently.
Additionally, pict-rs uses imagemagik to transform the image on request. If that transformation doesn’t already exist (cached), or the host is over-loaded or under-spec’d, then you might see a delay in the request response
Your best bet is to use your developer tools to check network usage and response times if you are interested
Consider opening a feature request on Github. :)
